Thursday, June 23, 2011

The short story about the smartphones ...

It's time for something geeky.

In December 2010, I decided to change my iPhone 3GS for something new. I was bored of jailbreaking and modifying its look, because all the things that I wanted do weren't possible. Therefore I am sitting now with the computer on my knees and trying to sum up last 6 months and different devices that I was able to try. I would like to share my experience. Maybe it will be useful for someone. For sure it will be nice for me to take a look in the past and learn something on my mistakes. And yes - I know, I'm fucked up. But on my defence, I just wanted to say, that I haven't lost more than 200DKK (about 15 Euro). I was buying and selling on internet service (something like ebay) - dba.dk. Sometimes I earned, sometimes I lost.


Let me sum it all up by comparing main pluses and minuses. It's the easiest and the most subjective assessment. All the reviews you can find on plenty of different internet services, so I just tell you what I think.

My short story I started with iPhone, thus it's gonna be the first one.




1. iPhone 3GS



Pluses:
+ Huge amount of applications available in AppStore!
+ Huge amount of applications available in AppStore!
+ Relatively fast speed response for touch
+ Jailbreak possibility (which lets you modify the interface)


Minuses:
- No Flash light with the camera
- Average battery life
- Very limited without jailbreak
- Relatively small screen (3,5'') in compare with competitors
- No mass-storage option
- No internet tethering (phone cannot be a hotspot for other than Apple devices)


My score: 7/10





2. Nokia N8




Pluses:
+ The best camera on a market so far
+ Built quality
+ Vivid screen

Minuses:
- Average battery
- T9 dictionary in portrait mode (changed in new version of software)
- Annoying notifications (long time of awaiting for new email, etc.)
- Small number of applications available in Ovi Store
- Laggy - slow response
- Retro fell from using Symbian OS

My score: 4/10





3. Motorola Milestone 2




Pluses:
+ Good keyboard with well spaced buttons
+ Good screen (high resolution)
+ Visibility outside
+ Number of applications from Android Market
+ Good built quality

Minuses:
- Battery (sometimes with heavy use it was necessary to charge 3 times during 24 hours)
- Ugly MotoBlur widgets and add-ons (implemented in phone's interface)
- Really average camera
- Sometimes laggy
- Too often it is getting too hot!  (Almost burning, seriously)

My score: 7/10





4. HTC Desire HD*




Pluses:
+ Big screen
+ Fast operational speed
+ Good response
+ Nice sense UI with efficient widgets
+ Number of apps in android store

Minuses:
- Battery life
- Annoying keyboard - not very responsive (all the other replacement keyboards have had the same issue - they cannot follow you when you're writing fast...)
- Screen visibility in sun
- Difficult to root

My score: 8/10





5. Nokia E7


Pluses:
+ Incredible built quality
+ Very comfortable keyboard (the best one on mobile phone that I have experienced)
+ Amazing screen (very deep black color)
+ Amazing navigation via Ovi maps
+ Visibility in sun

Minuses:
- Average battery life
- Fixed focus camera (wasn't that bad... But it was impossible to take close-up pictures)
- Laggy
- Ovi market which is a disaster
- Slow notifications
- Poor widgets
- No good RSS reader for symbian

My score: 7/10





6. Samsung Omnia 7*



Pluses:
+ Amazingly designed Windows 7 (it's really beautiful)
+ Pretty well battery life
+ Very vivid Amoled screen with good outdoors visibility
+ Build quality

Minuses:
- Limited access to Windows market (because I'm in Europe, so I cannot buy paid applications. Yet)
- No voice navigation possibilities (bing maps sucks)
- A lot of limitations - e.g. choice of allarm, ringtone, notifications...
- Built in browser is not comfortable (no other alternatives)

My score: 8/10





7. Samsung Galaxy S (I9000)



Pluses:
+ Light, slim design
+ Good screen
+ Easy to root, hack and modify
+ Number of apps in android market
+ Possibility to connect other bluetooth accessories (e.g. Apple's keyboard)

Minuses:
- Average camera without flashlight
- Plastic built quality
- Sometimes it's getting to warm
- Small, silent speaker at the back of the phone
- Small internal memory and not enough of ROM

My score: 6/10





8. Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc


Pluses:
+ Very good, big screen
+ The slimmest design on a market
+ Number of apps from Android market
+ Very good camera

Minuses:
- Too plastic-ish
- Very weak battery life
- It's getting too warm too fast
- Sometimes laggy
- Only 5 home screens (not much for Android)

My score: 7/10


*I used stars to mark the two models that I like the most from the overall ranking. Samsung Omnia 7 deserved to be one of the two, because of its huge potential and beautiful interface. Incoming update (called "Mango") will bring all the necessary improvements and it will force me to do what I can to try Windows Mobile 7 again. I'm currently using again HTC Desire HD and the only thing that I'm unhappy at the moment, is the awful battery... Maybe it's time to try again something new? We will see.

5 comments:

  1. Nicely done.... Saves me a bundle from buying all the phones.... BUT where is the review of the iPhone4?

    No phone is able to match it (I think)

    also... The new iPhone coming later this year will once again revolutionize the market, creating a new standard for all other phone companies who will have to match in order to compete...

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  2. well - true, iphone 4 is kinda a masterpiece, but it also has quite a lot of lacks and limitations. maybe not iphone itself, but iOS.

    a lot of mobile phones at the moment can easily compete and win with iPhone. it could be for example, probably the best smartphone on the market, galaxy s2. it could be also htc sensation.

    new iphone 5 will be supported with iOS 5, which instead of bringing innovations, implemented main functions from Android (notifications) and blackberry (instant messaging). if phone, itself, won't bring anything.innovative and revolutionary, iphone will find it difficult to compete with new Android (ice cream sandwich), windows mobile 7 (mango), blackberry (os 7) or even just released MeeGo from Nokia (which notabene, will have a possibility to support android apps).

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