Recommend me a new smartphone!

[Legendary Silke]

I think my Samsung Galaxy S is a bit creaky and quirky these days. It's like it's going to choke and die any moment soon. I think I'm not even browsing the web properly, and I have had to deal with its senior moments like the touchscreen not responding, hard locks, orientation mishaps and stuff.

So now I'm thinking of getting a new phone.

What do you think will be good for me? (Might want to avoid Android stuff for now.)

 

[Archenoth]

Your Galaxy S is being quirky..?

Hm, which Android version do you have? (If I may ask)
I hear Android 4, Ice Cream Sandwich (Why are Android's names all so delicious?) is pretty quirk free.

I can't really recommend you anything outside of Android currently since I have no experience with anything outside of Android, but maybe I can help you fix your phone.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Your Galaxy S is being quirky..?

Hm, which Android version do you have? (If I may ask)
I hear Android 4, Ice Cream Sandwich (Why are Android's names all so delicious?) is pretty quirk free.

I can't really recommend you anything outside of Android currently since I have no experience with anything outside of Android, but maybe I can help you fix your phone.

Did you know that ICS is not available for Galaxy S officially? And I have had enough with custom firmware that saps my battery.

I think it's probably the hardware at this point. :P

 

[PokeLordAndrew]

I have an iPhone 4 and it works fine, If you can find a good plan for it. That's what I recommend

 

[Archenoth]

Did you know that ICS is not available for Galaxy S officially? And I have had enough with custom firmware that saps my battery.

I think it's probably the hardware at this point. :P

Yeah... I know... I just wasn't sure if you had done any modding to change the OS like I did with my Galaxy Spica. (Modding also doesn't sap the battery to my knowledge, does it?)

But fair enough... It is indeed quite a hassle initially. /me decides to be quiet

 

[Legendary Silke]

Maybe I should try switching from Android to Apple or Microsoft. hmm... A bit from both sides?

 

[PokeLordAndrew]

Apple is really good, but there are a few bugs to do with freezing a self controlling iPod apps.

 

[Meganium]

If you still want to stay with Android, why not upgrade to the Galaxy S2? I'm not certain if it has ICS yet.. I've been hearing a ton about it.

 

[Hybrid Trainer]

Stating what you're looking for in a phone might help and stop people from recommending their favourites all over the place.
A phone that is completely stable and perfect doesn't exist, every phone has its drawbacks so really if you don't have any specific features in mind you're better off thinking of what flaws you're willing to put up with.

 

[Iris Mist]

I currently have a Blackberry Curve, and I really enjoy it. I had upgraded to a Windows Phone, but it started acting pretty quirky after owning it for only 3-4 months, so I'm back to my BB.

It's not really easy to recommend a phone since not everyone has the same taste. If you're looking to get a lot of apps and games, especially free ones, then I would go with Apple or Android. Windows Phone and Blackberry don't have as many apps available, and free apps are hard to come by.

 

[Legendary Silke]

If you still want to stay with Android, why not upgrade to the Galaxy S2? I'm not certain if it has ICS yet.. I've been hearing a ton about it.

The Galaxy S2 just had the ICS updates hit.

Stating what you're looking for in a phone might help and stop people from recommending their favourites all over the place.
A phone that is completely stable and perfect doesn't exist, every phone has its drawbacks so really if you don't have any specific features in mind you're better off thinking of what flaws you're willing to put up with.

Looking for? OK, maybe I'll elaborate.

I currently have a Blackberry Curve, and I really enjoy it. I had upgraded to a Windows Phone, but it started acting pretty quirky after owning it for only 3-4 months, so I'm back to my BB.

It's not really easy to recommend a phone since not everyone has the same taste. If you're looking to get a lot of apps and games, especially free ones, then I would go with Apple or Android. Windows Phone and Blackberry don't have as many apps available, and free apps are hard to come by.

Hmm... I think I'm more of a person that doesn't really use apps, preferring to have something really reliable for what I do the most on my phone - getting in touch, browsing the web, and social.

Hmm

What I really want in my phone...

It has to be easy to use.
It has to not stutter randomly.
It has to work well even under stress.
It has to have good battery life (at least 4 hours of web browsing (seriously my Galaxy S dies before the 3DS)).
It has to have good audio quality (I do listen to music on the go a lot)
It CANNOT have a PenTile display (I hate how the text looks on these kind of displays.)
I don't want a black or white phone. Had it with booooooring colours!

I think I'm getting really picky!

 

[Meganium]

What I really want in my phone...

It has to be easy to use.
It has to not stutter randomly.
It has to work well even under stress.
It has to have good battery life (at least 4 hours of web browsing (seriously my Galaxy S dies before the 3DS)).
It has to have good audio quality (I do listen to music on the go a lot)
It CANNOT have a PenTile display (I hate how the text looks on these kind of displays.)
I don't want a black or white phone. Had it with booooooring colours!

I think I'm getting really picky!

Honestly I can't think of a phone that meets those requirements. Many phone batteries die out due to excessive usage, especially when it comes to Internet usage (my phone, Samsung Infuse 4G dies out in 4 hours when using 4G internet, and just that).

I think Nokia has colored phones, but they're Windows Phones and non-Android phones. So, not sure if you're quite comfortable with that.

 

[Iris Mist]

Hmm... I think I'm more of a person that doesn't really use apps, preferring to have something really reliable for what I do the most on my phone - getting in touch, browsing the web, and social.

Hmm

What I really want in my phone...

It has to be easy to use.
It has to not stutter randomly.
It has to work well even under stress.
It has to have good battery life (at least 4 hours of web browsing (seriously my Galaxy S dies before the 3DS)).
It has to have good audio quality (I do listen to music on the go a lot)
It CANNOT have a PenTile display (I hate how the text looks on these kind of displays.)
I don't want a black or white phone. Had it with booooooring colours!

I think I'm getting really picky!

Well, if I go with what I know from my BB:

For me, it is easy to use, it has good audio quality during calls and for listening to music, I had to put in a new battery recently, but it gives me about 48 hours of battery life when only using it for a few little things.

And depending on the provider, different colors are available. My Curve is dark pink, and I know the Torch is available in red with my provider.

The Blackberry Browser sucks, but Opera was available on in Appworld when I last checked.

And of course, if you have friends who have a BB as well, you can chat via BBM instead of downloading another chat app.

 

[Petie]

Honestly, with the exception of your color requirement, it sounds like you're describing an iPhone. I was, for the longest time, completely against them but I've since acquired an iPhone 4s and I won't go back to Android at this point. And don't get me wrong - I loved my Android phones (I had a G1 and a G2, both T-Mobile) but I'm far happier with the iPhone now.

I'll go point by point but I feel like it's not necessary really:

It has to be easy to use. - Check - it doesn't get much simpler. For this simplicity, you do give up a lot of your ability to customize but even that comes with a benefit, explained next.

It has to not stutter randomly. - Check - I have found iOS to be significantly more stable than Android. Of course, no OS is perfect and there will inevitably be a crash or something similar but it seems to happen extremely infrequently, especially when compared to Android.

It has to work well even under stress. - I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. If you mean it needs to be capable of multi-tasking, the newer generations of the iPhone handle this in stride. If you mean they need to be physically tough, you may want to look elsewhere or invest in a good case (which could help you with your color requirement).

It has to have good battery life (at least 4 hours of web browsing (seriously my Galaxy S dies before the 3DS)). - Check - I know there are reports of poor battery life and they're true if you expect a week on a single charge but I use my phone a lot, have location services enabled and push notifications for all of my accounts and I still last well beyond the day. As it stands, I'm just under 40% battery and it's been off the charger for 16.5 hours.

It has to have good audio quality (I do listen to music on the go a lot) - It has an iPod built in. Enough said? Of course, audio quality is going to also be dependent on the headphones you use but the base audio quality is good.

It CANNOT have a PenTile display (I hate how the text looks on these kind of displays.) - Check - Retina display. Definitely enough said there.

I don't want a black or white phone. Had it with booooooring colours! - Short of a colored case, this is the only area where it definitely does not fit your expectations.

Unfortunately, I've been out of the loop with Android recently so I can't recommend anything you likely don't already know but as you want to avoid it for now anyway, that shouldn't be a problem. As for Windows Phones, I haven't had any personal experience with them but I have heard good things about Windows Phone 7 so it may be worth looking into as well.

 

[Stingray]

Whatever you do, do NOT get a HTC Thunderbolt... my gosh I hate the phone and it doesn't fit your requirements at all.

Honestly I am anything BUT an apple fanboy, but the next phone I'm getting will be an iPhone. I've had two android phones (the first Droid and now the Thunderbolt), and both had some issues...

Droid loved to play text message roulette at random times... what is text message roulette you ask? Well basically I would try to open one text message thread and instead it would open a different one. So I would be typing a response to someone but ends up it would be sent to someone else. A couple of my friends received text messages meant for my girlfriend with cutsy pet names included >.<. Other than that no complaints...

The Thunderbolt is worse... it will randomly stop receiving text messages. One day I'm getting them and the next I'm not... the only way I find out is when I notice a lack of text messages for 2 or 3 days or my fiance asks me if I received her texts (and usually she is pretty upset with me ignoring her at this point). What is worse is the wireless company's server thinks I'm getting them so when I fix the problem (which used to take a full reset now its me fumbling with the text message app for 30 minutes) I do not get access to any of the old messages so I have no idea what has been sent to me over the last couple of days/hours. Also its a known problem with the phone. Also the speaker phone sucks and sometimes its hard to hear people on the other line... worse phone ever...


Either way look stuff up online before getting them... I jumped at the chance for 4G and now I hate myself for it. This is the only advice I can offer from personal experience... basically Androids still seem to have some bugs (might be better now), and I would recommend NOT getting any phone by HTC (the Motorola Droid honestly wasn't that bad other than the texting problem... actually if I can find it again I think I might REVERT back to the Droid since the HTC Thunderbolt has been nothing but a HUGE pain in my rear).

 

[Cherrim]

o_o Why is colour a big deal? Just get any phone that's heavily publicized right now and, if the market is anything like it is in Canada, there should be tons of coloured cases and skins for the most popular phone models.

They don't really make coloured phones anymore, probably because it's harder to sell more (for example) purple phones than it is plain ol' black and white since it's not as safe a colour. So why bother making a bunch of default cases that will never be sold when they can get more customers with boring colours? You're better off finding cases that are nice colours.

Anyway, none of my friends who've owned a recent Blackberry have liked it at all (and I know tons of people with one since RIM is pretty much right down the road from me :P) and if you're trying to stay away from Android for now... that kind of only leaves Windows and the iPhone. I've no experience with Windows phones though so I'd probably just suggest the iPhone. :/ Helps with the colour thing, too. (Or skins, anyway.) If you're not into apps, Windows is a distinct possibility but... if you do like having a selection of apps, it's not a very safe bet yet, I don't think.

This is the only advice I can offer from personal experience... basically Androids still seem to have some bugs (might be better now), and I would recommend NOT getting any phone by HTC (the Motorola Droid honestly wasn't that bad other than the texting problem... actually if I can find it again I think I might REVERT back to the Droid since the HTC Thunderbolt has been nothing but a HUGE pain in my rear).

Android is probably mainly buggy because they have to make their OS work on so many different phones, rather than having the very simplified models that the iPhone builds for. (This isn't necessarily a good thing or a bad thing--it pretty much comes down to what kind of specs someone wants on a phone.) Also... I think that's just an issue with the Thunderbolt. I've heard of so many people having issues with it but I've never had a problem with my HTC Desire and I love it so much. :( It disappoints me to hear that the Thunderbolt apparently sucks so much since I actually went ahead and recommended HTC to so many of my friends after I got mine, haha.

 

[Legendary Silke]

I think I might want to skip on the colour requirement for now.

Hmm... That probably leaves me with either the latest available iPhone or a solid WP

I think I might want a bigger screen, too, pixel density notwithstanding

 

[Archer]

It has to have good audio quality (I do listen to music on the go a lot) - It has an iPod built in. Enough said? Of course, audio quality is going to also be dependent on the headphones you use but the base audio quality is good.

Actually the output quality on the iPhone/iPod is pretty average. Not necessarily worse than most other phones, but it's certainly not audiophile quality (not that I claim to be an audiophile at all). I can clearly hear the difference between my phone and notebook when the headphones are playing the same content. I'm using $70 AKG headphones (both a set of cans and in-ear 'phones) at the moment, so the headphones are good enough to show the difference without being super-high-end. If you're happy using cheaper headphones, then you probably won't notice.

I was very anti-iPhone originally, but when it came down to it, the unified, restricted platform gave rise to a very stable and consistent device. I wanted something reliable and I don't mind using iTunes to manage my media. Everything else can be done via iCloud.

Most of the people that I've spoken too have pretty much the same thing to say about Windows Phone 7 - it's quite robust and snappy, but the app selection is small and it's a little underwhelming. This sounds like it would suit your needs? You'd need to check on the specifics of the model, of course, but the OS itself seems about right.

 

[Legendary Silke]

Now, I think I'm left with the choice of either an iPhone 4S, a Nokia Lumia 900, or a Galaxy Nexus, or something close enough.

The iPhone 4S's screen is small, though, at 3.5 inches - I have seen on in person and I really don't think I like the size.

 

[Petie]

Actually the output quality on the iPhone/iPod is pretty average. Not necessarily worse than most other phones, but it's certainly not audiophile quality (not that I claim to be an audiophile at all). I can clearly hear the difference between my phone and notebook when the headphones are playing the same content. I'm using $70 AKG headphones (both a set of cans and in-ear 'phones) at the moment, so the headphones are good enough to show the difference without being super-high-end. If you're happy using cheaper headphones, then you probably won't notice.

I didn't mean to imply that the quality was outstanding but it's designed to include an audio player so I'd imagine at least a little thought went into its audio quality. Quality really is subjective but I just meant that the quality is good enough, in my opinion, to enjoy whatever it is you're listening to.