DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Anyone have opinions on these cell phones?

I know there's a poll in K-9 but this isn't a poll question, so forgive me refs.

My contract is up in July but I have a feeling that if I went this weekend to upgrade my phone and contract they'd give me the same deal as someone whose contract already expired since I'm about a month a half away from expiration. My parents upgraded in March and were treated that way.

Verizon has $50 rebates on most texting phones (except for the enV2 cuz it's brand new).

Anywho, does anyone have any experience with these phones?

Samsung Glyde ($200)
LG enV2 ($100)
LG Voyager (I know we had a talk on this one already) ($300)
Blackberry Curve 8330 ($150)
Motorola Q3m (this one has the lead cuz of the price) ($80)

I've been interested in smartphones lately because of the added functionality they offer, but I'm also trying to be price-conscious as well (which makes the Voyager, as awesome as it looks, a tough sell on me at this point in time). A QWERTY keyboard is an absolute must because I communicate via texting more than I do via voice when I use my phone.

I've read great things about the enV2 but the look just doesn't do it for me, the outside screen is too small IMO.

The Glyde looks like a cheaper version of the Voyager, and I don't plan on using VCAST anyway (I got the music package with my current phone and only use it when I forget my iPod, not worth it), but I've read that the touch screen is more like a "push screen" which could be annoying. $200 price tag is expensive but if the Voyager were at that price I might have jumped at the chance.

Blackberry...I've never used one but it seems like everyone's getting one and is becoming sort of a status symbol on campus. Everyone I know who has one loves it, plus it doesn't have that awful Verizon software built in like the VCAST phones do. The price is kind of steep but low enough to where I can justify spending the money on it ($150 for a Blackberry sounds like a steal compared to how much they cost just three years ago).

And lastly there's the frontrunner, the Q3m...runs Windows Mobile 6 so I don't have to deal with the Verizon software but it also has VCAST functionality built in in case I want to use it. Battery life apparently sucks so I'll have to buy the extended battery, but the phone itself is only $80! Sounds like a steal for a smartphone! It's certainly the most practical solution as it has all I want (aside from Wi-fi, but the cheapest phone that has that is the Samsung SCH-i760 and that's $300) and comes at a very good price.

So anyone who either has these phones or has been to Verizon recently and played around with them, can I get some thoughts on these phones?

It's a phone.

Not to Ammo, he can't live without his so this is a life or death situation in his eyes. I do agree though, why do people get overly excited over a damn phone is beyond me. Personally I go with the free model since I don't see the need pay money for something that has a life expectancy of a couple years.

Full disclosure: I design application processors for cell phones, so I am biased that I think our processors (and thus the phones they are in) are better because I've seen them compared in the labs.


First, you should go to a site like wirefly.com. Sites like these work directly with the phone manufacturers to get newer cell phones for a cheaper rate than you can find anywhere else (and the services plans are the same that you can get from any provider).

For instance, you can get the RIM Blackberry Curve or Pearl or Samsung Blackjack II for free with a new or extended plan (note:this was listed for AT&T, Verizon didn't have as good of deals on the site for whatever reason right now).

LG is a step below RIM, Samsung, and Motorola in quality (IMHO). Even the processors we sell them, the phones that they come out with don't meet the performance other vendors get from our processors.

Motorola doesn't buy our processor, so don't buy them
In all seriousness, they make quality phones, but some of their versions skimp on the peripherals(i.e. speakers, camera interface, etc), which is how they get their price lower. So, be careful that it is okay for what you want.


I'm in the market for a new phone come July, and I'm waiting for the Samsung Blackjack III. They are supposed to announce the release date the first week of June or so (the release will be sometime this summer), so you might want to hold out for that. It should be a pretty sweet phone, but won't be free...even from wirefly.com.



For specifics on the phones that you listed:


Samsung Glyde - it's new, which is the reason for the price tag; if you wait a month or two, that price will drop to the lower 100's most likely. It's a cool phone and I like the keyboard under phone feature, but as far as performance or peripherals, it doesn't have anything that the Curve doesn't have.

LG enV2 / Voyager - Both of these phones underperform. LG's SW platform is clunky and has many more bugs than the other systems. Be wary.

Blackberry Curve - the good news is that since RIM designs it's phones for business people first; they have the fewest bugs and issues. The bad news is that they are usually slightly behind the other smartphones in feature sets (so that they can remain more stable). This is actually the first phone that they are up to date on peripherals and is pretty nice from what I've seen.

Motorola Q3M - remember you get what you pay for. the speaker is horrible, so don't use it for music or really even to talk on the phone if there is any noise around. the camera interface is the same one they have on their razor line. i could go into bus speeds and cache sizes too...but that might bore you a bit here.

That's actually no longer a debate in the industry...noone designs phones anymore.

Up until 3 years ago, everyone designed phones that happened to be able to play music, send pictures, text, et cetera. And that is how they were designed (phone first, then add in features).


Now...everything is being designed as a mini-entertainment platform (basically as a miniature laptop computer). The phone just happens to be one of the features that is hooked up.

It may not sound like a big deal, but from the design and performance standpoint, it changes everything.

I was between the Blackberry Curve and the Samsung Blackjack II. Ended up with the Blackjack. For one, the Curve doesn't have a video recorder, and I liked the design slightly better on the Samsung. All the reviews were great for both, but I read 2 negatives on the Curve where I didn't hear anything bad at all on the Samsung.

The knock on the Curve (which was only 2 reviews out of many) was it was more difficult to use apparently. Never used it, so I can't verify it.

Maybe it's just cause I'm way older than you,, but I gotta ask, are you planing on receiving and making phone calls.. I only ask because it seems that we've all gone round the bend on the whole cell phone thing..

Its a PHONE people

Ammo,

Windows mobile is awesome. I am not a technology guy, but I think its great and very easy to use...

I have the tmobile dash which I really like, so I have no idea on the models you are looking at. They all look pretty cool. Even though it doesnt use Windows Mobile, that Blackberry Curve is pretty slick I bet..

Actually, there is SOME method to all the Smartphone madness. If you're out-and-about a lot, having a single, small device that allows you to:

1. Make and receive phone calls (with voicemail)
2. Send and receive e-mails
3. Keep an electronic version of your calendar
4. Keep an up-to-date listing of your contacts
5. Browse the web for information

is a big deal. It wasn't that long ago that I would have needed to carry around a cell phone, an electronic organizer and a laptop to have that same functionality. Now, I can conduct business from anywhere using just my phone. After I retire, I probably won't need all this functionality. For now, however, it makes my professional life much easier and it gives me a lot of flexibility (it comes in REAL handy once training camp rolls around )

You dont understand though, its "just a phone", what works for Ballpeen works for everyone.

And when you retire you can use it like this:

1. Make and receive phone calls.
2. Listen to music.
3. Watch/listen to movies/television shows.
4. Browse the web to post on dawgtalkers.net
5. Take pictures/video of all the places you visit (and/or grandkids).

Then when you get much older;

1. Schedule reminders to take your pills.
2. Turn the volume way up so you can hear when calls come in.

There you go! Problem is, when I get that much older, I'll have remember where I put the stupid thing.

You can set an alarm to go off every 30 minutes (really loud) so that you can find it.

The GPS on my phone is great, I used it last weekend for a 4.5 hour trip to southern Ohio for a funeral.

I have a Voyager by the way, whoever told you it was a "push screen" is way off base.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24728056/

By Suzanne Choney
MSNBC
updated 9:00 a.m. ET, Thurs., May. 22, 2008


Suzanne Choney

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• E-mail


Avi Greengart has what may be the funniest — and truest — explanation of why GPS on cell phones is now probably the most desired feature on mobiles.

“It’s really the best of both worlds, because women can use it to ask for directions, and men can use it so that they don’t have to ask for directions,” says Greengart, Current Analysis’ research director for mobile devices.

Aside from GPS, cell phone users looking to upgrade to new phones are more interested in mobile Internet and e-mail service, spurred to some degree by a wave of $99-a-month plans by carriers that includes unlimited Web and data use, as well as by the popularity of Apple’s iPhone, regarded by many as a premier device for mobile Web browsing.

A new iPhone model, expected to be announced June 9, may or may not have a GPS chip in it. The company routinely declines to comment on products in development. The current iPhone does have location-mapping software, which lets users approximate where there are, using cell phone towers and local Wi-Fi networks.

“The best way to look at where everything is going with cell phones is to look at your desktop or laptop computer,” said Joseph Farren, assistant vice president of public affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association, an industry trade group.

“What you’re used to turning off at night on your desk you now simply slip into your shirt pocket. Whether it’s music, mapping and GPS, Web browsing — all that is now available on your mobile device.”

Farren said there are more than 600 models of cell phones on the U.S. market from which to choose.

“The last phase of the industry was about physical product design,” said Greengart. “Consumers were looking for phones that were thin or made of metal, or thin and made of metal. This round of phones is defined more by software, what the phone can do.”

David Chamberlain, principal analyst covering wireless for In-Stat, said more consumers are becoming interested in phones “capable of doing more computer-y things. They want to synchronize with their corporate e-mail account, they want to be able to view their word processing documents and maybe even modify them before they send them off somewhere else.”

GPS, he said, “probably has the strongest interest, aside from battery life.” Battery life? Yup.

“It’s one of the things that in some ways, people say might prevent them from getting other features. They say, ‘Yeah, I might want the video capability, but I’m worried that it’s going to chew up my battery.’ ”

GPS cross-pollination
In-Stat surveyed 1,700 wireless users, asking what features they’d be interested in -- and willing to pay for — in their next cell phones. GPS was the choice of 52 percent, and Internet service for 36 percent, Chamberlain said. The poll was done in late 2007, before this spring’s round of $99-a-month unlimited data plans from many cellular carriers.
Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless and Sprint offer their own GPS services for $10 a month.
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GPS’ popularity for cell phones is not surprising, considering how common the personal navigation devices are becoming for vehicles. Stand-alone units, or those built-in to vehicles, come with display screens of between 3 and 4.3 inches.

“What we’ve found is that this is kind of a gateway product,” said Chamberlain. “Once you’ve had it on your mobile phone, you’re more interested in getting it in another form, such as for the car, or as a (stand-alone) portable device,” and vice-versa.

Nokia, which makes some of its phones with GPS chips, recently said up to 50 percent of its mobiles will have GPS chips by between 2010 and 2012.

The chip alone does not provide the maps and directions consumers seek, but it does in conjunction with a GPS service, which costs around $10 a month, from companies such as TeleNav, or from cell phone carriers, such as Verizon Wireless with its VZ Navigator Service.

Sprint’s GPS Navigation service costs the same, but is included if a customer signs up for the company’s $99/month “Simply Everything” plan.

“GPS is probably the biggest moneymaker right now for Verizon and Sprint,” said Chamberlain. “That single application makes more money for them than any others (such as mobile TV or video) because it has a real utility. It’s not just entertainment.”

Music and Net appeal
While mobile video and TV are still relatively fledgling features, phones with music capabilities are doing well, said Greengart.

“The iPhone is a perfect example of that, synching up with iTunes, which makes it very, very easy,” he said. “There are other examples, too: Sony Ericsson’s Walkman phones at AT&T, Nokia’s Xpress Music phones at T-Mobile, and Samsung and LG both have music phones at Sprint and Verizon Wireless.

As storage capacity increases on phones, that makes it easier to add music to them. “Two years ago, if you wanted to put music on a phone, you could put a few songs on; now you can put thousands on,” he said.

Mobile Web and e-mail definitely have sparked users’ interest. ComScore research firm surveyed more than 2,000 U.S. wireless customers earlier this year, and found that among mobile Internet users, there was a “huge increase in Web-browsing,” said Serge Matta, comScore senior vice president.

“Thirty-six percent say they access the Web on their cell phones more than once a day, up from 18 percent in 2006,” he said, when comScore’s last survey was done.

“Mobile Internet usage is at a tipping point,” comScore declared in its March report.

Some of that is due to the iPhone. “The funny thing is, if you talk to many iPhone users, some of them will tell you, ‘This is so exciting, it’s so freeing. I can do so many cool things because I have the Internet on my phone now,’ ” said Greengart.

“And you ask them what phone they had before, and more often than not, it’s a phone that had Internet, too, but they just didn’t know. Part of that is because Apple has done a very, very good job of making the iPhone Web-browsing experience a good one.”

Smartphone-like mobiles
There are more phones with on the market with “smartphone”-like capabilities that aren’t iPhones or BlackBerrys.

“Some consumers at the younger end of the scale, and even some adults, are now looking for QWERTY keyboards with their phones, where they didn’t consider one before,” said Greengart. “This is not the corporate e-mail crowd.

“The iPhone is still relatively expensive at $399. But even at the low end, we’re seeing a whole bunch of $99 smartphones, like Samsung’s BlackJack II at AT&T, and Palm’s Centro at AT&T and Sprint. With a contract, these phones cost $99. A consumer is looking at getting a regular phone, that might cost $49 or $79, and bumping it up to get something that manages their calendar, their contacts and gives them a Web browser. That’s a big step up” for what they get for their money, he said.

Unlimited data plans make it that much easier. How long they’ll hold is another question. For now, though, most major U.S. carriers “have some form of unlimited data plan,” Greengart said.

“That’s not necessarily the case in other countries. But in ours, you have all that you can download and eat. And once you have a clear idea of what it’s going to cost you,” versus being charged by the kilobyte, “that makes it much easier to swallow,” he said.

© 2008 MSNBC Interactive

I miss phone booths. I could make all the calls I ever needed to for less than a buck a month.

.10 cents

I only have a cell phone becaue it was 9.99 to add it to my wife and daughters plan. It was a waste of 10 bucks a month I think I have only really needed it twice in almost three years. My wife will text me and I CALL her back (hell you can call and leave a message faster than you can text) The only people who have my cell number are family and a few close friends, and they all have my home number and work number.

JC.
I'm spoiled with my smart phone, I can never go back! I would suggest the Glide, from the ones you mentioned. Being a dude, I would imagine you have bigger fingers, and I think you may have problems with the Blackberry and others with smaller buttons. And unlike the Envy that I remember, the flipping part has more problem than the sliding kind.
I love my HTC Mogul, which I believe is similar to the Glide or iPhone(only windows compatable). My only advice is invest in a micro or mini chip if one isn't provided.

Quote:

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(hell you can call and leave a message faster than you can text)

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Not always. In the time it takes to ring enough to get to voice mail and then the actual message I can send a text message I have gotten pretty fast at it.
In my case it is always easier to reach me via text msg if you really need to get a hold of me during the day b/c I am either in class or at work and both places I can't talk on my phone. But I can text.

My buddy is on his 4th different smart phone now in 2 years b/c he keeps breaking them. I have had 1 phone during the same time,dropped it at least 100 times and it still works fine. Thats the reason I can't see spending a lot of money on something that when it boils down to it is just a phone.

Stopped in at Verizon today and asked about the phones.

Basically, the $80 price tag for the Moto Q9m is if you're a solo subscriber (I'm not, I'm part of a family share plan) and if you subscribe to the $30 extra data plan (which I wouldn't).

Long story short, the enV2 is probably the best bet if you don't want to spend a ton of money on a Voyager and don't want to pay extra for a smartphone (this is assuming you want the QWERTY keyboard for texting, which I do).

Plus, my LG VX8300 has been a spectacular performer the past two years, I can't believe it's time to give it up. I think I'll stick with LG.