Opinions on Smartphones

I love my iPhone. BUT I will say I have far too many dropped calls than I'd like. More than my old plain phone? Not by much, but that's mostly carrier problems and where I am in relation to the towers and a nearby airport. I use my iPhone a ton for my job where I am on location a lot and for the most part am able to get enough signal I'd say 95% of the time.

A smartphone is never, ever, EVER about NEED.

It's about WANT. So telling someone "you don't need one" is kinda pointless.

I for one am posting this message from a Motorola Droid.

I like it.

Earlier today I used it to locate a wall stud for hanging a picture, then used it to level the picture so it sat straight.

Yesterday I used it as a flashlight.

Last week I used it to roll dice and keep track of my character in a tabletop roleplaying game.

I get all my e-mail when I'm away from home via the Droid. It also syncs with my calendar on my computer and keeps my daily schedule straight. Plus, web browsing and looking up stuff who on the go is convienient.

I also sometimes make phone calls with it. I know, shocking.

Could I do all this by other methods, without the smartphone?

Sure.

But I don't WANT to.



-np

I can understand not wanting to pay it...money is money after all, but I don't think a company expecting payment in exchange for services rendered rises to the level of extortion.

My plan is in that $30 bucks on top of cell service range, but I look at it like this...it's the same as a cable company or FiOS charging you for internet access on top of your tv package. Sure it all comes in on the same cable/fiber, but there is additional support/infrastructure required to keep the internet connection working above and beyond the basic tv.

There's a bunch of sensors jammed into those things...one of the first "for the hell of it" apps I got when I first got my old G1 was a mock-up of a Star Trek TNG tricorder. Could read magnetic flux, among other things

30 dollars? You guys are being gouged. I'm paying 10 euros a month for a 5Gb limit (which I never even get close to).

I love my HTC Desire. Music Player & Radio, GPS and Maps, random spur of the moment photos, browsing the web to check things like bus times or buy tickets for gigs when someone mentions an upcoming one when I'm out and about. Plus it has a fully formed Speccie 48 emulator linked to a site with 1000s of games on it. Score!

I just found the stud finder app for the iPhone. That is pretty darn cool! I guess I knew about the magnetic sensors because of the compass and what not. But part of me just assumed it was based on satellite position.... sometimes I feel slow. LOL

I work in the security industry, and thus have needed a smartphone for quite a while as I need to be able to access data wherever I am. I have had windows smartphones, nokia's and most recently blackberry's and I have hated them all. My personal mobile has been an early motorola slvr that I got a couple of days before they where supposed to come out as the sales person was new and sold me one anyway.

Unfortunatly my slvr finaly disolved due to age and i needed a new phone, due to the amount of buisness that my company does with the o2 network there are a number of deals that we can get on personal phones, it turns out that the best value was to get a phone in the £100-£125 range so I bought a dell streak with the minimum contract available.

I got the dell two months ago and already the only electronic devices in my house not controlled by it are the lights and microwave, and I have plans for both of them

The number of uses I find for it constantly amazes me, for example If I am working on one of the racked servers in my house (yes I am a nerd) I don't have to plug in a keyboard and screen any more, I can just pull my phone out of my pocket and remote in with a couple of screen presses. If I want to watch a movie anywhere in my house I can use the phone to control the nearest tv and media box to play it, heck if I am in the only room in my house without a computer and I realy want to watch the film I can stream it to the phone.

I geocache, the phone lets me plan my trip, acts as a better turn by turn navigator than my ancient tomtom, and actualy helps me zero in on caches better than some of the comercial gps units on the market.

It seems crazy to me that I used to have a mobile phone, laptop, GPS, and multiple remote controls that I would be constantly carying around or hunting for, when I can fit all of it in one pocket sized device, but only two months ago it seemed perfectly normal, and the only reason I even carried a phone with me was in case my elderly father needed to contact me in a hurry.

So shop around, find the phone that works for you and has the features you want, if you get the wrong phone you will probably see it as a waste of money and space but the right phone could be the best toy you buy yourself all year

I thought about getting a smartphone back in November when my contract came up. After looking at it and weighing the pros, cons, and costs, I decided to get a regular phone with limited internet access (LG eNV2). I find that I hardly use the internet access, but it has ocassionally been very useful when I was in a car or restaurant and needed some information. I do like the full keyboard on it though for when I need to type.

I also think that the decision whether or not to get a smartphone is influenced by where you live. The big metropolitan areas have apps that either aren't available in a smaller market, or just wouldn't make sense.

One of the benefits of working for the cable company that serves the area you live...free tv/internet/phone. But yeah...most ISP's charge about $30 a month for broadband internet, and that's stuck at your house.

$30, try $60+ for cable. At least right now the phone companies are slicing the price on DSL to under $20 a month for a year for new customers.

Thanks for all the comments! Its given me a lot to consider. One of my major reasons for wanting to get a Droid is giving me something to use while I'm having downtime and not at home. I use public transportation and often have pretty long commutes of doing, well, not a whole lot. Books are great and all, but they're also extra baggage to carry, as is my DS. It would also help a lot when I get lost, heh. I also love gadgets, no denying it.

As another poster said, I don't view this as a need, but a simple want. I can think of many things I can use it for, so if I'm willing to pay for the privilege, why not?

Thankfully I've got a job interview for a position I really want tomorrow, so maybe this new phone will be a reality sooner rather than later!

I would avoid AT&T, especially the new Samsung Captivate (AT&T's version of the Galaxy S). It's a whole lotta style and not too much in substance. Plus you have to deal with AT&T and their lackluster service. I just returned mine and am considering switching to Sprint.

A lot of this reminds me of when I got a Visor (Palm clone) in the late 90s.

Didn't use it much for the calendar but I had games, books and goofy apps that I used to pass the time when I was eating alone in restaurants.

Got reasonably good with Graffiti to enter data but I still got the funky quad folding keyboard because, well it was a funky quad folding keyboard.