Phones

[Duckwarrior]

My N95 has an interface issue. Namely, I interfaced it right in the kisser with the river.

It seems that Nokia's bizarre idea of a warranty doesn't cover me under their "Damage while having fun" & "Continuing to use wanked out gear, well past its sell by date" clauses. IE: jumping off of a boat with a secondhand, three or four year old phone in your pocket. I have attempted to revive it with every piece of hit and hope, hair brained theory on healing electronic devices that Google can muster. To no avail. It is an ex phone, it has expired. Life support was switched off at oh eight seventeen this morning, and it was moved from the Intensive Care airing cupboard to the Long Term Holding Area (MY drawer in the kitchen) to wait for the time when it will become useful again. Fear not, it has a Sky remote that only has the numbers 7,8,9 & 0 and the text button working, four sets of spare keys to cars that I no longer own, a bike spanner, a key to bleed radiators that doesn't fit my new radiators and some Duracells that the wife claimed were dead, but I'm not so sure about, amongst other, less useful things for company.

Nokia seems to have morphed from a cutting edge tech company into some weird, blonde anti-populism cult, since I was last shopping for a phone. Therefore I commenced my quest to find a replacment without them. And lo, I was rewarded.

I discounted the LG Optimus 2x, HTC Sensation and Samsung Galaxy SII early in the audition process, too new and too expensive. Next out were the iPhone 3GS & iPhone 4, too old and too expensive. I looked at various Windows 7 Phones, but even an old man with a Blue Harbour polo shirt in his wardrobe has some shame. Nokia & Blackberry are of no use to me, I already told you about my drawer full of far more useful things, remember? Wildfire S & Galaxy Ace would have made me feel like I had bought an LX when I am really a Ghia type of fella.

It came down to the HTC Desire S & the Samsung Galaxy S. The fading former heavyweight champions of the world. Slightly past their prime, but you wouldn't want to be stood too close to one if he took umbridge to your demeanor or you accidentaly looked at his bird in the pub on a friday night.

I think I have found a fair old deal on Mike "Galaxy" Tyson. Fifteen of our British quids a month, 500 minutes any network, 5000 texts & 1 GB data. And if I order today, a voucher code for twenty pounds to spend in the Three accesories store. This is on a 24 month contract. Granted, it is a refurb. But Three's refurbs are phones returned under their, Change your mind guarantee. They have to be less than fourteen days old and you can't have stored any personal data on them, they also come with the full 12 month manufacturers warranty. Hey, I know, but I once had a girlfriend for thirteen days, and she is still functioning fine, years later with a second user.

Anyway I would like a comparison, particularly from UK folks, but I am interested in what everybody uses and what they pay to find out when somebody they met on holiday in 2008 is buying broccoli on Facebook.

Should I be going for New Hotness, Old Badness or Mid-Life crisis which is still slightly hot and vaguely bad?

[MrChaos]

[raumvogel]

I hate to be a poop, but I hate the gazzilion choices in that area so much that I went for the cheapest, least functional option, so I won't be any help. Great writing as always, though, Duckster.

[peet]

Totally agree. 10 Years ago Nokia was *hot* and The Phone I Wanted So Much. Two weeks ago I replaced my phone and I did not even consider buying a Nokia anymore. I still have an old model Nokia, it refuses to die. Excellent quality.

Anyway, 2 suggestions.

If you buy an "subscription plan with free phone" your phone might have plenty of bloatware which is hard to remove. Get a phone which you can jailbreak or root, and ditch the junk. Your phone will run longer on the battery and might run faster too.

Sim only subscription plans and separately buying an unlocked phone might be cheaper if you calculate total costs over - say- two years.

[Duckwarrior]

I did think about that at length peet & I would have really liked to have gone that way. I can't find a SIM free Galaxy S for <£300 though. So I went for the contract phone, which is going to cost me £360 over the two years including my calls & data. I'll have to put up with Touchwiz & Three's "added value" content unfortunately.

I really wanted a Nexus S, which is basically a Galaxy S with plain old vanilla Android, but they are too pricy. They may well upgrade it with Ice Cream Sandwich when it is launched though, and I can't really see Samsung pushing a third OS revision for what is now their second tier handset. That said, 2.3 does everything I want and more, so I decided to keep the money in my pocket instead.

[pkk]

QUOTE (Duckwarrior @ Aug 14 2011, 02:34 PM) I really wanted a Nexus S, which is basically a Galaxy S with plain old vanilla Android, but they are too pricy. They may well upgrade it with Ice Cream Sandwich when it is launched though. I can't really see Samsung pushing a third OS revision for what is now their second tier handset. But 2.3 does everything I want and more, so I'll keep the money in my pocket instead.

That's a good reason to buy a Galaxy S.

Samsung is a bit slow (but faster than others) with releasing new firmware updates, but I run the unofficial Android 2.3.4 on my phone.

It's also pretty cheap (Amazon UK: 299 Pound)...

[Cyre]

i was about to buy a nokia n97 then i saw it brought symbian

[ryujin]

QUOTE (Cyre @ Aug 14 2011, 11:06 AM) i was about to buy a nokia n97 then i saw it brought sybian

FIFY

[Broodwich]

i got a galaxy s a few months ago on the recommendation of everyone. Its an awesome phone, and i especially love the RDP app for it which has saved me so much hassle. I suppose i'm not the best judge though, since the phone it replaced was an actual phone not a mini computer like everything else is these days. So i'm probably easily impressed.

I'm not the kind of person to do fancy stuff like peet, i just use it. And it does those things i tell it to without complaint.