This was pure sex. I was totally in love with this phone. All the features of the previous model with an even sleeker shell. I even got it running some pretty nifty flash-based themes with hacked firmware. I had to buy a cingular model and unlock it (I use t-mobile), but even the cingular branded button didn't sway my feelings for this phone. Please not that the cingular branded firmware is quite bad, and you'll want to take the time to hack the firmware. Typically a process that takes a few hours, I was unlucky and it took me 3 days (brutce force method, purely based on luck).
Would you say it would be a good choice for someone who'd use it primarily as an MP3 player? Google tells me some people had issues with a hissing and/or low general volume. These things would kill it for me.
The Mp3 function is great. The sony walkman software on the phone makes navigating it really easy.
I too have a w810i. It's great. Great camera and good music player with or without the headset. Just waiting for a good deal on a 4 GB MS Duo
The Sony/Ericsson headset with the controls on it is really lacking though.
Yeah, so far I'm not happy about the whole no headphone jack thing. It's something I can live with, but it bugs me. Any adaptors or anything that will let me use some regular phones? Or will bluetooth headphones work?
Torso Boy on
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
edited April 2007
I have a W300i... is this headset thing only with new phones? Mine came with a plugin for a mic, with a jack to plug in any set of headphones you wanted...
As for cell phone plans, much of what you need to know:
I've been using Unicel (a rural cellular provider, which is great considering my location), and if you live in the upper half of New England, I highly reccomend them. Not only are they really the only GSM provider, but they have given awesome customer service, and the billing is somewhat reasonable.
I used to have one of the free flip phones that came with my plan about a year ago (maybe a little more than that) however, around december I partied a little to hard and it died. It wasn't anything special, but it could play good ringtones and was a flip phone. So I ended up looking for the cheepest way for me to resume normal communications and at about 25 bucks, it was hard to beat.
If I wore a watch I'd totally buy that holyfuckawesome Bluetooth watch (impressive website, too) but the "turned off" screen on my SE w600i has the time on it so I don't even wear one anymore.
This was pure sex. I was totally in love with this phone. All the features of the previous model with an even sleeker shell. I even got it running some pretty nifty flash-based themes with hacked firmware. I had to buy a cingular model and unlock it (I use t-mobile), but even the cingular branded button didn't sway my feelings for this phone. Please not that the cingular branded firmware is quite bad, and you'll want to take the time to hack the firmware. Typically a process that takes a few hours, I was unlucky and it took me 3 days (brutce force method, purely based on luck).
Would you say it would be a good choice for someone who'd use it primarily as an MP3 player? Google tells me some people had issues with a hissing and/or low general volume. These things would kill it for me.
The Mp3 function is great. The sony walkman software on the phone makes navigating it really easy.
Yes those phones were my only mp3 player for quite a while. You can change how it deals with calls while you're listening to music as well. The headset adapter works with normal headphones, but you'll end up with a really long cable.
It can't pipe music through a blue-tooth headset natively, but I believe with hacked firmware it's possible. The disc2phone software you use to put music on your phone is straightforward, though not fantastic. You can also just do it manually as it'll mount the card and phone as separate drives when connected via usb. Though, in that scenario, you have to conform to the predesignated directory structure which can be a pain if your music isn't well organized already.
If you can afford a little more, the w900 is supposed to have a greatly improved media player. While the w800 & w810 is perfectly adequate, it could do with some better organization options and album art which I believe the w900 will do fine. Also the video playback isn't too great on either the w800 and w810 but I'm not really sure why anyone would need that...
That's not really why I'm leaving Verizon. I'm leaving them for their shitty customer service, their crappy phone selection, their 2-year lockin everytime your LG phone breaks and you don't want to pay an arm and a leg to get a new one. I want them to burn in fire. If I wasn't going to Helio, I would go back to Cingular and get an Ericsson phone.
You realise every issue you mentioned is a problem with every carrier except phone selection - (which is a personal preference thing) Nobody is going to give you a discount on another phone within your contract period after they already gave you one.
That's why I'm trying out one of the completely new providers in hopes that their business model isn't yet ruined by asshattery. The more important thing to me was their phones, LG has to be the worst phone manufacturer on the planet and Verizon almost always gets the new phones last (no iPhone, no Blackberry Pearl, no Sony Ericsson, no halfway decent smart phone like the Sidekick, OGO, Helio Ocean, etc). And I absolutely WILL NOT purchase a smart phone from LG.
I loved my Blackberry 8700 when I worked at the House of Reps, but only for data-only, not voice. It's almost as stupid looking when talking into it as the original N-Gage. Taco hooooooo!
...and Verizon almost always gets the new phones last (no iPhone, no Blackberry Pearl, no Sony Ericsson, no halfway decent smart phone like the Sidekick, OGO, Helio Ocean, etc). And I absolutely WILL NOT purchase a smart phone from LG...
This isn't a Verizon thing, it's a CDMA thing. Verizon is far ahead of the game as far as CDMA carriers are concerned, but CDMA is far behind GSM. A lot has to do with Qualcomm and their chipset, from what I've read they're not an easy company to work with and their chipset is a lot more bulky then a comparable GSM chipset.
Those are probably two reasons why Nokia has decided to no longer manufacture CDMA phones (everything Nokia branded CDMA will be outsourced).
So, you can't really say "Verizon almost always gets the new phones last." It should be "CDMA almost always gets the new phones last."
...and Verizon almost always gets the new phones last (no iPhone, no Blackberry Pearl, no Sony Ericsson, no halfway decent smart phone like the Sidekick, OGO, Helio Ocean, etc). And I absolutely WILL NOT purchase a smart phone from LG...
This isn't a Verizon thing, it's a CDMA thing. Verizon is far ahead of the game as far as CDMA carriers are concerned, but CDMA is far behind GSM. A lot has to do with Qualcomm and their chipset, from what I've read they're not an easy company to work with and their chipset is a lot more bulky then a comparable GSM chipset.
Those are probably two reasons why Nokia has decided to no longer manufacture CDMA phones (everything Nokia branded CDMA will be outsourced).
So, you can't really say "Verizon almost always gets the new phones last." It should be "CDMA almost always gets the new phones last."
Weeeeell, I don't see Verizon switching over to a different carrier service so who is actually to blame becomes irrelevant. I can't get good phones through them.
...and Verizon almost always gets the new phones last (no iPhone, no Blackberry Pearl, no Sony Ericsson, no halfway decent smart phone like the Sidekick, OGO, Helio Ocean, etc). And I absolutely WILL NOT purchase a smart phone from LG...
This isn't a Verizon thing, it's a CDMA thing. Verizon is far ahead of the game as far as CDMA carriers are concerned, but CDMA is far behind GSM. A lot has to do with Qualcomm and their chipset, from what I've read they're not an easy company to work with and their chipset is a lot more bulky then a comparable GSM chipset.
Those are probably two reasons why Nokia has decided to no longer manufacture CDMA phones (everything Nokia branded CDMA will be outsourced).
So, you can't really say "Verizon almost always gets the new phones last." It should be "CDMA almost always gets the new phones last."
Weeeeell, I don't see Verizon switching over to a different carrier service so who is actually to blame becomes irrelevant. I can't get good phones through them.
On the plus side, CDMA is supposed to be the hardest to hack. So if your the tin foil hat wearing type it might be worth it.
My Contract with Telus is up in June, and I'm thinking of switching to Rogers (for the Internet/TV/Phone deal) and grabbing this....
Sony Ericsson K790
Yay/Nay?
Yes, that phone is pretty awesome. Every feature is well implemented and the design is great. The camera is really great for a phone camera. Handles exactly like a real camera, and the real flash is a nice touch. It's a little bulky, but also not that heavy. I would recommend getting a hard case and maybe a belt pouch for it. When you put it down on it's back side, it rests on the lens protector and that gets pretty scratched if you're not careful. Oh, you'll probably want a screen protector too. It's like a dollar on amazon.
I also have the w810 and I love it to death. I had a sony ericsson phone back when I was in college and I loved it also. The interface is easy to use, it takes great photos, and pop in a 2Gig memory card and you got a good little mp3 player as well. I use the phone when i go running.
The only thing I don't like is that you have to use the provided connection to use headphones. You can use any headphones you want (although they do give you some pretty good ones IMO) but you have to use the extra connection they give you to connect to the phone. You have to even hook it up to use the FM radio, which I find is a great add on....
Is the Sony Ericsson interface/os different than others? The reason I ask is because when I got the phone, it was a toss up between the Sony and the Samsung slidey thing and the Cingular guy said that if you had a Sony before, then definitely get it. The only returns he's had from it is because people didn't like the interface/os. I dunno but to me it's so simple to use!
My Contract with Telus is up in June, and I'm thinking of switching to Rogers (for the Internet/TV/Phone deal) and grabbing this....
Sony Ericsson K790
Yay/Nay?
I love this phones interface and hardware. But the frame they put all that nice-nice in is fucking horrid. I hate it's design and the size of it. I've had a k800i since last summer/autumn and it was nice for the first months. But after Xmas I've been more and more annoyed with it.
It's one of those phones you have to live with for a while before you realize what you really think about it. If I could just have it's internals in another case...
Well my SLVR is in the mail, and I'm about to d/l the Motorola Phone Tools program. Anyone have any experiece with it? My main question is can I chop up MP3's in that prog. or do I have to do it before hand in another app. and MPT is just used to upload them into the phone?
I've actually found MPT to be pretty useful when I had a RAZR. Of course I had to make the program let me upload ringtones to it, but that was an easy fix.
I never have owned a cell phone before because I never seen much reason in having one. I actually own a few phones oddly enough. There were ones that people gave me because they switched services and they were rendered useless. I'm in the U.S. and currently have a land-line that's $14 a month.. I don't have any service on the phone but a dailtone. I have no voicemail, callerID, or even call waiting. It's a basic twisted pair with battery, tap, and ring. That's it.
I recently graduated college and I'm in a new job. It's a rather techy one working with computers in my company. My peers, however, are pretty much beside themselves that I've never owned a cell. (I'm 32 BTW) The need really wasn't there for me to justify one. I thought a phone would would be cool. I've been kind of eyeing the technology coming out of Japan. 4G looks awesome, along with more glitzy services like phone-to-phone video conferencing some of the more advanced 3D GPS stuff. I'm not really *THAT* into it, and a lot of these services are not even available in Japan for another year. It's nice to dream and watch the technology unfold. I have some very particular things I want with my phone. Most of it has to do with it's abilities, and not how it looks, so I'm hoping you guys can help me out...
First, if the phone is locked, it's no deal. I want to buy the phone serviceless and activate it when I want. I don't want to be tied to a "free" phone with a contract. I would like month-to-month like my normal phone bill. I'm pretty sure a "bare" phone is going to be pretty expensive. I'm not looking for a contract. I want to own the phone outright and pick who I have my service with. Because there are two major networks here (CDMA and GSM), I would probably need a phone that can do both. In a perfect world, I would like something that supports UMTS (The japanese merge of GSM+CDMA... It's also called WCDMA). That would be nice, but I don't think there is support for UMTS is the U.S. yet. (WCDMA is not compatible with CDMA and needs to be upgraded) . A PDS phone is Japanese only.
The reason why I say "yet" is because the only way for a 4G phone to even connect requires UMTS. (4G == 1.2M up and down) As the U.S. doen't have 4G anyway, and Japan is refusing to licence the technology here until we get our infastructure togeather, it's kind of a non-issue.
Besides the CDMA/GSM thing, I would like to link to my computer so I can put data on my phone, like ringtones, and take data off of it, like pictures. I'm not looking for some fancy data syncing thing. I'm not planning on running office applications on it. I would like to take nice pictures and give it the codec ringtone from MGS.
The ability to connect to the internet is a no-brainer. I know that's really a data-plan thing that's dependant on the provider I choose for prices and speed and such.
This is an example that I would like as far as phone output goes. This girl takes pictures with her phone and then uploads them to her blog, after that she makes a post by typing using "ATOK" on her number pad. (It's a japanese form of typing out text with the dial numbers).
Doing a little research, I found she uses a NEC N902i, which I don't think you can get here. The camera itself is 4 Megapixel. It also comes standard with a 512MB mini-SD RAM flash card. It has bluetooth, and can to connect to KDDI's au service (3G/4G video transfer) I know it can save video too, I don't know what format, but the girl here changes it to flash before she uploads it at home on her computer. It also has internal internet functions like e-mail and a web browser. It also has GPS mapping, video player, MP3 player, and bunches of other odds and ends.
I like this because it doen't look like I'm holding a PDA to my ear. The email function is nice. It would be nice to connect to a home server to do silly things like make a "wondering blog" where I can upload pictures to it and make postings. (In a perfect world, the ability to automaticlly send my GPS coords would be cool too, but now I'm playing fantasy ^_^)
Enough drooling though. Something a little scaled down from the above phone would be nice. The ability to connect to the internet and browse like a PSP using a data plan. (Not accounting for screen size of course) If it has 802.11 so I can save money on bandwith and just use a hotspot, that would be cool. I don't *really* need the GPS, but it seems that they are standard in all U.S. phones anyway, I guess. I don't need bluetooth. I don't plan on having oneof these silly ear-things and I can live with a simple USB dongle to trasfer files back and forth. It should have a flash card for the camera nonetheless, but I don't exactly have a flash card reader on my laptop.
In effect, I'd like a nerdy little gadget that's not tied to one provider. All of the above is the reason why a locked phone is out of the question. I would like to do with my phone what I want have my provider just provide me the pipe thankyouverymuch. I'm looking for something techy but simple, functional with a hint of nerd. I don't really care what it looks like, as long as it looks like a phone and not a game system or a PDA being held to my head. If anything, I just want to have a tiny piece of the internet with me where ever I go.
That and also... You know... talk on the phone.
EDIT:
It seams that AU (A Japanese provider) uses true CDMA phones, so there are CDMA phones I can bring over. That would be quite cool!
I'm putting the TL;DR on top because I know this is a bit long winded.
TL;DR: You're going about this the wrong way. Stop looking at what Japan has because we're not going to get it anytime soon. Buy a quadband GSM phone, preferably with Symbian, and it'll do what you want it to.
Full version:
Japan is the one part of the world you really have to ignore when buying a phone you plan on using anywhere else. Japan's in their own little world when it comes to their CDMA implementation. Unless you're planning to live there, forget about Japan and their cell phone network.
Buying an unlocked phone for use in the US isn't that difficult, but you have to choose a primary provider. For example, if you think you're going to be using Cingular most, get a phone with HSDPA. If you want to buy a phone that supports everything on every network, you're going to look for a very long time to find it, probably only to be disappointed (or spend a shit-ton of money).
I mean, I have a 3G phone. My Nokia E61 is quadband + UMTS2100. However, due to Cingular going with HSDPA and other US GSM providers going with different 3G implementations, I'll probably never do real 3G with my E61. Good thing that's not what I bought it for (and, for my purposes, EDGE is fast enough).
I know where you're coming from when it comes to an unlocked phone. I won't buy a locked phone on principle (it's one of the major reasons I would even consider buying an iPhone until they come out in Hong Kong [where it's illegal to simlock phones]).
On the whole, going month to month isn't going to be cheap, especially if you plan on using it for data. Get a plan and a contract, and save yourself a lot of headache.
If you're thinking of buying a phone that'll work on any CDMA or GSM networks in the US... forget about it. GSM is fine, get yourself a quadband phone and you're done. But I don't think you'll find one that does both. One thing I can say about buying a phone that will work on
Connecting the phone with your computer: buy a Symbian phone (doesn't matter who makes it, but I'm a Nokia whore) with Bluetooth. Done.
As far as your whole "Take pictures then upload them" thing, buy any unlocked Nokia phone with the Vox and Flickr support on it. That'll do what you want, and the camera quality on the newer models is pretty good.
I dunno. I think you're looking at this backwards. I've been using Symbian phones for five or six years now, wirelessly syncing them with my Mac via Bluetooth the whole time. I have complete control over my phone (and with the right application, my phone has complete control over my Mac), and it's an awesome PDA.
I rambled and probably lost my point. Talking about US cellular networks makes me angry... but that's the result of living with my father (who works with a lot of up and coming wireless technologies, mostly in Korea and China).
Wow! Let me get my head around this...(I grew up in Japan, that's why I'm using that as a refrence.)
3G defines the way that data packets are sent between the voice packets on a cellular network. The packets have to be standerized for them to be even remotely *useful*. What good is it if you can do 384k if the data isn't compatible between the providers of the same broadcast protocal?
Are you telling me that there isn't a complete end-to-end 3G implementation in the U.S.?
It's not a buzzword meaning "My phone can do wireless data". 3G is a standard that was developed by NTT so that cell phones can talk to each other and intigrate into networks.
Wow! Let me get my head around this...(I grew up in Japan, that's why I'm using that as a refrence.)
3G defines the way that data packets are sent between the voice packets on a cellular network. The packets have to be standerized for them to be even remotely *useful*. What good is it if you can do 384k if the data isn't compatible between the providers of the same broadcast protocal?
Are you telling me that there isn't a complete end-to-end 3G implementation in the U.S. It's not a buzzword meaning "My phone can do data", it's a standard that cell phone providers are supposed to adhere too?
Oh, that's how it's supposed to work. And for the most part, that's how it works in Europe. But providers in the US are so backwards (for a lot of reasons, some of which are their fault and some of which aren't) that each one that even has a 3G-like implementation does it differently.
Which is one of the major reasons I get all riled up when people talk wireless technologies.
3G is a buzzword that refers to a high speed wireless connection. There's no concrete technology behind 3G, and anything high speed (which is totally up to the provider) can be called 3G. Cingular's EDGE is considered to be 2.5G, mostly because it's all marketing.
If you want an example of how backwards the US is, just look at Korea. They used the same GSM implementation we have now about ten years ago. Now, my father just signed a development contract that will allow their WiBro network to hand off to their WCDMA network transparently, effectively blanketing their country in seamless high-speed coverage (as if they needed anything more).
They are rolling out 4G *this year* in Japan. The speed of 4G *starts* at 1.2Mbps! They are doing experiments with burst rates that top out at 2.4 Gigabits per second at a moving transciever at 20kph!.
We are still at 2.5G? That's unfuckingbelievable.
I know the U.S. cell system was bad, but holy fuck man! Isn't the FCC supposed to be telling the cell phone companies how to broadcast over public airwaves? I mean, it's only thier fucking job. :x
Is it that hard for the FCC to say, "Look guys, you seriously screwing over wireless communication by trying to fuck each other out of customers. Starting at XYZ you need to go to migrate to 4G technology Y.... ALL OF YOU!"
Are they really just telling us we can't say poopy words on the air?
halkun on
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EvilBadmanDO NOT TRUST THIS MANRegistered Userregular
edited April 2007
Jesus, I'm at a call center contracted by Cricket. Someone save me from the idiots. I swear, tonight I had to troubleshoot for Cletus from the Simpsons.
They are rolling out 4G *this year* in Japan. The speed of 4G *starts* at 1.2Mbps! They are doing experiments with burst rates that top out at 2.4 Gigabits per second at a moving transciever at 20kph!.
We are still at 2.5G? That's unfuckingbelievable.
I know the U.S. cell system was bad, but holy fuck man! Isn't the FCC supposed to be telling the cell phone companies how to broadcast over public airwaves? I mean, it's only thier fucking job. :x
Is it that hard for the FCC to say, "Look guys, you seriously screwing over wireless communication by trying to fuck each other out of customers. Starting at XYZ you need to go to migrate to 4G technology Y.... ALL OF YOU!"
Are they really just telling us we can't say poopy words on the air?
It's a long story as to why the US system is so far behind. You can blame everybody from the military to the FCC to Qualcomm.
EVDO and HSDPA is a breath of fresh air... too bad 95% of the handsets on the market don't support them.
And people wonder why I won't buy any phone offered by US providers.
if you want the closest to japan's offerings, hit up sprint. no, seriously.
4g is around the corner, Rev A just rolled out, and the handsets are definetely spiffy.
The CDMA operators (Sprint, Verizon) are ahead of the GSM operators in the US when it comes to high speed rollouts, which is unfortunate. If you're planning on doing any sort of regular travel outside the US and want to get a phone you can use anywhere else, then you're stuck with GSM.
I hate this stuff.
On a lighter note, I'm looking into the Samsung SGH-i520 as an eventual replacement for my Nokia E61. It runs the same Symbian Series 60 as my E61, so all I'd be losing is the QWERTY keyboard and Wifi (but it's got HSDPA/UTMS and EDGE/GPRS, so I think I'll be ok). I'm willing to give up the keyboard because, well, I loves me some sliders.
I resurrected this thread so I could brag, the Helio Ocean just released and I ordered it online today. It looks sweet, and might just be the coolest smartphone on the market. I ended up paying more than I probably should have, but I couldn't resist. It was $85 a month for 1000 minutes and unlimited data transfer, and the phone was $295 with a $120 discount for being a new customer. Bye bye Verizon, I won't miss you!
Specs!
* QVGA screen with 260k colors
* 200 MB internal memory plus microSD card slot (USB mass storage mode supported)
* EV-DO 3G data
* 2 megapixel camera
* Media player with support for MP3, AAC, WMA, MPEG-4, H.264, VOD and MOD
* GPS
* Stereo Bluetooth
* POP, IMAP, Exchange email support (plus popular web mail)
* Full HTML browser
Hey I just ordered the Helio Ocean today too. I got a fever and was supposed to go on a trip but when dicking around on the net saw the phone and did a complete impulse buy....
You got any words on the phone and how long did it take them to ship it to you?
I am at a situation in my life where I would really like to have a new phone. My current one is kinda lame, a bit heavy, and slow. I had a RAZR before this and I loved it for its size, but it was slow as all hell. It eventually got broken and got replaced by the phone I have now. I am looking for a somewhat cheap alternative. Looking through this thread I really liked the looks of the Sony Ericsson T637, Samsung D807, and Nokia 6265i. Does anyone know if there are some mostly inexpensive phones like those 3 for Sprint, or if there is some way I can get one of those to work with Sprint?
I am at a situation in my life where I would really like to have a new phone. My current one is kinda lame, a bit heavy, and slow. I had a RAZR before this and I loved it for its size, but it was slow as all hell. It eventually got broken and got replaced by the phone I have now. I am looking for a somewhat cheap alternative. Looking through this thread I really liked the looks of the Sony Ericsson T637, Samsung D807, and Nokia 6265i. Does anyone know if there are some mostly inexpensive phones like those 3 for Sprint, or if there is some way I can get one of those to work with Sprint?
You consider the Helio guys? My family has been on the sprint network guys forever and I just got sick and tired of their phones and also my dad griping at me for using up text messages and all that other stuff. Helio packages that all in and the Ocean to me looks like sex. I just ordered the phone so ill write back in here about any thing that might pop up with it whenever i get it.
Also I saw a promo code for the ocean, does anyone know if its legit?
Do all these phones have it set up so you can't make your own ring tone?
I can't by myself saying "Ring Ring Ring" on your stupid marketplace T-Mobile.
The box said all this fun stuff about "Use the handy 'get it now' service!" and, "Fun games!"
They lied to me. Doesn't have a "Get it now" store menu item, or even enough disk space to store any new apps.
But it lets me talk to people. I'm not complaining.
Posts
The Sony/Ericsson headset with the controls on it is really lacking though.
Yeah, so far I'm not happy about the whole no headphone jack thing. It's something I can live with, but it bugs me. Any adaptors or anything that will let me use some regular phones? Or will bluetooth headphones work?
As for cell phone plans, much of what you need to know:
Sprint
T-Mobile
Cingular
Verizon
I've been using Unicel (a rural cellular provider, which is great considering my location), and if you live in the upper half of New England, I highly reccomend them. Not only are they really the only GSM provider, but they have given awesome customer service, and the billing is somewhat reasonable.
Kill Me
I used to have one of the free flip phones that came with my plan about a year ago (maybe a little more than that) however, around december I partied a little to hard and it died. It wasn't anything special, but it could play good ringtones and was a flip phone. So I ended up looking for the cheepest way for me to resume normal communications and at about 25 bucks, it was hard to beat.
i work for sprint, (and no i'm not trying to sell you into something you dont want.)
for a smart phone, go with the Q. it's kinda classy, and with a few more updates will be the bomb.
for a simple phone, go with the Samsung M610. Thin as hell flip phone with an amazing UI and good features to boot.
for a full blown MP3 phone, either the samsung M620 or the Sanyo M1. both very good in two different respects.
all can be found here... www.phonescoop.com
It can't pipe music through a blue-tooth headset natively, but I believe with hacked firmware it's possible. The disc2phone software you use to put music on your phone is straightforward, though not fantastic. You can also just do it manually as it'll mount the card and phone as separate drives when connected via usb. Though, in that scenario, you have to conform to the predesignated directory structure which can be a pain if your music isn't well organized already.
If you can afford a little more, the w900 is supposed to have a greatly improved media player. While the w800 & w810 is perfectly adequate, it could do with some better organization options and album art which I believe the w900 will do fine. Also the video playback isn't too great on either the w800 and w810 but I'm not really sure why anyone would need that...
Steam: Ashengor
That's why I'm trying out one of the completely new providers in hopes that their business model isn't yet ruined by asshattery. The more important thing to me was their phones, LG has to be the worst phone manufacturer on the planet and Verizon almost always gets the new phones last (no iPhone, no Blackberry Pearl, no Sony Ericsson, no halfway decent smart phone like the Sidekick, OGO, Helio Ocean, etc). And I absolutely WILL NOT purchase a smart phone from LG.
I loved my Blackberry 8700 when I worked at the House of Reps, but only for data-only, not voice. It's almost as stupid looking when talking into it as the original N-Gage. Taco hooooooo!
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
This isn't a Verizon thing, it's a CDMA thing. Verizon is far ahead of the game as far as CDMA carriers are concerned, but CDMA is far behind GSM. A lot has to do with Qualcomm and their chipset, from what I've read they're not an easy company to work with and their chipset is a lot more bulky then a comparable GSM chipset.
Those are probably two reasons why Nokia has decided to no longer manufacture CDMA phones (everything Nokia branded CDMA will be outsourced).
So, you can't really say "Verizon almost always gets the new phones last." It should be "CDMA almost always gets the new phones last."
Weeeeell, I don't see Verizon switching over to a different carrier service so who is actually to blame becomes irrelevant. I can't get good phones through them.
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
Damn, I wish I knew about this shit a few months ago.
Buy some useless stuff at my Cafepress site!
Sony Ericsson K790
Yay/Nay?
On the plus side, CDMA is supposed to be the hardest to hack. So if your the tin foil hat wearing type it might be worth it.
Yes, that phone is pretty awesome. Every feature is well implemented and the design is great. The camera is really great for a phone camera. Handles exactly like a real camera, and the real flash is a nice touch. It's a little bulky, but also not that heavy. I would recommend getting a hard case and maybe a belt pouch for it. When you put it down on it's back side, it rests on the lens protector and that gets pretty scratched if you're not careful. Oh, you'll probably want a screen protector too. It's like a dollar on amazon.
The only thing I don't like is that you have to use the provided connection to use headphones. You can use any headphones you want (although they do give you some pretty good ones IMO) but you have to use the extra connection they give you to connect to the phone. You have to even hook it up to use the FM radio, which I find is a great add on....
Is the Sony Ericsson interface/os different than others? The reason I ask is because when I got the phone, it was a toss up between the Sony and the Samsung slidey thing and the Cingular guy said that if you had a Sony before, then definitely get it. The only returns he's had from it is because people didn't like the interface/os. I dunno but to me it's so simple to use!
I NEED THIS! I'm so waiting for this to hit before I get a new phone.
It's one of those phones you have to live with for a while before you realize what you really think about it. If I could just have it's internals in another case...
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Buy some useless stuff at my Cafepress site!
I never have owned a cell phone before because I never seen much reason in having one. I actually own a few phones oddly enough. There were ones that people gave me because they switched services and they were rendered useless. I'm in the U.S. and currently have a land-line that's $14 a month.. I don't have any service on the phone but a dailtone. I have no voicemail, callerID, or even call waiting. It's a basic twisted pair with battery, tap, and ring. That's it.
I recently graduated college and I'm in a new job. It's a rather techy one working with computers in my company. My peers, however, are pretty much beside themselves that I've never owned a cell. (I'm 32 BTW) The need really wasn't there for me to justify one. I thought a phone would would be cool. I've been kind of eyeing the technology coming out of Japan. 4G looks awesome, along with more glitzy services like phone-to-phone video conferencing some of the more advanced 3D GPS stuff. I'm not really *THAT* into it, and a lot of these services are not even available in Japan for another year. It's nice to dream and watch the technology unfold. I have some very particular things I want with my phone. Most of it has to do with it's abilities, and not how it looks, so I'm hoping you guys can help me out...
First, if the phone is locked, it's no deal. I want to buy the phone serviceless and activate it when I want. I don't want to be tied to a "free" phone with a contract. I would like month-to-month like my normal phone bill. I'm pretty sure a "bare" phone is going to be pretty expensive. I'm not looking for a contract. I want to own the phone outright and pick who I have my service with. Because there are two major networks here (CDMA and GSM), I would probably need a phone that can do both. In a perfect world, I would like something that supports UMTS (The japanese merge of GSM+CDMA... It's also called WCDMA). That would be nice, but I don't think there is support for UMTS is the U.S. yet. (WCDMA is not compatible with CDMA and needs to be upgraded) . A PDS phone is Japanese only.
The reason why I say "yet" is because the only way for a 4G phone to even connect requires UMTS. (4G == 1.2M up and down) As the U.S. doen't have 4G anyway, and Japan is refusing to licence the technology here until we get our infastructure togeather, it's kind of a non-issue.
Besides the CDMA/GSM thing, I would like to link to my computer so I can put data on my phone, like ringtones, and take data off of it, like pictures. I'm not looking for some fancy data syncing thing. I'm not planning on running office applications on it. I would like to take nice pictures and give it the codec ringtone from MGS.
The ability to connect to the internet is a no-brainer. I know that's really a data-plan thing that's dependant on the provider I choose for prices and speed and such.
This is an example that I would like as far as phone output goes. This girl takes pictures with her phone and then uploads them to her blog, after that she makes a post by typing using "ATOK" on her number pad. (It's a japanese form of typing out text with the dial numbers).
Doing a little research, I found she uses a NEC N902i, which I don't think you can get here. The camera itself is 4 Megapixel. It also comes standard with a 512MB mini-SD RAM flash card. It has bluetooth, and can to connect to KDDI's au service (3G/4G video transfer) I know it can save video too, I don't know what format, but the girl here changes it to flash before she uploads it at home on her computer. It also has internal internet functions like e-mail and a web browser. It also has GPS mapping, video player, MP3 player, and bunches of other odds and ends.
Here is a picture of the phone.
I like this because it doen't look like I'm holding a PDA to my ear. The email function is nice. It would be nice to connect to a home server to do silly things like make a "wondering blog" where I can upload pictures to it and make postings. (In a perfect world, the ability to automaticlly send my GPS coords would be cool too, but now I'm playing fantasy ^_^)
Enough drooling though. Something a little scaled down from the above phone would be nice. The ability to connect to the internet and browse like a PSP using a data plan. (Not accounting for screen size of course) If it has 802.11 so I can save money on bandwith and just use a hotspot, that would be cool. I don't *really* need the GPS, but it seems that they are standard in all U.S. phones anyway, I guess. I don't need bluetooth. I don't plan on having oneof these silly ear-things and I can live with a simple USB dongle to trasfer files back and forth. It should have a flash card for the camera nonetheless, but I don't exactly have a flash card reader on my laptop.
In effect, I'd like a nerdy little gadget that's not tied to one provider. All of the above is the reason why a locked phone is out of the question. I would like to do with my phone what I want have my provider just provide me the pipe thankyouverymuch. I'm looking for something techy but simple, functional with a hint of nerd. I don't really care what it looks like, as long as it looks like a phone and not a game system or a PDA being held to my head. If anything, I just want to have a tiny piece of the internet with me where ever I go.
That and also... You know... talk on the phone.
EDIT:
It seams that AU (A Japanese provider) uses true CDMA phones, so there are CDMA phones I can bring over. That would be quite cool!
I'm putting the TL;DR on top because I know this is a bit long winded.
TL;DR: You're going about this the wrong way. Stop looking at what Japan has because we're not going to get it anytime soon. Buy a quadband GSM phone, preferably with Symbian, and it'll do what you want it to.
Full version:
Japan is the one part of the world you really have to ignore when buying a phone you plan on using anywhere else. Japan's in their own little world when it comes to their CDMA implementation. Unless you're planning to live there, forget about Japan and their cell phone network.
Buying an unlocked phone for use in the US isn't that difficult, but you have to choose a primary provider. For example, if you think you're going to be using Cingular most, get a phone with HSDPA. If you want to buy a phone that supports everything on every network, you're going to look for a very long time to find it, probably only to be disappointed (or spend a shit-ton of money).
I mean, I have a 3G phone. My Nokia E61 is quadband + UMTS2100. However, due to Cingular going with HSDPA and other US GSM providers going with different 3G implementations, I'll probably never do real 3G with my E61. Good thing that's not what I bought it for (and, for my purposes, EDGE is fast enough).
I know where you're coming from when it comes to an unlocked phone. I won't buy a locked phone on principle (it's one of the major reasons I would even consider buying an iPhone until they come out in Hong Kong [where it's illegal to simlock phones]).
On the whole, going month to month isn't going to be cheap, especially if you plan on using it for data. Get a plan and a contract, and save yourself a lot of headache.
If you're thinking of buying a phone that'll work on any CDMA or GSM networks in the US... forget about it. GSM is fine, get yourself a quadband phone and you're done. But I don't think you'll find one that does both. One thing I can say about buying a phone that will work on
Connecting the phone with your computer: buy a Symbian phone (doesn't matter who makes it, but I'm a Nokia whore) with Bluetooth. Done.
As far as your whole "Take pictures then upload them" thing, buy any unlocked Nokia phone with the Vox and Flickr support on it. That'll do what you want, and the camera quality on the newer models is pretty good.
I dunno. I think you're looking at this backwards. I've been using Symbian phones for five or six years now, wirelessly syncing them with my Mac via Bluetooth the whole time. I have complete control over my phone (and with the right application, my phone has complete control over my Mac), and it's an awesome PDA.
I rambled and probably lost my point. Talking about US cellular networks makes me angry... but that's the result of living with my father (who works with a lot of up and coming wireless technologies, mostly in Korea and China).
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
3G defines the way that data packets are sent between the voice packets on a cellular network. The packets have to be standerized for them to be even remotely *useful*. What good is it if you can do 384k if the data isn't compatible between the providers of the same broadcast protocal?
Are you telling me that there isn't a complete end-to-end 3G implementation in the U.S.?
It's not a buzzword meaning "My phone can do wireless data". 3G is a standard that was developed by NTT so that cell phones can talk to each other and intigrate into networks.
Oh, that's how it's supposed to work. And for the most part, that's how it works in Europe. But providers in the US are so backwards (for a lot of reasons, some of which are their fault and some of which aren't) that each one that even has a 3G-like implementation does it differently.
Which is one of the major reasons I get all riled up when people talk wireless technologies.
3G is a buzzword that refers to a high speed wireless connection. There's no concrete technology behind 3G, and anything high speed (which is totally up to the provider) can be called 3G. Cingular's EDGE is considered to be 2.5G, mostly because it's all marketing.
If you want an example of how backwards the US is, just look at Korea. They used the same GSM implementation we have now about ten years ago. Now, my father just signed a development contract that will allow their WiBro network to hand off to their WCDMA network transparently, effectively blanketing their country in seamless high-speed coverage (as if they needed anything more).
We'll get there. Just not anytime soon.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
They are rolling out 4G *this year* in Japan. The speed of 4G *starts* at 1.2Mbps! They are doing experiments with burst rates that top out at 2.4 Gigabits per second at a moving transciever at 20kph!.
We are still at 2.5G? That's unfuckingbelievable.
I know the U.S. cell system was bad, but holy fuck man! Isn't the FCC supposed to be telling the cell phone companies how to broadcast over public airwaves? I mean, it's only thier fucking job. :x
Is it that hard for the FCC to say, "Look guys, you seriously screwing over wireless communication by trying to fuck each other out of customers. Starting at XYZ you need to go to migrate to 4G technology Y.... ALL OF YOU!"
Are they really just telling us we can't say poopy words on the air?
It's a long story as to why the US system is so far behind. You can blame everybody from the military to the FCC to Qualcomm.
EVDO and HSDPA is a breath of fresh air... too bad 95% of the handsets on the market don't support them.
And people wonder why I won't buy any phone offered by US providers.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
4g is around the corner, Rev A just rolled out, and the handsets are definetely spiffy.
The CDMA operators (Sprint, Verizon) are ahead of the GSM operators in the US when it comes to high speed rollouts, which is unfortunate. If you're planning on doing any sort of regular travel outside the US and want to get a phone you can use anywhere else, then you're stuck with GSM.
I hate this stuff.
On a lighter note, I'm looking into the Samsung SGH-i520 as an eventual replacement for my Nokia E61. It runs the same Symbian Series 60 as my E61, so all I'd be losing is the QWERTY keyboard and Wifi (but it's got HSDPA/UTMS and EDGE/GPRS, so I think I'll be ok). I'm willing to give up the keyboard because, well, I loves me some sliders.
or Brawl. 4854.6102.3895 Name: NU..
Specs!
* QVGA screen with 260k colors
* 200 MB internal memory plus microSD card slot (USB mass storage mode supported)
* EV-DO 3G data
* 2 megapixel camera
* Media player with support for MP3, AAC, WMA, MPEG-4, H.264, VOD and MOD
* GPS
* Stereo Bluetooth
* POP, IMAP, Exchange email support (plus popular web mail)
* Full HTML browser
Pictures!
Wii Code: 1040-1320-0724-3613 :!!:
here is the engadget liveblog of the event.
You got any words on the phone and how long did it take them to ship it to you?
You consider the Helio guys? My family has been on the sprint network guys forever and I just got sick and tired of their phones and also my dad griping at me for using up text messages and all that other stuff. Helio packages that all in and the Ocean to me looks like sex. I just ordered the phone so ill write back in here about any thing that might pop up with it whenever i get it.
Also I saw a promo code for the ocean, does anyone know if its legit?
I can't by myself saying "Ring Ring Ring" on your stupid marketplace T-Mobile.
Bottom-o-the-line FTW!
The box said all this fun stuff about "Use the handy 'get it now' service!" and, "Fun games!"
They lied to me. Doesn't have a "Get it now" store menu item, or even enough disk space to store any new apps.
But it lets me talk to people. I'm not complaining.