Smart phone

[Peegee]

What do I have to consider when deciding to switch from mobile to smart phone? A few facts about my phone habits:

- I don't use the phone a lot, and almost always at night
- I have unlimited incoming and so most of my call time is spent receiving calls or #1
- I like to text but nobody to text with, so even with unlimited texting plan I don't use it enough
- I am only thinking about using a smart phone for internet use but...

and here's the question - even with a phone that has wifi ability I don't run into wifi often - and I usually sleep during my commute anyway so I wouldn't use the internet. So regardless of my data plan I would only use the internet as a whim (oh google maps, oh wikipedia for obscure references)

I don't think a smart phone would be cost effective but it's just 25 $ more per month thanks to corporate plan. (35$ per month) wat do?

[o_O]

These days there's not really a hell of a lot of separation between phones and smartphones, aside from a smartphone sporting an operating system that's a more "polished" and feature-rich version of that which you'd find on a regular phone. You should probably be ok with touch screens, though you can get a lot of nice smartphones with keyboards.

You can expect a smartphone to have an XHTML web browser and many come with office suites for reading word docs/excel spreadsheets, etc. A lot of them will come with GPS software and GPS services from the manufacturer. Be careful with apps like Google maps, as they'll sometimes connect automatically to your provider's data network, causing large amounts of data traffic and large amounts of dollars to be charged to you.

You'll have to choose between the five main Smartphone OSes and a few smaller ones:
- Symbian (Nokias)
- iPhone OS
- Windows Mobile (Some HTC devices, Palm devices)
- RIM OS (Blackberries)
- Android (Some HTC devices, Google's phone)
- Others (Samsungs, LGs, a few others)

I can tell you from experience, unless you like being annoyed, avoid Windows Mobile. iPhone OS is awesome but is about as closed source and proprietary as you can get. RIM OS is good, but my favourite is Symbian. I haven't tried Android but I'll lay down some ends to say that it's pretty awesome. There's a new Dell device that looks pretty awesome; and Dell have a very nice history with handheld devices (improbable, I know). And I would definitely avoid the small fry OSes here; they just haven't been around long enough to compare to the bigger ones.

[Yar]

I text you sometimes.

idk it really matters how accessible is the Internet to you during any given moment in the day and how often do you need/want the Internet.

I use my phone's Internet a ton. Simply because I'm not home very often, my laptop is a pain to carry, and I can take my phone to work and write on Peegee's Facebook wall.


lmao you sound like such an old person. "what is this 'texting'. It sounds like something that should anger me..."

[Rostum]

Unless you're fanatical about iPhone and Apple products in general, go for the Samsung Galaxy S which runs Android.

Android seems to be a bit of a hit at the moment, and has a good market place. Being in the indie game developer scene it's definitely a platform that I'm keeping my eye on, but overall I hear great things.

[Peegee]

I'm on Telus, whatever that means to you people (it's big in the west coast, but I think Canada's west coast, not say, Oregan or California). Anyway this means I'll be on an Android OS phone. From what I can see (Rubahs, my friends), Android is awesome and has lots of fun apps.

If anything I'll get a phone just to have more toys. It's not as if the increase in price will kill me. I'd just prefer to have more access to wifi spots, rather than hope I don't go over my data plan for the month.

Which leads to me to another question - there's a fb app and there's other applications; they use the data plan if no wifi is available, right?

[rubah]

It's easy to forcibly disable mobile data usage on my phone, so I've done that

[Rye]

Honestly, except for the battery life and a big of difficulty with the texting (I hate touch screen texting), I absolutely love my iPhone.

[rubah]

rye--- slideIT

amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing (dunno if it's for ios yet though)

[Slothy]

If anything I'll get a phone just to have more toys. It's not as if the increase in price will kill me. I'd just prefer to have more access to wifi spots, rather than hope I don't go over my data plan for the month.

Which leads to me to another question - there's a fb app and there's other applications; they use the data plan if no wifi is available, right?

First, if you want access to plenty of wifi then move to Fredericton. Half the city is covered in a blanket of free wifi.

Also, most apps and programs will use your data plan if there's no wifi. Unless you turn them off that is, which I can do with the tap of a button on my HTC Hero. If I were you I'd try to get the HTC Desire if possible as it's newer and just a better phone than the Hero, and HTC's Android stuff is top notch. I didn't feel like waiting around for it to be in stock again when I got my phone a little over a week ago though (I'm with Telus as well by the way) and the Hero suited my needs just fine.

If you're ever worried about going over your data though, the very first app you should download is data counter widget. It tracks all of your wifi and mobile data use and is a tremendous provider of peace of mind, especially when you only have 100MB of data like me.

[Peegee]

I wonder what a good data plan is

also I'll have to switch providers. So I think what I can do is give my brother my phone [if they let me have two plans from two providers] plan, and if he wants a different phone he can get it himself [or switch it to his phone]

Minutes : 250 minutes
Unlimited Evenings & Weekends : 6pm to 7 am
Additional Minutes : $0.15 / minutes

Data (Email) transfer included with this plan : 500 MB
Additional MB :$0.03 per MB

___________________________
Monthly Fee : $49.00

Minutes : 400 minutes
Unlimited Evenings & Weekends : 6pm to 7 am
Additional Minutes : $0.10 / minutes

Data (Email) transfer included with this plan : 500 MB
Additional MB :$0.03 per MB

___________________________
Monthly Fee : $58.60

Both sound good. The second one might be excessive xD


edit whatever! I'm going to get the first plan

[Slothy]

I wonder what a good data plan is

Most people don't use more than 500MB. And when I say most people we're talking in the 90% range. If all you do is check some emails and browse a few websites here and there then you'll be fine. Start watching youtube videos every day and you'll run into problems.

[Rostum]

Honestly, the next big thing is going to be the Windows Phone 7 OS and Microsoft are really pushing it. It looks great, and if you're in to mobile gaming then it has direct intergration of Xbox Live. If not then it has heaps of other awesome features.

At the moment, the best looking WP7 phone is the Samsung Omnia 7.

[Peegee]

I wonder what a good data plan is

Most people don't use more than 500MB. And when I say most people we're talking in the 90% range. If all you do is check some emails and browse a few websites here and there then you'll be fine. Start watching youtube videos every day and you'll run into problems.

Yeah I'm expecting that my wikipedia browsing is insufficient to get over 500 MB but mostly I want to use google maps and youtube when I'm bored.

[Aerith's Knight]

I really like my HTC desire, but really that's the only one I know. One thing I can mention though, my phone's battery actually works for about 8 days without recharging. This includes calling and messaging, as long as you don't constantly have GPS on.

So I would recommend that battery at least, whatever it was.

[CommanderShepard]

It is a really interesting time for smart phones.

There are three major players in the smartphone world.

Apple iOS
Google Android
Palm webOS

We all know Apple and the iPhone. It's a great phone. Simple, top notch hardware, stupid fast and reliable. However, it is not the phone for everyone. Yes it has the most "apps" but there are a lot of shortcomings of iOS and Apple. Hardware diversity is terrible. Not everyone will love the glass screen, the 3.5" touch display (even though it is the most accurate), weak speakers, and new microSIM standard.

Google's Android has great hardware diversity. Google's Android has terrible app system because of it's hardware diversity. This is exactly the same problem Windows Mobile had. Granted Android is a great mobile system, but if you want to play games or use certain apps, forget about it. However, Android not quite "open" Operating System is the best when using Google services and doing simple things like...backing up the phone or accessing the file system.

Palm webOS is the latest and probably one of the most innovative mobile Operating System there is right now. Nothing can match its ergonomic use of their phone and software. You just have to use it and see the demos of Palm webOS devices. However, Palm was an independent company that had to skimp on things. Where they excelled in innovation and easy of use, they failed in marketing and hardware build. The devices aren't the best, however at their current prices, it's hard to beat. You can't lose on a webOS device but simple things like Soundhound, document editing, Camera apps are not there yet, but with HP buying Palm, 2011 is looking good as new hardware is coming and webOS 2.0 improves what is the best mobile operating system there is.

I can say that as a user of an iPhone 4, HTC Evo, Motorola Droid X, Samsung Epic 4G, Palm Pre Plus, and Palm Pixi Plus.

I have not had time with Windows Phone 7 devices, but I can tell you from experience from getting a Palm Pre that early adopting is exciting for hardcore geeks and not for the average user.

Choosing a smartphone now is getting harder and harder as CES 2011 is coming up and you have Apple's usual June announcement.

Just try out all the phone you can and try to come up with what you want.