new phone...

[Misshalfway]

Originally Posted by FunkyTown

The iPhone is great. If you're a thirteen year old girl who wants style over substance.

Oh the blindness of the children of men!

[xforeverxmetalx]

Originally Posted by FunkyTown

I have had the opportunity to use most devices in the BlackBerry range. I began several years ago using the 8700, which was my favourite device for a very long time. When I finally had to replace it, I was very sad as I am not a 'Bells and whistles' kind of guy. From there, we moved to the 8300, which was okay, and the Bold and the Storm. The Bold ended up being an old standby, but I still wished for the robustness of the 8700.

Then, I got my new favourite device: The 8520. This is a stripped down device that can run quad-band.

Don't get me wrong: This is a business-oriented device. It's robust, with solid programming and will get you where you want to go. If you want something with simple media playing capability without all the bells and whistles, this is what you want.

Otherwise, go for the 9700. It's got all the bells and whistles and, to its credit, is running a metal instead of plastic skeleton. If you want something with all the multi-media, a higher MP camera and such, the 9700 is the way to go.

But if you're looking for a tough, simple, well made phone, get the 8520.

thanks, I'll look into those.

edit: doesn't look like either the 9700 or 8520 is available on Verizon, or else I'm missing something. though the Storm2 looks pretty good.

Originally Posted by Mahone

Any particular reason why?

it's from Apple. I'm pretty much sick of the craze behind most Apple products... particularly iPods [too many people call ALL MP3 players iPods] as well as the iPhone everyone seems to either have or want. not that they're necessarily bad products [though the iPod shuffle I had years ago quit working in a couple months]... and often they're more expensive than other similar brands. so I'll go with other brands, especially products people say are iPod killers I miss my Zune, 120GB and I lost it, after overturning the entire house multiple times it seems to have walked off /off topic rant

[Mahone]

I'm familiar with both blackberries and iphones. I personally much prefer the iphone. I'm not an apple fanboy by any definition of the phrase, however the iphone is definitely one of their better creations. It is one of the most useful devices I have ever purchased. Having said that, I jailbroke my iphone in order to get more functionality out of it, including the ability to unlock it to use other networks - jailbreaking an iphone is not illegal, but could possibly void the warranty if they find out you have done that.

As a brief example of some of its useful features to me personally:

- The ability to remotely control your home or work computer via several different methods over 3G internet

- You can send documents from your iphone to your home printer over 3G internet

- Build in application for youtube videos to make it easier to stream them over 3G

- GPS. Great for when lost in the middle of no-where

- Immediate synchronization with several popular online calendars. I have a gmail account, and the iphone will automatically update itself with any appointments I add to that gmail calendar, and alert me when any appointments are due. It also has this ability with exchange servers.

- Push e-mail. I have both my work e-mail (exchange) and home email (gmail) being pushed to my phone. That means, as soon as I get an e-mail in either of my accounts, I immediately get a message about it on my phone. So, effectively, I can use e-mail instead of text messages. This is opposed to pull e-mail which most phones have, which will just check every half an hour or so for e-mails.

- Voice Over IP. This hasn't taken off so well yet because smart phones are not that popular yet. However, if two smart phone owners both have the same voip application installed on their phone, they can have free phone calls between each other. Also, phone calls are considerably cheaper on voip when calling none voip users.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg .

[bytebear]

Two words: Palm Pre.

[anatess]

Originally Posted by Mahone

And that's just the tip of the iceberg .

If it's not on the list, then chances are... there's an app for that.

On my phone (all free):
- Space Monkey - my kids love to play this!
- Toy Bot
- Who has the biggest brain
- Scramble
- Fingerpiano
- Zynga Live Poker
- Phonesaber (love this! - build your own lightsaber)
- Bubblewrap - quite an interesting boredom game - you know, when you're in-line at the ticket counter - just pop some bubblewrap to make the time move faster...
- Sudoko
- iPint - hah hah yeah, LDS beer.

Okay the ones that are not games:
- Pandora - love this one - tell it what your favorite song is and it will play all the songs that are "like it" like a radio - not only in genre but in "music genome". Quite awesome.
- Lose it! - tracks my caloric intake to help me maintain weight
- Flashlight - turns my phone into a flashlight for when I drop my keys inside the movie theater, etc.
- Fandango - movie listing
- G-Park - finds my car and gives me turn-by-turn directions on how to get to it.
- Shazam - identifies the title and artist of any song playing within the vicinity of the phone's mic
- Recorder - records voice messages - you can say your shopping list on the phone and it will play it back for you at the grocery store, etc.
- LDS Library - the entire scriptures plus the RS/PH manual (currently, JS Teachings) and the hymnbook.
- Steps - calculates distance and calories spent when you're walking/running.
- Facebook
- Yahoo Messenger
- Compass

And of course what came with the phone:
- Camera with video
- GPS enabled map
- YouTube
- Stocks
- Weather
- Calendar
- Clock
- Text Messages
- Voicemail (you can pick which voicemail to listen to instead of having to go through x messages to get to the one you wanted to hear)
- Note pad
- Calculator
- iTunes (I got several movies loaded on my phone - like Wuthering Heights and Transformers and Sky High in addition to my entire music collection)
- and the Apple Store where you can find an "app for that".

[Mahone]

To attempt to remain a little more neutral, I think I should point out my primary gripes with the iphone (there aren't many). Firstly, the way apple attempted to lock down the phones operating system was pretty bad. They attempted to restrict what could be done using the phone in order to maximise profits for themselves. However, as they probably expected, without hours of its release, methods to jailbreak the phone were released online.

The second gripe is the lack of being able to change the battery. This one is not so easy to resolve. There are methods of changing it via DIY, but the chances of breaking it are fairly high. But I've had my phone for over a year now and no major issues with the battery yet.

[anatess]

Originally Posted by Mahone

To attempt to remain a little more neutral, I think I should point out my primary gripes with the iphone (there aren't many). Firstly, the way apple attempted to lock down the phones operating system was pretty bad. They attempted to restrict what could be done using the phone in order to maximise profits for themselves. However, as they probably expected, without hours of its release, methods to jailbreak the phone were released online.

The second gripe is the lack of being able to change the battery. This one is not so easy to resolve. There are methods of changing it via DIY, but the chances of breaking it are fairly high. But I've had my phone for over a year now and no major issues with the battery yet.

Okay, since we're talking gripe... my biggest one is the inability to display Flash on websites. The interesting thing is, iPhone has such an impact on market-share that many websites have created non-flash versions to cater to the iPhone market.

I've had my previous phone for 2 years with no battery issues. I upgraded to the 3Gs last month. So, I guess I can say that I'm faster to upgrade my phone than the battery dying on me.

One last gripe - $30 extra for iPhone service. That is, you pay your regular cellphone minutes fee then add $30 if your phone is an iPhone. But it's unlimited data service, so it makes up for it. The $30 only gives you 200 free text messages. It's extra $ to get unlimited text as well.

But, we shouldn't be going on and on about the iPhone when the OP has specifically stated "no iPhones".

[xforeverxmetalx]

Originally Posted by anatess

But, we shouldn't be going on and on about the iPhone when the OP has specifically stated "no iPhones".

yes, thank you.

though I will admit being impressed one day at marching band practice when a guy "attacked" us with a toy lightsaber, and three other people attacked him back with the iPhone lightsaber, and he was like... "did you ALL just lightsaber me..."

anyway, so far going with that HTC one, though the Storm2 being a close second [Palm Pre apparently is only on Sprint]

[Mahone]

Originally Posted by anatess

But, we shouldn't be going on and on about the iPhone when the OP has specifically stated "no iPhones".

I was attempting to convince the OP that the iPhone is not just a craze, neither is it just something which is nice eye candy, but does actually have many legitimate uses which are of value. This is as opposed to their iPods which were just glorified bog standard MP3 players and I'm not entirely sure why they were so popular.

[miztrniceguy]

i would like an iphone or blackberry bold without a data plan