So many shiny smart phones – which one to pick?
For a whole bunch of reasons I've decided to buy a smart phone and pay the usurious rates for mobile use that the big carriers charge. I've discovered that there doesn't seem to be any good forum to discuss what options are open to Canadian's at the moment.
My needs are:
- Email (currently my domain is hosted google apps – in a pinch I could become an exchange user).
- Good (at least better than adequate) web browsing.
- Battery life – needs to last the day
- Good phone
- Calendaring support
- Keyboard – I expect write some emails but not it won't be my bread and butter
- Wifi support – where possible I want to save money and get better performance
- GPS is cute – but I usually have a very good idea of where I'm.
At least until the end of the month the choice of carrier becomes very easy. Roger's is offering 6/GB of data for $30 a mth. That's on top of an already expensive voice package – but at least you don't risk being billed by the megabyte for checking something out on a website.
| Phone | IPhone | Blackberry Bold | Nokia N95-4 | HTC TyTN | Motorola Q9h | Palm Treo 750 | Palm Centro Smartphone | HP iPAQ hw6955 |
| Screen Size | 320×480 pixels – 3.5 inch | 480×320 pixels. 2.6 inch. |
240×320 pixels 2.8 inch | 320×240 pixels 2.5 inches | 320×320 pixels 2.25 inches |
|||
| Wifi Support | Yes | Yes | Yes | ??? | ||||
| Links to reviews | Mobile Tech, CNet |
APC Mag "Definitive Review", Boy Genius,CTV |
Mobile Tech, | Positively ancient | CNET | Too old to be worthwhile | Mobile Tech | Too old to be worthwhile |
Notes
- I didn't include price since its largely irrelevant over the life of the contract.
- Why doesn't Roger's have the most recent phones from Palm, HP and HTC? They would all make serious contenders.
After talking to a few friends everything but the IPhone and Blackberry Bold were eliminated – too little screen real estate to be useful web browsers. Boy Genius has a comparison of both phones and concludes by saying: "The honest truth is that if we had to use only one of the two devices, we’d be happy enough with whichever one you gave us. We could deal with the email shortcomings on the iPhone, and we could deal with the improved but not incredible browser on the Bold. It really comes down to what you need more in a phone."
At this stage I think it will be the IPhone because of the incredible number of add-on apps that are available already. That said I was pleasantly surprised by how well the Palm Centro did in the reviews.
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September 16, 2008 at 3:36 am | Artem Marchenko
Calendaring, keyboard, e-mail, good phone, GPS… hmm, is Nokia E71 available in Canada? Touch it and you’ll like it. One particularly interesting and unusual review could be found here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/08/22.html
September 16, 2008 at 6:12 am | Sandy
Hey Mark!
After years of loyal service, I just switched from my Treo 680 (palm os) to an iPhone. My Treo was awesome: great email support, fantastic bluetooth stereo audio for music, eReader support for books, movies were pretty good, excellent keyboard, lots of apps (including the most excellent SplashID for password mgmt).
The downside: No wifi, no GPS, worse browser evar, palm is dying a slow and painful death.
So I switched.
I’ve had to deal with blackberry’s a-plenty over the years since nearly everyone I know uses them. They suck (IMHO). The browser is terrible and that thumbwheel or ball mouse would make me suicidal. It was eliminated immediately. The only contender for me was the new Nokia’s. They have native Python support and lots of other goodies. But coming in at close to $800 CDN I couldn’t justify it.
The iPhone is pretty incredible. The UI is deal maker, there are lots of (great) apps. The accelerometer is surprisingly useful. Lots of good … but lots of bad:
- iTunes Sucks! It’s not a PIM, it’s a music catalog and it’s locked down tighter than my wallet. Trying to sync eBooks, non-Audible audio books, odd files (like PDF’s), email contacts from sources other than Google, Yahoo or Outlook is nasty, and it has shitty Calendar sync support. iTunes sucks. It’s very hard to find 3rd party alternatives.
- The keyboard sucks. Very finicky. Hopefully they get Swype support soon.
- No Bluetooth stereo audio. Bluetooth is only for the phone (mono, etc.). Can’t change songs via bluetooth, etc. This one is killing me.
- Email is stored in the phone and not in the 8-16G memory section. This means it can only store about 250 messages. Power blackberry users will die due to this.
But that’s pretty well all that’s bad. SplashId is supported (thank god) and they have this amazing app called Remote that lets you control your iTunes music player remotely via Wifi … for having a party at the house, this app alone paid for the iPhone. Also, Apple seems pretty reactive to fixing stuff.
Good luck on your purchase!
September 16, 2008 at 3:35 pm | Dwayne King
Mark,
You know that I’m a real proponent of Apple stuff – no PCs allowed in the house :)
So while Artem makes some good points, *some* of the pain goes away if you’re pairing the phone with an Apple computer.
In particular Artem mentions that iTunes is not a PIM. Very true. However if you’re using a mac, then it takes your contacts from your global address book, and it works great. Likewise with the calendaring.
Regarding the storing of files, he is also correct. There just happens to be a new app in the app store (called AirShare) that is FREE, and makes your iPhone look like a standard Samba file share, so you can drop files on there easily.
While I haven’t run into the other limitations he mentioned, I’m sure he’s right.
For me, it was an issue of which phone requires the least effort to keep in sync and provides everything I’m looking for. With the iPhone and MobileMe, everything is kept in sync “through the cloud”, and I rarely have to actually physically plug the phone into my machine.
I have been 100% satisfied with the iPhone, but ironically I’ve just started a new contract where I’ll have to carry around a Blackberry. :(