Time for a new cell phone...

I will be selecting a new cell phone shortly. I use a Blackberry Torch for work and I like it. It works great as a business tool.

I sorta' have my eye on an iPhone.

The phone is for personal use and will be my only phone (no land line for me).

Anyone have some advise on choosing one over the other? Experience using either phone?

How about carriers? I currently use Rogers. Kinda dislike MTS. Any views on these and other carriers?

I was looking for a land line the other day and went to Kiijiji. There were so many pages and pages of fancy phones that I had no idea what they could do, and sadly not a single land phone. I went to WallyMart and couldn't find any and then I ended up getting a free land phone from my daughter's friend.

I have a new land line for $15 per month in my house. Since I moved into Charleswood , we haven't had any phone, other than my wife's cell phone, so when she is out of the house I couldn't be reached.

I charged the new phone up Friday night and at 5:30 AM on saturday I got a wake up call from a wrong number! lol

I have quite a few friends who switched from Blackberry to iPhone4 and they all love it and would not go back. Outside of Manitoba, Bell has a new class called "superphones" that are a notch higher than "smartphones". An example is the Samsung Galaxy SII, which is supposed to be like iPhone on steroids. I think they can be unlocked to work on Telus, and rumor has it that Telus will get them later in the year too. Also iPhone5 supposed to come out soon. So there are lots of choices. If you do most of your calls in Winnipeg then Telus unlimited plans may be useful, but it's useless outside of Winnipeg.

And while I'm at it how does one select between 3G and 4G?

grumpy old man wrote:And while I'm at it how does one select between 3G and 4G?

Go figure, I think that 4G is WiMax, and 3G is HSPA, UTMS etc. But marketing and advertising has it all twisted around.

I recently bought an Iphone4, Best purchase I ever made! The Phone is capable of doing so much, it's amazing. I also used to have a Blackberry.

Although I have heard that the Iphone 5 is being released in the late summer or early fall. Maybe hold off until then?

My kid loves your avatar bart

Ya, no true 4G in Manitoba at the moment. What happened is that the association that classifies 3G/4G changed their definitions. Rogers has always been HSPA+ in Manitoba for the last 3-4 years. HSPA+ is was referred to as 3.5G technologly up untill about a year ago. True 4G referred to LTE and Wi-max at that point. When the 4G designation was reclassified to include "any speed greater than 3G" then technically HSPA+ or 3.5G technically became "4G".



Bell in Ontario can be blaimed for being the first ones to have their marketing department suddenly start spouting a 4G network despite still running HSPA+. Telus and MTS eventually followed and Rogers had no choice despite claiming that they weren't go to fall into the BS naming game of suddenly caling the same network 4G that was still 3.5G the day before.



True 4G (LTE) was recently launched by Rogers in the Ottawa area. Not sure how long till they launch it here.



Sorry for the long winded response. You have no idea how many friends I have that bought iPhone4's on MTS's "4G network" that a) refused to believe it wasn't really "4G" and b) were pissed off that their phones said "3G" on the onscreen display and c) tried to get credits from MTS because they could never connect to the "4G" network that was promised. The marketing types really did a great job of misinforming the casual tech consumer.



Back to GOM original question, wait for the iPhone 5 rumour is Sept-Oct. launch. Then compare to the latest crop of Android phones at that time. My personal opinion is iPhone has the better OS and app support, the top Android phones will have the better hardware specs. All comes down to which is more important to you. Personally I'd say if you've already bought into the iOS ecosystem at all (iPod touch, iPad apps etc.) then the next iPhone is a no-brainer. I don't know any BB users that regret the move, and I know a few iPhone 3G and 3GS users that tried switching to Android and are waiting for the iPhone 5. Take that for what it's worth.



And no, I'm not an Apple fanboy. I wouldn't buy an Macbook as they are a terrible value proposition from a hardware spec comparison and I refuse to pay a $4-500 premium for their OS alone just so I can spend anoth $200 to dual boot Windows 7 so I can actually launch the apps not available on OSX. But I prefer their mobile offerings, I must be one of the few that is still Windows for PC and Apple for mobile lol.

I personally use a Samsung Nexus S and love it. If you want to stay away from the whole Apple ecosystem, like I did, it's a very solid phone. Telus and Rogers both carry it, not sure about MTS. The hardware is very nice, great camera, processor, ect. And because it is the "Google certified" phone it has the most up to date version of android for smartphones 2.3.

Another option is a Windows Phone 7 phone, while up to now they've been less then impressive, with the recent release of Mango, their OS update I see them coming on strong. Also Nokia dropping their own phone OS in favour of Windows Phone 7 OS will make things even more interesting.

Google certified appeals to me as I want to seamlessly integrate my Gmail contacts, email and calendar.

Anyone have experience with Gmail integration?

With the Nexus S you log into the phone with your gmail account and the feeds from all your Google apps are automatically imported, ie, Gmail, Google calendar, Google Reader Google+ ect. I've had the Nexus S since April and it really is a slick phone defiantly worth checking out.

Thanks GordC.

Grumpyrom, the i5 phone, does it have limited range like the 4G? Do you know how well the iPhones integrate Gmail?

Hi GOM

I have a Samsung Galaxy S...Android

The phone itself (and the applications available) are great...however...there should be some warnings provided for them...

1) While Samsung offers their own AppStore...you can't use it, as their contract with Google forces you to use the AndroidApp store. Basically the same apps, though Samsung does have a few of their own that are designed for their specific phones.
2) Outlook Sync - if you use MS Outlook for your e-mail/contacts/etc...you'll find the sync software (at least for Samsung (KIES it's called)) really sucks. It gets the job done...but takes almost 1/2 an hour to do a sync...every time. There's some 3rd-party software that could make it quicker...but even that has issues (at least the trial versions did) and costs and extra $40-60.

The Android phones claim you HAVE to connect to Google Calendar, and that you can "push" your appointments between the phone & the online calendar...but I ended up with 4-6 copies of the same appointment on my phone...and had to go through each week and delete all the duplicates...which were only replaced in a day or two.
And Google Contacts don't "push" to the phone...plus if you use Outlook, it's a real PITA to "push" it twice (from PC to Google to Phone).

I love the Android functionality...especially knowing I didn't pay an extra $200-400 for my phone (my phone was free with my service plan through Rogers).
I have found a limitation when traveling as to being able to use the phone...but as long as you're not going to Churchill...you might be ok.

I get duplicates when I use Google and Outlook on my Blackberry. That is my business phone so I turned Gmail off and no more duplicates.

Did you get duplicates with Gmail alone AA?

BTW, I'm really only interested in a) phone; 2) texts; and iii) Gmail. Anything else would not be important.

Thanks all...

grumpy old man wrote:BTW, I'm really only interested in a) phone; 2) texts; and iii) Gmail. Anything else would not be important.

In that case you don't really need a smartphone and data plan and 3G whatever. I have an almost 3 year old "feature phone" that does all these things quite nicely, with a package from Telus that ads texts and unlimited browsing for about $15/month. That browsing includes gmail app, opera, google maps app with no problems, to a monthly bill of about $36 all in. And the phone was free. Unfortunately, decent feature phones are hard to find now, and the telecorps are pushing expensive data plans and loaded smartphones to people who do not use 85% of what they are paying for.

AGEsAces with the Nexus S you don't run into any of the problems you described. Because it is the Google phone, you get the "pure" version of Android with none of the manufacturer add-ins, ie having to use the Samsung specific apps.

I haven't tried to sync with Outlook. I can push appointments from either the web app or my phone without getting multiple copies of them.

The contacts I found worked great and merged my contacts from Gmail, Skype ect.

I have an Android phone. The issues I have are more with the carrier than the phone.

I like Android.

I don't like my device ( HTC), as it doesn't hold a charge long enough

I hate my carrier ( MTS). They are waay, waay behind the curve for new product ( android OS 2.3 is out, but MTS still only sells devices with 2.1OS and won't push the new OS out yet)

As for sync with outlook - I use the built in e-mail with my personal e-mail and access my work e-mail via web browser. I do sync my calendar using google calendar sync to sync it to my google calendar and then Jorte to sync my google calendar to my device. A little convoluted, but it works fine

There is a samsung android device I saw in the states with sliding dual screens which seemed pretty sweet.

grumpy old man wrote:I get duplicates when I use Google and Outlook on my Blackberry. That is my business phone so I turned Gmail off and no more duplicates.

Did you get duplicates with Gmail alone AA?

BTW, I'm really only interested in a) phone; 2) texts; and iii) Gmail. Anything else would not be important.

Thanks all...

I don't use Gmail for mail...but I only got dupes when I had the CalendarSync option turned on with my phone.
Once I turned it off...all the duplicates stopped.

My mail I do receive through my phone, but I have it logging directly into my mail accounts (all POP3)...that actually works the way I want it to.

The length of time it takes to sync is my biggest problem...it should not take more than about 2 minutes to sync...presuming there's only a couple of changes.

I will mention that Samsung issues new updates for KIES though, and it seems to slightly improve the SYNC function with Outlook each time. A new update again today...so crossing my fingers it's going to work even better.

grumpy old man wrote:Thanks GordC.

Grumpyrom, the i5 phone, does it have limited range like the 4G? Do you know how well the iPhones integrate Gmail?

Can't say anything about the iP5 untill it comes out but if you ask me the whole antennagate was blown out of proportion. In the city of Winnipeg I have never experienced call problems on my iP4 except for at my place of work in a few areas where there is interference from machinery and NO cell phones works. Actually at work all CDMA phones dont work at all, and GSM coverage is 85% of the building.



AS far as Gmail integration it works great. There is instructions here for setup: http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=77702

Since it's IMAP it works very well just like your desktop client. Everything is synched and no duplicates. You delete off your phone, it's deleted from the server etc. Google Calender also synchs very well. The only other Google app I've used is Google Docs for the spreadsheet function and it was read only before but I believe you can make changes now on your device.



FYI, MTS Windows Live mail also synchs great BUT Shaw Webmail sucks balls as it's POP3 only on the iP4 and you get the whole duplication problem.