Hey there guys! The bad news: I had my HTC Hero stolen The good news: My insurance company couldn’t replace it so they gave me £331! Hence I’m in the market for a new phone and just wanted your advice. Basically, I want a smartphone, either on Android or IOS – don't know much about the new windows 7 phones. I'll get a 32GB MicroSD card to go with the phone if I get something without internal storage. What do we all think (bearing in mind my budget, I could probably add another £50 on, but I don’t want to if I don’t have to) Deploy opinions!
Andriod everytime for the Flash goodness HTC desire or Galaxy S would be my choice - although HTC have the Desire HD coming out soon
if your buying outright, i would seriously consider the Iphone, as expensive as it is, the one i had for 10days was amazing, (i just couldn't justify having to pay £45 per month for the contract, when i was paying only £22, which i managed to keep and upgrade to Galaxy S) As for my galaxy S, the phone and OS are great, only down fall IMO is lack of Camera Flash and the build quality just doesn't feel as good as the Iphone, ive managed to fling it across the room a couple of times cos its just so light... oh and gorilla glass ( bullcrap glass if you ask me) the new HTC HD is looking very good just wish i wasn't in such a rush to replace my 5800 i have no exp of the win7 phones , but would personaly wait untill at least mid of next year for them to fully tweak and getting working to comparitive level of the andriod and IOS software....
I've got a Hero at the moment. I really like it, but feel it is quite underpowered for the andorid platform. What did you think of android? If you wanted to stick with it, there's the HTC Desire which is highly rated.
Android Why? New 2.2 version supports flash. Open Source Some games on iphone are free on android, well i know one Angry Birds Some apps are amazing on Android and you vant get on iPhone, am talking about Tasker Iphone says it has video calling, but you must be on wifi!! Get with the 21st century apple Apps update over air, ie. no need for laptop to sync with. Android is the OS, as you know, so you have a choice of more handsets. Am getting my new HTC Desire HTC today, i think on play.com its about £480 I have no experience with Windows 7, but my mate has the the Desire, and his brother has the HD2 (windows 6.5 ), he said his is so much better, and was happy with the Desire. I guess you will have to play with the new Windows 7, or read loads of reviews. http://www.htc.com/uk/product/desirehd/overview.html Check the video out.
Also guy at work just got the Samsung Galaxy S (Android), so fast and clean. I currently have HTC Dream, really old now.
The Desire HD seems to have a MASSIVE screen, maybe too big even. I can't help thinking that it will kill the battery. Also, will likely be very expensive! Iphone 4 would be great, but it also seems like they are just out of my price range, I'm looking to buy a brand new phone through Ebay (covered by paypal so should be fine) Iphone 3gs - bit old now. HTC Desire is looking like a strong contender, they go for about £260 BNIB on ebay and I could smash a 32gb MicroSD card in there. Only problem is the battery life and signal both seem to attract criticism. Does anyone have real life, hands on experience of this? Galaxy S - went into the three shop the other day to take a look. The screen and software look great, but the actual hardware felt super plasticky, which I didn't like at all. I didn't know that there wasn't a flash either, thats a kicker, and one of the things that used to annoy me about my Hero. Desire Z - I am massively drawn towards this because of the physical keyboard - which I absolutely love. Its such a shame it seems to run on an 800mhz CPU instead of the 1Ghz Snapdragon in the Desire. I wonder what effect this will have on performance, plus the launch price is £430 sim free. Speaking of which. Yes Edwards, I thought the Heros 528Mhz CPU was very underpowered when running Android, it often froze for a few seconds or got sluggish when viewing photos etc. Also, I thought the signal wasn't as good as my old Nokia. EDIT: Also, yes, W7 Phones are new, and I believe there will a total lack of good apps for the first few months at least.
i own the desire and cant say ive had a signal issue. battery life is average for smart phones and usually the complaints are from people who leave wi-fi, 3G, blue-tooth and GPS enabled 24/7 and that will defo kill your battery in less than a day. i usually have 3G on unless im in the office then i have wi-fi on instead id say with several phone calls a day too and receiving emails all day i can go for 2 days before charge. Iphone 4 is a pile of shite - for a start those signal issues which you have to have a protective cover to have a work around. pffft it should just work not include compuslary accessorys. crashes ans call drops are common too. Work mate has one and he traded it in for Galaxy S.
Just putting my 2 pennies in here, I would also recommend android, Why? 1. Windows have had no success with most of their windows mobile OS's I own a HTC HD2 and its riddled with bugs as well as there are only about 10 apps that can be useful. The UI is often terrible and as of Windows mobile 7 They have removed multi app support and SD card support. I have since re-flashed my phone to run the latest version of android and would never flash it back . 2. Iphone 4, I work for an apple authorised service centre and we get about 15 back a week for the signal issues, We literally put them in a rubber case and then send them back. They also support multi apps but only for apps that have multi support built into them (so take out 95% of the app store). 3. Anrdoid seems to get better with each release and Ive never had a problem finding an app I want, And getting something as simple as the app task kill will allow the multi apps to run without killing battery life. Im done
If you are comparing the iPhone. The Apple app store has more than android alltogether. That is free and paid. iPhones have a much larger app base and all under a single app store. You can get an app for video calling though it reduces quality so it fits over 3G networks its not that bad. You don't have to sync an iPhone to update apps. Not sure where you got that from. But you do have to sync an iPhone to transfer songs and delete them unfortunately. The iPhone also has the best battery life. The highest resolution screen (e-IPS) Has multi touch. Apps are generally a lot cheaper too. The iPhone 4 lacks multi-task, it can save an applications memory state but it cannot run multiple programs concurrently. So if you want to run an instant messaging app or GPS app and have it constantly refresh in the background, you cannot. But if you are reading something or playing a game, you can generally go back to where you left off. I find that Apple and their "user friendly" crap is actually more "retard friendly". It lacks basic features simply because Apple is afraid some retard some where might get confused. For example I find myself unhappy with their pre-loaded apps, but find that I am unable to delete them. Worst I can't even hide the icons. I can only shift them to an unused page. I wouldn't say the iPhone is all that great of a phone but not that bad either. Apple definitely has better apps than android which is the best part IMO. Im eager to look at windows 7 phone though.
This is good stuff. My Hero used to last a day. If I knew I was going to be away from a charger for a while, I'd just turn 3g off which would double or even triple the battery life! Like anything, if you leave GPS/WIFI on and have push email set up to refresh every 1 minute, its going to kill the battery. Desire is looking even better, especially if I an pick a new one up for less than £275. You do see to be able to do more things with the iPhone still though, like for example, my bank (Natwest) has an app so you can do online banking on iPhone, yet I couldn’t find an android version. I think this might change though, as the mainstream begins to realise the amount of Android phones flying off the shelves.
That is very true, There is an app out there on the iphone for the Halifax bank but non for android, I spoke to them about it and they told me they were developing one at the moment, So it seems the banks are moving to a multi platform world as well ^^
I work for Sky in their advertising division, our apps (ie: Sky News/remote record) are developed for iPhone. However, more recently we have started porting our apps to Android as well. Since we are giving them away free, and making money from things like in app advertising, it makes sense to get them to as bigger audience as possible. If that audience is Android (which it looks like it eventually will be) then hopefully we'll eventually see 100% app syndication across both platforms. The Android app store does still need more work (though has got better recently)
Ive got the samsung galaxy s and its awesome, some say its better than the iphone4 but ive never used an iphone so wouldn't know, all i know is im sticking with my samsung galaxy.
Point taken. I have been using my desire HD for about a day know. But still think the android overall is better then apple, apps do make a difference as well as hardware. More and more apple apps are becoming available on android. Also note some android phones also come with preloaded apps, which you cant remove, unless you have super user access and remove it through the shell command. (at your own risk) all depends on secuirty. One advantage apple has it control all of the apps on its store, they all get checked unlike android. Hence why recently there were claims of apps sending persona data. this is also true if you have a jail broken iphone and install "un checked apps" i have the sky remote+ app on my Android Recent reports say Android is picking up, they still need to update the Market store, but so far its doing well at updates. On another note, most phones add on their own UI on top of android, so with the HTC you gets its HTCsense, which is pretty cool. Friends stream, widget, remote track your phone, remote disable etc Was showing it too a few friends last night, and one said he wish he didnt get the iphone4. anyway up too you. Personally the software will upgrade as your contract continues, android/apple/MS will always update their OS. so far android seem to be doing a good job. Hardware and battery life is important. Guy at work has to charge his desire (not HD version) every day, so far i can not comment, since i have been playing with my phone. but i guess every day charge is needed. but i agree with some of the above comments. You could always buy a second battery? (which unlike iphone you cant, but then again would you need too?) Their is an app called Juice defender, which turn on/off you data connection to save battery on android. Never really used it though. to be honest depends what you need. My brother always likes phones with its own keypad. Think about: camera battery apps size price usability go into a store have a play with them all.
