Cell Phone OS Choices

There are also ways to get around most of the restrictions, as well. Like using the Skyfire browser when you want to watch flash videos.

I would get an android phone or iphone if I were you. You can always get the windows phone in a couple of years if it really becomes a true opponent to the iphone and android phones.

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]RSGZ wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:
Full disclosure, I know nothing about any other brand of smartphone, but the impression I get is that, for another couple of years, at least, Apple’s devices just have a LOT more options and versatility than any other smart-device out there. I honestly hope it does not remain that way for long because the bullshit software restrictions they place on a device that you own.
[/quote]

I think at present, Android is the most feature-packed phone OS. Apple does an incredibly good job with their hardware and marketing though, plus their products are always well ‘polished’.[/quote]

Are you guys talking about jailbroken vs non-jailbroken with respect to iPhone’s features? Because they are night and day. I have customized the living shit out of my iPhone, and there are quite literally hundreds, maybe thousands of programs, tweaks, utilities, games, apps, skins, boot logos and possibilities for individual customization that are ONLY available for jailbroken iPhones.

I would certainly admit that a non-jailbroken iPhone is going to get it’s ass kicked by the other smartphones, but a jailbroken iPhone is a beautiful thing. My brother does a lot of custom stuff and he has made some really cool stuff for my phone like a hippo slider bar (I love hippopotomi), customs carrier logos and all sorts of other stuff he’s put together with photoshop.

Also as far as jailbreaking voiding warranty, while they may be true, all you have to do is restore your iPhone and there is no evidence your phone was ever jailbroken (unless Apple wanted to pursue some very deep avenues, which they don’t).
[/quote]

Oh, no doubt you can customize the hell out of a Jailbroken iPhone, I used to have my 3G done. Only problem was it was horribly slow, and the springboard tended to crash a lot - I guess they’ve probably come a long way since then anyway.

Thing is, Android can do most of what a Jailbroken iPhone can without having to root it, Android just isn’t as smooth or rounded as iOS.

I love my iPhone 4, didn’t think I would.

Nokia Symbian whatever is a total piece of shit.

[quote]XanderBuilt wrote:
Nokia Symbian whatever is a total piece of shit.[/quote]

Yup, yet they sell twice as many as Apple and Google combined.

They have a strong reputation outside the US, I wonder how they are going to do with WP7 OS on their handsets - my guess is very well, because the hardware quality is already good - their biggest problem was good smartphone software.

The way things are advancing with smartphones (and smart-“computers” like the iPad and such), I am really excited when I start to think about things that are going to be available to us in a few years time. I am already really well connected with my family and friends back home with the communication programs that are out there like Skype, and I can watch all of the network/cable/satellite TV + DVD I want with Slingbox set up at my folks house. And about a million other things I could list. We live in exciting times, truly.

I often think of the TV Phone on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (c’mon, who’s with me? :wink: and then I think, we have that now! We live in the future, man!

[quote]Cortes wrote:
The way things are advancing with smartphones (and smart-“computers” like the iPad and such), I am really excited when I start to think about things that are going to be available to us in a few years time. I am already really well connected with my family and friends back home with the communication programs that are out there like Skype, and I can watch all of the network/cable/satellite TV + DVD I want with Slingbox set up at my folks house. And about a million other things I could list. We live in exciting times, truly.

I often think of the TV Phone on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (c’mon, who’s with me? :wink: and then I think, we have that now! We live in the future, man![/quote]

Absolutely, technology is awesome and we’re living at the peak of it right now.

The options are endless right now.

[quote]Cortes wrote:

I often think of the TV Phone on Pee-Wee’s Playhouse (c’mon, who’s with me? :wink: and then I think, we have that now! We live in the future, man![/quote]

I was really expecting a porn comment here.

Price wise the Win7 phone is the most likely option, so RSGZ I am coming to you for help if I go that direction.

This will be my first smartphone and have no idea how much usage I will need. AT&T does not offer unlimited, but you can get 200m or 2g for less than Verizon’s unlimited plan. AT&T claim 65% of users use less than the former, 98% less than the latter.

I am not someone who will be posting lots of pictures or videos online from my phone, or even pulling music off pandora - mostly email, websites and text based documents being read there, though that would include kindle/library ebooks & audio books - do I need to worry about my usage (so the 200m should be good enough)? To be honest, I would not mind pulling the ebooks to my computer and moving them to my phone if that was a potential issue.

I imagine my wife would use the phone for email or checking Facebook, maybe some light banking, but that’s it. I expect to go with the 200m for her.

Any suggestions?

[quote]RSGZ wrote:
The whole ecosystem that MS is building is great - one account for your 360, PC and phone which works across all the platforms in terms of music (Zune on your phone, PC and 360 and it’s a good media player) and functionality.
[/quote]

My question then if I am pulling my music from the cloud then my usage would go way up, at least much higher than if the music was physically on my phone, right?

[quote]RSGZ wrote:

[quote]XanderBuilt wrote:
Nokia Symbian whatever is a total piece of shit.[/quote]

Yup, yet they sell twice as many as Apple and Google combined.
[/quote]
If you’ve never used one. It’s like saying the metric system is a piece of shit. I see your point, but learning to use it isn’t hard, the N8 hardware wipes the floor with iphones and androids, you can connect flash drives, terabytes of external harddrives, memory cards (unlike the iphone, no?), USB keyboards, HDMI devices, read docx files, send music to your car radio and a lot more. And take stunning pics with the greatest phone camera of all time. For half the price of an iphone. You can buy an N8, an ipod touch and some anaconda for less than the price of an iphone. best of all worlds.

But if you want to read books, Tex, iBooks with the retina display works great, despite the small screen. For young eyes at least.

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:

[quote]RSGZ wrote:
The whole ecosystem that MS is building is great - one account for your 360, PC and phone which works across all the platforms in terms of music (Zune on your phone, PC and 360 and it’s a good media player) and functionality.
[/quote]

My question then if I am pulling my music from the cloud then my usage would go way up, at least much higher than if the music was physically on my phone, right?[/quote]

Much , much higher. Ever since I started using Pandora for my workouts, my data usage skyrocketed. My billing cycle ends April 8th and I already used 1.26 gigs.

i have the first generation droid phone by motorola for verizon. for everything OP described it will adequately perform those functions. It can open most MS office documents for viewing (editing is a bit trickier) and can open pdfs. I got the full function keyboard for easier typing and texting and using it is a breeze. there’s also a ton of free apps for the phone via the android app site and lots more coming.

the bad thing is the phone is like a computer u have to restart it every now and then and it gets laggy at times i’ve seen this with my roommates iphone 4 but not as often as my phone. since the android allows you to open multiple apps it can lag the phone performance. also the touch screen is not as good as the iphone 4 (as one would expect)…

overall though not as smooth as the iphone 4, the android holds its own against it… and android phones have the full qwerty keyboards.

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:

[quote]RSGZ wrote:
The whole ecosystem that MS is building is great - one account for your 360, PC and phone which works across all the platforms in terms of music (Zune on your phone, PC and 360 and it’s a good media player) and functionality.
[/quote]

My question then if I am pulling my music from the cloud then my usage would go way up, at least much higher than if the music was physically on my phone, right?[/quote]

Yes, but I tend to copy music over from my PC (you get wireless sync too).

If you were to get a Zune Pass ($10 a month, unlimited music), you can use your PC or Phone to download the music, but just make sure you phone is on wifi is you choose too.

I use my phone for browsing and email and I use about 250mb a month (I have a 500mb plan) - but that is frequent use for about 6 different email accounts too.

[quote]kakno wrote:

[quote]RSGZ wrote:

[quote]XanderBuilt wrote:
Nokia Symbian whatever is a total piece of shit.[/quote]

Yup, yet they sell twice as many as Apple and Google combined.
[/quote]
If you’ve never used one. It’s like saying the metric system is a piece of shit. I see your point, but learning to use it isn’t hard, the N8 hardware wipes the floor with iphones and androids, you can connect flash drives, terabytes of external harddrives, memory cards (unlike the iphone, no?), USB keyboards, HDMI devices, read docx files, send music to your car radio and a lot more. And take stunning pics with the greatest phone camera of all time. For half the price of an iphone. You can buy an N8, an ipod touch and some anaconda for less than the price of an iphone. best of all worlds.

But if you want to read books, Tex, iBooks with the retina display works great, despite the small screen. For young eyes at least.[/quote]

Oh, indeed - the N8 has pretty much every feature, I think the interface was the problem. Their hardware is top notch and I think they still have the best phone camera, as you mentioned. WP7 is going to be great for both companies, especially if Nokia shares it’s best features with the WP software.

[quote]Vinnie85 wrote:
i have the first generation droid phone by motorola for verizon. for everything OP described it will adequately perform those functions. It can open most MS office documents for viewing (editing is a bit trickier) and can open pdfs. I got the full function keyboard for easier typing and texting and using it is a breeze. there’s also a ton of free apps for the phone via the android app site and lots more coming.

the bad thing is the phone is like a computer u have to restart it every now and then and it gets laggy at times i’ve seen this with my roommates iphone 4 but not as often as my phone. since the android allows you to open multiple apps it can lag the phone performance. also the touch screen is not as good as the iphone 4 (as one would expect)…

overall though not as smooth as the iphone 4, the android holds its own against it… and android phones have the full qwerty keyboards. [/quote]

That’s one big bonus, that fact that you can choose to buy a slider phone with a hardware keyboard if you want - unlike with an iPhone.

I haven’t needed to reboot my phone before for is being too slow though, only on occasion when I’ve come across a bug. For me WP7 has had only 2 - one where one alarm will go off and double up as if 2 alarms are going off a once. Not a deal breaker, just annoying.

The other is where the phone loses all sound ability and you have to reboot - it’s happened to me only twice over 5 months (I’m hoping the latest updated fixed this issue).

[quote]RSGZ wrote:

[quote]XanderBuilt wrote:
Nokia Symbian whatever is a total piece of shit.[/quote]

Yup, yet they sell twice as many as Apple and Google combined.

They have a strong reputation outside the US, I wonder how they are going to do with WP7 OS on their handsets - my guess is very well, because the hardware quality is already good - their biggest problem was good smartphone software.[/quote]

Their camera is traditionally very good but working with S60, S80 etc (sound like Volvos haha) has been a pain. I know there’s 3rd Gen version of it - but I don’t know how good it was. I was just so frustrated with the N series phone I was ready to change for anything - thought about BB, HTC and Apple. Settled on Apple in the end.

[quote]XanderBuilt wrote:

[quote]RSGZ wrote:

[quote]XanderBuilt wrote:
Nokia Symbian whatever is a total piece of shit.[/quote]

Yup, yet they sell twice as many as Apple and Google combined.

They have a strong reputation outside the US, I wonder how they are going to do with WP7 OS on their handsets - my guess is very well, because the hardware quality is already good - their biggest problem was good smartphone software.[/quote]

Their camera is traditionally very good but working with S60, S80 etc (sound like Volvos haha) has been a pain. I know there’s 3rd Gen version of it - but I don’t know how good it was. I was just so frustrated with the N series phone I was ready to change for anything - thought about BB, HTC and Apple. Settled on Apple in the end.[/quote]

I think all of them have their faults and strengths, you just have to choose what suites you best.

[quote]RSGZ wrote:

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:

[quote]RSGZ wrote:
The whole ecosystem that MS is building is great - one account for your 360, PC and phone which works across all the platforms in terms of music (Zune on your phone, PC and 360 and it’s a good media player) and functionality.
[/quote]

My question then if I am pulling my music from the cloud then my usage would go way up, at least much higher than if the music was physically on my phone, right?[/quote]

Yes, but I tend to copy music over from my PC (you get wireless sync too).

If you were to get a Zune Pass ($10 a month, unlimited music), you can use your PC or Phone to download the music, but just make sure you phone is on wifi is you choose too.

I use my phone for browsing and email and I use about 250mb a month (I have a 500mb plan) - but that is frequent use for about 6 different email accounts too.

[/quote]

So wifi use does not count towards usage? Is that what you are saying? Cause if so I am glad my gym has free wifi.

[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
So wifi use does not count towards usage? Is that what you are saying? Cause if so I am glad my gym has free wifi.[/quote]

Yeah, it absolutely does not.

That’s why anytime I’m away from one I only use email and browsing. I can’t even imagine trying to download music here over 3G, it would take ages.