Recommended smartphones for reasonable cost?

onekeano

Hi, I will probably succumb to one of these phones soon as I keep being referred to as a dinosaur by my adult kids because of my old Nokia 6310 which has served me well for many years.

A buddy of mine was showing me a Samsung he picked up with Meteor for €100 on a €25 per month contract - seemed the biz with loads of gadgets such as voice activation / sat nav etc etc and loads of other apps.

My son, an avid iphone guru dismissed the Samsung as "rubbish" so I was looking to get some advice as to what would be recommended ie. HTC / LG / Samsung or whatever.

I would not be a power user - have been on €25 per month contract with Meteor for years now and probably never breach that so would like to keep the same and get a phone for €100-150.

Any advice would be much appreciated as I am completely bamboozled at this stage.

Roy

Kensington

HTC Desire S maybe?
Decent camera, HD video recording, FM radio, wifi, bluetooth etc.
€139.99 on a €30 per month 12-month contract: free meteor calls and texts, 200 mins + 200 texts to other networks plus 1GB of data.
If you sign up for 18-months, it's €25 per month for the same allowances.

osnola ibax

^^^^ Can't go wrong there, one of the best phones currently on the market if not the best. Blow the iPhone out of the water.

I'm using original desire - awesome

PogMoThoin

I'm afraid your son is completely wrong on this one, it does everything that iphone does and lots more that it can't do. An iphone is locked down, Apple dictate exactly what you can and can't do with it with an iron first and make you use that POS software itunes to sync your media

Venom

Kensington wrote: »

HTC Desire S maybe?
Decent camera, HD video recording, FM radio, wifi, bluetooth etc.
€139.99 on a €30 per month 12-month contract: free meteor calls and texts, 200 mins + 200 texts to other networks plus 1GB of data.
If you sign up for 18-months, it's €25 per month for the same allowances.

This.

Awesome phone for the money and will blow your kids iRubbish toy away

osnola ibax

OP, without ever using it, I'd be wary of the HTC wildfire. Not sure the processing power is there.

Meteor still doing the original desire aswell which may be cheaper. Desire s has more punch though.

I've just ordered the xperia arc which doesn't have as much punch as the desire s but looks very nice. I'm prepared to be frustrated with it though and I don't think its a good starting point for a new android user as it may, according to various forums, not be the most stable. Ill reserve judgement on it though.

Plan on doing a review and desire comparison when I get it though if you would like to see that.

srsly78

I got a htc wildfire for my mum and she loves it. Yes it has a slower processor and a smaller screen than premium models, but it does the job!

srsly78

I got a htc wildfire for my mum and she loves it. Yes it has a slower processor and a smaller screen than premium models, but it does the job! At first she found touchscreen difficult (came from a nokia), but that didn't last long. Gradually she uses more and more features on it, lately she has discovered she can read her mail and listen to fm radio

onekeano

This information is brilliant so thanks for the feedback - especially to Kensington for the initial recommendation. I think young Roy will be getting a size 12 boot for all that loose talk about the iphones.

A couple of questions.... a) I don't see the Desire S on the Meteor website just the Desire.... do I have to go to a store for this? And b) I'm a bit paranoid about the allowances on some of these plans ie. download allocations. I won't be downloading as such (ie. music / movies) but am wondering how likely I am to blow download allocations if I open things like spreadsheet attachments or if I was using a sat nav or downloading a couple of podcasts a month?

Any further help would be much appreciaited.

Roy

osnola ibax

Do you have wifi at home, if so there is no need to eat into your data allowance using wifi.

1 gb per month is perfectly adequate for general browsing, syncing email, facebook, downloading spreadsheets, the odd pod cast etc. and you'll particularly have no worries if you also have a wifi connection at home. Youtube and other video sites will eat into it quickly but again if you have wifi just use that for youtube videos.

Heres a link for the Desire S on meteor.

https://phones.meteor.ie/phones/htc_desire_s/#what-you-get-tab

Also have a look at carphonewarehouse, there is a better chance the phone will be unbranded and unlocked, just in case you want to go down the dark road of rooting. Thats another days work and you dont have to worry about it but you never know in the future.

bd250110

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I'm afraid your son is completely wrong on this one, it does everything that iphone does and lots more that it can't do. An iphone is locked down, Apple dictate exactly what you can and can't do with it with an iron first and make you use that POS software itunes to sync your media

What more can it do? Being "locked down" is not all bad. No POS apps doing their own thing, ruining battery life, stealing personal datamand making the phone laggy.
iTunes is not all bad, it makes keeping everything in one place, rather than having to deal with lots of apps.

People on here talk like Android is amazing and iOS is rubbish. That is not the case, just iOS is nit to your personal taste. I find iOS incredibly stable, with great battery life, unparalleled apps and media options.

FYI: the other half has a wildfire. It is a very slow, laggy handset, with a horrible screen. If you can stretch to something better, I would.

srsly78

Wildfire is not slow and laggy, it's a perfectly good phone. It's actually comparable to the iphone 3gs hardware wise.

onekeano

Hi Osnola, yes I have wifi at home so it looks like that wont be an issue given the minimal downloads that I would likely have?

Roy

osnola ivax wrote: »

Do you have wifi at home, if so there is no need to eat into your data allowance using wifi.

1 gb per month is perfectly adequate for general browsing, syncing email, facebook, downloading spreadsheets, the odd pod cast etc. and you'll particularly have no worries if you also have a wifi connection at home. Youtube and other video sites will eat into it quickly but again if you have wifi just use that for youtube videos.

Heres a link for the Desire S on meteor.

https://phones.meteor.ie/phones/htc_desire_s/#what-you-get-tab

Also have a look at carphonewarehouse, there is a better chance the phone will be unbranded and unlocked, just in case you want to go down the dark road of rooting. Thats another days work and you dont have to worry about it but you never know in the future.

osnola ibax

onekeano wrote: »

Hi Osnola, yes I have wifi at home so it looks like that wont be an issue given the minimal downloads that I would likely have?

Roy

Nope, no issue at all. If you are worried, (no need to be), you can download an app from the market called 3g watchdog. This will put a small widget on your homescreen that tells you exactly what your current 3g data usage is. It can then warn you if you are approaching your limit.

If that's the case, android allows you to completely turn off mobile data, without affecting calls / texts, and simply use wifi for data. 1 gb should be more than enough though.

bd250110

srsly78 wrote: »

Wildfire is not slow and laggy, it's a perfectly good phone. It's actually comparable to the iphone 3gs hardware wise.

Possibly hardware wise, but the experience couldn't be more different. The OH finds the wildfire slower than even the iPhone 3G, which he had before - and lost. Websites load slowly, sense really slows the whole phone down. Prhaps with a custom ROM the phone would be totally different.
DesireS seems to be on offer at a really good price, I don't think the wildfire would be much cheaper, anyway. Not worth any saving IMHO.

Skerries

the screen on the wildfire is terrible, it looks like something from about 6-7 years ago compared to the amoled screens
i would seriously consider taking a look at the Desire S
it's a lot cheaper to run than an iPhone, i'm not knocking the iPhone but why would you pay more for something thats very similar
be prepared to charging your phone every day, thats the case with all the new smartphones but there are apps to help you make the battery last longer so just ask us when you finally decide and we can help

PogMoThoin

bd250110 wrote: »

What more can it do? Being "locked down" is not all bad. No POS apps doing their own thing, ruining battery life, stealing personal datamand making the phone laggy.

Well flash in the browser for a start, Steve Jobs makes it out that its not a big deal, but it is, 75% of todays internet is flash.

Wifi tethering and hotspot, iOS not got these without Jailbreak.

Customisation, This is where android wins hands down, If you don't like the keyboard you can just download another. You can make the phone look and feel they way you want. Not possible with iOS.

I've lots of apps, they're not stealing any data and any that do get my location I agree to allow them. My phone isn't laggy as long as I control what widgets I run and I'm happy with battery life.

bd250110 wrote: »

iTunes is not all bad, it makes keeping everything in one place, rather than having to deal with lots of apps.

Try sync your music with out iTunes, try sync .wma files and see how good iTunes is, it supports very few formats. Itunes is terrible on a Windows pc, its slow and pre-historic, one of the worst POS softwares I've ever tried. No drag and drop to make playlists, thats just dumb. It even installs bloatware (Safari and Quicktime) in its updates if you've not got your eyes open to stop it.

osnola ibax

Very bizarre phenomenon that people defend their phones so vociferously. Guess everyone likes to back a winner

Mark200

I have a Desire S. I definitely recommend it.

bd250110

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Well flash in the browser for a start, Steve Jobs makes it out that its not a big deal, but it is, 75% of todays internet is flash.

Wifi tethering and hotspot, iOS not got these without Jailbreak.

Customisation, This is where android wins hands down, If you don't like the keyboard you can just download another. You can make the phone look and feel they way you want. Not possible with iOS.

Try again. I'm afraid things have moved on. It's a bit sickening to see people going on about being able to do "much more" with their Droids. There is very little one can do that the other can't. I run both iOS and android. They are more similar than they are different.

there are browsers in the app store that use a remote server to convert flash into HTML5, so there are options for getting flash based websites to display.

WiFi tethering is enabled in iOS 4.2. As with android, some carriers charge for this feature.

Customisation, I guess it depends. Without rooting you are limited to rearranging widgets and icons, not that different to a nonjailbroken iPhone.

PogMoThoin

With Android you get a choice, a choice of phones in future, from many manufacturers, not tied to a single manufacturer like Apple

jos28

Just curious as to why no-one has recommended a Samsung Galaxy to the op. I am also looking for a new phone with similar spec to onkeano and was wondering how the Galaxy S compares to the HTC Desire.

PogMoThoin

I have a Galaxy S, its a great phone the stock Samsung software is terrible, earlier versions of which lag badly. Make sure the first thing you do with it is update it to the latest version available. You have to install custom software on it to really make it shine, then its an amazing phone.

And unlike what was said earlier in the thread You can get rid of the Samsung software by simply installing Launcher Pro, it doesn't need rooting or installing custom software

onekeano

While it was my buudys Samsung that caught my eye recently but I think I am swung more to the the HTC Desite thanks especially to Osnola :-)

I'll be checking our carphone warehouse as well (as advised) but think the HTC looks the biz and hopefully it'll sicken Roy junior with his iPhone

Roy

Kensington

onekeano wrote: »

While it was my buudys Samsung that caught my eye recently but I think I am swung more to the the HTC Desite thanks especially to Osnola :-)

I'll be checking our carphone warehouse as well (as advised) but think the HTC looks the biz and hopefully it'll sicken Roy junior with his iPhone

Roy

The HTC handsets are fantastic. I used to have a HTC Hero and I've had a fiddle around with a HTC Desire HD recently. Both great phones although the Hero began to show it's lack of horsepower with Android 2.1. The Desire S is very tempting against my own iPhone 4 I have to say - the camera on it looks fantastic, both for stills and the HD video.

Believe me, it will certainly cause junior to be ever so slightly jealous, even if he won't admit it

onekeano

Kensington wrote: »

Believe me, it will certainly cause junior to be ever so slightly jealous, even if he won't admit it

LOL Ken!!!! but you are right - he's like a chip off the old block :-) he'll NEVER admit it..............

Roy

onekeano

....

osnola ibax

The MAJOR disadvantage and I can't emphasize this enough, with iphone is iTunes. It is a horrible piece of absolute bloat ware. Think about it, its COMPLETELY unnecessary. Everything you put on your iPhone has to go through it, for heaven sake, you can't even carry around an excel file on it unless its bloody jailbroken. When I was in college I had to carry around a USB stick for essays when I had a 16 gig flash drive in my other pocket that could not even take never mind support any of the files on my PC.

It takes up valuable real estate also on the PC. You can't download a file directly to the handset unless its through iTunes unlike android which will download any file supported or not. It may not be as slick as iPhone but noone can say it doesn't do a HELL of a lot more, they are the facts.

bd250110

I use a mac, so I don't think I appreciate how iTunes works on a PC! I find it useful myself, I can keep all my media accessible in one place, stream throughout the house, etc. I have herd awful things about iTunes on the PC though, so fair enough.

I agree that the iPhone should be capable of simply dragging and dropping. I don't fully understand WHY apple has disabled this option, the classic iPods have this feature, drag and drop any file, compatable, or not. I know it's not always ideal, but the workaround is to use some sort of cloud storage. I find myself doing this more and more, especially for uni essays. I can access and modify the documents anywhere, on a friends PC, at uni, etc but mainly because I never again have to worry "oh s**t, which version is this?"

Good to know the galaxy does not need rooting to get rid of the bloatware. I'm seriously considering the SGSII, which has an unlocked boot loader. Does this mean that installing LauncherPro will be a relatively easy task?

PogMoThoin

bd250110 wrote: »

Good to know the galaxy does not need rooting to get rid of the bloatware. I'm seriously considering the SGSII, which has an unlocked boot loader. Does this mean that installing LauncherPro will be a relatively easy task?

Just install it from the market, you'll get asked which launcher to use as default when you click home
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fede.launcher
You don't get rid of the Samsung Touchwiz software, you just add another better launcher.

Nonoperational

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Well flash in the browser for a start, Steve Jobs makes it out that its not a big deal, but it is, 75% of todays internet is flash.

Complete rubbish.

Wifi tethering and hotspot, iOS not got these without Jailbreak.

100% untrue.

Customisation, This is where android wins hands down, If you don't like the keyboard you can just download another. You can make the phone look and feel they way you want. Not possible with iOS.

I've lots of apps, they're not stealing any data and any that do get my location I agree to allow them. My phone isn't laggy as long as I control what widgets I run and I'm happy with battery life.



Try sync your music with out iTunes, try sync .wma files and see how good iTunes is, it supports very few formats. Itunes is terrible on a Windows pc, its slow and pre-historic, one of the worst POS softwares I've ever tried. No drag and drop to make playlists, thats just dumb. It even installs bloatware (Safari and Quicktime) in its updates if you've not got your eyes open to stop it.

You'd want to educate yourself a bit before you post posts advising people.

Venom

gpf101 wrote: »

You'd want to educate yourself a bit before you post posts advising people.

Pog's bang on the money in what he posted bub.

osnola ibax

Venom wrote: »

Pog's bang on the money in what he posted bub.

In fairness ios has both wifi hotspot and tethering at this stage. Not sure about the flash thing myself as I have it turned off but I do like having the option and its always impressive running flash content on your mobile IMO.

BlackEdelweiss

I got a HTC Desire HD from 3 network and I am sorry I did, it is like carrying a small laptop around in your pocket. The touch screen is slow to respond at times, switching between things has a long delay, the predictive text is completly annoying, the camera gallery takes a lifetime just to view your last photo or to scroll through your pics and a fully charged battery might last less than 10 hours if you actually use your phone at all. I could go on, it may be a great phone if you are into powerfull phones but if you just want a good phone for ringing and texting I would get a decent push button phone. My wife has an iphone 4 and i wish I had got one of those or even the 3gs, they are much smaller and quicker to navigate.
I take my HTC out in public and people laugh, dont be fooled, it is not a phone it is a small computer that you can make phone calls with. I wish I had stuck with my old Nokia.

srsly78

Sounds like you are using it wrong. Turn off unncessary stuff (like gps), set screen to auto brightness. Don't use task killer. Check settings -> about phone -> battery usage, to see what is gobbling battery. Should last at least as long as the iphone.

But yes, some people think the DHD is too large. Even more people complain about the iphone tho http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=2056136306

bd250110

I think using it wrong is a bit harsh. While battery life on the DHD is well known to be below avergae, I'm surprised that the DHD is slow and laggay, as you describe. It's a very powerful phone, the ones Ive seen have been incredibly zippy. I wonder if there is an app which is running in the background? I suspect there will be.
JuiceDefender will help your battery life. It auto kills GPS, Data, etc when the screen is off, like iOS dose to save power.

Not much can be done about the physical size of the phone. The only thing I can suggest is selling it and buying something else?

onekeano

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments.:eek: Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

osnola ibax

onekeano wrote: »

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments.:eek: Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

Desire HD is a completely different phone. Why don't you Google Desire S Review and see what they say on the various websites, namely gsmarena, engadget, cnet and techradar who have it no. 3 in the greatest phones in the world today next to Sony arc, and Samsung galaxy s 11 which is dual core next Gen phone.

Also TBH, if buying an android, do some research on using it. Eg turn on the handset for the first time and GPS will be on by default. I never use GPS so I turn it off - saves battery. Turn wifi off when not in a zone. See if phone is syncing news and weather and if you really need it. Also apps you download may be a battery drainer, ie system monitoring apps,weather apps etc. The default sense launcher and Widgets will use more power than say launcherpro or adw. If you are going to buy android be prepared to learn a bit about it in the same way you would a PC. You should be able to get a full day out of the battery easily with approximately 4 hours display on time. Speaking of which, full brightness is a killer on battery aswell.

That said I believe Desire HD is particularly heavy on battery, but the desire s has a 1500 m battery - open to correction. All this info is out there man.

BlackEdelweiss

osnola ivax wrote: »

All this info is out there man.

If you are referring to me, I have all that info man but the phone is still a quite large, battery draining lump of ****e. As a mobile internet browser it is ok, larger screen than but not as quick as my wifes iphone 4.

jay93

I used a tablet with Android for the first time the other day and have to say i was impressed by how good the OS was i wasn't expecting much from Google .
I find it alot better than iOS

But of course other people will have differant opinion.
Most people who own Apple devices go on the offence when Apple is bashed at all

osnola ibax

BlackEdelweiss wrote: »

If you are referring to me, I have all that info man but the phone is still a quite large, battery draining lump of ****e. As a mobile internet browser it is ok, larger screen than but not as quick as my wifes iphone 4.

I wasn't referring to you at all. Just saying a quick Google would answer a lot of OPs questions in relation to the differences between phones. I personally always like the look of the HD but couldn't justify upgrade from original desire. Is there a custom rom out there for it that will improve battery life. Do you use launcherpro from the market, turn off wifi GPS etc. What's syncing that you may not need? Have you ever calibrated the battery?

osnola ibax

PS must remember tone of voice does not come across on forums. I was saying it in a friendly advising kind of way, not a don't be bothering me kind of way

theteal

onekeano wrote: »

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments.:eek: Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

I've mentioned in previous threads that I'd prefer the original desire to the HD and that is still the case. I think the HD is too big, a whore for battery and all it really adds is a slightly better camera

. . .my trusty desire is looking pretty fugly now when matched to the S. . .tempted

osnola ibax

I'm going for the xperia arc, I know ill regret it but I just love the look of the phone. Always like the x10 aswell but thankfully dodged that bullet. Think the galaxy s11 is a big lump of a phone.

theteal

osnola ivax wrote: »

I'm going for the xperia arc, I know ill regret it but I just love the look of the phone. Always like the x10 aswell but thankfully dodged that bullet. Think the galaxy s11 is a big lump of a phone.

i was thinking about the neo but i'm just not sure i can trust SE again. . .they've released some muck in the last couple of years. I've played with the arc a fair bit, it's very good, snappy and the camera is possibly the best i've seen in a droid. my thinking is that it's a bit big (weirdly a bit top heavy too - you'll see what i mean by that)

Kensington

onekeano wrote:

Ouch! have to say that from the earlier reports I had pretty much come to the conclusion that the HTC Deisre S was the way to go - that was until I saw Black Edelweiss's comments. Can I just ask if the HD is a different phone to the Desire S and if so do the same negatives apply?

Roy

Smartphones will never achieve the sort of standby time a "dumbphone" will. However, there's no reason you can't get 2 to 3 days out of a charge.

It depends on how you'll use it.
I struggled to get 10 hours out of a full charge on my HTC Hero, but I used it very heavily - texting, browsing, streaming radio, youtube etc. I also found it laggy at times.
I recently gave it to the aul lad who isn't interested in that at all and he gets two days at least out of a full charge, sometimes three. He'd usually have about an hour, maybe two of calls and a few texts during each charge. Uses internet for a few minutes over WiFi a day but off at all other times. No always on GPS, mobile data, 3G. It's also a good bit more responsive as he doesn't have Facebook sync on, push e-mail, tons of widgets which I used to have active.

osnola ivax wrote:

If you are going to buy android be prepared to learn a bit about it in the same way you would a PC.

osnola ivax wrote: »

Is there a custom rom out there for it that will improve battery life. Do you use launcherpro from the market, turn off wifi GPS etc. What's syncing that you may not need? Have you ever calibrated the battery?

And the Android heads wonder why people choose iOS :pac:

KrisW

bd250110 wrote: »

I use a mac, so I don't think I appreciate how iTunes works on a PC! I find it useful myself, I can keep all my media accessible in one place, stream throughout the house, etc. I have herd awful things about iTunes on the PC though, so fair enough.

Having used Macs for years, and got my first Windows laptop recently, I can only say that iTunes on Windows outdoes the Mac version for ****eness.

Mac iTunes was already a lousy piece of software (it still runs on a single thread -so you can't do somethng else while it does something time-consuming, like fix gapless playback or find album art), but the Windows version adds even slower running and extra unreliability.

bd250110

Kensington wrote: »

Smartphones will never achieve the sort of standby time a "dumbphone" will. However, there's no reason you can't get 2 to 3 days out of a charge.

And the Android heads wonder why people choose iOS :pac:

I agree, battery life on the smart phones is about the dumbest thing about them. Some are better than others, but hopes of anything over 2 days is unrealistic, IME.

I think it's hard to recommend one ecosystem over another, let alone a device. A lot of people really love the large 4.3" screens on the DHD, but as many will find it too big and bulky.

For me, the real smartphone 'battle' is only just beginning. The rate of churn of users will be interesting, will the majority of users stick to the ecosystem they know, or move freely? For sure Apple have some serious shelf-appeal, with both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3Gs each outselling any other smartphone model. Can they maintain that appeal? Will Nokia resurge with the new WP7 devices? Can Google continue world domination with its little green robots? Will BB be able to leverage the popularity of BBM to lure users back?

celestialgrrl

Hi

I'll tempted to move network from vodafone to meteor and have been looking at the SE x10 mini pro...it got a pretty good review from techradar.com...when I looked into the specs it seems the UK offer the x10 mini pro running on android 2.1 eclair...BUT...looking at the specs on the meteor site says it runs on donut 1.6...?

This would be my first smartphone and I wont be playing with it all the time...my question is...would this be fine for a new to smartphones person or would it just be a massive source of frustration?

I'd love to hear your comments!

Tnx :rolleyes:

gingernut79

Just finding out today that iphone on three is virtual non runner in my house, and as I'm at home most of the time, it will have to go back. I've had ipod touch for over 2 years and I really like iOS, but I cant stay with three, so therefore I cant afford an iphone. Now, I know nothing about Android, and I've had mostly Sony Ericsson phones the last 6 years, €35 - €40 is pretty much my billpay ceiling, and I'd be able to go up to €150 for a handset, what handsets should I be looking at, with iphone standard functionality web browsing, social networking, 3g / wifi and possibly tethering?

Thanks in advance

ingalway

As a die hard Apple fan for many years I actually decided not to buy an iPhone due to the cost and the high monthly contract prices. I recently bought a Samsung Galaxy Mini in Tesco for €160. It operates on Android which is really easy to use and has loads of free and paid Apps available. Running costs are kept to a minimum as Tesco double credit for anything you put on, which is not a short term gimmick, I put on €10 and they put on another €10, plus they have the cheapest call costs, I'm pretty sure it's 12c per minute anytime. I then buy a monthly data package for €6.99 which gives me a 1Gb allowance. I can access everything from the phone - full internet, email, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc. Very happy with it - did not have to spend a fortune but got a really good phone and get 1Gb for a very manageable price. I think people have to spend way too much with the regular phone operators for the same end result.