My contract is up on my Cell... I have a "dumb" phone now (No cracks Dan <G>). For those of you that have smart phones, can you give me the pluses and minuses of the different offerings? The wife wants I-phones, and I like them, but as far as SYNC goes is that the best phone?
Any help you can offer will be appreciated!
Falcon
Falcon it all depends on what features you are looking for.
Blackberry's are cool phones with nice hardware qwerty pads built in but the API (used by developers to create programs for the smartphone) is very limited at the present time and therefore the Blackberry lacks in downloadable 3rd party applications. These are solid phones with a multitude of functions for personal and business use, although it is known for it's enterprise capabilities. RIM (Research in Motion) is the company who owns the Blackberry brand. My collection includes a Blackberry Bold.
Android phones are the new iPhone wannabes and have come a long way since the first handset. I read somewhere that there were 9300 new applications within the first quarter of this year. Developers will continue to develop new applications as time goes by increasing the application marketplace. Android driven phones are in their infancy and can only get better. Android is a Google created phone operating system and is often called Droid. There are several manufacturers who offer Droid phones, HTC is main manufacturer of Droid handsets.
iPhones are cool, have many functions and hundreds of thousands of applications available, some are free while others can cost as much as $90. Apple comes out with a new iPhone (roughly) every July. In order to text there is only the soft qwerty keyboard which can be a pain if you are in a hurry. The iPhone is like a mini-computer in the palm of your hand with, what seems like, infinite capabilities (iPhone 3GS). One of the initial drawbacks of the iPhone is it's lack to multitask meaning that everytime you want to open an app you have to close the one you are in. This drawback is being addressed in OS 4.0 which is due out this summer. Another drawback is that the iPhone is one if the few smartphones that does not support Flash. This may not seem important at the time but does become a nuisance when trying to view a Flash heavy website or online game. Apple is doing it's best to keep Flash off of it's devices. The iPhone also acts as an iPod (with video capabilities) when needed and it uses proprietary extensions meaning that all of your MP3s must be converted to .aac file extensions...this takes time. All iPhones have some sort of flash storage up to 32gb. My collection includes an iPhone 3GS 32gb and my wife has an iPhone 3G 8gb.
Samsung has the Omnia, which I believe is subsidized by Verizon, and these phones are very much like the iPhone in that they have storage space as well (just as much as the iPhone) but they lack available applications. Some offer hard qwerty pads while others are all touch. I have never owned one of these but they pull double duty as media players as well with very nice screens. The Omnia 3 is due out January of next year. Think iPhone without the App Store.
Nokia makes smartphones (N-series) also but Nokia has fallen behind the times and is late with updating it's phone's operating system. They recently switched to the Maemo operating systemwhich currently has very little applications available, less so than Samsung's phones. From what I have seen most Nokia phones are miniature multimedia devices
There are other smartphones out there but in the end it really depends on what capabilities you want, which is sometimes hard to determine if you do not know what is out there.
