So my contract is up and Im thinking about getting with the times and getting a smart phone. My friends all hav iphones and they seem pretty cool, but its a lot of money per month. The new Droids look really cool, I like the squareness and keyboard feature. I dont know anything about the Palm Pre but it is smaller, and thats what I dont like about the Iphones, they are rather large. Blackberry might work, my boss has one.
Whats your opinions on the available smart phones? Email, word docs, spread sheets would be what I need it most for. Being at a meeting and entering in data. Everything else would be just for fun.
total htc g-1/android fan here; so long as you use google products it purrs. Because it uses generic cell internet access, its generally cheaper over all than an iphone or for sure a blackberry. blackberrys are totes expensive because the data access is encrypted with their proprietary software.
I've been thinking a bit about ipod touch + skype--anyone else done this? you'd give up the 911 service, and you'd have to be in wifi range to make a call... but I hate the ridiculous monthly mobile fees
you'd want to be limited to wifi range? that'd be pretty limiting
I love my iPhone, but I'll take a closer look at those htc phones soon (contract has been up for ages, new iPhones don't look any better than old iPhones).
i haven't used it with skype...but the ipod touch is generally awesome. if you've got wi-fi available in most of your usual spots (work, home, fav restaurant, etc) then the lack of ubiquitous internet access isn't a major issue.
Get an iPhone. Don't get an expensive package. Then you can use skype in wi-fi zones, but still have the option of calling outside of them if need be.
You could also just get a data package, unlock the phone and then you can use skype exclusively over the 3G network (if not unlocked, your limited to wi-fi zones). No need for airtime minutes through your provider.
There are really only 3 phones you should be looking at, the iPhone, the bold 9700 and the Droid, with the main difference being the keyboards. Having used the soft keyboard i don't think i can ever go back to the hard keyboards on phones, but maybe that's just me.
The BB hardware is very good. the OS on the other hand, at least for me, leaves a lot to be desired. If all you're doing is checking email and very light web surfing, then the Bold 9700 is a solid phone. Android (esp 2.0) is nice and getting better. The Palm OS is actually really nice, but the hardware is junk. The mytouch 3g and the Hero are the only HTC phones worth a look, but they are tiny, and if you're going to be seriously using your phone, the bigger the screen the better. Plus the Sprint Hero got fuglied, the euro one is so much better looking.
As far as size goes, i was worried about the iphone size too. But after using it, it's sized correctly. It's big enough to type with both thumbs in landscape, but small enough to go one handed in portrait, and to fit into my jeans pocket. The Bold's keyboard can be cramped if your typing a lot. The Droid really isn't that much bigger than the iPhone when closed. The big difference is the droid does weigh more, but it's by no means heavy.
It also depends on where you are. If you're in NYC, Chicago, or SF verizon does in fact have better service. But not everywhere, I used to live in Boston, I'm in Portland now, and my mom lives in the East Bay and i've never had issues.
The Moto Android phones are very robust and fast. My daughter works at Motorola here and Ive been using it for a week now. I pretty much have been able to operate in an all google environment from calender, documents and gmail all working with the phone seemlessly. I've also had the outlook set up on the phone but I had to have my daughter do it where it syncs with google stuff. Other than that the phone is really easy to use. I should call it a computer. Its well beyond a phone.
The screen looks like an HDTV, maybe sharper. I love this little thing, plus it talks to me. Sometimes it will be laying around then say "DROOOIID" and the cat will jump. The little ones play games on it to.
I have had a Palm Treo, Centro and I will be getting the Pre or Pixi whenever it is available on Verizon. I can't stress how important this is (especially if you use Microsoft Outlook for contacts and calendar events), Palm syncs to your computer and it can use the same contacts, calendar, tasks, etc from Microsoft Outlook. It's nice because your backup is also the software that most firms use for email. I won't use anything else.
Palm phones were some of the first to have color, touch screens and a keyboard. It's really nice because you can just use your intuition and work with your fingers, a stylus or the keyboard. The IPhone was following in the tracks of Palm Treos with respect to the functions of the phone. The IPhone stepped up the game with the interface. So if you are mesmerized by pretty things (like many architects and other people that are willing to pay more money for anything that has an "I" before it) then get the Iphone. If you want to get something that integrates into the Microsoft Suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint) as well as reading pdf's, then I would go with the Palm Pre or the Pixi.
i got i-phone recently. it is 3G so i am always online, wi-fi or not.
it is indeed $70.00/month but i am quite happy with that cost. i download the news shows from usa and uk in the morning and watch them on the subway ride to work or else just stream videos live. other awesome feature is the google map thingy, which is fantastic for me here in tokyo. i get lost all the time so is perfect way to get to clients and meetings on time. also use internet to find best routes through city when i find myself in train station am not familiar with.
the phone function also works quite well.
as far as buttons go, in conversation with blackberry users and others it seems to be mac windows sort of topic. probably safer if i stay out of it...;-)
Thx All! Im narrowing it down to HTC touch pro, Iphone and droid. Im currently with ATT and have to say their voice plan Ive had for 2 years has been great. I use a razor and people tell me they didnt think I was on a cell phone. My friends with iphones however cant hold a phone conversation on ATT without dropping the call. This is a major problem since I will use the smart phone as an actual phone. The iphone guys say its ATT and the cell phone guys say its the iphone internal cellular tech. Ive read the ATT smartphone network works well in some ares and not so good in others. But since the contract is up I could jump to Verizon and get an HTC or Droid. The droid and iphone plans are exactly the same cost wise, not sure about the HTC Pro - I assume it uses the standard Verizon data plan? $30 + phone package choice? $70 if you want the super data / exchange server package?
make sure its the HTC pro 2, that came out this past Oct., not the 1st gen that has been around for almost 2 years.
if u are looking for unlimited data & voice, u are looking at $99/mo.
i got the 450min. plan from verizon so my monthly is about $75 including tax.
i skype on it half the time so minutes is not an issue for me.
i also debated on the iphone, but i just don't want to deal with all the restrictions on media i d/l not via itune.....the security feature is really annoying, proprietary suxxx!....if u catch my drift :P
i bought an unlocked nokia e63 from newegg for $180, pay the minimum on a family plan and get unlimited data for $10 a month. couldn't be happier with it.
i say blackberry all the way. it has everything you need, and is near impossible to break. you can transfer your music and videos from your computer, also.
agfax, my parents both had a pixi and took them back because of freezing and software issues. could have been rare, though.
the iphone is pretty cool, and i would have one if they didn't use at&t. sprint has better coverage in my area.
oh, i forgot to add that the blackberry's keyboard is money in comparison to the iphone's tiny touch screen. if there were a qwerty keyboard on the iphone, it would be near perfect.
Personally, I'd run as far away from AT&T as I could. I currently have an iPhone 3G and while it's a great device, the network quality is piss-poor (tons and tons of dropped calls, data connections are usually very slow).
My recommendation is the Motorola Droid or the HTC Eris...I tried them both out last week and I was very impressed. They're both extremely capable smartphones that do just as much as the iPhone (if not more) and are on a vastly superior network. Plus, the Droid feels like it's built to last...seriously, you could hurt somebody with it.
Bought a Droid at Verizon and it is AWESOME! Fast, smooth, the colors are fantastic. The internet is as fast as my house on this thing. The guy at the stroe asked me my gmail password and all my contacts were loaded in. I was expecting it to be complicated but this phone is as easy to use as anything Ive come accross. Contract breakdown:
$30 Unlimited Data and 10 email accounts
$70 Unlimited text, pictures and I think 900 min + 5 people free anytime
$7 insurance against theft, lost, stolen, defect ( worth it since replacement is full value)
So with tax and fees it will be around $120 - 130 / month. I will say Verizon's plans are totally confusing compared to ATT plan I had but the phone is worth it.
I set up a google sync app on my computer at work this morning and it synced up my gmail and calender which automatically goes to the phone. Now if you want to sync directly between Outlook and Droid Im not sure how to do that, but I see the Android market has a lot of downloadable apps for a price that claim to do just that. I figure syncing for free with my gmail acct. automaticly goes to the phone anywas. Best app so far - PDF scanner. Use the camera to scan Docs and conver tot PDF - like a spy movie.
Icons are smaller than the iphone but the screen is bigger. This is a personal choice for people: Smaller icons but more of them on the screen real estate.
querty keybord is a gift from God. Im reading incoming SMS or email portrait, respond by sliding out tray and it flips landscape and type away. Also - this is the first auto suggest while typing Ive ever found usefule. The auto suggest is above the querty and you tap the word to insert.
Cons - like the iphone i feel like Im going to break it. My razor was a work horse. I could drop it, throw it around, it took a beating. These smart phones seem like you dont want to tempt fate. The much touted notification panel, which is really slick in that it lets you check other functions like incoming texts while inside an app, is 2 taps away. I think they could have made it 1 tap. But thats minor really in the bigger scheme. Also - a lot of the free apps at the app store are by open source programers so this means for every great app like the GPS path app that tracks you and your elevation above sea level, theres one that doesnt work so good. A few of the FREE apps I was excited about I downloaded and they didnt work as indicated or not at all. The programers are using Android langauge but each phone, Droid, Cliq, HTC etc. are different so some bugginess can occur. Think of it like PC computers and all the software by all different people trying to work on all the various mfr. machines. However that is the free apps - the paid APPs all work extremely well as indicated so far.
All in all its like an iphone but a little more robust and smooth yet a little bit less egronomic so it evens out. I happen to like the squared design but others may perfer the iphone's curves.
I havent gotten into music yet on this phone - Ill post updates as I progress. Ive only had it about 15hours.
Smart Phone
So my contract is up and Im thinking about getting with the times and getting a smart phone. My friends all hav iphones and they seem pretty cool, but its a lot of money per month. The new Droids look really cool, I like the squareness and keyboard feature. I dont know anything about the Palm Pre but it is smaller, and thats what I dont like about the Iphones, they are rather large. Blackberry might work, my boss has one.
Whats your opinions on the available smart phones? Email, word docs, spread sheets would be what I need it most for. Being at a meeting and entering in data. Everything else would be just for fun.
total htc g-1/android fan here; so long as you use google products it purrs. Because it uses generic cell internet access, its generally cheaper over all than an iphone or for sure a blackberry. blackberrys are totes expensive because the data access is encrypted with their proprietary software.
I've been thinking a bit about ipod touch + skype--anyone else done this? you'd give up the 911 service, and you'd have to be in wifi range to make a call... but I hate the ridiculous monthly mobile fees
you'd want to be limited to wifi range? that'd be pretty limiting
I love my iPhone, but I'll take a closer look at those htc phones soon (contract has been up for ages, new iPhones don't look any better than old iPhones).
i haven't used it with skype...but the ipod touch is generally awesome. if you've got wi-fi available in most of your usual spots (work, home, fav restaurant, etc) then the lack of ubiquitous internet access isn't a major issue.
Get an iPhone. Don't get an expensive package. Then you can use skype in wi-fi zones, but still have the option of calling outside of them if need be.
You could also just get a data package, unlock the phone and then you can use skype exclusively over the 3G network (if not unlocked, your limited to wi-fi zones). No need for airtime minutes through your provider.
Just my thoughts. And yes, I'm an iPhone fanboy.
There are really only 3 phones you should be looking at, the iPhone, the bold 9700 and the Droid, with the main difference being the keyboards. Having used the soft keyboard i don't think i can ever go back to the hard keyboards on phones, but maybe that's just me.
The BB hardware is very good. the OS on the other hand, at least for me, leaves a lot to be desired. If all you're doing is checking email and very light web surfing, then the Bold 9700 is a solid phone. Android (esp 2.0) is nice and getting better. The Palm OS is actually really nice, but the hardware is junk. The mytouch 3g and the Hero are the only HTC phones worth a look, but they are tiny, and if you're going to be seriously using your phone, the bigger the screen the better. Plus the Sprint Hero got fuglied, the euro one is so much better looking.
As far as size goes, i was worried about the iphone size too. But after using it, it's sized correctly. It's big enough to type with both thumbs in landscape, but small enough to go one handed in portrait, and to fit into my jeans pocket. The Bold's keyboard can be cramped if your typing a lot. The Droid really isn't that much bigger than the iPhone when closed. The big difference is the droid does weigh more, but it's by no means heavy.
It also depends on where you are. If you're in NYC, Chicago, or SF verizon does in fact have better service. But not everywhere, I used to live in Boston, I'm in Portland now, and my mom lives in the East Bay and i've never had issues.
The Moto Android phones are very robust and fast. My daughter works at Motorola here and Ive been using it for a week now. I pretty much have been able to operate in an all google environment from calender, documents and gmail all working with the phone seemlessly. I've also had the outlook set up on the phone but I had to have my daughter do it where it syncs with google stuff. Other than that the phone is really easy to use. I should call it a computer. Its well beyond a phone.
The screen looks like an HDTV, maybe sharper. I love this little thing, plus it talks to me. Sometimes it will be laying around then say "DROOOIID" and the cat will jump. The little ones play games on it to.
I have had a Palm Treo, Centro and I will be getting the Pre or Pixi whenever it is available on Verizon. I can't stress how important this is (especially if you use Microsoft Outlook for contacts and calendar events), Palm syncs to your computer and it can use the same contacts, calendar, tasks, etc from Microsoft Outlook. It's nice because your backup is also the software that most firms use for email. I won't use anything else.
Palm phones were some of the first to have color, touch screens and a keyboard. It's really nice because you can just use your intuition and work with your fingers, a stylus or the keyboard. The IPhone was following in the tracks of Palm Treos with respect to the functions of the phone. The IPhone stepped up the game with the interface. So if you are mesmerized by pretty things (like many architects and other people that are willing to pay more money for anything that has an "I" before it) then get the Iphone. If you want to get something that integrates into the Microsoft Suite (Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint) as well as reading pdf's, then I would go with the Palm Pre or the Pixi.
the skype only option is terrible. skype itself is incredibly inconsistent and I agree with trace about the limited wifi.
IPhone all the way, everything else is just a cheap imitation
any smartphone w/ data plan will run you $70+/mo.
if u want to sync w/ outlook & like to have both touch screen & physical keyboard....i recommend the HTC Touch Pro 2:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/store/controller?item=phoneFirst&action=viewPhoneDetail&selectedPhoneId=4998
i got it about 2 months ago....its just awesome!
i got i-phone recently. it is 3G so i am always online, wi-fi or not.
it is indeed $70.00/month but i am quite happy with that cost. i download the news shows from usa and uk in the morning and watch them on the subway ride to work or else just stream videos live. other awesome feature is the google map thingy, which is fantastic for me here in tokyo. i get lost all the time so is perfect way to get to clients and meetings on time. also use internet to find best routes through city when i find myself in train station am not familiar with.
the phone function also works quite well.
as far as buttons go, in conversation with blackberry users and others it seems to be mac windows sort of topic. probably safer if i stay out of it...;-)
The HTC Pro is new....until this phone came out, Palm phones (or Windows Mobile phones) were the only ones that integrated into Microsoft Office.
Thx All! Im narrowing it down to HTC touch pro, Iphone and droid. Im currently with ATT and have to say their voice plan Ive had for 2 years has been great. I use a razor and people tell me they didnt think I was on a cell phone. My friends with iphones however cant hold a phone conversation on ATT without dropping the call. This is a major problem since I will use the smart phone as an actual phone. The iphone guys say its ATT and the cell phone guys say its the iphone internal cellular tech. Ive read the ATT smartphone network works well in some ares and not so good in others. But since the contract is up I could jump to Verizon and get an HTC or Droid. The droid and iphone plans are exactly the same cost wise, not sure about the HTC Pro - I assume it uses the standard Verizon data plan? $30 + phone package choice? $70 if you want the super data / exchange server package?
make sure its the HTC pro 2, that came out this past Oct., not the 1st gen that has been around for almost 2 years.
if u are looking for unlimited data & voice, u are looking at $99/mo.
i got the 450min. plan from verizon so my monthly is about $75 including tax.
i skype on it half the time so minutes is not an issue for me.
i also debated on the iphone, but i just don't want to deal with all the restrictions on media i d/l not via itune.....the security feature is really annoying, proprietary suxxx!....if u catch my drift :P
how do you get a data package only on iphone? is that in the U.S.?
check it- with an htc G-1, I pay $55 per month on ATT for unlimited data and a sensible calling plan.
i bought an unlocked nokia e63 from newegg for $180, pay the minimum on a family plan and get unlimited data for $10 a month. couldn't be happier with it.
has anyone used a palm pixi?
i say blackberry all the way. it has everything you need, and is near impossible to break. you can transfer your music and videos from your computer, also.
agfax, my parents both had a pixi and took them back because of freezing and software issues. could have been rare, though.
the iphone is pretty cool, and i would have one if they didn't use at&t. sprint has better coverage in my area.
oh, i forgot to add that the blackberry's keyboard is money in comparison to the iphone's tiny touch screen. if there were a qwerty keyboard on the iphone, it would be near perfect.
Personally, I'd run as far away from AT&T as I could. I currently have an iPhone 3G and while it's a great device, the network quality is piss-poor (tons and tons of dropped calls, data connections are usually very slow).
My recommendation is the Motorola Droid or the HTC Eris...I tried them both out last week and I was very impressed. They're both extremely capable smartphones that do just as much as the iPhone (if not more) and are on a vastly superior network. Plus, the Droid feels like it's built to last...seriously, you could hurt somebody with it.
Bought a Droid at Verizon and it is AWESOME! Fast, smooth, the colors are fantastic. The internet is as fast as my house on this thing. The guy at the stroe asked me my gmail password and all my contacts were loaded in. I was expecting it to be complicated but this phone is as easy to use as anything Ive come accross. Contract breakdown:
$30 Unlimited Data and 10 email accounts
$70 Unlimited text, pictures and I think 900 min + 5 people free anytime
$7 insurance against theft, lost, stolen, defect ( worth it since replacement is full value)
So with tax and fees it will be around $120 - 130 / month. I will say Verizon's plans are totally confusing compared to ATT plan I had but the phone is worth it.
I set up a google sync app on my computer at work this morning and it synced up my gmail and calender which automatically goes to the phone. Now if you want to sync directly between Outlook and Droid Im not sure how to do that, but I see the Android market has a lot of downloadable apps for a price that claim to do just that. I figure syncing for free with my gmail acct. automaticly goes to the phone anywas. Best app so far - PDF scanner. Use the camera to scan Docs and conver tot PDF - like a spy movie.
Icons are smaller than the iphone but the screen is bigger. This is a personal choice for people: Smaller icons but more of them on the screen real estate.
querty keybord is a gift from God. Im reading incoming SMS or email portrait, respond by sliding out tray and it flips landscape and type away. Also - this is the first auto suggest while typing Ive ever found usefule. The auto suggest is above the querty and you tap the word to insert.
Cons - like the iphone i feel like Im going to break it. My razor was a work horse. I could drop it, throw it around, it took a beating. These smart phones seem like you dont want to tempt fate. The much touted notification panel, which is really slick in that it lets you check other functions like incoming texts while inside an app, is 2 taps away. I think they could have made it 1 tap. But thats minor really in the bigger scheme. Also - a lot of the free apps at the app store are by open source programers so this means for every great app like the GPS path app that tracks you and your elevation above sea level, theres one that doesnt work so good. A few of the FREE apps I was excited about I downloaded and they didnt work as indicated or not at all. The programers are using Android langauge but each phone, Droid, Cliq, HTC etc. are different so some bugginess can occur. Think of it like PC computers and all the software by all different people trying to work on all the various mfr. machines. However that is the free apps - the paid APPs all work extremely well as indicated so far.
All in all its like an iphone but a little more robust and smooth yet a little bit less egronomic so it evens out. I happen to like the squared design but others may perfer the iphone's curves.
I havent gotten into music yet on this phone - Ill post updates as I progress. Ive only had it about 15hours.
Sweet - my outlook synced with the gmail and auto synced to phone - score.
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