Recommend me a Mobile Phone

[luckysalt]

Right would appreciate the boards advice, my contract is due, and im undecided what phone I want, Ive just had for the past 18 months a Nokia Xpress Touch Screen.

Im with Virgin Media and currently pay £20 a month

I want to stay around this price range so im limited

I use my phone for Net mainly so would like a phone that has a good browser, is fast, and won't crash easily

Ive had numerous problems with my Nokia and in the past with Samsung

Is it just me that the more advanced these phones get the more buggy they are?

Ive been looking at HTC Desire and Samsung Galaxy ACE. I would like a Nokia N8 but its out my price range. Im also tempted by Blackberry but wouldn't want a Curve and have looked at Pearl, but im not sure about it as ive been used to a big screen and touchscreen now.

So any recommendations?

[saratink]

I have a HTC desire and i love it

[StoneCircle]

My husband has the HTC Desire, I have the HTC Wildfire which has all the same features, is slightly smaller screen (as the phone is smaller) and costs a lot less! I love it, I was initially after a Nokia C6-01 but am glad I went for an Android phone as Nokia Symbian seems very outdated.

Here is a review on the Wildfire

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones/mobile-phones/htc-wildfire-690067/review

[luckysalt]

Yeah Ive been reading tech radar website for hours, but nothing like actually reviews of people on here, those mobile websites user reviews are usually from people who have had their mobile for a few days rather than months

So is there no bugs with either of the HTC phones then?

[pehaw]

HTC Desire HD.

Better than an iphone 4 imho.

You will read a fair amount about poor battery life but take it with a pinch of salt. I get between 24 and 36 hrs depending on usage which is very comparable to all modern smartphones.

[StoneCircle]

HTC Desire HD.

Better than an iphone 4 imho.

You will read a fair amount about poor battery life but take it with a pinch of salt. I get between 24 and 36 hrs depending on usage which is very comparable to all modern smartphones.

My husband found his battery life was poor and I found this on a Vodafone forum which he followed and it worked!! This has reminded me that I have never checked it out on my Wildfire. Charging now and will report back!!

This method was posted somewhere in another thread on here and comes from an official response to a US user of the HTC evo regarding battery life...and for me has been nothing short of revolutionary in terms of extending battery life, so I thought I'd create a post so people can see it easily.

eForum team I recommend you try it on your own Desires (it can also be seen on the XDA developers forum) and sticky this method of charging once you've checked it out.

It appears the Desire and other HTC phones have some sort of software issue whereby the battery thinks it's fully charged when it's not...here's how to rectify though I can't guarantee it will work on all phones, you can see by reading the steps below however that it certainly can't harm your phone and so is worth a try.

1. Charge your Desire for 8 hrs or so (overnight is easy) when the Desire is ON. After this you'll notice that the green (fully charged) light is on.

2. Unplug your Desire and turn it OFF. Plug it back in and you should notice that instead of the green light you get the orange light which indicates that actually the battery isn't fully charged. Charge for an hour like this.

3. Unplug again and turn ON, turn OFF straight away and charge for another hour.

I should make clear you DON'T need to do this every time you charge, in theory it extends your battery after just doing once but people may find differently. I can say my Desire struggled to get through a day previously, but after doing this was still on 65pc battery after 25 hrs (though of not heavy use).

It sounds ridiculous I know but like I said it seems at least on some HTC phones there is a glitch preventing full charging...which you should be able to see visually when you get to step no.2

[gedrulz]

Hearing rave reviews for the new SE range from the testers at work. Not sure how much they'll be tho.

[harderfaster]

Another vote for the Desire. Had mine since July. I'd recommend checking out dialaphone/direct phone shop etc offers (the cashback sites) as you can save up to half the price of the line rental.

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/refer.aspx?refer=mfun-despemail&page=accessories.html&utm_source=mfun&utm_medium=email&utm_term=accessories&utm_content=despemail

^ if you use that link to order, i get a 50 quid cheque haha.

only bad things i can say about the desire are:

1) terrible battery life. worse than iphone. with wifi/3g on all day and using it quite heavily for browsing/texting i'm lucky if it makes it from 9am to 9pm without the battery starting to blink at me.

2) overheating problem. quite a common problem with the desire is that it overheats and then decides to start restarting itself over and over until you take the battery out. this is a known problem which has spoken to most people i know who have had one since june who use the phone quite heavily. on the plus side, htc repaired it for free with a turnaround time of about a week... they replaced the motherboard, and i assume that they've taken the issue on board with the manufacturing of new devices.

despite these two points though i'd recommend the phone. absolutely wonderful in terms of usability. if you're put off by the battery life then perhaps think about a samsung android? much the same but from a bigger (and arguably more reliable) brand - the samsung galaxy s seems to have gone down just as well as the desire.

[Paul ™]

HTC Desire

[lifelessfool]

I'd definitely recommend the HTC, I was so gutted when I lost mine. They are just as good as Iphones in my opinion and there are some really good apps for androids.

[pehaw]

The Mrs has the Desire. I've got a Desire HD.

I'd take the HD over the Desire anyday. Saying that, the Desire is the second best phone i've ever used.

I wouldnt worry about following any of these convoluted charging procedures either. After 2 weeks of normal charge/discharge cycles the battery seems to reach a nice charge capacity and is no better or worse than any other modern smartphone (i sound like a broken record - soz)

Edited March 27, 2011 by pehaw

[Jackmypie]

I recently upgraded to a Black Berry Bold for £20 a month. It's amazing, and really easy to use. I wouldn't get a torch, as that basically has the same features as a bold but it just looks different and it's a slide phone. Plus it would be £100 more.

[Jackmypie]

Double post.

Edited March 27, 2011 by Jackmypie

[treacle]

HTC Desire gets my vote too. I LOVE mine x

[norainplease]

HTC Desire here too

[rexclark]

I want a HTC Desire. Damn contract isn't up till October though.:angry:

[The Nal]

I have the HTC Wildfire which has all the same features, is slightly smaller screen (as the phone is smaller) and costs a lot less! I love it,

I got one last week, first smart phone. I like it apart from texting, which is shite on any touchscreen.

[al_coholic]

I have had the Wildfire for 9 months and its a great phone for £15 a month, but the internet browsing is a little clunky for me and a bit slow especially compared to an iPhone. I also, prefer the UI on the iPhone, If I had a choice and money wasnt a problem I would probably get an iPhone 5 when they come out in June. Otherwise probably a Desire. Several people at work have the Desire HD and it has a few problems, like randomly deleting all your text messages, randomly crashing so you have to remove the battery etc... Little things. The new iPhone 5 with the antenna back inside the back cover should be very good.

[luckysalt]

Cheers for your input Al! glad to hear some negative about the phones as well.

Im gunna wait til next week and then ring Virgin, pretty shocked they haven't been in touch as im now out of contract, they haven't even attempted to get me to resign, LAZY!

[gedrulz]

I would look elsewhere from virgin. As an mvno on everything everywhere whilst they are merging companies and networks their mvno's could suffer.

[gedrulz]

I would look elsewhere from virgin. As an mvno on everything everywhere whilst they are merging companies and networks their mvno's could suffer.

[Jaybles]

I'm rocking a blackberry bold 9700 myself. Its a great phone and with the new OS update much more user friendly. For messaging and email its unbeatable, but for web browsing (although much improved in OS6) can't beat a good touch screen device with a large display (iphone, HTC) The new blackberry torch goes a way to rival the better web browsing phones, but not sure you will get that in your price range.For what you want HTC desire seems best. Android phones in general are taking over the market as it is an open platform and much cheaper than an iphone with arguably all the same benefits.

[rubu.thomson]

I'll recommend Blackberry 9105 Pearl which has useful features like OS BlackBerry OS, CPU 512MHz processor, Messaging SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging,Browser HTML and Many more.The most Important Battery life Stand-by Up to 408 hours. I am sure that you'll like this Model.

[luckysalt]

Hmm just noticed that Virgin have added the playstation phone, and then taken it off straight away. But it was £35, but sounds decent enough, supports flash, has Android 2.3, supports Micro SD not their own Sony brand, seems pretty decent, read the review on Tech Radar which they have done this afternoon, and they said its average, but only cus they expected it to blow them away, they said they're gunna keep using it and post up another review soon.

Im really leaning towards this at the moment tho, I have a PSP, and find them pretty good fun, FFVII on my phone would rule IMO.

[pehaw]

HTC Desire HD has poor audio apparently ? That is what put me off.

The speakers aren't great but who uses a phone's speakers to listen to music? Audio is superb through a decent set of headphones.

Never come across the messages being deleted and random turnoffs mentioned above though.

HTC have also just confirmed the release of 2.3 for the HD in Q2 as well. Which is nice.