Random cellphone babbling thread #1

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I'd definitively go for the Bold over the fruit phone. RIM's email integration is legendary rock-solid, tried, tested and true.

The multimedia part of the phone also is surprisingly good. And it holds a very good signal, true to Crackberries. The Bold is also 3G, so web surfing won't be anything to worry about.

Now that RIM has ironed out the initial bugs of the Bold, I don't consider the fruit phone even close to Crackberries.

Not to mention the Storm has been released. Once the bugs of the initial version are ironed out, run for cover, fruit phone.

 

DoTW, I'm curious as to why you seem to have such a dislike for the iPhone? I was screwing around with one in the store and it seemed really nice and easy. The large screen seemed very nice and made reading much better then on the Bold.

 

Edit: Oops. I misread Snook's post (missed the "around with" in "screwing around with").

 

Why do I dislike the fruit phone? For starters, predictive text entry is a big F'N nightmare. Second, the virtual keyboard for text entry sucks. Third, the music player - you're basically locking yourself in Apple's proprietary format. Not to mention you have to download the damn songs through the phone, not conveniently through a PC. The fruit phone has serious reception issues in the 850MHz band, and this is a well known problem. Apple and AT&T have been playing the blame game for hell knows how long now.

I'm not saying the Bold is perfect, mind you, it has had it's fair share of firmware problems. Fortunately, RIM has fixed out the biggest bugs, so the Bold is definitively a better option, at least to me.

In the end, it's a matter of preference. It's no secret I've always pulled for RIM to whip the fruit company's ass. And with the Storm now out, and with the persistent rumors floating around of having succesfully got a Storm working on AT&T (the Storm has dual-band CDMA plus quad-band GSM and 3G), and a version "officially" compatible with either AT&T or T-Mo coming somewhere down the road, the fruit phone and the fruit company are in for a very bumpy ride.

 

Well, I decided the iPhone was the way to go for me. It was $100 cheaper then the bold and way cooler. As to your issues, I'm not seeing them. I don't text so I don't know what the first one meant. The keyboard took a little getting used to, but now I have no problem.

As to the music, I believe you are incorrect. While it is true that you have to have iTunes loaded on your PC, you do not have to download the songs from the iTunes store. It found all the songs in the My Music folder and moved them over very easily.

So far it is has been a great phone (only a couple of days). Little Snook is constantly trying to "borrow" it and is putting on the full court pressure for us to upgrade his phone to one.

The corporate guys haven't taken it yet so I can't report on the corporate e-mail functions yet, but I will.

 

Good choice, TGS. My wife likes hers.

 

Looks like they changed things for the 3G version, I had the first version and dumping tracks through iTrash was a big no-no.

On a different note, the Blackberry Javelin is to go on sale Q1 2009. The Javelin is the Curve's successor, and would have been a cheaper alternative to the Bold, while remaing in tried, tested and true Crackberry territory.

 

Field test - LG CG225

Looking at my collection, I noticed I lacked GSM LGs. Well, this is now fixed. Would LG's GSM offerings live up to be as good as their CDMA counterpart?

Meh.

Modes: Quadband GSM 850/900/1800/1900.

Battery life: LG officially rated the CG225 for 10 days. I was nearing the 9 day mark when the battery finally died out. It almost lives up to the rating.

Signal: The CG225 holds a good signal. No dropped calls, against my (dreadful) expectations. Things become somewhat sticky when in bad coverage spots.

Sound quality: The CG225 does not have EVRC, and it shows. Still, I had no problems being heard or hearing.

Form factor: Clamshell

Phone and keyboard feel: The CG225 is a small, slim phone. I occasionally forget I have it in my pocket

Screen: 128*128 65,535 STN LCD. Nothing worth raving about. 96*64 exterior monochrome LCD with a horribly cheesy fixed background -- I mean come on, clouds and an island?!?

Camera: 1.8MP. Watch the space -- 12 pictures and the memory is full.

Final score: 7/10.

 

I discovered a very interesting option while fiddling around in my NEC232... I discovered you can put security on your PIM -- address book -- so if someone tries to sniff in your phone book, they won't be able to unless they know your phone's security code. That totally accidental discovery makes me look at this sucker in a different light.

 

Field test: Telus Mike i730

iDEN, part four.

Modes: iDEN 800

Battery life: Four days with DC switched off, hack a day off with DC. Uses the same damn battery than the i530 and i560, so I have three batteries for this sucker.

Signal: Haters say iDEN has bad reception. Those A-holes need to pull their head out of their asses and try to stuff in their thick skulls that CDMA and GSM operate at both 800/1900 MHz, while iDEN operates at 800MHz ONLY. With that out of the way, the i730 goes head-to-head -- litteraly -- with the i560. As a matter of fact, I have noticed absolutely NO difference, and the field test mode confirms what I believed -- in the signal department, the i730 is as good as the i560, which I have been praising.

Sound quality: I'll get straight to the point -- the i730 whips both the i530 and i560's asses red. Not only is the i730 LOUDER, it's also clearer.

Form factor: Clamshell

Phone and keyboard feel: The i730's outer body is made of metal, while the inside is made of plastic. True to it's predecessors, the i730 can take a good beating and won't flinch. The keyboard is i530-esque, though it's a few steps above the i530 in terms of operation. The i730 DEFINITIVELY will feel big to smaller-handed people, but it feels pretty damn nice to me. Unfortunately, Moto repeated the same mistake than on the i530... unprotected speaker on the back. Yes, there's a grill over it, but that's gonna be something to watch.

Screen: The i730 has a small mono LCD that displays the usual -- signal, time, incoming calls, battery... As for the inner LCD, the i730 steps up from the i560's STN LCD to a full-blown 130*130 TFT, 65,535 colors. Does the job, and I expected a TFT to be a PITA to read in the sun -- it's not that bad, to my surprise. Backlight-wise, both the outer LCD and keypad have a blue backlight, which is kind of nice. Nokia has sickened me for life of green LEDs.

Camera: Sorry 'bout your damn luck.

Final score: 9.5/10.

Random thoughts:

- Vibrate on this phone is absolutely brutal. Hell, I was having a piss and I could HEAR the phone vibrate in the LIVING ROOM. The i730 strips you of the excuse of not noticing the phone vibrating.

 

So...DotW....I want a BlackBerry. Not sure which though. I want to be able to play Mob Wars on Facebook, check my hotmail account, and do some basic web surfing.

We're still with T-Mobile...but my wife's trying to get me to switch over to Verizon because of her new job.

So between T-Mo and Verizon, what's the best BB? The 8900 looks pretty sweet...any other's I should know about?

 

VZW-wise, the flagship Blackberry is the Storm, and it's well-documented the Storm was NOT ready to be released to the public. That being said, if you're not looking for all the bells and whistles of newer CrackBerry, the good ol' 8703e could do the trick. It's got a full keyboard, speakerphone, Bluetooth and EVDO, so web browsing shouldn't be an issue. Plus, you can get it for $80 on a 2 year.

On the T-Mob, there's the 8700, which is nothing more than the GSM version of the 8703. Features pretty much are the same, but this Crackberry uses EDGE. Not sure which revision, though.

In short, it's a matter of preference. It's no secret I have long been a CDMA supporter, but with LTE's nearly world-wide adoption, CDMA is now a dying tech. VZW said they would continue to support CDMA, but it will not get any upgrades. So in short, my advice is, unless you want or need CDMA that bad, I'd say remain in T-Mo land.

Drop 'em a call, they'll bend over to offer you something interesting. Oh yeah, be prepared to dish out the extra cash for a Blackberry plan.

 

Yeah, I'm aware of the extra data plan... :bbad:

No opinion on the 8900?

 

I do not have any on-hand experience with the 8900, and nobody I know owns one, so it's hard for me to comment on a Blackberry I knew next to nothing about except for the specs. If this was about the 8305i, however... then I could help.

 

I just feel the need to come back to this thread and comment on how much I love my iPhone. Being able to download an "app" to do just about anything is an amazing feature. I have also become addicted to podcasts. The keyboard at first was a little difficult, but now I am a master. I'm particularly impressed with the spell check feature as bad spelling in an e-mail is just not professional. The corporate integration has been effortless and my IT guys are marvelling at how they don't have to pay RIM (or anyone) a license fee for the itnegration. They are actually proposing to the company that they push for more iPhones instead of Blackberries. The large screen makes all of my Blackberry colleagues jealous. How any AT&T customer would get a Blackberry instead of an iPhone is beyond me.

 

A proper hardware QWERTY keyboard for starters. I thought BlackBerries had about the same resolution as well.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3249/2887662510_d36e21a542.jpg
Why anyone would get an iPhone instead of a proper smartphone is beyond me...

 

I want a cheap-ish value handset that's quite clever, easy to use and text on, is not too big, has good text memory storage and is a reliable phone. I don't want one with bells as whistles, a great camera and GB's of memory I won't use. I'm selling my N95 and want a cheap but quality replacement (I'm just getting myself a bit of money).

Can anyone recommend any to me?

 

Barms, Samsung Eternity. Enough said. Not cheap, but pretty much fits your every single other criteria.

 

Thanks guys. The Eternity is a lot more expensive than I had I mind, it looks a good phone though (although I don't think it's available over here). The Nokia is more like it price wise, but I don't really like the look of it, and it's about £10-20 quid too much. I was looking for something about £40.