Smartphones - which one to buy?

[bob]

Checking emails, Facebook and websites will never send you over unless you are using it for many hours in a day, every day. I'm only in the internet for an hour per day when i'm on the bus, and the rest I'm either on wifi or my laptop. You should be fine.

 

If you've an android phone you can set up a limit to cut your Internet out when you near your maximum (and possibly get an app to do it on an iphone), so you can browse without worrying about extra charges.

[MoogleViper]

Yeah, unless you're downloading and/or watching videos, you shouldn't go over that.

[Eenuh]

I managed to try out a Nexus 4 last week and even though the phone is nice, it is just wayyyyyy too big for me. Same with the Galaxy SIII. Using a phone that is as big as my hand is just asking for trouble. I wouldn't feel comfortable using it heh.

 

So I will have to look around a bit more I guess. Not had time yet to go to a shop, but I feel they would just try to sell me the most expensive ones anyway. =P

[bob]

By all means go into a shop to try out the phones, but don't take advice from them. Like you say they'll just want to sell you the most expensive one, or peddle you some crappy phone that comes with a free tv that you don't want but end up paying for in increased monthly payments.

[Sheikah]

So, the Nexus 4 is back in stock on the German store. The 16GB version works out to be £298 ish when converted from EUR to GBP. £20 more and potentially longer to deliver if it's coming from Germany...not sure if it's worth it as the UK store appears to be teasing with the 'temporarily out of stock' message on it at the moment.

 

It's also a bugger to view the German store, at least it was for me. I had to use a German proxy site to get directed to the page where it lets you buy it.

 

Probably will wait for the UK store to stock it.

[Eenuh]

So, the Nexus 4 is back in stock on the German store. The 16GB version works out to be £298 ish when converted from EUR to GBP. £20 more and potentially longer to deliver if it's coming from Germany...not sure if it's worth it as the UK store appears to be teasing with the 'temporarily out of stock' message on it at the moment.

 

It's also a bugger to view the German store, at least it was for me. I had to use a German proxy site to get directed to the page where it lets you buy it.

 

Probably will wait for the UK store to stock it.

 

I would advise against buying abroad as I think it might make things more difficult if you ever have problems with the device (if you buy it from Germany, you will most likely have to deal with the German help desk).

 

Also they list this on their website "Also, at this time, the country of your credit card must match the the country to which you're shipping."

[Sheikah]

I would advise against buying abroad as I think it might make things more difficult if you ever have problems with the device (if you buy it from Germany, you will most likely have to deal with the German help desk).

 

Also they list this on their website "Also, at this time, the country of your credit card must match the the country to which you're shipping."

 

My credit/debit card does match where I'd want to ship it? (UK)

 

But I will hold off, wouldn't to have to deal with German customer service.

[Eenuh]

My credit/debit card does match where I'd want to ship it? (UK)

 

But I will hold off, wouldn't to have to deal with German customer service.

 

Sorry, that wasn't clear. From what I understand from having talked to the French and German customer service people, devices aren't shipped to other countries (so your credit card and shipping address would have to be in Germany), though this might depend on the country. Apparently some couriers would ship to other countries but then there is still the issue of you not getting any support anyway.

 

I could ask more people in work about it tomorrow but from what I gathered, it wouldn't be a good idea to order from a different country. If anything goes wrong with the device, you might be screwed.

[Cube]

Google Play can ship the Nexus 4 to other countries. However, as Eenuh said, it's not wise.

 

Google have said that they are aware of the high demand in Germany and the UK. I don't think it will be much longer.

[Ike]

LG have said they should have better supply in February, so yeah shouldn't be long before they get them back in stock.

[Dannyboy-the-Dane]

I'm getting the Nexus 4 from the UK since it's so much cheaper getting it through the Google Play Store (which isn't available in Denmark). We're talking half price.

[Eenuh]

Riiiiiiight, I have been looking a bit more into phones, and I think the Galaxy SIII mini might be best suited for me. It seems to be one of the only recent devices that isn't ridiculously big. Actually the only ones that seemed to fit in that category were this one or the Desire X and Desire C. Desire X was a tiny bit tempting (cause Android/HTC Sense is familiar for me), but the SIII mini seems to have better stats in general.

 

Any reason why I realllllly shouldn't buy this phone?

Or am I missing some new phones that are of similar size and don't run on Android 2.3 or older?

[Mr_Odwin]

The S III Mini still has a 4 inch screen, so that's quite ... big? (You said the Nexus 4 at 4.7 inches was way too big.)

[Shorty]

Any reason why I realllllly shouldn't buy this phone?

Or am I missing some new phones that are of similar size and don't run on Android 2.3 or older?

The S3 mini is generally considered very overpriced for what you're getting so unless you're finding a great deal somewhere....

 

Are you sure you can't just get used to having a bigger phone? When we moved forums everyone's mind was blown by having 125x125 pixel avatars when we were used to a teeny 50x50. Really these phones aren't that big, they're just bigger than you're used to.

[Eenuh]

The S III Mini still has a 4 inch screen, so that's quite ... big? (You said the Nexus 4 at 4.7 inches was way too big.)

 

I can't really find any devices that have a smaller screen yet run on a recent Android version or have some of the features I want (camera, flash). Am I missing any obvious ones?

 

My Desire S was 3.7 inches, which isn't that much smaller I guess. I have a friend who has a Galaxy SIII Mini so I will ask her if I can try the device, but the size of that one seemed fine to me.

 

The S3 mini is generally considered very overpriced for what you're getting so unless you're finding a great deal somewhere....

 

Are you sure you can't just get used to having a bigger phone? When we moved forums everyone's mind was blown by having 125x125 pixel avatars when we were used to a teeny 50x50. Really these phones aren't that big, they're just bigger than you're used to.

 

Amazon sell it for £236. I have no idea if that is a good price or not, all phones seem overpriced to me to be honest. =P

 

I don't know about the size, I held the Nexus 4 and it just didn't feel comfortable to me... it might indeed be something I could get used to, but it is hard to tell without having one to try. Maybe I will ask in work to see if I can test one for an hour or so. The price for the 8GB model is the same as the SIII mini, so that isn't really an issue. It really is just the size that kind of puts me off heh.

[Cube]

Have you looked at the HTC One V:

 

 

It has a 3.7" screen and Android 4.0.

[Mr_Odwin]

My dad has an Xperia U which can be updated to ICS. It's a low-midrange phone with a 3.5" screen. It's not slim, but not overly chunky. A downside is that you can't add a micros SD card to increase storage - so you're stuck with 4GB of usable memory.

[Jimbob]

If Phones 4 U live to the promise they made a year ago, i could possibly get a new handset in March/April. Not holding much hope though, they failed me in quite a few ways.

[dan-likes-trees]

My dad has an Xperia U which can be updated to ICS. It's a low-midrange phone with a 3.5" screen. It's not slim, but not overly chunky. A downside is that you can't add a micros SD card to increase storage - so you're stuck with 4GB of usable memory.

 

It's such a joke that so many phones have such low memory. I had a HTC desire last year which had expandable memory but had barely any internal space for apps so it quickly ran out. I'm currently looking for something in the £100-200 price range at the moment and been eyeing this looker

 

 

But apaprently you cant save apps to SD and theres only about a gb free internally. Total joke.

[Cube]

Plus it has an OS designed by Fisher Price.

[bob]

Yeah it's true, my gf has the galaxy ace which would be a good little phone, but it only has 512mb of internal memory which limits the entire phone. All the other specs are fine, but it stutters and sticks because it runs out of space so easily.

[Eenuh]

Have you looked at the HTC One V:

 

 

It has a 3.7" screen and Android 4.0.

 

Really not interested in this one, never liked it and seems to have some issues. Plus it only has 1GB of memory, which is a bit on the low side (and you can't save apps to SD cards on HTC devices). Actually for that reason the Desire X shouldn't be on my list either. Plus I should probably drop HTC completely for transferring my job to a cheaper country, those bastards. =P

[Cube]

Ah, I quickly looked at the specs and it seemed fine - Ofcom really need to step in and make a law about advertising storage - saying there's 4GB and not mentioning that 3GB is used up by the phone is just ridiculous.

[Platty]

Really not interested in this one, never liked it and seems to have some issues. Plus it only has 1GB of memory, which is a bit on the low side (and you can't save apps to SD cards on HTC devices). Actually for that reason the Desire X shouldn't be on my list either. Plus I should probably drop HTC completely for transferring my job to a cheaper country, those bastards. =P

 

You can save apps to SD card on HTC phones. I certainly could on my Desire. I have a One X now so that doesn't have SD card support but I can move apps from the internal memory to what they call phone storage which is about 26GB.

 

Some apps have to be on the internal memory and can't be moved. Usually Google related ones or apps that offer widgets. But that is the same for any Android phone.

 

I use an app called apps2sd and it moves any apps that can be moved automatically.

[Eenuh]

You might be able to move apps, but part of it will always stay on the phone so the app can actually run, the app will never be moved entirely to the SD card. So it will still take up space on the phone. We had many customers complaining about this because they were running out of memory, despite moving their apps heh.

 

Does anyone know how much space is taken up on the Nexus 4 and Galaxy SIII by the OS and how much you would have left then? I know on HTC that ICS and HTC Sense take up about 3GB, so wondering how much it is on other devices.