McPhee

No you haven't, it's never happened before. Apple haven't had any real competition in the smartphone market yet. People who have bought the iPhone in previous years have bought it for the superior user experience. People who haven't bought it have written it off due to it's lacking features. Each update shrinks the gap and broadens the iPhones appeal, but it's been nothing radical so far. The bit that "blew the competition away" was the quality of the product as a whole in the first place, the initial launch. With the iPod Apple never lead. They had the iTunes ecosystem, which was their great innovation there. After the brand established itself all they did was update the range every year to follow the latest trends (until the iPod Touch, which I admit has blown away the competition). With OS X Apple have lead for years and it's taken Microsoft a long time and a lot of work to catch up. They've never needed to blow Windows away with a great new update, they've just needed to keep themselves at arms length (which this year they failed to do). I don't think I've ever seen Apple "blow the competition away" after an initial product launch. They'll just do another incremental product upgrade, add a few missing features and then rely on the quality of the end-user experience to keep them ahead of the competition. It should be enough to keep them ahead for a while, but the competition are definitely catching up.

The App Store is definitely the iPhones big seller these days, it's a mammoth! It'll take Android a while to catch up, though development is accelerating now with the success of the Droid in the States and the release of Android 2.1. It's a lot easier to develop for than the iPhone which is a HUGE bonus, most programmers are used to Java, very few had ever seen/taken any notice of Object-C (which is a mess and a pain in the rear end to use) until the App Store took off Not that there's anything particularly useful missing from Android Market. There aren't many games, though now that Google have finally got OpenGL ES 2.0 support in to Android that should change. I find myself torn to be honest. Android is only getting better and the Nexus is definitely a nicer bit of kit than the 3GS. Once the kinks are worked out I'm sure it'll prove to be the better handset. However, the 3GS is better now and who knows when Google will bring media support up to the required standard or when good games will hit the platform. I can see Android and the iPhone 4 being pretty level by Christmas in terms of features, polish and usability but is that too long? Widget support is basically having mini programs pinned to your desktop. A clock, the weather, the name of the currently playing music track + pause and skip, RSS feeds. There's quite a lot of scope for it in Android, though even more in Maemo. It's an at-a-glance view of the important stuff without needing to load up any extra programs. Multitasking, pretty much as you said. Think of it like being on a PC, you can just minimize programs so that they're out of your way or so that they can carry on what they are doing while you get on with what you need to do. As for the screen; Make up your own mind from that. To me the iPhone looks noticeably more blurred, it's just nowhere near as crisp. It also seems to have a weird blue hue to the screen (which I have noticed before on handsets that I've used).

Think this'll be my next purchase, gonna see what prices are like. Sounds awesome :awesome:

I can think of a few off the top of my head; Widget support Multitasking Better screen (bigger, more vibrant and higher resolution) Faster Android Market is open (i.e. no silly censorship by Apple) Great support for Google services Better call quality (dual mics for noise cancelling and a better earpiece) Full flash support in browser (or maybe it's coming soon, none too sure) Someone with some actual hands-on experience of Android might be able to think of more. The iPhone on the other hand is a more polished experience and it's multimedia support is far better. I'd agree there. It's beginning to feel a bit stale after nearly 3 years on the market with only very slight changes in appearance. As for Widgets, they are still there. If it's HTC's Sense UI you're referring to though then no, that won't be making an appearance. There will be a very similar handset from HTC, the Bravo, due some time in the next few months and that phone will feature Sense UI.

Nope. There's full multitouch support in both the Nexus One and the Droid. For some reason (probably patent related) Google just won't add multitouch support to any of their software stateside. They really need to get whatever legal issues there are sorted out tbh, it does seem there are some that NEED multitouch in thieir handsets.

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/Sony-KDL40W5500/ There should be some settings in there.

I bought one... but they won't accept my card Not sure if I'm disappointed or relieved but I think I'll leave it til after CES now.

I believe it's a Google phone rather than the Google phone. Something to do with them rebranding the '...with Google' brand and selling them through their site rather than moving in to the hardware business to compete directly with Apple. Basically in the future you'll get handsets from Sony Ericsson, Motorola, HTC, Samsung etc. with their own custom UIs built over the top (like a continuation of Sense or MotoBLUR that covers the whole OS) and you'll get Google handsets, which will run Google's standard Android UI. I like the idea personally. It gets the point across much better than the '...with Google' thing ever did. As for the handset itself, got to admit I'm tempted. It looks like a pretty good Android handset, and being a Google branded one I'd expect updates will come pretty promptly and support will continue for some time. At $530 I'd order one. Shipping, Import Duty and VAT add an extra £100 on though, bringing it to about £435. Still a good price, but not enough to make me order straight away.

It's £13.99 for top tier handsets. Blame the iPhone crowd, there's more insurance claims made on those handsets due to theft, loss or damage than all of the other mobiles on the market. It's pushed the cost of insurance up, especially on the most expensive handsets. I was assuming you meant now

You pay a bit more than that. To take your N900 contract as an example you'd need to pay insurance at £13.99/month plus an additional £2/month for the ACP protection. As it's a two year contract they won't cover a cancellation until month 15 and you'd incur a charge of £60 + £29.50. The grand total bill for 15 months insurance + the ACP charges and the excess is £329.35. If you cancel directly then Vodafone would charge you £205.44 to cancel at month 15 (3/4 of the remaining line rental before VAT) and that's assuming you don't plan ahead by a few months and drop your tariff a couple of levels, which would make it even cheaper.

This is what I do, except I've taken out a longer contract (12 months) because it saves a lot of money vs 30-Day. £15/month for 600 mins, unlimited texts and 512MB web, plus I negotiated a Nokia 6330 for free this year as well to tide me over until I find a new Smartphone that I want. It doesn't really save any money, but I find it easier to spend the lump sum on a handset than pay out £35-£40 every month. Plus the tie in is shorter, I can choose any handset I like and the buy-out cheaper (if I find the need to end the contract early).

When you get it, download the Dirt 2 demo It'll give you a chance to see what your computer can do.

Updates are coming thick and fast for the N900. It's quite possible that those opinions were correct, but have since been fixed. It's quite impressive just how quickly the updates are coming to be honest, a lot faster than any other mobile OS on the market.

I had a play with an N900 a few days ago. Really liked it. The screen is very good, the OS is powerful and it clearly has a lot of potential. Quite thick though and to be honest I wouldn't say that the UI is all that intuitive. Great once you know how it works, but there's definitely a learning curve. I'd have to say I agree. Good coverage, but the CS is terrible! Foreign call centres are not the way to go! Even worse when the staff are rude and have a tendancy to hang up on you if they can't be bothered to deal with your enquiry. I bailed in December 2008 for Vodafone and haven't looked back. Their eForum is great! Most trivial problems can be sorted out through there over email or PM and when a phone call is needed they phone me at a time that I specify. They also use UK call centres! Vodafone do tend to be a little more expensive, but IMO it's worth the extra. Less hassle, better coverage (especially on the West Coast Mainline, which they seem to cover the majority of) and higher data speeds. I'm beginning to feel the same way. I ignored the N900 to start with, I really wasn't expecting it to be very good. I've no idea why, but I got the WinMo vibe from it. However, having used one now I can't help thinking I should just order it and forget about the Milestone. It looks like a good handset, and I'm buying SIM-free so I can order it whenever I like, but I'm not prepared to until I've demo'd it. The Sony X10 is also due in 2 weeks time, making the decision even harder.

I'd take their assurances with a pinch of salt. There's no way to hold them to it so it's definitely not a good idea taking out a contract on that basis. Also, as has already been said the HD2 is a bit naff.

http://dinopc.com/shop/pc/21-004-AMD-Phenom-II-DDR3-Multimedia-PC-93p625.htm Don't want to sound like a broken record but they'll do the same system for £80 cheaper, it comes with a 3 year warranty and the motherboard is better. Overclockers aren't particularly cheap, never have been. PCOption and PC Specialist might be worth a look though.

Seems clear to me. Up to 4 people in local play or 8 over Xbox Live. I don't think 16 players comes in to it.

No, this is why we need an iPhone/iPod touch thread, which you're allowed to have. Threads for Apple products aren't banned, it's the mess that was the mega "Apple Thread" that is. Heck, you can even have a Mac thread if you like and I'll stick it for you at the top.

http://dinopc.com/shop/pc/21-001-Intel-Core-2-Quad-DDR3-PC-93p619.htm Upgrade the graphics card to a 4850 and add Windows 7 Home Premium. If you need a monitor then try this; http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&sku=324819&dgc=AF&cid=5212&lid=122756&acd=e278da0693a6e230fa8a8c39d67895ca Bare in mind though DinoPC don't supply much with the computer. You'll need your own keyboard, mouse and speakers.

http://www.marksandspencer.com/Panasonic-TX-P42G10-Full-Plasma-freesat/dp/B002M85U0S?ie=UTF8&qid=1261946097&categoryNodeID=43992030&ref=sr_1_1&page=&node=198144031&sr=1-1&mnSBrand=core&rh=n:198144031,p_4:Panasonic If it's in budget then that is the one to go for. An utter bargain at that price plus a free 5 Year Warranty, Delivery and Installation. If not then Panasonic still get my vote, got two sets in this house and both are great. As I understand it they're a pretty safe bet, they've not released a bad model in years now.

They couldn't fill Wembley? I'd agree that they couldn't manage to sell out the stadium as part of a tour (few bands can), but as a one-off appearance? Easily. It's only 80,000 tickets. I'd be in the queue for tickets anyways...

The Pogues sounds good to me! I'd buy for sure! Brilliant song, brilliant band and it actually fits in with Christmas. Seriously? People actually like that piece of crap? Don't get me wrong here, the money it raised for charity was a good thing. However it's a patronising piece of crap that really deserves to be archived and forgotten about.

Well done internets! First the MTV awards, now Xmas #1 next... the world?

AOL customers don't need to use the AOL software anymore, they finally entered the 21st century. Been with them for years and haven't had to put up with their lousy software on my last 3 computers. I can't believe people still use it! Tell them it's a security risk or something :p

Looks like a black Downey Jr to me. As in the Iron Man RDJ, not the Tropic Thunder one. He's too hairy in Tropic Thunder for that comparison.