Entertainment For Lively Minds
Consumer advice needed
Posted by Andy Mackenzie on 24 February 2011 - 12:43pm.
It's coming up to phone upgrade time. A small holiday in our house where gifts of hand me down phones are passed around the family (except for me and my shiny new one). My problem (and it is a very tiny problem) is I really can't decide. I've had enough of Nokia and fancy a change. I've boiled it down to a choice between Android and Iphone. So if Android, which model? and if Iphone, Why? I throw myself on the wisdom of the collective genius known as The Massive.
- More from Andy Mackenzie.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Swings and roundabouts
iPhone – more polish, a better ecosystem but more expensive.
Android – less polish, fewer apps, but cheaper and much more flexible.
Personally, I'm very happy with my HTC Desire. But I won't use the opportunity to take cheap shots at the iPhone because they're very good.
HTC
I lost my Sony phone and while it was good when I came to get a new one they didn't make that model anymore. So plumped for HTC and it's really good. Very easy to use.
Jobs worth
If you can afford it go for the iPhone
Buy it from Apple and it will be unlocked. You are then free to get a good sim only deal...........I am with Tesco - £10 a month, unlimited txts, 500 minutes, 1 jig a what of download thingy and no nasty 18 or 24 month contract.
What??!!!?
You can't get a plan for an iPhone for much under $100 a month here. Mind you, you can by an iPhone 3GS for $49.00.
You've misunderstood
The poster bought an iPhone from Apple then put in a SIM from Tesco for £10 a month. Can't you do that sort of thing in the US?
http://phone-shop.tesco.com/mobile-phones-and-sim-cards/sim-cards/sim-ca...
I think I understood.
To answer your question, no.
Well, you could. You could spend $600 or so on a new iPhone from the Apple store, then go to one of those shady cell phone stores hidden away at the far end of the strip mall and pay $15 to have it unlocked. Then you could go to a T-Mobile store and buy a plan with a free phone, throw the free phone away and put your SIM card into your new iPhone. You could get a plan for around $35 a month through T-Mobile but this won't give you e-mail or internet access and texts would be charged individually at a much higher rate. You could just buy an iPhone from AT&T for around $199 but it'll cost you about $80 a month even for the most basic iPhone plan. For an unlimited everything plan, be prepared to spend around $130 a month (that's almost a car payment).
Alternatively, you could buy a Verizon iPhone from the Verizon store for around $200 but because it's a "smartphone" you have to have a "data plan" and that's going to cost you about $25 a month on top of your standard phone plan.
Technology, eh? Ain't it wonderful.
Yes
Moving from the UK to the US, I've been amazed at how expensive phone plans are over here. Even the "pay as you go" plans are outrageous.
To quote Marc Bolan...
... "It's a rip off!"
Must admit
I'm tempted by the HTC, and it's at least a 20 quid a month cheaper on contract. Decisions decisions.
One more thing
Not particularly surprising, but the phones running Android play very nicely with Google services. If you use Google web services a lot (especially calendar and email), it's very convenient because the synchronisation between web and phone is really good.
(I will add that I've no experience of any other email client than the Android Gmail one.)
i'm with brookster on this...
in fact, it's bloody scary how much syncing goes on in the background...I've got a HTC desire, as of last week. I took the sim card from my old phone with contacts stored thereon. Slapped it into the HTC desire and switched it on. During set up it asked if i wanted to set up Facebook on the phone. I did.
Next thing, I imported my contacts, at which point, basically, most all my contacts, facebook mates and so forth are all joined up. All the birthdays of these people are also stored in my calendar.
There's other cool things, like Cabbage which allows you to send webtexts thru the phone, easy switching on/off of live net connection or home wifi, the joy of Swyping and so forth.
Certainly there are more applications out there on iPhone, but I think android will catch up.
My Android phone has
found my Palm contacts---and I'm still not quite sure how it did it ...
I remember the days when it was hard to transfer stuff ;-)
That was me too
iPhone is very nice I'm sure, but got an HTC Desire because overall cost was soooo much less.
It's a really nice phone - there may be less apps, but there's still more than any sane person could ever require. Native features are great, camera capable of taking usable pictures, a joy to use etc etc.
Samsung Galaxy S
I've had one of these for several months now (Tesco mobile, free, £30pm). I'm a Mac person and, while I can't fault the phone for looks, camera, apps etc, it disappoints as a media player. It just won't play nice with iTunes and I do want it to.
At the end of the contract, it'll be iPhone all the way, baby. Lock me into your walled garden, Steve; it's nice here.
But
that's not the fault of the phone; it's the policy of Apple.
Apple have gone to great lengths to prevent third-party products using iTunes.
I apportion no blame.
It just doesn't do what I would like it to.
And so they should.
Once they open up the closed ecosystem to 'outsiders', then they lose the guarantee that everything will work together seamlessly.
Explain
When the Palm Pre came out, you could sync it with iTunes. But this was nothing to do with Apple (presumably Palm reversed engineered it) so they had no responsibility: rather Palm did. But they went to great lengths to prevent this from working.
I gather Palm had illegally used some proprietary Apple code
to make their device appear as an iPod to the connected Mac. Once Apple found out then Palm had to remove the illegal code.
They didn't use Apple code
The Pre was set up in a way that iTunes thought it was an Apple device.
Just had a furtle...
"When you select “Media Sync” on the Pre, it will switch its USB interface to use Apple’s Vendor Id and the Product Id for a specific iPod model"
So it was pretending to be an iPod by using Apple's USB vendor ID. That's a bit naughty. No wonder the USBIF told them to stop.
as a matter of interest, why do you need it to play
nice, specifically, with iTunes. I'm only curious about this, not spoiling for a fight!
I appreciate that, y'know, smart playlists might be an issue, but but perhaps there's a Mediamonkey/Winamp option out there?
I get the point that there's an Apple aesthetic, and if iTunes is the default player on your laptop, you'd like to be using it on the move as well. Like I say, I'm just curious...
All about the playlists
You're right, it's smart playlists, play counts and that sort of nerdy stuff.
I've tried a couple of apps to bridge the gap. DoubleTwist Player claims to sync metadata but I've not got it to work properly. I needs me my stats!
I bought an imac..
..because I got an iphone.
When google come up with a phone and computer that work so seamlessly together I may look at it,
(Providing they ditch the dweeb name)
If you keep your stuff in Google
..it defines seamless. Lose your phone? No problem, buy a new one, log on to Google, and bang, all your contacts, calendar, mail and etc. All in the cloud, innit?
I haven't needed to hook my phone up to anything (it's an HTC Evo)
Xperia X10
I've got a Sony Xperia X10, which I thinks is great. I wouldn't get one right now though as the next model will be along pretty soon, which means they're stopping this one at Android 2.1 (2.2 is already out on some handsets). I'll definately be getting the next Xperia model when my upgrade is due though!
Buy an Android..
..if you want something that has been named purely to appeal to ageing space-nerds.
They would have named it the C3PO if they could have got away with it.
(I'm sure it's a fine product)
For Swype alone.......Android
I had a choice between the iPhone and the Desire - plumping for the HTC gave me more than double the minutes and double the data for £7 less a month. It was a no-brainer. Terrific handset and my recent discovery of Swype has me thanking my lucky stars I didn't take Steve Jobs' shilling.
Oh yes
Swype is a major plus!
"Steve Jobs' shilling"?.....
..no you took someone else's.
Choose whatever phone you want, but not buying an iphone doesn't make you any less of a corporate "victim" does it?
Oh I'm a paid-up conscript
Oh I'm a paid-up conscript already (Macbook and iPod), was commenting specifically on the iPhone. Fantastic bit of kit, but so's the Desire, which offered me more for less. When there's some parity, costwise, I may well go that route, but only if Swype is available for the iPhone!
Decide what you want ti use it for
As with any technology purchase you should decide what you want it to do before you buy. If the answer is "Makes some phone calls and browse the Internet" then you have a wide choice and they'll all perform pretty much the same out of the box.
If there are any particular apps that you want to run then you might find the platform choses itself (EG The Sonos remote on the iphone is much better than the unofficial Android one).
If you're not willing to put the effort in the set it all up then the iphone is the logical choice but you may run against brick walls later on.
If you want to run any office apps then in my opinion the best app is DocsToGo and the Android version is superior to the Iphone version, spreadsheet entry being a right pain on the iphone but easy on my HTC Desire.
Will you need access stuff on an FTP server? I can get at (and use if I have the right app) any file that's sitting on my NAS drive at home - I'm not sure that you can with an iphone but I'm happy to be corrected.
There are less apps for Android but I got mine in July and wanted an app like an iphone one I had but none existed, I downloaded the Android SDK and was going to write one myself but I checked again a couple of weeks ago and I had the choice of 4 that did just what I wanted so the pool is growing rapidly.
I'm currently asking myself exactly the same question.
The one additional bit I want answered is a simple and fairly fundamental one but also one which seems to be increasingly irrelevant. Not how good is the camera, how functional the touchscreen, how good the apps, how reliable the GPS, how stable the platform and OS, how large the memory and all the rest of it. No.
Does the phone bit work?
People now seem to carry two phones. An iPhone / Android and another one to talk to people with.
My wife's iPhone, on O2, is utter, utter shite for calls.
Fair point
I can only speak for the HTC Desire as it's the only smartphone I've ever owned.
In terms of signal and voice quality, it's fine. However, I find it takes an inordinate amount of time to find a contact and make a phone call. In addition, I carry my phone in a pouch on my belt and it's too easy to accidentally cut people off when I'm fishing it out.
I love my aging HTC Magic
and plan to upgrade to another HTC handset soon. Love the Android system, syncs brilliantly with my Google life, as others have mentioned.
No experience of the iphone, so I can't compare the two, all I can tell you is that I utterly love my Android phone.
that's the thing, innit, Hannah....
you realise how feckin' seamlessly all the other Google apps sync/link with the phone and with each other. Like I've said before, it's kinda scary, but it's bloody impressive!
Paranoid about Android
I have an HTC Hero, which I've had for about a year, but I'm reluctant to dip more than a toe into apps (although I'm loving the idea of Swype) in case my version of Android is too old.
Angry Birds, for example, runs as fast as an arthtritic auk.
How do I find out which Android my phone's got? And is it easy to discover which version is needed for a particular app?
(Apps aside, the HTC is lovely to use and I'll have another when the time comes.)
Go to
Settings > About Phone > Software Information
Thank you - one more thing
It lists Firmware, Baseband and Kernel versions, Build and Software numbers then Browser version - which one is Android, if you'd be so kind?
Ah!
On my phone, the Android version is the first on the list. I can only guess that the configuration on your phone is different.
SWYPE IS AMAZING
Thanks everyone for the heads up on Swype. Hadn't tried it before, downloaded it today and... wow. Didn't realise that it was possible to love my phone any more than I already did, but apparently it is.
If anyone else wants to try it, be aware that you can't download it from the market (it's a limited beta release).
Instead, you have to register here, and they'll send you a download link for your phone:
https://beta.swype.com/android/create/
Does it need 2.2 ?
I can upgrade the Blade if I get one but it won't be simple.
Right
Tomorrow I'm going to march into the T-mobile store and demand...um..um an HTC...no an iPhone...no an HTC...Think I'm going to have to sleep on it. Thanks for all the info, definitely food for thought.
What are they like for email
What are they like for email though? Just had to replace my work blackberry with a nokia E5 and what a needy shitbag of a device it is. I email and phone, that is all.
What kind of email
do you need to pick up? Do you need to connect to an Exchange server or are you using something like Gmail?
Its an exchange server. For
Its an exchange server. For some reason my work have stopped using blackberries, which I really like.
In that case
The answer is I don't know. (I mean I know it's possible, but I don't know how good it is.)
I think it syncs okay with Exchange
I deliberately DON'T pick up work email on it, but I'm told it can do it. Gmail syncing is set up on it almost out of the box. As alluded to in the 'favourite android apps' thread, having the data connection, or Wifi connection on ALL THE TIME will utterly cane your battery. One thing that Nokia have nailed down is efficient battery usage. Of course, you have to bear in mind that this is a phone with a full sized screen that lights up!
The Needy S***bags,
TMFTL ...
Anyway, being an ageing space nerd as mentioned above, I have more or less decided, after much angst and faff (http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/an-austerity-android)
and some v helpful advice from the Massive, to go for the Austerity Android option---the ZTE Blade,
http://android.modaco.com/category/453/zte-blade-blade-modaco-com/
better known here as the Orange San Francisco.
This is 'cos i) I can get a few quid off as I was briefly an Orange PAYG user and still have a live SIM, they are ii) easy to unlock, and iii) giffgaff seem to have finally stabilised what their data PAYG offering will be http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Blog/Data-pricing-update/ba-p/429379
So one can dip ones toes in the Android water as it were, and get a useable Squeezebox controller (I hope), for not too much cash.
Wish me luck ...
The Orange San Francisco
got a favourable review in The Register.
Well i bought one
so let's hope it's the droid i am looking for ...
gets hooded cape ...
Caveat Emptor
Best review I saw said 2/3 of a Nexus One for 1/3 the price ...
After a week's use I think that may not be an exaggeration. Main deficiencies are the size (actually a plus but a bit small for typing), and the 2.1 which is fixable if you mod it. I think the processor can't support Flash, which is currently a prob for iPlayer app etc ?
Most impressed.
[edit: Only serious thing to beware of, afaik, is the wifi. This does seem to be temperamental, and while it is fine in my flat with the Speedtouch, and out and about so far, it won't connect to the FPO's Thomson router. The wifi fix app doesn't help here. There's a lot on the web about this, it sounds as if one of the 2.2 ROMS available through the modaco pages might do the trick.
But it does sound as if you'd be well advised to test it on all the most likely wifi nodes that you might need before unlocking it---and that you may expect hassle if you want to take it back to some Orange branches based on some web comments. Mine is sufficiently good that I won't be doing that, an unlocked Android for 100 quid plus ten pounds a month on giffgaff seems a good deal overall.]
My HTC
got upgraded from Android 2.1 to 2.2 and Flash Player is noticeably better.
A decision has been made
Went down to the T mobile store today and came home with an HTC Desire HD. Now I need to put aside the whole weekend to figure out how to set it all up! Thanks for all the advice.
if it's anything like the bog standard htc Desire
and you have a gmail email account, you'll find that once you've a 'net connection (wifi or using your normal carrier) a hell of a lot of setting up has been done!
Would be interested to know
what sort of deal.
Sooner or later I will get a fancier phone and I am curious what sort of deal people find reasonable.