Which Smart Phone?

[Xunil]

Here, presented for your amusement, are just some of the iPhone whines I have had to deal with from my clients over the last few years (ignoring battery life) listed almost word for word as they were spoken:

1. here's my iPhone on O2, here's my iPad on O2, here's my HTC HD7 on O2, why the @*&# do the iPad and HTC have full signal strength and the iPhone has one sodding bar that regularly drops to nothing ?
2. what do you mean if I hold the phone like that it will drop my call ?
3. what do you mean Apple suggest I use a rubber bumper to boost the phone's crappy signal ?
4. what do you mean I can't use a personalised ring tone unless I hack the phone ?
5. what do you mean the iPhone (through iTunes) is one way synchronise only ?
6. what do you mean I can't explore the iPhone in Windows and simply drag and drop files and music ?
7. what do you mean it doesn't, in fact, offer the native support for Exchange it said it did ?
8. what do you mean Apple suggest I update the phone because the alarm didn't work from January this year ?
9. what do you mean I now have 7 copies of each contact in my Exchange contacts list because I updated either (or both) iTunes and/or iPhone software, like Apple said I should ?

And lastly, my overall favourite, from the MD of a very prominent company which was said with great vigour, beet red colouring, bulging eyes and quite simply, was:

"WHAT !?!?!"

I really like the idea of the iPhone. I just don't like the reality, but you have to hand it to Apple; they can market and sell absolutely anything. The iPhone is proof of that, and I now quite a few agents who are refusing to handle them due to their various 'idiosyncrasies'.

 

[tobes01]

OK, got to pitch in here! I'm a tecco by background, had Blackberries, Symbian, Android phones, often two at once, but I keep coming back to iPhone. Disclaimer: I've also been a Mac user since the mid-90s (as well as PCs).

This is about the different ethos that Apple apply to all their products: if you want to hack around, Apple isn't for you. They intentionally lock the interface, software and hardware down so that you either accept their (great) way of doing things or you go elsewhere. I really like Android, but I just couldn't get used to the interface. I didn't like having to manage apps in order to control battery life, I didn't like the highly variable app quality, I didn't like 'seeing' the innards when it occasionally crashed. That said, the home screen, customisation, flexibility of Android is unbeatable. I can't be bothered with jailbreaking iPhones since it becomes so difficult to keep the software up to date.

For my money: unless you're 16 years old and hooked on Blackberry Messenger, or your company is running BES, forget the Blackberry (I fell out of love with Blackberry as their competitors' Exchange clients got better and better, and the availability of Android and Apple apps did for Blackberry for me).

If you are an Apple user, or are happy to accept the experience as presented, rather than wanting to hack around, go for the iPhone.

If you are a PC user, want to be able to tweak every aspect of your phone, or you enjoy lifting the bonnet to muck about, go with Android (and yes, I suspect Android will win the market). For my money I'd get either the Nexus S (guaranteed to have latest version of Android as it becomes available) or the HTC Desire S (a good tried and tested all-rounder). The Galaxy is going cheap because the Galaxy II is out any day now.

Now, back to playing with my iPhone

 

[widu13]

I was a win mobile chap for many years until the Win 7 models when they stopped supporting memory cards which is when I stopped supporting M$ phones! I now run a HTC Desire on Android and I find Android quite good. I'm impressed with the phone but each owner will sing the praises of their own phone. However, I use a free mapping app on Android called Maverick. It uses Multimap OS maps down to 25k which are downloaded into the phone so it uses data, but here's the best bit...unlike a lot of phones it stores the downloaded maps so you can download them where you have a signal and use for free later without having to worry about a signal. A warning tho...if you use it with you GPS on ALL of the time battery life is only about 6 hrs. I take intermittent readings and it lasts 2 days.

 

[rik_uk3]

I was a win mobile chap for many years until the Win 7 models when they stopped supporting memory cards which is when I stopped supporting M$ phones! I now run a HTC Desire on Android and I find Android quite good. I'm impressed with the phone but each owner will sing the praises of their own phone. However, I use a free mapping app on Android called Maverick. It uses Multimap OS maps down to 25k which are downloaded into the phone so it uses data, but here's the best bit...unlike a lot of phones it stores the downloaded maps so you can download them where you have a signal and use for free later without having to worry about a signal. A warning tho...if you use it with you GPS on ALL of the time battery life is only about 6 hrs. I take intermittent readings and it lasts 2 days.

Its not hard to upgrade the memory in the HD7 phone it takes about five minutes.

Apple have a fantastic image but in reality they are way overpriced, very much so with computers/laptops when you bear in mind that they to use pretty much bog standard bits and peices, same as in a PC. For the price of a mac lappy you can have a very fast PC AND a laptop, better performance, W7 (as good as ios) and with simple security put in place you have a safe system.

And yet the apple fanboys ( or the ***** off the gadget show) won't have it, they must be the most loyal consumers in the world because they won't face facts, won't admit macs are no longer the best for graphics, won't admit the components are not better than a PC and are still convinced macs last longer when in reality they don't, they still break down; and its the same story with iPhones.

That said we should all thank Apple for the iphone, without it we may well not have the Android phones we have today,,, Thank you Mr Jobs. I'm looking forward to see how Nokia get on when they start launching Windows based phones in October.

 

[nunzionuk]

I am waiting for the new nokia's, my N8 has a lovely camera and ovimaps is as good as any satnav i have used, but the rest of it is the let down.

 

[comeonbabylightmyfire]

I love seeing the wrath caused by an Apple debate. Rarely do our passions become so inflamed.

Yours smugly,

Fanboy (*****)

 

[Woodcutter]

If you don't want to worry about being hacked into, constantly having to reboot, freezing up, and generally playing catch up, also want the original idea rather than a copied idea then just get an IPhone. Yes, I agree Apple products are a little over priced, but thats because they can afford to be, they work, I will never own another windows based PC again in my life, nor any phone other than an Iphone.

People slag them off because they havn't got one, or don't want to appear to be following the crowd. There is a reason they have a strong following, thats because they work out of the box, as do all Apple products. There is no other company bringing out anything new, they all just keep trying to catch up with Apple.

Just my oppinion of course.

 

[dj77]

I have always preferred Sony Ericsson phones as they seemed to provide all the things I needed from a phone. I always thought iPhones were all user generated hype 'a members only society' that was until I bought the iPhone 4 I can honestly say it is the best phone I have ever owned. 59 pence to £5.99 apps as opposed to £15 to £60. It never freezes or crashes, regular updates always keep you ahead of the game. I can create websites and upload them, make alterations to pages directly on my server all from something that is always with me - fantastic!!

No connection just infatuated lol

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[PaulSanderson]

Blackberry for me. Im on me 3rd in 5 years!...everything else just seems like a toy really. AND there is a Blackberry Bushcraft group :O) take a pic, send it to the group and POW a plant I.D from some very knowledgeable folk...oh and the banter is great too.

GPS works really well, 5 meg camera, decent interface and a great comms device to boot...not just an iPod with a phone in it...just my 2 pence worth.

 

[The Cumbrian]

I've gone for the Galaxy in the end. When I went to the shop to have a look at my choices and the three lads in there all pulled out their Galaxy's to show me the mapping Apps that they had installed, and told me how happy they were with them I went for that.

Thanks for everything chaps,

Michael.

 

[Allybally]

Samsung Galaxy sort out the battery life by only using wifi gps etc as you need it download google maps etc
I'm an environmental technician and use it every day for work geotagging photos, taking grid refrences (not used my garmin since getting the phone\!) email the pics back to office, open excel word etc, rubber case, been soaked in my waders, dropped it from a tree still works and you can download po....... oops

 

[pjk1986]

iphone all the way! There are a few downsides which everyone knows about... they break quite easily when dropped (get a decent case!) and battery life if used a lot can be poor... but then most smart phones are the same...
I will be getting a blackberry for work soon so will be able to make a direct comparison.. many of my friends have moved from BB to iphone... They are just so slick, regular updates, great screen, decent camera, massive range of apps at reasonable costs and so on!!

 

[Rebel]

I've gone for the Galaxy in the end. When I went to the shop to have a look at my choices and the three lads in there all pulled out their Galaxy's to show me the mapping Apps that they had installed, and told me how happy they were with them I went for that.

Thanks for everything chaps,

Michael.

With regards to mapping apps on Android I did mention some in this thread: http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=67235&p=849261#post849261

Hope it helps.

 

[Rebel]

With regards to poor battery life, this seems to be common to just about all smartphones, even the glorious iPhone whose battery can't be exchanged (unlike many other brands).

I found various things that suck the life out of your battery. The worst is mapping apps using GPS, these will suck your battery dry in no time. Many of them like to keep the screen constantly on too, for obvious reasons, further draining your battery. WiFi uses a fair amount of battery power and so does your screen.

One thing I noticed is that if I'm in an area with poor reception for a long period of time the battery drains much quicker than in an area with good reception. In fact it has a huge effect on the battery life of my phone. So if you find yourself in an area with little reception make sure first the WiFi is off, then switch off the Internet if you can do without it and this should save quite a bit of power. If reception is bad Internet will be pretty useless to you anyway and if there is no WiFi that you can connect to then you don't need it on. I often toggle WiFi on and off as I need it, for example on at home, off when I go out.

I got fed up worrying about my battery running out, I got the phone to enjoy not to keep switching stuff off, so I bought a PowerMonkey eXplorer to charge it up while out and about. Now I just let everything run and plug in my PowerMonkey if it runs out of juice.