Topic: Time for a smart phone...

[Scott S]

 OK, I've been a luddite for lonng enough....
 I've finally decided that it's time for me to step into the present day and get a smart phone. I've been shopping around for an ipod/mp3 player anyway and, after a trip to my cable/cell phone/internet provider the other day, I'm jonesin' for a new smart phone.

 The iPhone has some plusses and minusses, as do the Droid based phones. Whatever I get, I plan on installing a connection to the factory stereo in my car and using it for listening to music through the factory stereo, as well as my cell phone.

 The iPhone costs more to set up that way, but charges through the cable. The others cost less to install, but I'd need a seperate charger for the car.

 I also prefer a large, easy to use and view screen (which puts some of the Droids to the front), but I'm a little concerned about carrying around something that large (back to the iPhone).

 Also, what's your take on "jail breaking" these things, or whatever the proper term is?

 Which phone do you have and why? Do you like it? Any reccomendations?

[333]

I haven't made the jump either, but will as soon as Sprint discontinues Direct Connect(Nextel). My experience says if you are not going Iphone, go Motorola for the equipment. My current phone has lasted almost 4 years, with only a battery to keep it going.  I've had several Moto's and they are tough phones.  The only one I HAD to replace was chewed by the puppy, and was chewed 3 times before it died.

[Really?]

Been happy with my iPhone 3G and 4.  It does what I need it to do and I usually have no issues with it.  You can have the Blackberries, too many detailed things to do.  I have never messed wit a driod.  The one major issue with an iPhone is the cost each month, it is high.

[johnny]

I've been quite pleased with the Droid X and my service from Verizon.

[Trav-i]

My Smasung fasinciate driod has been great!!  Truly the best phone I have had ever, works like an I phone but better.  Really easy to use and it has a beatiful screen also.  I'm due for an uprade with Verizon but I'm holding out because I want to go 4G but their phones are still very expensive, and I'm still an under paid under appreciated county worker.

[CB650 Wolf]

If you really want a smart phone I would suggest the samsung galaxy s2. It currently isn't available in the states, but you can get one on ebay with the warranty for around $800. If that is a little high for you, you could wait for a little while until americanized versions are released in about a month or so. I currently have the at&t samsung captivate, rooted (jail broken), with a custom rom. If you are interested in a particular phone and also rooting it, I would suggest you check out the XDA Developer forum to see what kind of support your potential phone has in the developer community.  The samsung captivate has a huge amount of support and if something goes wrong with your phone there are ways to set it back to factory stock settings so you can return the phone for warranty claims and such.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

[Scott S]

 Can you guys elaborate on "rooting" and "jailbreaking"? I googled it and I guess it's all about getting free apps, but is that all there is to it? Is it something I can do or a local tech shop or ? Average cost? Is it REALLY needed?

 I'm new to a lot of this stuff.

 Oh, and I'll keep researching, but I was a victim of a hit and run while at a wedding down in Louisiana...GRR! Might have to meet an insurance deductable before I can swing the phone. Always something.....

[sangyo soichiro]

I want to make the leap too.  I currently have a flip phone and pay $56/month for something I barely use.  I figure I should pay a bit more and get something I'd use all the time.

Question:
I've been with Centennial (recently bought out by AT&T) for over 2 years.  My contract was for 2 years, but I just kept paying and kept the service after the 2 years was up.  Does that mean that I'm automatically tied into another 2 year contract, or can I switch carriers now after two years without penalty?

Another question:
About how much do you guys pay for your smart phones per month?

[Duke McDukiedook]

My dumb phone works just fine.

[Pinhead]

Have you looked at the HP Veer? It's a tiny smartphone that sports WebOS which will be the next big mobile OS. I'm still sporting my launch-day Palm Pre which was the first phone to use the WebOS operating system. There have been a few iterations of the Pre (Pre3 is coming next) and each of them have been a competent improvement. A good-sized homebrew community supports software and patches that get "deeper" into customizing the phone.

[brooze72]

Got a Motorola Atrix 'droid with dual core processor about 2 months ago, does everything & is FAST.  Battery lasts about a day with normal usage, using GPS eats it up a lot faster

[osirisdean]

there are pluses and minuses on both sides of the fence:

iphone

+ "walled garden" app store, meaning most apps have a substantial level of polish
+ only one (well, two now with the iphone4) hardware platform, so no wondering "will this app work on my phone"
+ more widely used platform, so more third party accessories; also, much aftermarket car and home stereos are 1:1 compatible with it
+ the iphone 4 has one of the nicest screens ever.
+ netflix streaming video works. (watch your data usage, though!)
+ can talk and surf the web at the same time.

- "walled garden" app store, meaning if steve jobs and crew dont like your app, it aint gettin published
- jailbreaking/sideloading discouraged, and without the ability to side load (download an app on your pc first), you MUST use apple's app store
- no physical keyboard on either hardware platform
- no free turn-by-turn GPS navigation. (plenty of purchasable gps apps though, im sure.)


android

+ open app market. much fewer restrictions both on what is "accepted" and what you can actually program your phone to do.
+ easier to "jailbreak" your phone.
+ multiple platforms to choose from to suit your personal taste.
+ physical keyboards on some models.
+ FREE GOOGLE MAPS AND NAVIGATION (turn by turn nav). (this was a major selling point for me, i couldnt live without it.)

- open app market. with fewer restrictions comes many more crappy apps, so you have to dig through the crap to get the goods.
- multiple platforms, so sometimes an app will not work fully with your model.
- fewer aftermarket accessories. (but that is changing!)
- i dont know of any car stereos that natively support android-specific mp3 players. (usually if it supports anything, it is either ipod and/or "everything else")
- cant talk and surf at the same time. (that will undoubtedly change in the future though.)


i have a motorolla droid (original) and love it most days. the free gps/navigation was a MAJOR selling point for me, and both programs work absolutely flawlessly -- as well as my sister's tom tom, if not better. call clarity is pretty excellent, and (on verizon) i have been EVERYWHERE and never been in roaming. game support is good and getting better, especially with popcap (bejewelled, plants vs zombies, peggle) starting to program for android. if you like old school console emulators (NES, SNES, etc), android is your only way to go -- apple will never approve such apps. keyboard also works very well, which was another deal-clincher for me. swype is also becoming really popular (tho i suspect the iphone has/will have that as well). for me, the less-restrictive nature of the OS is also a great selling point, but many folks might not care about that.

that said, the iphone 4 is a ridiculously solid platform as well. personally, i would avoid at&t and get (slightly weaker) verizon version just to have verizon's coverage and customer service, but YMMV.

long story short: android phone for quantity of apps and applications and free gps. iphone for quality of apps and compatibility with aftermarket stuff.

hope this helps.

[osirisdean]

oh, afterthought: the reason i said i love the original droid most days is because the latest version of the operating system (which are mandatory updates pushed by verizon, mind you) has actually slowed down my phone at times. before the update, it was like butta; now sometimes it lags a sec when closing programs or whatever. that should not be an issue, however, with the newer android phones like the droid 2 and whatnot.

oh, also: i think droids are, by and large, cheaper than iphones, but dont quote me on that.

[IndyFour]

there are pluses and minuses on both sides of the fence:

iphone

+ "walled garden" app store, meaning most apps have a substantial level of polish
+ only one (well, two now with the iphone4) hardware platform, so no wondering "will this app work on my phone"
+ more widely used platform, so more third party accessories; also, much aftermarket car and home stereos are 1:1 compatible with it
+ the iphone 4 has one of the nicest screens ever.
+ netflix streaming video works. (watch your data usage, though!)
+ can talk and surf the web at the same time.

- "walled garden" app store, meaning if steve jobs and crew dont like your app, it aint gettin published
- jailbreaking/sideloading discouraged, and without the ability to side load (download an app on your pc first), you MUST use apple's app store
- no physical keyboard on either hardware platform
- no free turn-by-turn GPS navigation. (plenty of purchasable gps apps though, im sure.)


android

+ open app market. much fewer restrictions both on what is "accepted" and what you can actually program your phone to do.
+ easier to "jailbreak" your phone.
+ multiple platforms to choose from to suit your personal taste.
+ physical keyboards on some models.
+ FREE GOOGLE MAPS AND NAVIGATION (turn by turn nav). (this was a major selling point for me, i couldnt live without it.)

- open app market. with fewer restrictions comes many more crappy apps, so you have to dig through the crap to get the goods.
- multiple platforms, so sometimes an app will not work fully with your model.
- fewer aftermarket accessories. (but that is changing!)
- i dont know of any car stereos that natively support android-specific mp3 players. (usually if it supports anything, it is either ipod and/or "everything else")
- cant talk and surf at the same time. (that will undoubtedly change in the future though.)


i have a motorolla droid (original) and love it most days. the free gps/navigation was a MAJOR selling point for me, and both programs work absolutely flawlessly -- as well as my sister's tom tom, if not better. call clarity is pretty excellent, and (on verizon) i have been EVERYWHERE and never been in roaming. game support is good and getting better, especially with popcap (bejewelled, plants vs zombies, peggle) starting to program for android. if you like old school console emulators (NES, SNES, etc), android is your only way to go -- apple will never approve such apps. keyboard also works very well, which was another deal-clincher for me. swype is also becoming really popular (tho i suspect the iphone has/will have that as well). for me, the less-restrictive nature of the OS is also a great selling point, but many folks might not care about that.

that said, the iphone 4 is a ridiculously solid platform as well. personally, i would avoid at&t and get (slightly weaker) verizon version just to have verizon's coverage and customer service, but YMMV.

long story short: android phone for quantity of apps and applications and free gps. iphone for quality of apps and compatibility with aftermarket stuff.

hope this helps.

I think you hit the nail on the head, osirisdean.  Have to agree with all your points.

I'm on my 2nd android phone...first was an HTC droid Eris.....after two years it was becoming slow and buggy, so I recently upgraded to an HTC Droid Incredible 2 (both on Verizon).  I almost crossed over to the iPhone for something different, but the free google gps and the sync-ing with my google account (maps, contacts, etc) convinced me to get another android phone.

The iPhone is great phone, but the android system just allows for so much more customization.  I like widgets (clocks, buttons, and other things on your screen that show info and do things) and the iPhone just doesn't do those.  I also like the idea of being able to pull my battery out of the phone in case of it going bad or just need to hard-reset the phone....the iPhone has a non-serviceable battery.

Finally, one point that put the nail in the coffin for the iPhone for me was the insurance.  You don't get the regular verizon phone insurance, you must purchase Applecare.  I'm sure the insurance is good (I had it on my macbook that I'm using now and ended up using it a time or two), but it is significantly more expensive that regular phone insurance coverage that you buy for an android phone.

I would add one negative about the android system. ....because of the open apps market, I think that the system is more prone to "bugginess".  My new Incredible 2 started acting a bit erratic last week and I ended up factory resetting it to correct the issues.  All is fine now and the love is back.  Surprisingly, the apps market will now reload all of your apps that you previously had downloaded automatically if you factory reset which was a nice surprise....didn't use to do that.  The iPhone may be less prone to this "bugginess", but I don't know that for sure.  Its a small inconvenience (that you may never encounter) for a great phone and great phone system.

[singedebile]

maybe it was reading this thread,

maybe it was the surprisingly nice lady on verizon, that mentioned the $30 unlimited data plans will be gone come july 7

but i finely have given in to the smart phone!

after piles of research and even more open tabs I have finely been able to close on firefox, I have decided to skip the 4g for now as I really dont plan on watching movies etc... and the phones that are 4g are quite a bit more expensive. I decided on the HTC Trophy with windows phone 7 (by verizon).

It was only $30 bucks through wirefly and it seems to be a really decent phone. Also all the grips I heard about windows phone 7 will be addressed with the new "mango" update that is soon to come (which will be automatically applied... unlike android where most phones remain "locked" in the operating system they are sold with).

Now I just need to pick up an extra shift a month to pay for it...

[weekend_junkie]

I just made the choice on Monday between iPhone4 and Droid X2.  It was a hard choice and I could have gone either way, but I went with the Droid because I already have 6 chargers for it and didn't want to buy new for each spot I charge.  Sure, it's a bit larger, but I clip a phone on my belt or briefcase anyway.  Also, my wife has the Droid X and I was hooked on a touch screen smart phone either way.

No more Blackberry with it's crappy browser, thank you very much!