Good phone that isn't an iphone?

Serendipity

Serendipity

Enthusiast
Bahaha. Yeah, well I barely text as it is, I don't seem to have the patience. :p

I seem to go through stages of being smart and buying a simple, practical £10 pay-as-you-go phone... then being sick of it and be stupid enough to buy a £500 iPhone, now I'm stuck with a phone thats so expensive you feel intimated to take out of your own house and stuck with a £36 per month contact for 24 months.... Damn you Apple...
 
fluffybunny

fluffybunny

Active member
Can I just resurrect this thread. My cr*ppy iphone is finally allowed to be upgraded next week. I want anything but an iphone and I have to be able to access my hotmail account and forums on it whilst I'm out and about.

What's the best phone around at the moment that I won't have to pay extra to get, do you think? I have an O2 £36 monthly account at the moment.
 
MeveM

MeveM

Bright Spark
My Blackberry bold is awesome, (not the new stupid touch one, screen is too small for touch)
I have 3 e-mails collecting into the same inbox on my phone, and it's awesome to type on, I have large hands yet I find the smallish buttons very easy to press.
 
Frenchy

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
fluffybunny said:
Can I just resurrect this thread. My cr*ppy iphone is finally allowed to be upgraded next week. I want anything but an iphone and I have to be able to access my hotmail account and forums on it whilst I'm out and about.

What's the best phone around at the moment that I won't have to pay extra to get, do you think? I have an O2 £36 monthly account at the moment.
Click to expand...

I think the first thing to ask is why do you dislike the iPhone. I know people that dont like it because its touchscreen, in which case you can pretty much throw out all android phones too. Would help rather than just saying "crappy iPhone" especially considering most people would agree even if the iPhone isnt their preferred device that it is still very good.
 
fluffybunny

fluffybunny

Active member
Problems I have had with the iphone

This phone is now coming up for 2 years old. For the first eighteen months I had this phone, three quarters of the calls I made out never connected and I would have to redial. Half the people calling me just went straight to my voicemail, my phone never rang. This has improved in the last six months but there are some calls that still go straight to my voicemail without the phone ever ringing.

Sometimes the Safari browser just never connects. I can check my email in the house (via 3G, not wifi) and, five minutes later, when I try to check it again I'm told that the Safari browser can't connect.

The phone has been knocked off a table. Out of the blue 2 months later the internal speaker stopped working. So now to hold a phone conversation, I have to put the loudspeaker on, not brilliant because the external speaker on the phone is rubbish.

I don't have loads of applications on it. I'm not really into applications but would have liked a decent to do list etc. Applications are expensive on it, for the most part.

It is too smooth. It slides out of my hands. I have been told by Gorman that I could have solved this with a case and I probably could have done.

The one thing I don't have a problem with is the touch screen. I can handle a touch screen with no problem at all, although parts of my touch screen have also stopped working so I have to turn the phone to landscape to text people.

There are other things as well but these are my main problems with the iphone :)
 
Frenchy

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
fluffybunny said:
Problems I have had with the iphone

This phone is now coming up for 2 years old. For the first eighteen months I had this phone, three quarters of the calls I made out never connected and I would have to redial. Half the people calling me just went straight to my voicemail, my phone never rang. This has improved in the last six months but there are some calls that still go straight to my voicemail without the phone ever ringing.

Sometimes the Safari browser just never connects. I can check my email in the house (via 3G, not wifi) and, five minutes later, when I try to check it again I'm told that the Safari browser can't connect.

The phone has been knocked off a table. Out of the blue 2 months later the internal speaker stopped working. So now to hold a phone conversation, I have to put the loudspeaker on, not brilliant because the external speaker on the phone is rubbish.

I don't have loads of applications on it. I'm not really into applications but would have liked a decent to do list etc. Applications are expensive on it, for the most part.

It is too smooth. It slides out of my hands. I have been told by Gorman that I could have solved this with a case and I probably could have done.

The one thing I don't have a problem with is the touch screen. I can handle a touch screen with no problem at all, although parts of my touch screen have also stopped working so I have to turn the phone to landscape to text people.

There are other things as well but these are my main problems with the iphone :)
Click to expand...


Ok cool, well I can safely say that this isnt a problem with iPhones in general, you may have had a fault one regarding your connection problems, I cant say either of mine have ever fauiled to connect (unless im in a tunnel or something) in the 4 years or so that ive had them.

TODO lists, theres plenty of great apps out there, and for the most part they are free, those that arent have free trials (generally) and when you do go to buy them theyre not more than a couple of quid, hardly expensive for a todo list tbh.

Not sure about your safari connections, again I cant say ive ever had that problem, however safari on the iOS devices is still by far the quickest rendering mobile browser. Androids browser is very slow in comparison and BB's browser is somewhere in between.

If however you are dead set against another iPhone, then I would suggest a HTC, pretty much all of them are great, or the samsung galaxy s 2 (not sure if this would be free though). One thing to bear in mind, even though you say you dont have many apps, android market is very different from app store on iOS, it is completely unmonitored and hence very easy to get absolute rubbish on there. iOS apps are all quality tested first and have to pass certain requirements to be alloowed onto the app store. Android apps dont have this protection and while as a mobile developer myself I would like to think all developers try and produce quality apps, this is not the case. Unfortunately I have seen many examples of extremely terrible coding when it comes to apps and as a result the customer ends up suffering.

The last thing to take into account with android vs iOS, which can be a positive or a negative, apps have access to your phone, apps have permissions which the android manifest (a description file of the app) contains. These permissions tell the phone what the app needs, for example, access to the internet, access to the camera etc. While most of these are absolutley fine you should always check these before downloading an app. For example, downloading a sketching app may be great idea, however if it has permission to your phonebook, or to your location etc you may rethink getting the app. iOS runs every app in its own sandbox and while this does restrict apps a little more, in my opinion it gives less opportunity for misuse of your personal data.
 
fluffybunny

fluffybunny

Active member
Thanks for that Frenchy.

Certainly a lot to think about regarding the apps. As I said, I don't tend to use them but it's handy to know how they operate on the android phones.

I'd like to think that I did have a completely rubbish phone as a one-off but my OH suffered the same problems with connectivity on his iphone too.
 
Frenchy

Frenchy

Prolific Poster
fluffybunny said:
Thanks for that Frenchy.

Certainly a lot to think about regarding the apps. As I said, I don't tend to use them but it's handy to know how they operate on the android phones.

I'd like to think that I did have a completely rubbish phone as a one-off but my OH suffered the same problems with connectivity on his iphone too.
Click to expand...

Thats really odd, I can honestly say I have never had a problem with my 3G, 3Gs or 4 for reception, im commuting constantly and have never failed to connect to a call or even been disconnected. Only times i sometimes have trouble is going through the newstreet tunnel on the train.
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
Browsing web on iPhone (or any other phone) then give Opera Mini a try. You will not be disappointed - it is the fastest thing ever made for mobile phone, and yes it is also free.
 
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