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Phones phones phones

Started by Famous Mortimer, June 03, 2012, 06:49:26 PM

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Famous Mortimer

I'm coming to the end of my contract soon and am having a gander at the sort of phones that are available. I've got an HTC Desire HD at the moment, but I can't for the life of me figure out if there's one which is *better* than it (apart from the Samsung Galaxy S 3, I presume).

So what's good these days? Anything I should be looking out for? I'm not tied to Android, if there's a good phone with Windows on it, I'll go for that.

Hobes

I'm tempted by the HTC one X. I've been looking at the deals on http://www.buymobilephones.net/ which seem competitive.

KLG-7A

The Galaxy S 3 has a light, now. I've actually seen this listed as if it's an innovative feature and not a massive oversight in the past two models.

The Masked Unit

I'll be in the market shortly as well. From what I can gather the choice between an S3 and a One X comes down to personal preference because feature-wise they're near identical. Will probably go the S3 route myself as I've been pleased with my original Galaxy, but I think aesthetically I do prefer the One X.

Subtle Mocking

If you carry a lot of music around, the One X is strictly limited to 32gb. The SGS3 has at least 16gb on board with expandable storage.

mcbpete

I so want an SGS3 but at the moment it's a little too expensive for the contract I'm on - the Orange lady said it'd be just over 200 quids upfront on my current tariff, but as I don't even use up the text/mins/download on that there's now way I'm gonna go up to the £35 per month doohicky....

Nuclear Optimism

Looking at your criteria FM, and weighing up your preferences, I reckon your best option would be to get a Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.

Dynamic Adaptive Total Area Coverage
LED display
Amazingly portable
A whopping thirty minutes talk time
Eight whole hours between charges
A mere ten hours to charge (or you could get the one-hour accelerated desktop charger, sold-separately)
Can store 30 phone numbers is its memory banks.

Was $3,995, now yours for much, much less.

Famous Mortimer

Quote from: Nuclear Optimism on June 03, 2012, 11:26:47 PM
Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.
I would definitely have one of those, if I could have a touchscreen bit in the middle. I've got one of those old-school handset plugins for my current phone, it's lovely.

OneX might be the one for me - since I got a podcasting app, I barely ever listen to music on my phone any more, so I don't really need tons of space. Although, do I need another toy?

Hobes

I thought the HTC one X had cloud storage?

In terms of gimmicks I love the pure show-off element of the Galaxy beam - although the phone is seriously underpowered.

buntyman

My HTC Desire is beginning to show signs of age so I'm keeping an eye out for a good new phone on the market. I still can't believe the phone I have got such good reviews while neglecting to mention the tiny internal memory prevents one from being able to store more than about 5 of the more popular apps on it.
Now that phones seem to have completely taken over the mp3 player market, it'd be nice to see a phone with enough memory to store a good amount of music + whatever apps one would like.
Considering how expensive all the new phones that are coming out are, it's rather baffling how willing people are to shell out on them despite the improvements being so miniscule. Maybe I'm being a bit greedy (yes I've seen that Louis CK bit), but the progression of mobile phone technology seems to be bloody slow.
The main things I'd like my phone to do that my current one doesn't:

  • Provide at least a day of battery life
  • Have a touch screen responsive enough to type out texts comfortably
  • Get good reception
  • Have enough memory to do all the normal phone functions + store about 40gb music and maybe 20 apps
  • Be able to receive updates 6 months after I've bought it to keep up with modern innovations


Is that too much to ask? Do any phones do this already?

MojoJojo

Quote from: buntyman on June 04, 2012, 03:24:44 PM
My HTC Desire is beginning to show signs of age so I'm keeping an eye out for a good new phone on the market. I still can't believe the phone I have got such good reviews while neglecting to mention the tiny internal memory prevents one from being able to store more than about 5 of the more popular apps on it.

Yes, this is annoying the hell out of me too. Even with a custom firmware, I'm struggling with app space.

Quote
Now that phones seem to have completely taken over the mp3 player market, it'd be nice to see a phone with enough memory to store a good amount of music + whatever apps one would like.

Uhhh, you can put a massive sd card and put music on there.

Two slightly different issues.

buntyman

SD cards aren't ideal though. Aren't they a bit slower and more likely to go wrong? That's certainly the case with my Sansa Clip mp3 player. It's good to have that option to upgrade memory but a good stock of internal gigabytes is what i'd want primarily.

KLG-7A

You don't need speed for music (or apps really) and does the reliability really matter? Stick it in your PC and back it up every week if you're worried.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

I did some animation on an advert for the new Samsung one. Y'all should buy that, maybe.

Quote from: buntyman on June 05, 2012, 05:49:05 PMAren't they a bit slower ...?

They come in different speed ratings, with the fastest being a bit more expensive. My Class 10 one still isn't as quick as transferring tunes directly to my phones internal memory though. Probably 'cos the data has to go through a software buffer before it gets to the card.

mcbpete

Quote from: MojoJojo on June 04, 2012, 09:48:50 PM
Yes, this is annoying the hell out of me too. Even with a custom firmware, I'm struggling with app space.
If you've got cyanogenmod look into getting the app s2e - It puts all the system gubbins (not sure the technical term) into a partition on your sd card freeing up loads of space. Even with over 150 applications on my Desire (including biggies like Skype), I still have over 50meg storage left.

Replies From View

Quote from: buntyman on June 04, 2012, 03:24:44 PM
  • Provide at least a day of battery life

It depends how intensively you use your phone.  I've managed to keep my internet usage down, and limit things like continuous push notifications, so that I'm now getting at least one day per charge.  That still sounds completely mad, though.  I recently bought one of these portable chargers (currently half price):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Trent-IMP1000-Thunderbolt-Blackberry/dp/B004CHMP50

...and it's been fantastic.  After being charged overnight, it'll easily give my smartphone a full four charges, at a speed not vastly different from charging the phone from the mains, before it needs to be charged again.  So stick it in your bag with the relevant wires (it has a USB slot so you can use your normal charging wire or the adapter thing supplied) and you're sorted.

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on June 03, 2012, 06:49:26 PM
I'm coming to the end of my contract soon and am having a gander at the sort of phones that are available. I've got an HTC Desire HD at the moment, but I can't for the life of me figure out if there's one which is *better* than it (apart from the Samsung Galaxy S 3, I presume).

I came to the same conclusion a few weeks back (highlighted in the unforgettable GiffGaff thread). Until they produce a must have app, linking your phone up to your TV to use as a games console say, that needs the Quadcore processor then I`m sticking with my HD.
The way I look at it my HD does 90% of what a SGS3 does. The SGS3 has a better camera but I wouldn`t take out a 36 quid a month contract over 2 years for a new camcorder/camera. At the moment GiffGaff seems to be working just fine and if I start to use my work mobile for more calls I`ll get away with paying 10 pounds a month.

KLG-7A


Famous Mortimer

I might as well cancel the contract with Orange when it runs out, and go with GiffGaff, and keep the same phone until I see something interesting and new. But that stupid fucking exploding cake which seems to sponsor every show on E4 has turned me off them.


shiftwork2

I have an HTC Desire too and I completely agree with the point about poor internal memory.  It's true that most apps can be transferred to the SD card but some can't and those that can lose widget functionality.  However I can't see any other reason to change it.  The battery is as healthy as when I bought it and there have really been no changes in smartphones other than minor incremental hardware improvements in the past two years have there?  A new phone can't actually do anything that my 'old' phone can't do.  So I'll hang on and enjoy saving £18 per month.  Upgrading every two years really is bananas.

Replies From View

I had an HTC Hero for two years.  It was perfect and I had no plans to change it for anything else, when all of a sudden, about a month before my contract was due to end, it started becoming unbearably laggy.  It also stopped being able to connect with my Google mail and various other applications.  I didn't know if it had somehow contracted malware, or if the problem was something else, but when the contract ended it seemed simpler just to get a different phone.

I've often wondered briefly whether companies code lifespans into computer devices.  It would be pretty easy to do, I'd imagine, but also it seems a bit nuts to suggest it.

MojoJojo

Quote from: Replies From View on June 07, 2012, 09:57:35 AM
I've often wondered briefly whether companies code lifespans into computer devices.  It would be pretty easy to do, I'd imagine, but also it seems a bit nuts to suggest it.

From my experience working for Qualcomm, they didn't. Although the handset manufacturers might have added it on, I suppose. They'd obviously want to keep it secret, but it's pretty hard to see how they could have.

The networks could probably send some update out or something to do it, but they don't have any incentive too; they'd much prefer it if you just sat on your contract without getting a new phone.

Ferro Carril

Quote from: mcbpete on June 05, 2012, 10:28:08 PM
If you've got cyanogenmod look into getting the app s2e - It puts all the system gubbins (not sure the technical term) into a partition on your sd card freeing up loads of space. Even with over 150 applications on my Desire (including biggies like Skype), I still have over 50meg storage left.

Me gusta mucho, compay.

I was just about to 'update' to an S3 or some shit, just for the sake of it, and because I've been tired of the ridiculous app limitations on the Desire. This has given it a new lease of life. GiffGaff for a while until someone makes a game-changer or this shits the bed, gringo.

Hobes

Carphone Warehouse have got the HTC one s on a 24 month (Talktalk/Vodafone) contract for £16 a month 200 mins, 300 texts and unlimited data. The phone gets good reviews too.

Might go with this and use the remains of the budget to pay for Spotify to make up for the lack of expandable SD memory. Thoughts?

MojoJojo

Quote from: Ferro Carril on June 07, 2012, 04:54:10 PM
Me gusta mucho, compay.

I was just about to 'update' to an S3 or some shit, just for the sake of it, and because I've been tired of the ridiculous app limitations on the Desire. This has given it a new lease of life. GiffGaff for a while until someone makes a game-changer or this shits the bed, gringo.

I say thanks too. Although it was a massive pain in the arse to get a ext3 partition on my sd card, as clockwork wouldn't do it (I don't know why), and I'm on a Mac and am too lazy to get up and use my windows pc. Luckily I already have an Ubuntu virtual box set up.

VegaLA

Quote from: Replies From View on June 07, 2012, 09:57:35 AM

I've often wondered briefly whether companies code lifespans into computer devices.  It would be pretty easy to do, I'd imagine, but also it seems a bit nuts to suggest it.

Yes! I've often wondered if certain devices know that their replacement was on the cards and started shutting themselves down. "Time to die!"

My contract is due and I spent a little time with the Nokia Lumina 900 and it is a nice little phone. Very sleek actually. The Windows OS is fluid to use but is overshadowed by the other 2 frontrunners. I would get it, but it is not available on my service provider and the other 3 companies are pretty pants compared to Verizon, so I really want to stay with them, particulary now that they are leading in the 4G race.

I also got to play with the Sammy Galaxy III which is available on my SP and looks like it may get my money. I'll see how my Moto Droid X behaves between now and July 9TH as I told myself i'd give it a 3 year lifespan but you know how it is....

QuoteQuote from: Famous Mortimer on 03 June 2012, 18:49:26
I'm coming to the end of my contract soon and am having a gander at the sort of phones that are available. I've got an HTC Desire HD at the moment, but I can't for the life of me figure out if there's one which is *better* than it (apart from the Samsung Galaxy S 3, I presume).

I came to the same conclusion a few weeks back (highlighted in the unforgettable GiffGaff thread). Until they produce a must have app, linking your phone up to your TV to use as a games console say, that needs the Quadcore processor then I`m sticking with my HD.
The way I look at it my HD does 90% of what a SGS3 does. The SGS3 has a better camera but I wouldn`t take out a 36 quid a month contract over 2 years for a new camcorder/camera. At the moment GiffGaff seems to be working just fine and if I start to use my work mobile for more calls I`ll get away with paying 10 pounds a month.


You could spruce it up with a new ROM. I was using Virtuous Quattro until it got discontinued and I switched to IceColdSandwich on the Desire HD:



No lags in the menu's. Chrome browser can be slightly laggy on complicated pages. The way I see it, it's not essential to have a multi-core Android phone until the next version of the O/S comes out. That could be another six months away at least and the HTC One series will have come down in price a lot by then.

Replies From View

Quote from: Too Many Cochranes on June 11, 2012, 06:38:37 PM
You could spruce it up with a new ROM. I was using Virtuous Quattro until it got discontinued and I switched to IceColdSandwich on the Desire HD:



All these stupid names for different operating systems.

I liked it when it was 3, 3.1, 3.11 for Workgroups, 95, 98, 2000.  And I don't know when the Windows numbers kicked back in, but 7, 8... yep, get it.

I have an oldish Macbook Pro and the operating system is called Leopard.  Then came Snow Leopard and now they're on Lion, or something.  Just... why?  What's the hierarchy and why can't they make the progression clearer?

So now with Android phones it's IceColdSandwich, which I presume is a progression from IceCreamSandwich which I heard some bores talking about on youtube a while back.  It's all silly and very rubbish.

Well, you're kind of right. Ice Cream Sandwich is the official name for Android 4 (currently updated to 4.0.4). When Android 5 comes out it'll likely have another silly name based on a sticky foodstuff.

IceColdSandwich is one of the many unofficial ports of Ice Cream Sandwich. i.e. developed by coders on the internet from the source code of Ice Cream Sandwich and made to work faster and more efficiently.