A ittle off topic

[Sir Smithwick]

My little flip top phone of 6years is on its last legs.  Wont hold a charge.  Looking at getting a smartphone.  Those on the board that have one what do you have is it worth the cost of getting one and which way would you go iphone or droid.  Would like to here any suggestions from the board because i do need to get a new phone soon.

[PyroMaster]

Droid for the win. I have an HTC Thunderbolt 4G from Verizon.

[dbaldock]

Droid for the win. I have an HTC Thunderbolt 4G from Verizon.

Do you know if there is good coverage at TRF for all of the major carriers?

[Breandan]

Verizon has good coverage, can't speak for others. I know some do, some don't

[eloquentXI]

FYI- The mods will probably move this to a different part of the forum. Just a heads up as this area usually sticks to faire related stuff. 

[Yrose]

I've had both and like different things about both. Some of the lay out and programs are better with the iphone. The droid you can get alot more free programs, you can increase the memory. Find friends with both and ask to play with them.

[Strange]

I say Verizon android.
2 of us in the shop have VZW, one on 3g and the other on 4g, and data and voice both work great, including hotspot.

[Glaodian]

Verizon with one of the androids would be the way to go.

I am currently using the Charge, but have also used the Droid X2, X, and the 2.  All of which were great phones.

[ravic]

TRF has relatively good coverage...except when 30,000 people are trying to use the towers all at the same time. Then, not so much.

[Sir Martin]

FYI- The mods will probably move this to a different part of the forum. Just a heads up as this area usually sticks to faire related stuff. 

I agree, but we can let this one stay for a couple days so Sir Smithwick can get some input.  I've heard several people tell me they have vastly different quality of coverage at TRF, so this can be slightly faire related.   

[Just Randall]

Well, he said he needed a new phone, NOT a new provider. S.S., who is your current provider? Coverage can be wholly dependent on your provider. Does your provider offer iphones, droids, or both? What will be the primary purpose of said device? I, myself, am quite happy with my HTC G2, but I have special needs due to disabilities.

[Sir Smithwick]

Thanks for the replies.  Service provider is with Verizon.  Most of family and friends are on it plus it has good coverage.  After doing a little research it looks like I am going to go with an Android base phone.  So maybe a droid - Samsung device.  Those that have one give a shout out and give a review of what you have.

[Glaodian]

Thanks for the replies.  Service provider is with Verizon.  Most of family and friends are on it plus it has good coverage.  After doing a little research it looks like I am going to go with an Android base phone.  So maybe a droid - Samsung device.  Those that have one give a shout out and give a review of what you have.

I am currently using the Samsung Charge.  It is a great phone with a lot of nice features.  Plus the size of the screen helps when watching a movie or whatever when you are stuck in a waiting room or something.

[KiltedPrivateer]

A little tip from someone who just recently upgraded from a feature phone (Dumb phone) to a smart phone.  Battery life can kill you.  Be diligent at turning off resources you aren't using.  For example, leaving the house for a long communte to work?  Turn off wifi.  Blue tooth headset dead, turn off blue tooth.  Not using any location based software, turn off the gps (Which is NOT a real gps I don't care what anyone on this board, the verizon store, or anywhere else on God's perfect earth says).  Turn it all off if you can.  Keep your display brightness as low as you can.  These phones drain batteries like Dracula drains virgins.  My feature phone could last a week without a charge.  My new Motorola Atrix sucks the battery dry in just over 24 hours.  If you go app crazy and download a bunch of games, expect your battery life to diminish even faster.  Anything that keeps your screen active for prolonged periods will kill your battery.  This may be the one thing that the iPhone can legitimately hold over the heads of android users. 

But I despise Apple and their closed system so I'll just suck it up (o:

[Glaodian]

There is an app called App Killer for droids.  Download it and set it to kill apps when the screen goes blank.  This will save the battery.  Other than that, I agree with everything KP said (except the GPS thing.  Sorry KP, I had to take a poke at ya.)   

[Sir Smithwick]

KP I here even the new i phone has a crappy battery life.  Other than the battery do you like the Mortorola or would you go with something different?    

Glaodian glad to here you like your Samsung.  This is the direction I am going right now with the little bit of research that I have done. Crap it's a damn phone for bloody sake but I would like to at least make a decent purchase.    

[KiltedPrivateer]

I do like my Atrix.  Coming in new from the feature phone world it took some time to get use to all of the "features".  There are a lot of them.  But once you get the phone personalized and get to know where everything is and how it all works it really is a lot of fun and very very useful.  You begin to wonder - as always - how did we survive before this modern technology

[Blushing]

I have the Samsung Fascinate, and I like it as much as my brother likes his iPhone.  Coverage at TRF with Verizon has been great, at least when I've bothered to notice!  I had been waiting on the Iphone, but my Blackberry imploded before Verizon offered it.

As to battery life ... Smart phones are made to charge every day, they function rather differently than basic phones.  Some batteries may be a bit better than others, but if your'e using the features on your smart phone, a daily charge is normal.  However, very poor signal strength will drain the battery quicker than even having multiple apps going.  I don't run an app killer since recent updates on my phone, and there is still juice left at the end of the day, with moderate app/Internet use, phone calls and bluetooth use.

[BobSmith]

There's a reason every phone on the planet is compared to an iPhone.  It's because in form, function and flair, the iPhone sets the standard.  Every other phone vendor desires to make a phone as good as the iPhone.

The Apps are subjected to a more rigid standard than other smartphones which means better software, and more of it.

The hardware failure rates for iPhones is .03%.  Other vendors allow a 3-5% failure rate out of box.

The iPhone has a more intuitive user interface.  The iPhone UI is designed to be simple, clean, powerful and dynamic.

Single vendor for hardware/software/app debugging means much improved integration.

[Glaodian]

There's a reason every phone on the planet is compared to an iPhone.  It's because in form, function and flair, the iPhone sets the standard.  Every other phone vendor desires to make a phone as good as the iPhone.

The Apps are subjected to a more rigid standard than other smartphones which means better software, and more of it.

The hardware failure rates for iPhones is .03%.  Other vendors allow a 3-5% failure rate out of box.

The iPhone has a more intuitive user interface.  The iPhone UI is designed to be simple, clean, powerful and dynamic.

Single vendor for hardware/software/app debugging means much improved integration.

hahaha.  There really is only 2 kinds of smart phones out there.  Android OS and iPhone OS.  Windows phones dont even count.  So who else are they to compare with?

[KiltedPrivateer]

Plus the vendor of the phone does not develop the apps.  No iPhone preaching allowed here.  Jobs may have ascended but that does not make his gadgets the holy grail of electronics.  When it comes to integration, the google apps on an android phone are hard to beat.

Uh Oh, getting off topic (o:

iBologna makes a good sandwich (o:

[nomad]

I use sprint. Their coverage is good @ TRF. If you're like me, they have the best plan, unlimited. I use around 5 gig of data monthly. Pandora and netflix mostly.

[Merlin the Elder]

Personally, I prefer the noPhone. You can ignore everyone for the same low price, and your dropout worries are a thing of the past.

[KiltedPrivateer]

Personally, I prefer the noPhone. You can ignore everyone for the same low price, and your dropout worries are a thing of the past.

Luvvin This Idea

[Glaodian]

Personally, I prefer the noPhone. You can ignore everyone for the same low price, and your dropout worries are a thing of the past.

The nice thing about having a smart phone though, is the app Tapatalk that connects to these forums and makes it 100 times easier to read updates and such. 

[KiltedPrivateer]

That's weird. I just pulled out my phone to ask if anyone had used that app and if it was worth paying for.  That is the app that shows up the first time visiting this site from a mobile browser?

[Glaodian]

I believe so.  I use this app for a couple of sites.  PLUS, if you have a forums site that you admin elsewhere, it is free to add your site to it.  I have a friend that uses the app on his iCant and he loves it as well.  It was worth the couple of $$ to get it.

[*Teach*]

I use Blackberry Torch. As a phone and for what I wanted it is excellent. Drawbacks is that there are fewer and fewer apps for bberry these days. My main thing it does and does well is for the document handling and the fact that the keyboard isn't a touch screen. I am used to having a touch screen for everything else but I still don't like it for typing. It does still have a ton of apps, just not nearly as many as the others. RIM seriously missed a step about the time Droids came on strong and never have gotten their footing back. The hardware for the phone is still excellent though.
The lovely Lady Trinn uses Iphone 4 and has never once considered going back to any other phone. I can't blame her. It sets the bar and is what other phones look to be like these days.
As for carrier, we switched to AT&T so that she could have the Iphone and have not had any problems whatsoever. We had Verizon and probably would not have switched had it not been for the Iphone because again... never had a problem out there.

*The Bberry does have my bartender app that gives me plenty of rum drinks to try so that makes me happy enough*

[Sir Smithwick]

Finally got to a Verizon store today and looked around and asked some questions.  The sales people seem to push the iphone a lot.  Did not like that to much gave me the idea that the store would get a kick back.  The one phone i was interested in was the Motorola Droid3.  Does anyone have this phone and if they do can you give a review of it  Keep those reviews coming.