opinions on smartphones wanted. iPhone? Droid?
I need a new phone. I also need to be able to read email on the go and I want gps, so I started looking at smartphones. The phone needs to be simlock free because I want to be able to use that phone with a German sim-card and an English one when I'm in the UK, therefore I can't finance the phone via a contract but have to buy it outright.
Sigh.
Obviously I love apple since I own a maybook pro. But I also don't have a ton of money and am a bit of a klutz so spending 550Euros on a glass phone leaves me decidedly unenthusiastic. I have similar feelings about the kind of censoring that apple does nowadays.
On the other hand there are some damn useful apps that I could use for work available for an iPhone. And it is pretty...
As droids go I found the Motorola Defy - an outdoorversion which I can get for about 230Euros and which seems to have what I want. And it's slightly sturdy design (waterproof!) appeals to my klutziness.
But really, I have no clue. Has anybody ever used both, droid and apple?? Advice?
Help!
Original Post by pgeorgian:
i hate the way iphones turn perfectly reasonable people into **** with no manners.
I'm reading this as f==kwads with no manners. Not sure why...
Anyway, I wish I could deny that I've been turned into a FWNM, but yeah, I've caught myself doing rude crap that I never would have done pre-iPhone. I have to make an effort not to turn into a complete tool when I have it with me in public.
Original Post by pgeorgian:
i hate the way iphones turn perfectly reasonable people into **** with no manners.
Normal mobiles have already done that. Smartphones are actually an improvement noisewise because younger users do everthing via email and text nowadays. And tehy love to play so they don't pester all their aquaintances with constant babbeling (like I do).
I swear we'll have a tsunami of backproblems heading our way in twenty years from now due to the hours and hours of that hunched over sitting smartphone users are prone to do.
Hata, your motorola warning makes me sad. 
(Panties!!!) I'll do some research and ask in some shops about support in Germany. European laws concerning returns and warranties are usually fairly universal in... erm.. Europe.
I actually held the Samsung Galaxy S in my hand today - and, yes, it felt so lovely it was an immediate contender. The price, however, is steep (340 Euros - if I get a good deal) and it's plastic and normal glas. Not great for a klutz like me. But it feels wooonderful! :-D
Original Post by purespark:
Original Post by pgeorgian:
i hate the way iphones turn perfectly reasonable people into **** with no manners.
I'm reading this as f==kwads with no manners. Not sure why...
But anyway, I wish I could deny that I've been turned into a FWNM, but yeah, I've caught myself doing rude crap that I never would have done pre-iPhone. I have to make an effort not to turn into a complete tool when I have it with me in public.
Hah! Friend of mine is obsessed with texting etc. She knows I'm a wee bit oldfashioned (not very much but there are limits as to how many times I can put up with interruptions of a conversation. Every five minutes is definitely too much!)
We were skyping yesterday and I kept hearing her phone pinging away. Her effort of not answering those messages right away was almost audible, poor girl :-D
My phone's always on silent, so it isn't texts. It's more my habit of looking things up on the internet whenever something interesting comes up in conversation.
Such as, "Gee, I can't remember who was in that movie, either. I better check IMDB!"
Heh, I've become text-addicted myself. It's a force of will to put it away when out for a meal or something now. I do it out of respect for people I'm with, but I won't deny there's a twinge of anxiety about what I might be missing while I'm offline.
That's the problem with developing an info-junkie habit: withdrawal when you pull out the mainline.
Droid ftw!
Original Post by purespark:
My phone's always on silent, so it isn't texts. It's more my habit of looking things up on the internet whenever something interesting comes up in conversation.
Such as, "Gee, I can't remember who was in that movie, either. I better check IMDB!"
I had this song as my text notification ringtone and the whole song will play if you don't answer it anyway one day at work my phone goes off and just at that moment the Mormon doc I work for comes into my office- I quickly turn it off and he says you don't have to turn your music off - I said oh its just my cell phone someone sent me a text. That night I changed it
I too have used the IMDB because a conversation had turned to a "what was that movie? Who was that actor - also had to google stuff.
I love my smartphone
Original Post by kikt:
Original Post by kelrantymus:
I don't know about the "you have a mac must get iPhone" thing. My husband only has macs. His work computers are both macs as are all five, yes, five, of his home computers. His sync fine with his droid. He hates the iPhone. He has no problems syncing his email, calendar, etc with his droid.
I don't know. My good friend with an iPhone is the butt of all of our jokes because she never gets service anywhere and her phone dies a lot and she often doesn't get calls because it just doesn't ring it drops them randomly. That said, I sometimes have problems hearing people on my droid especially if they also have a droid. Not sure why.
Well, at least I know who to ask if I get a droid.
I think dropping calls etc. has a lot to do with the company providing your calls and not with the phone.
I'm looking at prices and test reviews.
Anybody have experiences with windows phone 7?? There's a cheap LG phone with good reviews...
(Motorola Defy is still a contender, for some reason I can't find a similarily good deal on an iPhone 3 that I have for an iPhone4 - which I definitely don't want)
It just depends on what program you use. Syncing with gmail is generally the way to go. Outlook syncs fine with android; if you use gmail, it's even easier. We run our calendar and contacts through a different program, so we use a slightly more complicated process where we sync it through Outlook and then through gmail. Kind of a pain but then it's only a matter of clicking two icons. It doesn't work automatically, which is the main downside.
If you use iCal, it syncs directly with gmail.
For what it's worth, I find that the google calendar via android works fine for most of my tasks, although I wish they'd bump up tasklist support a bit. Gmail is cake, and the same mail reader works on arbitrary IMAP servers so I've pointed it at my various mail addresses and it works ducky.
*bangs head against laptop*
Ok, Motorola seems to be out - thanks for the tip, Hata. I don't want to wait four weeks three times whenever my phone happens to break down.
This is getting seriously confusing. I use Mail and iCal - obviously. I'm sure I can find some way of synching it but I still don't know which phone to get, Droid or no droid :-/ God, getting used to a smartphone is going to takes weeks! Most of the time I have no clue what the people are talking about.
If you do decide to go for a android, most of the models by Samsung and HTC seem to be good and have high-ish user satisfaction. LG also makes some nice models... and the motorola phones are good, but when you have problems they're a complete nightmare to deal with, which is why I recommend not going for them.
Phandroid has many resources.
Original Post by kikt:
Original Post by pgeorgian:
i hate the way iphones turn perfectly reasonable people into **** with no manners.
Normal mobiles have already done that. Smartphones are actually an improvement noisewise because younger users do everthing via email and text nowadays. And tehy love to play so they don't pester all their aquaintances with constant babbeling (like I do).
i couldn't disagree more. even five years ago, not one of my friends over 30 would have thought of taking a call or responding to a text in a restaurant. now, pretty much all of them do. people i never, ever thought would take a call while we socializing now do so.
one night i was out for dinner with a friend and my phone rang. i apologized and turned it off. about 20 minutes later she got up to go to the bathroom. she took her iphone with her.
Original Post by pgeorgian:
Original Post by kikt:
Original Post by pgeorgian:
i hate the way iphones turn perfectly reasonable people into **** with no manners.
Normal mobiles have already done that. Smartphones are actually an improvement noisewise because younger users do everthing via email and text nowadays. And tehy love to play so they don't pester all their aquaintances with constant babbeling (like I do).
i couldn't disagree more. even five years ago, not one of my friends over 30 would have thought of taking a call or responding to a text in a restaurant. now, pretty much all of them do. people i never, ever thought would take a call while we socializing now do so.
one night i was out for dinner with a friend and my phone rang. i apologized and turned it off. about 20 minutes later she got up to go to the bathroom. she took her iphone with her.
Hm. Maybe manners around me - including my own - have deteriorated in the past years. Most people I know are freelancers and always take calls in the daytime, although a fair number of people also screen them and just don't answer if they deem it unimportant.
Personally, I often take calls but make it very quick if it's not workrelated if I'm sitting with someone else. I'm much more annoyed with people who keep on talking and talking while I sit next to them - or even more annoyed at people on the other end who clearly don't get the concept: 'I can't talk properly right now, I'll call you later/tomorrow' and just keep on yapping.
Maybe there is an obsessing of not wanting to miss something, I don't know. Something has changed beyond plain manners but I don't always get it. I guess I'm not great at day-to-day networking for a reason :-/
I am now looking at a smaller Samsung Galaxy. Gio has apparently a crap camera but that is perfectly fine with me. It does all other things for just 155 Euros but it doesn't support flash which is a bit annoying...
eta: Gio's screen is too small. Galaxy aceis about 210 Euros. Just within my financial cofort zone. Part of me still wants an iPhone for sheer convenience but the 4 design is nasty and the 3gs are just overpriced!
Original Post by kikt:
Original Post by purespark:
Original Post by fuzzy_a:That was supposed to have a winky face to indicate the statement was made (mostly) in jest, but it disappeared when I made an edit.
No worries, Fuzzy. :) I was just being defensive because I feel a little silly about having an iPhone. When I first got it, I was very careful to tell people "I wouldn't have gotten one of these but my mom gave me a giftcard for Christmas!"
It did change my life, though. :D
Yeah, there is something vaguely embarrassing about an iPhone isnt there? It's almost worse than sitting in a cafe with an apple laptop! God, I roll my eyes at people with apple laptops in cafes - and I'm doing it myself occasionally (well, very occasionally) :-D
Dude. that's totally me. Starbucks, MacBook Pro, iPhone.
The way I see it there are two kinds of people in this world: people with iPhones and people who wish they had one.
Original Post by spirochete:
Original Post by kikt:
Original Post by purespark:
Original Post by fuzzy_a:That was supposed to have a winky face to indicate the statement was made (mostly) in jest, but it disappeared when I made an edit.
No worries, Fuzzy. :) I was just being defensive because I feel a little silly about having an iPhone. When I first got it, I was very careful to tell people "I wouldn't have gotten one of these but my mom gave me a giftcard for Christmas!"
It did change my life, though. :D
Yeah, there is something vaguely embarrassing about an iPhone isnt there? It's almost worse than sitting in a cafe with an apple laptop! God, I roll my eyes at people with apple laptops in cafes - and I'm doing it myself occasionally (well, very occasionally) :-D
Dude. that's totally me. Starbucks, MacBook Pro, iPhone.
The way I see it there are two kinds of people in this world: people with iPhones and people who wish they had one.
Starbucks - cultural American imperialism with overpriced, weak coffee! Pshaw!! I am much cooler than you!! I sit in artsy, shabby chique cafes full of young people who have no work but artesan beards!
;-)
Original Post by kikt:
Starbucks - cultural American imperialism with overpriced, weak coffee! Pshaw!! I am much cooler than you!! I sit in artsy, shabby chique cafes full of young people who have no work but artesan beards!
;-)
Too each his own....but I prefer artesan breads. Mmm. Thick slices of crusty bread with thinly shaved meat, crisp slices of veggies, and smoked cheese.
Decent bread is a German staple. Many variations are fantastic just with butter and a bit of salt when fresh.
Apparently I need to synch a potential Anroid phone via google calendar with my iCal. Spent the last hour trying to sync a newly set up google calendar with my iCal - so far it only works one way (from google to iCal)
This whole problem is seriously doing my head in. Well, at least I am catching up with my 5-10 year technology lag in the process - although most posts by droid users about what they've reloaded, launched, modified, overtakted etc. etc. make no sense to me whatsoever. Sigh.
Current phone contender: Samsung Galaxy SL (Since about 30% of Motorola Defy phones have issues)
