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Nicko
18th June 2010, 10:30 PM
So i've thrashed my good old "chocolate block" Nokia (6288) which i've had on a plan for the past two years.

I don't want an iPhone, and all the Nokia N97 people i've spoken to have had issues.

I'm up for a new phone in a month on my new contract.

What is a half decent phone to get these days (N97 and iPhone aside)

Cheers

fantapants
18th June 2010, 10:36 PM
i enjoy my htc desire...

driftke70
19th June 2010, 12:06 AM
htc evo

have a n97 and zero issues

focus_7
19th June 2010, 12:30 AM
I also r=highly rate the HTC brand, I have HTC Magic, very happy with it.
That or sony ericsson.

letsgohunting
19th June 2010, 01:13 AM
nokia n8 or one of the big daddy HTC that don't run windows mobile. Oh also samsung make some very nice phones right now too. icon hd is a total media machine. plays everything and anything.

letsgohunting
19th June 2010, 12:28 PM
htc evo


Be aware this one has reportedly the worst battery life out of any phone on the market. Most people are saying that it can't last a day of normal use.

driftke70
19th June 2010, 01:03 PM
thats on a 4g connection which you would only use now and then, people are leaving it permanently on 4g.

ae86
19th June 2010, 01:35 PM
wait what 4g connection?..

n00bvak
19th June 2010, 02:15 PM
+1 for HTC desire / evo.

Got a desire and love it. Bought one from a UK store front for $600. Unlocked and works schmick on vodaphone 3g network on a prepaid cap. And its pretty cheap for an outright smart phone!!!

All round it is win!!! (as long as you live metro, otherwise you have to go with the pigdog telstra and get the phone through them)

fantapants
19th June 2010, 08:30 PM
Yeah HAD to go telstra cos the property we have bought is too rural for any other supplier.

optus network fails less than 6 minutes outside launceston the way we have to head.

letsgohunting
20th June 2010, 01:00 AM
thats on a 4g connection which you would only use now and then, people are leaving it permanently on 4g.

apparently it makes a small difference but still terrible.

Can any of the guys that own them make any comments on battery life?

In this article (http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2010/05/31/htc-evo-4g-sprint-review/) the dude says:


Simply put, the battery sucks. It’s a deal breaker. I’m really sorry to say that, too. In fact it hurts me because I wanted this phone so bad, but the battery life is horrible. The phone will lose a third of its battery sitting overnight with the GPS, WiFi, and 4G turned off. Even with Advanced Task Killer set to aggressive and auto killing apps every hour, the most I can get out of the phone is about ten hours.

Take yesterday: I pulled it off the charger at 9 am, checked my mail and ESPN a couple of times during church, used the GPS navigation for 13 miles, and then checked my mail a few times throughout the afternoon while I was at a family event. The phone died promptly at 6 pm. It’s that bad.

I’ve tried a few different things like using a static background rather than a live background, turning off widget animation, disabling WiFi/4G/GPS, and setting Advanced Task Killer to aggressive. Nothing makes a significant difference. The phone just sucks the battery dry.

n00bvak
20th June 2010, 11:04 AM
Guys, you need to remember somthing here. THe HTC evo has the largest screen and one of the smallest dimensions out of all the smartphones on the market. Not only that but it allows for FULL multi tasking (unlike apples 'implementation'). If you really think you are going to get 10 days of battery you are mistaken.

There is also a point of needing to "run" the battery in. As it is a Lithium battery, it requires many complete powercycles, (full battery to almost dead) before the battery life can be judged. As with the desire phone (FYI there is plenty of banter on this @ whirlpool.net.au) it didn't even last a day at the start, after 3 weeks of owning its consistently up to 3 days with large wifi and gps usage and always on 3g.

Also with any smart phone owners, even iCraple, know that you are not going to get the battery life of your nokia 5100 (for you guys that are old enough to have owned one of them). I have a car charger for when using gps and tunes in the car and usb cable for at work and I have never run out of battery on my desire. EVER!

OK, back to Nick here. Do you want a smart phone? Or just a normal phone with the obligatory mp3 player and decent camera (recommend Sony Ericsson there)? Or maybe just a phone that you can make calls on without the bells and whistles???

driftke70
20th June 2010, 11:33 AM
i dont know if id get a sony

and 9 hours for the first few weeks is pretty reasonably with the hdmi res and stuff gav.

mine was around that when i first got my phone and is in the region of 4 days now.

he was also using it pretty heavily, gps saps battery life, you pretty much need a power cable in your car if you are going to be using it.
Most navigators last like 4 hours without the cord, the fact phones last longer is feat in itself.

Get some decent reviews when the thing hasnt been out for a week.

R&D Mechanical
20th June 2010, 11:50 AM
I have a N97 and have had nothing but issues, the apps in it are shit house, cost too much and most of the time dont even work. takes ages to open the link you want, even trying to touch to click is a pain (have to touch many times to get it to work) if your on the internet and you just looking around on it BANG it disides to close it for no reason at all whilst your viewing a web page! Nokia have lost there shit and are going down hill unless they pull something out of there ass!

Should of got an Iphone

driftke70
20th June 2010, 12:45 PM
i have none of those issue, you are doing something wierd man

most of the apps, all the ones you want are free

you can download huge app packs off torernts for free,

my internet is fine

i find the screen fine

driftke70
20th June 2010, 12:51 PM
have you got v21?

R&D Mechanical
20th June 2010, 01:08 PM
Whats v21? i think mine might need an update of some sort? im not sure

slide86
20th June 2010, 02:14 PM
i also have n97 and had one or two issue in the last 12 months but a single software update fixed em all and mine is sweet

do a software update and you should clear up all those issues

sun_moon
20th June 2010, 02:29 PM
lol i remember i had a sony c905 like the month it was released.
duirng my first year of ownership it had these problems:

camera flash exploded when i taken a photo.
a software error made the phone unable to recieve volume in calls, you had to use loudspeaker all the time to hear.
the 6 key became hard to use
so did the 8 key.
the slide broken.

im pretty sure it had a couple of other problems. but i forget now.
in short, i am VERY reluctant to buy another sony phone, despite it being the most simple, easy to use and have great features.

it was awesome tho, no lag, i could type chinese and english without having to change the phones languages, the camera was fuckin awesome. so much good stuff... shame about the huge amount of problems it had.

driftke70
20th June 2010, 02:42 PM
v21 is a software update, can do it either through your phone or pc, just go to
menu/applications/sw updater and check for new software then install it.
or go to pc suit and once your phones connected via usb just click software update.

makes scrolling smoother, everything way faster, browser loads quicker than the quick it already was.

I HATE capacitive screens. My girlfriends icon hd has cap and i have resistive, with resistive you can click on such smaller details,
like my brother has a htc desire, and if you just want to move the cursor over like one letter it takes you like three attempts,
the n97 you just use your finger nail and its so precise, and if you dont like that youve got a full dpad to scroll around with.

the motorola backflip looks pretty cool but i dont like the idea of the keyboard being exposed all the time.

if i were to get a new phone it would be a n8 nokia. Basically all the goodness of my n97 that i love but with faster processor, bigger clearer screeen, multi touch (overrated) and a badass camera, full hd video, hdmi output. Has capacitive screen though which i dont think i would like,
and no full physical qwerty keyboard is lame, used touch keyboards on about 5 different phones and i dont like them. My phone has the option to use it but physical buttons are so much better in my opinion.

driftke70
20th June 2010, 02:45 PM
also never install stuff to the C: drive always install to the sd or 32gb mass memory.
go into settings application manager and have a look at the programs you have installed, if they have a little white sd card looking thing next to them they are installed either on E or F drive, if they have nothing next to them they are installed on c, uninstall if on C and reinstall on mass unless they are nokia software that are the main operating system of the phone such as clock or menu and stuff like that. Makes your phone really fast and you will never have a program fail.

In comparisons ive made with my bros htc desire, girlfriends icon hd, 2g and 3gs iphones my phone appears to be faster at everything.

driftke70
20th June 2010, 03:04 PM
also heres a cool little trick
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW-SdrYxrWY

ke70dave
20th June 2010, 04:02 PM
hmm this is all interesting.

my mate has one of the latest sony phones, unsure on model, but its a full touch screen, comes with a stylist, most useles phone ever. tiny little "keys" for text messaging!!

my contract is up on my n95 in a few months (n95 such a good phone), currently its a toss up between the ipodphone, nokia (n8 or n97) or HTC phone (desire is looking good). unfortunately "3" dont have the HTC phones yet, hoping they have them by then, just to compare the prices.

i am quite skeptical of a full touch screen phone, i can text message uber fast with buttons, and i like that i can feel the buttons with my fingers, dont need to look at them to write. but with touch screen....

driftke70
20th June 2010, 04:16 PM
n97 comes with a stylus if you wanna use it. I dont.

my bro has a htc desire on 3 he bought it unlocked from the states.

sony always comes close but so far.
their build quality in ANYTHING they have made over the last 10 to 15 years has been questionable.

ke70dave
20th June 2010, 04:26 PM
you had a play with the desire? any good?

driftke70
20th June 2010, 04:44 PM
it seems really capable and smooth/fast. All the apps are available, ( i feel that all the apps you want are available on android, s60, windows mobile and iphone, people on blogs and stuff go "so and so OS has x amount but so and so only has y amount" but you find many of them are doubles and the itunes base has ALOT that were just flops and the developers realised they couldnt be bothered getting rid of them never mind putting them on other platforms.

It seems like its really flexible home screen wise with how you organise things, like you can have many pages of home screens that you can swipe through and put what ever you want on. Some can be widgets that take up a full screen, some can be icons for apps, some can be links to areas on the phone, you can put a picture of a persons face as big or small as you like and use that to quick link calls or messages.

gps is great, screen is great size and really clear, battery life is over 2 days of good use, really good ergos, ( i feel the iphone is oversimplified to the point it gets annoying)

only thing I can fault is that its hard to do precise things with the screen such as get the cursor exactly where you want it to fix a typo or something but if i had the phone for a week id probably be able to nail it first go. Has really good predictive text and dictionary functions.

like my n97 you can type a few letters and then scroll through a list of words it might be, the desire has like a continually changing predictive section above what your typing.

floats between email and sms really well, like you can look at the communication from one person or a group and it shows you messages on facebook, sms, calls, emails etc and you can change it by time, by source or what ever. Would be really handy, my n97 does this but you can only view sms/mms then change to email not all laid out on one screen together.

Its a little on the big side but i can see it bothering me if i had one. The benifits of the bigger screen are obvious.
Really good plug and play capabilities, basically plug it in and it acts like a drive, has a proper file system that you can search for files and stuff, same as n97 but more available on the screen at once as it has a bigger screen obviously.

Connect to the internet really quickly and has a great browser, has a feature where you can hold down a button and say something and it brings up a variety of options that you can click on,
like say you held down the button and said def leopard
it would bring up google search, the link to a song or album you had on your phone
a text message with that text in it
an email with that text in it
facebook or twitter thing with that text

all works really well.

That being said i would have a look at an n8 or evo before i bought one.

n00bvak
20th June 2010, 05:01 PM
desire is awesome and highly recomended. Easiest smart phone to use, the only forseable downside is the "run in" period for batteries (explained above) but other than that it has not crashed, heaps of apps at the droid market and no itunes!!!! Winna!!!

driftke70
20th June 2010, 05:07 PM
i have nightmares about itunes

R&D Mechanical
20th June 2010, 05:23 PM
hmm just checked my software virsion and it is the v21 one, and thats where i have had problems, il look into more updates me thinks/

driftke70
20th June 2010, 06:01 PM
v21 only came out last week and is a manual update so if you dont remember updating it, it probably isnt, sure it wasnt 1.2?

dave2221
20th July 2010, 05:21 PM
i have none of those issue, you are doing something wierd man

most of the apps, all the ones you want are free

you can download huge app packs off torernts for free,

my internet is fine

i find the screen fine

which app pack so i can find it

Dpig
20th July 2010, 10:50 PM
i have a nokia 6760. it isnt top of the line but man ive had blackberrys and other nokias. this one tops them all. love it to bits had it since they first came out and i havnt even thought about a change

Richard
21st July 2010, 01:28 PM
cnt help you there nick, I have an iphone and wife has an N97

Nicko
21st July 2010, 02:43 PM
You're a deadset fucking idiot...

keiichi
21st July 2010, 10:05 PM
What is a half decent phone to get these days



a second hand one. has to be atleast three years old.

keiichi
21st July 2010, 10:08 PM
i have a sagem myx62... works exactly the same as when i bought it 4 years ago, its been dropped about twenty times and had car parts dropped on it too, smashed screen and all its very reliable.

you just cant have a fully sick i have no life facebook on the train lifestyle with it.

Richard
22nd July 2010, 10:17 AM
You're a deadset fucking idiot...

Nice attack buddy!

AJPS
22nd July 2010, 05:15 PM
i have a sagem myx62... works exactly the same as when i bought it 4 years ago, its been dropped about twenty times and had car parts dropped on it too, smashed screen and all its very reliable.

you just cant have a fully sick i have no life facebook on the train lifestyle with it.

yeah I have a gen1 E65.

Upgrade to an N95, that fucked up beyond repair a week out of warranty...

pulled the e65 back out begrudingly, was gonna upgrade again, but to its credit, it has hung around to this day.

Still has more features than all iphones except iphone 4 to my knowledge.

never had an issue until just recently the speaker stopped working so all calls on loud speaker.

Never replaced the battery, nothing, its been dropped sooo many times, fallen off car roofs, frozen (lost and found in snow) etc etc.

Will not die. Its covered in tape and it doesnt like photos being stored on it (never had a software update in 4 years) and yeah it gets used literally ALL day.

20 5 min calls a day, + heaps of text and email use.

Its so easy to use, can text and drive without looking (yes i know, terrible habit, rarely do it)

Fits inside my motorbike helmet so i can talk on phone while riding (as above)

And no one wants to steal it.

One thing i found interesting

N95 = made in china E65 = made in finland.

Ill definitely be getting another nokia, probably another e65.

Main reason Im NOT getting a smart phone (everyone says theyre great for business which i dispute)

Is I spend literally half my day on the phone, I dont need/want to be on it for any other reason except calling/texting/emailing and the odd photo.

I dont need HD games and video cameras and pointless apps.

Nicko
22nd July 2010, 10:03 PM
Lawson, Best post yet.

Richard, fuck off and don't come back, you are not wanted here.... You have a brain the size of a grain of salt and don't deserve the keyboard you type on.

Richard
23rd July 2010, 09:00 AM
Thats not very nice my friend, its two grains of salt actually :jdmsmile:

KE70
23rd July 2010, 04:24 PM
I have the HTC legend and I love it. Its not as powerful as the HTC desire but doesn't seem slower. It also cheaper and better looking.

But if I was with telstra I would just get the desire but since I was already with vodaphone, I just extended my contract and got the legend.

Get an android, you wont regret it.

Low Style
28th July 2010, 04:45 PM
Iphone - IPWN!

ae86
29th July 2010, 12:29 PM
my boss just got the experia x10 seems really cool! great video quality lots of apps to get,
i think il still lean towards iphone 4 as the prices have been released and im quite keen for the concept of
'phone for retards that dont understand android properly'

Low Style
29th July 2010, 12:43 PM
I have a Iphone 4 coming to my hot little hands once they are in aus for free muhahahahah

Nicko
4th August 2010, 07:40 PM
My Vodafone contract was up for renewal today...

Meaning, on the weekend - I get a new phone.

At the moment it is swinging between a HTC and an iPhone 4, both of which I can get on my $49 cap.

My immediate thoughts are that as cool as an iPhone would be - I think I am going to go for the HTC w/Android

Which is the best HTC these days?

Thanks

Konakid
4th August 2010, 10:51 PM
Apparently HTC has terrible battery life, like 1 day from full cahrge with normal use.

letsgohunting
5th August 2010, 03:27 AM
Both are good though It should be known that the HTC android phones available in Aus at the moment are all old phones - like some are even superseded by newer models in the US. I'd really like a htc evo 4g or a droid X but they're not available in Aus at the moment, if ever.

And yeah a lot of the HTC big screen phones have less than a days battery life. You'll find the iphone4 has very good battery life by comparison - it should of course, judging by the size of the battery they shoehorned into the thing.

Konakid
5th August 2010, 04:12 PM
For that reason im going an N85, anyone had experience? Seems less bulky than the previous N958G i had.

1.6PWR
5th August 2010, 05:56 PM
i got an n900 2 weeks ago through my phone insurance, honestly ive never had a better phone, its like having a laptop with you all the time

n900 ftw

nichy
11th August 2010, 09:38 PM
I havea HTC desire and its the best phone i have used. have an ipod touch and used a heap of iphones and just found the htc has a better screen, pulse touch , slide keyboard app. battery is only a little over a day of full use but the charger is a usb cord so easy and cheap options for charging.

only phone that uses full flash... ipads done even do that.
i dont get the whole understanding android thing..... its a phone...this is the first time i have used or owned an android phone and i have had no issues working it out.

ke70dave
12th August 2010, 09:01 PM
well i just bought a HTC desire today...still havent figured out how to use it properly yet, hopefully the network swaps over soon.

cool phone so far though.

whats the slide keyboard app?

Nicko
12th August 2010, 09:09 PM
Upgraded to the HTC Legend on Wednesday,

Fucking awesome.

Glad that I didn't get the iPhone4 now :)

I love it, very easy to use, hundreds of free apps.

Best phone ever.

AJPS
12th August 2010, 09:17 PM
Best phone period.

Fixed

stylz
13th August 2010, 06:10 PM
ive got the samsung galaxy s. im mc luvin it. so awesome

harvo
13th August 2010, 08:43 PM
Upgraded to the HTC Legend on Wednesday,

Fucking awesome.

Glad that I didn't get the iPhone4 now :)

I love it, very easy to use, hundreds of free apps.

Best phone ever.


Sweet, got one one the way.

My Nokia died a week after my contract ran out, iPhone are overrated tho I am contemplating getting an imac

Skylar
15th August 2010, 04:10 PM
I'm going to have to go against the grain here. I played with a mate's desire for a few minutes and I wasn't happy with it. In its defense, it was the first or second day he'd had it and he hadn't even figured it out yet.

I bought an iPod touch just to see if I could deal with iOS and I don't think I could own an iPhone either.

Anything else on the market that's half decent? No E71/blackberry style phones please. Thanks.

ke70dave
15th August 2010, 10:25 PM
yer im on day 3 of the HTC desire (bloody telstra still hasnt ported my number across, so still runnin on '3' so cant use any apps that require data, unless im near wifi)

ive pretty much worked out the OS,but typing on a touch screen...is going to wake a while!!

oh and im lovin all the cool apps you can download, alot of cool games too, that im never going to play.

takes a while to work out what apps you actually need, so far im only using 3 of the 7 home screen things, have to find some more stuff to put on the others....

AJPS
17th August 2010, 09:03 PM
i got a Nokia 6710 navigator i think

its great, but i like simple old school shit

spiderman
17th August 2010, 09:17 PM
I have a Nokia 6120c, simple as and still works as good as when I bought it mid '08. Don't really see the point in having anything fancy. Mp3 player, camera and expandable memory is all you need

4agejet
6th September 2010, 07:24 PM
nokia n95 black one.. ftw?

AJPS
6th September 2010, 09:13 PM
The 6710 flew off the car roof today at 110. Few scratches but didnt even turn off. everything works sweet

Skylar
7th September 2010, 02:44 AM
Looking at N95 but still like 250-300 secondhand, I could just buy my current phone (W508a) again NEW for that much. I really like the look of these compared to the rounder N96.

All I really want is decent camera, music player, expandable memory for music storage, 3g coverage and GOOD(~1 week minimal use) battery life. Stupid phone doesn't even last 2 days without being used.

Also, Dave, I was walking round the city wearing an old AJPS shirt today. Hope you got some brand exposure out of it. <3

MarmO.
12th September 2010, 02:06 PM
iphone 4 here, besides the reciption i love it, had it for a month or two now, had plenty of phones but i always seem to stick with the iphones due to apps but most importantly for me they are the best phone for using the net with i have found, easy internet tethering also when away for laptop ect.

though for some resone i still have a soft spot for the nokia 6100 (very old think when colour screens first came out) no features really on them just a nice looking simple to use and small/sleek

Sam-Q
17th September 2010, 01:06 AM
inferior phone makers..

I have a dual sim card phone that works awesome and I think it's crap none of the big name companies sell them, unless I have missed something.

AJPS
18th September 2010, 01:50 AM
real life male model!


Looking at N95 but still like 250-300 secondhand, I could just buy my current phone (W508a) again NEW for that much. I really like the look of these compared to the rounder N96.

All I really want is decent camera, music player, expandable memory for music storage, 3g coverage and GOOD(~1 week minimal use) battery life. Stupid phone doesn't even last 2 days without being used.

Also, Dave, I was walking round the city wearing an old AJPS shirt today. Hope you got some brand exposure out of it. <3

letsgohunting
18th September 2010, 01:35 PM
I just ordered an iphone 4 on business plan with optus... Wanted a Motorola droid X which is massive - like 4.3 inches but it's a US only phone and probably won't come out here for a few more years. The original Moto droid is out, but it's slow and completely out specced by the iphone 4. I had a play with the new android HTC's and samsung galaxy S, but it's my opinion that the android OS isn't quite as slick as the apple iOS. More customizable in some ways yes, but then I don't care too much about customization if the phone works well to begin with.

The samsung galaxy S was pretty nice though - a bit plasticky in build but very speedy and a nice screen. Optus has cheap plans with it too.

Nicko
18th September 2010, 01:44 PM
Still extremely happy with my HTC Legend.

Would highly reccomended over an iPhone, plenty of awesome free apps.

letsgohunting
25th September 2010, 01:14 AM
Got my iphone 4 - very happy. Glad I went it over the motorola.

Clinton
29th September 2010, 05:21 PM
i scored a samsung galaxy. goes alright

dann_m
10th October 2010, 09:23 PM
Scored my self a brand new nokia n900 for free, Its an awesome phone. Shits all over iphones and still has the greatness of a nokia, no down time like the crappy n97's aswell.
over all great phone with plenty of things to keep you entertained.