Recommend me a Mobile Phone

[pehaw]

Not according to this and other sites I was really interested until I read up about it...

http://www.gsmarena....eview-534p5.php

I don't even pretend to understand all that audio techno babble but I do believe my ears! Superb audio through the headphones and through AUX input to car stereo (although quiet as are most devices into AUX)

[pehaw]

To cut along story short... It is saying the stero dosen't work properly and the sound is mo mono based... The sounds bleed across the channels... I would notice it straight away

It's a shame because other than that it looks a great phone.

If it was that bad I would have noticed it.

Maybe the gsmarena review is old and the 'issue' has been fixed by an OTA update.

[Paul ™]

Edited April 2, 2011 by Paul ™

[rhysieg]

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.

i get my xperia play today (before 1am according to the email, so anytime soon) ill post my thoughts up about it... i aim to cram it with emulation goodness... but tbh, as ive never had a smartphone (ive always been cheap and cheerful in the mobile department) i dont really have anything to compare it to, so ill probably be singing praise, but ill be able to expand on its gaming side, tell you how smooth ff7 (cannot wait to re-do this on my phone) will run etc...

[rhysieg]

well my xperia play has beaten all of my expectations, its runs really smoothly... ive just been fiddling round with apps... the browser loads very quick, videos on youtube do aswell (i was shocked at this, but my little sister claims most phones do it now )... the touchscreen is very responsive... im not going to expand too much on the phone side of things to be honest as i dont have a clue about them - never even touched an iphone.

the phone itself feels really nice, i was having second thoughts incase it didnt feel right for gaming.. it feels nice, only complaints about it so far is the back of it is the kind of material (black shiny plastic) that was on the fat ps3's... aka fingerprint heaven, it really shows nice big greasy fingerprints, no matter how clean your hands are... also the power cable could have been longer.

ive fiddled round with emulators, i have n64oid and fpse so far.

super mario 64 runs flawlessley on n64oid (have yet to try other games) you can easily set the controls to the pad and turn the touch screen buttons off, it looks much nicer on a small screen (had my n64 out a few months back and it looked terrible on a big hd screen)

ff7 runs at full speed on fpse, however the sound seems to not play right, it comes through (after fiddling the only audio option there was) but it isnt the proper music for some reason, its kind of like urm, dont know how to explain it.... remember mono ringtones? then polyphonic came out? well it plays like a mono ringtone even though it should play in polyphonic - if you get what im saying... the sound isnt all quite there, i may try another emulator. its entirely playable, just with strange sound... didnt have a problem mapping buttons to the pad and removing the touch screen buttons.

no problems at all so far but ive only been messing with it a short while - im sure something will come up (o2 delayed it for bug reasons... ive yet to spot any)

havent really touched the pre-loaded games yet.

its great so far, im impressed anyway... if your after a phone for gaming i reccomend it highly (even though ive not done much gaming on it yet... just 2 stars on mario haha!)

[luckysalt]

Cheers for the mini review Rhys!

Think its between this and the Arc for me. I heard the analogue stick touch pads were way too sensitive in the review I read, honestly that review slags the phone off for nothing! Madness.

[luckysalt]

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

My signal has been non existant for most of tonight and poor in general for most of this week. I'm gunna switch to T Mobile I think, or orange, surely their merged company is gunna be the best signal around

The phone I have plumped for is the Xperia Arc. Was thinking about a HTC but appartently they're not going to update the Android in the standard Desire anymore, so obviously its a phone thats gunna be a bit dated in 12 months let alone 24.

I can get Arc on a 18 month deal, free, £25 per month. Its got Android 2.3 - Gingerbread, and said they're updating to Honeycomb as soon as its out. 2nd best camera phone on the market [behind Nokia N8], Good battery life, stylish, and good browser. Ticks all the boxes.

Was thinking of an Xperia play, but its said to be a jack of all trades, master of none. So im gunna give it a miss and go for the Arc and use my PSP for gaming still!

[Gre]

I bought a phone last week, a Samsung something or other. $15, good stuff. Flip-top, so no unwanted answering of calls. $2 a day for unlimited calls or texts to 40+ countries (not the UK). Never crashed on me once.

Booyaka, booyaka, 619 n all.

[luckysalt]

Ordered my phone as of my last post, I'll let you know how it is

[amy246]

My phone is due an upgrade so was wondering whether you guys and girls on here still all seem to have Desires or has anyone got any new phones that are worth knowing about. Haven't had a smart phone before, my current one is a Samsung S5200 (just cos it looks pretty in pink) but thinking i should get a bit more with it!

[harderfaster]

one of the new htc phones. they all look the same to me. my desire is suddenly horribly dated

[gedrulz]

My phone is due an upgrade so was wondering whether you guys and girls on here still all seem to have Desires or has anyone got any new phones that are worth knowing about. Haven't had a smart phone before, my current one is a Samsung S5200 (just cos it looks pretty in pink) but thinking i should get a bit more with it!

Well htc's new flagship device is the sensation which is spec'd out of it's mind but these days all htc android phones perform very simlarly and depends how much you want to pay.

SE and Samsung are delivering phones that are ok but especially with Samsung seem to slightly lack build quality.

Other os's out there are the blackberry os with a range of phones due in the autumn running version 7. I'm a blackberry advocate and have a torch as my secondary device.

Windows phone 7 also is supported on a few htc devices do could be an option.

[the_hedge]

I have yet to meet someone who has bought an i phone and regretted it. The battery is crap but they are such good phones. Cue apple haters......

[feral chile]

I've just bought my daughter's HTC Desire, and I'm on Pay As You Go. It's my first smartphone and I usually just text people. If I just top up, texts are 6p, calls are 10p and mobile internet is 75p a day for 25MB. If I pay £10 a month, I get 100 mins, unlimited texts and 100MB a month.

What I need to know is does the HTC automatically connect to the internet? I haven't synced my accounts but it's telling me the weather on the Home screen. So I'm presuming it would cost me 75p a day to get that, would it?

So am I better off paying £10 a month, which is more than I'd pay just for texting?

i only wanted it for the camera, so I could send photos to people by text, and I haven't worked out how to do that yet

Edited June 2, 2012 by feral chile

[windy_miller]

You need to turn off mobile data in the setting, otherwise it will be sending and receiving stuff in the background.

[feral chile]

You need to turn off mobile data in the setting, otherwise it will be sending and receiving stuff in the background.

ah thanks.

[t8yman]

Well to celebrate the announcement of the iPhone 5 next week, I have just ordered the Samsung galaxy s3, I'm finally fed up with the tiny incremental improvements on the iPhone, and the 5 looks just as underwhelming as the 4s was to the 4. I know it has yet to be revealed, but even the rumoured "improvements" are meh in the extreme tbh. And the changing of the dock connector to another (non compliant) connector was the final straw.

Planned obsolescence is grinding me down.

I have been out of contract since last November, and refused to fork out for a 4S due to the ridiculously small "improvements" and apple's suing of Samsung also struck a chord with me. They are using trademark laws to stifle development, we all want our devices to be as great as possible, and there is only so much you can do with a handheld device.

I have also fucked off O2 and moved over to Orange on account of O2's network coverage being a joke compared to orange. I got sick of being with the missus (orange) and finding out I had zero bars of reception (O2) and she had full reception.

Rant over.

Edited September 4, 2012 by t8yman

[Bisque]

I have also fucked off O2 and moved over to Orange on account of O2's network coverage being a joke compared to orange. I got sick of being with the missus (orange) and finding out I had zero bars of reception (O2) and she had full reception.

This was the complete opposite to me! Found Orange reception to be poor, perhaps sharing T-Mobiles aerials have helped.

[Spindles]

Well to celebrate the announcement of the iPhone 5 next week, I have just ordered the Samsung galaxy s3

...

Rant over.

Great post and I hope that more people make the same decision (they are, my office now looks like an s3 is issued with your parking pass).

Apple's insistence on using proprietary connections, changing them every few generations (so they can re-sell you the expensive add-ons that don't come in the box) and bringing out OS upgrades which they know will degrade the experience of users of older equipment, combined with some really snide thinking (anyone remember when there was a signal problem with a handset, so they released software which didn't improve the signal, but drew more bars to make it look better?), or the fact that apple are so very, very concerned that any media you consume they get paid for, all factors which I am not keen on.

The "patent wars" have shown apple to be not only non-competitive, but willing to stifle innovation so they can make a few extra quid, whilst coining it at a rate faster than many national economies. When someone thinks that "swiping the screen to change a web page or image" is something that should be able to be patented to stop anyone else using that in the future I just think something has gone very, very wrong.

We spent so much time worrying about MS being anti-competitive that we managed to sleepwalk into a world where apple truly are.

Android 4.x is a nice phone/tablet OS and the software choice for the S3 is as wide as apple are able to offer. S3 comes with an impressive screen, is closer to a phablet (like the note) than the S2 and packs some hardware punch. Good choice imo.

[5co77ie]

iphone 5 unveiled next week apparently.

[eFestivals]

get a nokia 6120 classic. You won't look back.

[Spindles]

Odd, I find that all the major apps available for IOS are available for android, I don't see that there is any significant difference in that software. My most used application is splashtop (remote desktop/streaming) which is available for both, I don't play many games but angry birds, world of goo, osmos, temple run and auralux all run great on android.

I'm not going to deny there is a lot of dross on the app store, but the obvious answer is that no one is forcing you to download it The same sort of dross is out there for ios (if one more git tries to show me a soundboard app in the pub which is nothing more than a jpeg image that plays a few sounds, I am going to have to stab them in the eye) but the answer, as with music, film or software for any device, is to rely on review, peer recommendation and popularity as your guide to check things out, then use your own judgement from there on out.

[Spindles]

iphone 5 unveiled next week apparently.

Brilliant, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the Samsung galaxy S4 will be like (recycled internet joke)

[thetime]

Im on my third galaxy not in about 3 weeks, love the phone but the first 2 just kept switching of. The third one cashes quite a bit of facebook/twitter but does not just turn of like the other 2. Love the phone and great battery life for a smart phone.

[Spindles]

loving the typo (not taking the piss, just really funny that your frequently faulty phone was referred to as a galaxy not).

The note's phablet form is something that really interests me, I don't know about others but I mostly use my phone for texts, rarely for voice calls, so a larger more useful screen really appeals.