To buy a smartphone?

Locust76

I'm coming up on that magical 1.5 year mark with my contract with O2 here in Germany and I decided, above all things, that my Motorola RAZR just sucks ass. It's fucking slow, the interface is archaic and it's, well, boring.

I was thinkin about getting some snazzy new Sony Ericsson phone/walkman thing, but then I stumbled across the mind-boggling functionality of the smartphone.

My question to you guys is this: What can you guys recommend I look for in a smartphone? Are they worth it? I'm looking at phones based on Windows Mobile 5 with wi-fi functionality so's I can get my Skype and my Surf on when I don't feel like bein'/can't be at the computer.

I haven't made any decisions yet. The O2 catalogue isn't very expansive, but I've found the O2 XDA Trion to have pretty much all of the boner-inducing features I'd like to have. The phone is a re-brand of the HTC manufactured Qtek 9600. It's got a 400mhz Samsung processor as well as 3G and all the wireless connectivity bells n whistles one can shake a stick at, as well as a slide-out QWERTY (QWERTZ, actually... thanks Europe) keyboard, stylus and touchscreen.

Does anyone have any experiences with this particular model? With any model in particular? I'm basically interested in things like multimedia functionality, videos, mp3, photos (though I could really care less about the image quality from the onboard camera) and basic organizer functionality, as well as overall software compatibility (I'd want to DL Skype for Mobile on it).

Ranger Rick

I don't know much about smartphones, but you may want to give the iPhone a look if you have the money for one.

Blake T

The one thing you need to ask yourself if you get a smart phone is how much do you like recharging your battery?

As much as I've been bitching about the iPhone, the rest of the smart phones have this issue also.

You will be charging every day, are you prepared to do this?

fforde

You should also consider that the iPhone's introduction is going to drastically alter the competition. I.E. Motorolla will have something comparable withing 9-12 months. I have a feeling that during the next year or so there will be some dramatic advances in cell phone technology.

So I guess I am trying to say now may not be the best time to buy a new phone.

vonPoonBurGer

fforde wrote:

You should also consider that the iPhone's introduction is going to drastically alter the competition. I.E. Motorolla will have something comparable withing 9-12 months.

Not to mention that its introduction is likely to put pressure on the other manufacturers to cut prices, since that's really the only thing they have going for them compared to the iPhone.

KMFurDM

I imported a Vodafone VPA Compact III (v1605) from England which is the essentially the same thing as the T-Mobile MDA Vario II, the Qtek 9600, etc. Basically an HTC Hermes (Tytn).

So far I have been very pleased with it. I am still learning how to use the thing but that was something I expected not having much experience with Windows Mobile. Its multimedia functions are really very nice. They are somewhat limited, yes, but having it all on one device is quite nice. Videos play well after you drop them down to a reasonable resolution and the correct format. MP3's play just fine through media player mobile. The onboard camera isn't terrible for what it is, not great, but decent in a pinch. The video recording function is actually better than you might think for a phone. I can upload some examples later.

Of course, you will want a 2 gig microSD card but those do not cost a fortune. I have a few episodes of Top Gear on there and some songs (which can be used as ringtones...no more midi).

Battery life is quite good when used as a phone over standard GSM. I definitely do not have to put it on the charge every day. 3G calls I cannot comment on because I use T-mobile in the US and they have no 3G yet. Using the Wi-Fi connection eats up the battery pretty quickly, but even so, I got at least 4 hours of constant streaming from an online radio station over Wi-Fi with it and there was about 30% of the battery left.

The keyboard works well. It takes a little adjustment after using the Razr but it's very nice for SMS's and faster in the end. It does predict words while you are typing which can speed things up a little more. The backlight is nice and bright and the keys have a decent feel.

I have Skype installed on it but I haven't used it yet. I bought this thing for an eventual move to Europe (that I really need to get done at this point) so I could make super cheap calls home back to the US from anywhere I might have an Internet connection.

The iPhone is pretty and all but it will have no support for Exchange, no 3G, and software will be basically a first party deal where as there are lots of 3rd party apps for windows mobile and open source, no removable battery among a few other things. It is thin though which is something I miss from my Razr.

I have probably missed something so let me know if you have more questions and there is tons of information on the thing here...

http://www.xda-developers.com/

HoA-player

You should get the O2 Xda orbit with integrated gps and navigation software.

It's the newest model O2 is offering at the moment, and at 70 euros less then the Trion it offers a lot of nice things a 512 Mb SD-Card, gps + tomtom navigation software that alone cost lot more then 70 euros.