iPhone, Android, Windows phone or Google?

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by Phil B

Many phones these days have a charger in 2 parts. Wall socket to usb port transformer, then an usb to micro usb cable. You can then use this cable to plug into your computer to charge (at a slower rate) or for data transfer. Thats my experience from HTCs anyway. The cable on my charger died last week, only $2 for a new cable instead of having to buy a whole new charger. Thats another plus of that setup.

Oh. ok!

Originally Posted by Phil B

Dont be ridiculous!

Phil B: I'm serious! Those who know me KNOW I'm not one to open up instructions and read through it thoroughly before using things, phones included. That's why I asked lots of question when I bought my phone. I'm a "try it out and see if it works....maybe this button, oops no maybe click that one, ok start over" kind of girl. Or I'll call a friend. One of my techie guy friends are sure to know without even looking, all I need to do is explain it to them. I've even found things out months later that there are super shortcuts! Go figure!

*it's still wrapped in plastic*
*over there*

[Rodp]

My missus gets my handmedowns. I've got an SGS3 and handed her my SGS2. She's been pestering me for an iPhone for about a year and a few weeks ago I took her to a shop to look at one. She held it in her hand for about 5 seconds and walked away. After using the SGS2 for about a year, the iPhone feels tiny in comparison.

For me, screensize is the feature I look for the most. I was torn between the Note and the S3 - the note was just a little too big at the time.

[mik]

The big screen has a lot going for it, yes you need a bit more care with it , much nicer for to look at though, and ten times easier too type on, I wouldn't go back to a little phone.

[nstg8a]

I'm starting to lean towards the note as well now, one concern for me though that they don't appear to use gorilla glass for the screen? That's a mighty big screen if its vulnerable.
My sgs2 is two years old, never had a screen protector on it and there is only one tiny mark on it after all ths time, and I'm not gentle with it.
But il wait until I can hold a note and a sgs4 side by side to see if the girth of the note is worth the 1/2inch bigger screen.

[mik]

I have a screen protector film on mine and a rubber cover that leaves access to the sockets, it covers the whole back except for the camera lense , and the edges of the phone, it protrude s above the screen line by about a mm, I think it offers reasonable protection, when I bought the phone it did have an optional rear cover that replaced the original and had sort of a hard plastic sheet hinged of it which I quiet liked to protect the screen, but there wasnt any mechanism to keep the sheet on the glass unless you wanted to put an elastic band on it.......... so I gave it the bullet and bought the others mentioned.
Im a clumsey old bugger, I wouldn't be without the cover.
Actually the covers vary in quality, my other old smart phone has rubber cover with much thicker edges on it which I think may afford a bit more protection , most of the phone place sell the covers of various types so thats something to look out for.

[Spudz27]

Well I had an sIII and had no end of drama, my mex asked for it and I went back to my trusty iphone 4. Now I am on the 5. Sure apple lock you in and don't support flash etc, but for my needs, every iphone I have had, has been rock solid. Iphone for me is also easier as most friends and family have one, so imessage is handy. Other than phones, the 4G network surprised me, download speeds matching my adsl2 and upload speeds 10x faster

[mik]

I would like to try the 4g one day, but my service provider only does the 3g on the plan I have and its to good a deal to pass up, as it is anyway I think the 3g on my phone is faster than the cable my pc is running on , so its not tp bad.

[mik]

Edit , while we are on the phone thread , can you buy the google play gift cards in melbourne?

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by Phil B

Many phones these days have a charger in 2 parts. Wall socket to usb port transformer, then an usb to micro usb cable. You can then use this cable to plug into your computer to charge (at a slower rate) or for data transfer. Thats my experience from HTCs anyway. The cable on my charger died last week, only $2 for a new cable instead of having to buy a whole new charger. Thats another plus of that setup.

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

When I plug my HTC into my laptop I can choose between 'Charge' or 'Use like a USB device'.

Never did a charge on my laptop. The charger is always in the wall socket so all I do is plug it in to charge and I never really did bother to look.

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by mik

Just wondering have any of you guys used the video phone thing, or use it on a regular basis??
my brother rang me up the other day on my note, i answered the phone to see his big boofy head laughing his head off like a little school girl, i said to him oh this is cool (my first time using a video phone),
i said " what are you laughing at" ........... he panned his phone so i could see the toilet paper roll.............. good grief .

Just one word...........................boys.

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by JADED6

Sad days indeed finally updating from an old school nokia design (where the numbers are still on the phone face, uhh, it had a camera)

I now have a Windows "smart" phone, Nokia Lumia 920. Slowly getting used to the size of it but the big issue is how they seem to make everything you do with phones all tech/intergrated/internet like.
This phone has mutilated SMS text messages. I liked inbox/sent message folders but now they display like some kind of continuous instant messenger bubble.

Being a shift worker, nokias old timed profiles was the best feature ever. I could put my phone on silent til 3pm. Can't seem to do that with a "smart" phone but hey, it can do loads of other stuff that I'll likely never fully utilise.
By default, every single app seems to want to secretly collect your info, track your usage etc so they can go on to rule the world. You really have to delve in to settings to turn half of the crap off.

Wireless charging, i think is a nokia only feature at the moment but you still need to buy a pad and place it on that pad (the pad IS plugged in, you guessed it, via a wire) but I guess it is proximity charging.

Yup you said it, the 920 seeks to give the user the same feel and features as the new Windows 8. Some people really love it though. I like that you can set the colors of texts, backgrounds and things. One thing I noticed is that your gallery pics rotate randomly and show up on that app (the square) on the main screen. Not like you can help it, but with recent updates, some friends' phones locked up and wouldn't even turn back on. They ended up having to get a new 920 to replace theirs and heard it happened to others too. *not good*

I can put my phone to sleep during certain hours so i'm not interrupted. Cool, huh?

Yes, that's it, it's proximity charging. Wireless from that point on after it's plugged in.

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

With all this talk of charging, why have we not seen a phone with solar cells that trickle charges the battery when it's sitting around - like what a calculator has???

I know the power demands are very different, but every little bit would help, especially if you can leave the phone in direct sunlight when it isn't being used.

Sounds like a good idea, but I think Landau Stable has a good point. The screen would get damaged from the heat so that would need to be figured out too. If you can figure it out and patent it you'd be rolling in $!

Originally Posted by Landau Stable

My guess is because you aren't supposed to leave them in direct sunlight. Damages the screen or something i'm guessing.

I think you're guessing right.......

Originally Posted by Yellow_Festiva

So put the panels on the back

Did you know there's solar chargers? A military friend of mine bought one, he said you keep the charger charged so when you're out in the field (or somewhere without electricity) you can plug your phone into the charger to charge it up rather than run out of power until the next time you can plug in.

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by mik

The big screen has a lot going for it, yes you need a bit more care with it , much nicer for to look at though, and ten times easier too type on, I wouldn't go back to a little phone.

Sure does! That's one of the things about my phone that I'm liking a whole lot. It's the screen size which friends with iPhones wish theirs had. Who knows, maybe future iPhones like iPhone 7 or 8 or 9 (which may come sooner than we think) will have larger screens?

Originally Posted by mik

To add to my much earlier post in the thread, I have to say I'm loving having internet on the mobile, regardless which phone you get , once you have the luxury of internet where ever you are, you will wonder how you got on without it , you just do not realise how much of your life is spent waiting. You wait for a train , a doctors, wait for your takeaways, to get your car serviced, etc, etc,
I was out on the road today and got a call from a family member to pick something up, I had no idea where to find the item, a quick look on the net I found the website with the adress and a pic of phone which I pressed, it started ringing, I did'nt even have to dial a number, I enquired if they had the item and I was away................... the convienience , bloody fantastic, loving my smart phone.
The note 2 is a biggy as well, it did feel a bit strange at first, ut I'm getting used to it and becoming adept to using it one handed at times, my only worry with the big phone is some of my shirts have smaller pockets and I can see me forgetting about one day and bending down to have it fall on th.e deck.
But I'm looking for some shirts and maybe a vest with an internal pocket to over come this, in short I love my big smart phone.

True about access to internet, as long as you're not hooked to it and on it every chance. I've seen families sitting together at restaurants, no talking, no interacting, all on their phones clicking and tapping away. Or on dates and the guy is on his phone, dunno what's worse, him talking on the phone or texting/on the phone, period. And not just once or twice. While I put mine on silent. <whatever>

Originally Posted by Rodp

My missus gets my handmedowns. I've got an SGS3 and handed her my SGS2. She's been pestering me for an iPhone for about a year and a few weeks ago I took her to a shop to look at one. She held it in her hand for about 5 seconds and walked away. After using the SGS2 for about a year, the iPhone feels tiny in comparison.

For me, screensize is the feature I look for the most. I was torn between the Note and the S3 - the note was just a little too big at the time.

I played with the Note2 recently and I like it. Big though but it meets the needs of some users who want bigger screens. Maybe next time you upgrade you'll want a larger screen? By then more phones may be larger too since that's the direction the cell phone market seems to be going.

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by nstg8a

I'm starting to lean towards the note as well now, one concern for me though that they don't appear to use gorilla glass for the screen? That's a mighty big screen if its vulnerable.
My sgs2 is two years old, never had a screen protector on it and there is only one tiny mark on it after all ths time, and I'm not gentle with it.
But il wait until I can hold a note and a sgs4 side by side to see if the girth of the note is worth the 1/2inch bigger screen.

I'm pretty sure it does have Gorilla Glass, you know, you should ask your cell phone dealer to make sure. But I've seen promos on the phone and that was a point mentioned. Because afterall, a larger screen is more vulnerable like you said.

Here's a list of products with Gorilla Glass. Note is listed but not Note2.
http://www.corninggorillaglass.com/p...-products-list

I just saw on some android forums where users posted that Note2 DOES have Gorilla Glass.
http://forums.androidcentral.com/spr...-note-2-a.html

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by nstg8a

I'm starting to lean towards the note as well now, one concern for me though that they don't appear to use gorilla glass for the screen? That's a mighty big screen if its vulnerable.
My sgs2 is two years old, never had a screen protector on it and there is only one tiny mark on it after all ths time, and I'm not gentle with it.
But il wait until I can hold a note and a sgs4 side by side to see if the girth of the note is worth the 1/2inch bigger screen.

The Note2 comes with a stylus........ That was fun to play with!

Originally Posted by mik

I have a screen protector film on mine and a rubber cover that leaves access to the sockets, it covers the whole back except for the camera lense , and the edges of the phone, it protrude s above the screen line by about a mm, I think it offers reasonable protection, when I bought the phone it did have an optional rear cover that replaced the original and had sort of a hard plastic sheet hinged of it which I quiet liked to protect the screen, but there wasnt any mechanism to keep the sheet on the glass unless you wanted to put an elastic band on it.......... so I gave it the bullet and bought the others mentioned.
Im a clumsey old bugger, I wouldn't be without the cover.
Actually the covers vary in quality, my other old smart phone has rubber cover with much thicker edges on it which I think may afford a bit more protection , most of the phone place sell the covers of various types so thats something to look out for.

I always use a screen protector, just in case. And I've seen and touched those soft rubber cases, they feel nice and come in heaps of colors!
But yea protective covers/cases and screen protectors are a must if you ask me unless you don't mind it getting scratched with normal use.

I bought this flex protective cover with something called impactology. It has D30 molecules between the inner and outer lining of the cover. D30 is free-flowing molecules that lock together on impact to absorb shock and disperse energy. Neat, huh? And not bulky which is mega important to me.

[mik]

Originally Posted by NickyN

Just one word...........................boys.

you are dead right .

[NickyN]

Yea thought so.........................no offense to boys.

[FgNewbie]

Thanks to a good friend, I've been using iPhones for a few years. Recently got an iPad too.

Definitely not an Apple fan but I do enjoy the benefits of using iPhone/iPad.

Disgusted with some of the limitations Apple creates especially if you don't use iTunes (program).

Never been a fan of iTunes. After an iOS update that shat itself followed by a restore from backup to fix it, I lost everything in the phone.

Apple don't make things easy. Eg; Apple provides no means to remove an unwanted / dead email address. After googling for a solution, I used a 3rd party computer utility to edit a backup file then restore that file to the iPhone. Ridiculous process but I did it to stop emailing the wrong account.

I don't blame anyone for jailbreaking their iPhone if it avoids this kind of crap.

I expect I'll learn about better alternatives when my friend gets fed up with Apple.

[NickyN]

Or Apple fixes it. There's got to be a much simpler way to remove an unwanted email address, you know?

But, good for you for figuring it out even though it was quite a lengthy process!

[NickyN]

In the past, users who favored iPhones had to jailbreak (I'm thinking this means unlock) their phones and chance using it with their carrier. This sometimes meant some features might not work because something was incompatible. But now, the 4 major carriers in the US offer the iPhone5. Of course it's at different prices and plans. In the end, the price differs too after 2 years. Here, take a look:

http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/Ui9...-Ownership.png

Or, someone could just buy one off of eBay and use it with their carrier.

And here's my question. Does the iPhone5 in AU cost about the same as here?

[GT69]

Well I've been running around with a HTC One now for almost a week, Bloody beauty is all I can say. Check it out If your in the market for a new phone. It's like an Iphone, but nicer....and not an Apple product, Which is pretty much what we all want.

[mik]

Good stuff GT69, these modern smart phones are just so handy, i down loaded a freebie app the other week, it basically takes a gps location of your car when you park it in a huge car park , you then go walk about in an unfamiliar area, after going around in circles for an hour or two get lost, at the end of the day your little car locator finds your car for you, the functions available for these things are endless.
I might add some old fella in 4wd decided to do a quick lane change through a small gap and side swiped my stationery car last week, i took photo`s of the aftermath as evidence with my smart phone, you wouldn`t be with out one.

[NickyN]

HA! I needed that app several + years ago when I did the same and couldn't find my car in a HUGE parking lot. How'd I find my car? I did what one of my besties did once, I used my car alarm! It worked!

@mik: Sorry to read about your car, hope the damage was minimal.




One of the best apps to me is the Starbucks app. I can do everything with it like check the balance and reload my Starbucks card, track my stars earned with my card as well as pay with my phone! Love it!
Starbucks is

[BPXR6T]

I was as big a Microsoft fan as they come. I'm a .NET dev and have worked with Microsoft and microsoft technologies a lot over the years. Initially I was a big fan of WP7. I planned to get on board the apps bandwagon. That ultimately never happened. Then I picked up an ipad and had it talking with our exchange server in moments. Something I struggled to get working on WP7. The ipad just worked. I bit the bullet. iPhone 5 is in he mail, ipad mini never leaves my side, an a nice shiny new MacBook is waiting for me to pick up in he office.

My old LG Optimus is okay but really it does nothing better than an iPhone and proves to be just another Microsoft imitation. Features like social media integration are just as good on the iPhone IMO. Tiles, if that WP7/8s big trump card hen sorry Microsoft, you've failed. The biggest thing I liked about the windows phone offering is its cheap, but the android kind of has that covered already. I don't think you'll see WP10.

[mik]

Originally Posted by NickyN

HA! I needed that app several + years ago when I did the same and couldn't find my car in a HUGE parking lot. How'd I find my car? I did what one of my besties did once, I used my car alarm! It worked!

@mik: Sorry to read about your car, hope the damage was minimal.




One of the best apps to me is the Starbucks app. I can do everything with it like check the balance and reload my Starbucks card, track my stars earned with my card as well as pay with my phone! Love it!
Starbucks is

good thinking with the alarm, and thanks NickyN, yes the damage is minimal, it is just a pain in the ....in the er.....you know .....going through the process of insurance , getting it assessed, etc,etc, ah well just another day .
the star bucks app sounds good, my young brother techie geek told me the other day it won`t be long(he thinks) before we will have in place a network where we no longer need bank cards/credit cards, instead we will just swipe our phone over a screen to pay for items and make transactions in an instant, i`m starting to like this tech age .

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by BPXR6T

I was as big a Microsoft fan as they come. I'm a .NET dev and have worked with Microsoft and microsoft technologies a lot over the years. Initially I was a big fan of WP7. I planned to get on board the apps bandwagon. That ultimately never happened. Then I picked up an ipad and had it talking with our exchange server in moments. Something I struggled to get working on WP7. The ipad just worked. I bit the bullet. iPhone 5 is in he mail, ipad mini never leaves my side, an a nice shiny new MacBook is waiting for me to pick up in he office.

My old LG Optimus is okay but really it does nothing better than an iPhone and proves to be just another Microsoft imitation. Features like social media integration are just as good on the iPhone IMO. Tiles, if that WP7/8s big trump card hen sorry Microsoft, you've failed. The biggest thing I liked about the windows phone offering is its cheap, but the android kind of has that covered already. I don't think you'll see WP10.

Well, Windows8 is more a fail (no offense to anyone who uses and loves Windows 8) than a good idea it seems, or at least from what I've read. I have another laptop with Windows 8 and OMG, all I can say is, it's different. I prefer Windows 7.

Glad you found what works for you.

[NickyN]

Originally Posted by mik

good thinking with the alarm, and thanks NickyN, yes the damage is minimal, it is just a pain in the ....in the er.....you know .....going through the process of insurance , getting it assessed, etc,etc, ah well just another day .
the star bucks app sounds good, my young brother techie geek told me the other day it won`t be long(he thinks) before we will have in place a network where we no longer need bank cards/credit cards, instead we will just swipe our phone over a screen to pay for items and make transactions in an instant, i`m starting to like this tech age .

Thank you!
And yes it's a pain in the umm..... over there.
Probably so (about what your younger brother the techie geek said), afterall facial recognition, iris scanning and more is possible now. And checks can be deposited just by taking a pic of it.

Maybe one day we can just think about doing something and it'll get done!
*thinking* detail my car, detail my car.

Nope. Well, taking it to detailer tomorrow!

[NickyN]

So no one's bought a solar charger to charge up your phone?

[mik]

No, i don't have a solar charger , was thinking about it yesterday actually(great minds think alike ) although the note has a very good size battery, i wouldn't mind having a solar charger in case i go bush or something for an extended period, you have one NickyN?? do tell.....

[nstg8a]

I have a small solar charger mounted on top of my forklift for my phone while im at work, charges fine if I'm not using it much, but can't keep up with the power drain if I'm playing music or using it a lot.

[mik]

any idea nstg8a how many watts it is , or what would be needed to keep the phone topped up worst case???