Come and talk to me about smart phones

[niminypiminy]

So, I had my bag stolen at the weekend with my ancient basic Nokia PAYG phone in it. I've lost all my contacts (aargh!) so I think it's time to jump into the world of smart phones so I can save contacts (as well as do all the other things you do with a smart phone).

But, but, but -- there's so many out there, and I am useless at making consumer decisions! I have an IPad, so would it make sense to get an iPhone and sync everything together, or would this be a waste of money? Are iPhones actually rubbish? And if I get an android phone, which to choose?

Someone told me to look at money saving expert, but it just made me want to slash my wrists. So ... I need advice! What should I do?

[IcingTheCake]

I would definitely suggest an iPhone! Easy to use, especially if you have an iPad and as you say you can sync them so all your messages and calendars and whatnot go from one to the other, i cant actually figure out androids i find them very complex for what they do!

[Hardhaton]

iPhone all the way, everything can be sync'd and the best thing about apple products is no anti virus is needed ever! All other smart phones should always have some anti virus which takes up 50% of the memory!

[PersonalClown]

I'd recommend iPhone if you already have an iPad.
If you decide on Android, a Samsung Galaxy is your best bet. Although Hardhaton is right. Half of my friends basic memory is taken up with standard apps that are not used (More than on iPhone!) and anti virus. But you can upgrade the memory on a Samsung with a cheap micro SD card.

Head to a phone shop and try some out. I prefer Apple.I find it intuitive. Android confuses the hell out of me!

Switching between IOS on an iPad and Android on a phone might be confusing but in the end it is all down to personal choice.

[niminypiminy]

Hmm ... three out of three for the iPhone!

[NetworkGuy]

Depends on what network and what you want to spend...

Yes, you might find an iPhone best, but pretty much all phones have good and bad (OK, less good!) points...

[niminypiminy]

I think that's the problem -- there are so many variables, so many networks, so many tariffs, so many phones ... and I find the kind of price comparison stuff that you find on money saving expert both boring and brain-exploding. I really feel that I would rather chew my own toes off than spend days on there comparing tariffs and phones!

[PearlyWhites]

Definitely an iPhone on tmobile fully monty £27 a month free phone. So unlimited Internet no fair usage policy they say you can't tether it to your ipad but as long as you don't take the mickey in my experience its been fine. It has always worked with no extra charges and I can use my ipad anywhere.

[PearlyWhites]

That's for the iPhone 4S btw

[D0oinMeCleanin]

I have the Samsung Note, which I find amazing. It has AVG anti virus on it, without using up half of the memory (the kids are good at doing that for me though) but it takes micro SD cards anyway upto 64gb so has a massive potential for storage.

I find it shits all over my sister's iphone from a massive height, but apart from the ipod I'm not really into Apple devices, I often find you can get equal or even better from Android for far less money.

I consider iphone when looking for upgrades but normally find that Samsung or HTC has something equally as good or better for half the price, when I compare phones.

I haven't yet compared the NoteII with the new iphone and I have no idea what HTC have out atm because I'm not due to upgrade until April, but I would say you will probably get better value from them than Apple.

[Snorbs]

All other smart phones should always have some anti virus which takes up 50% of the memory!

Absolutely untrue. Who told you that load of tosh?

OP, I've got an Android phone, a Samsung Galaxy S2. It's two years old and is still running absolutely perfectly. Costs me £15 a month. No "anti-virus" necessary unless you delight in downloading dodgy apps off of dodgy sites. Stick to the Google app store and you'll be fine.

iPhones are fine if you're happy with the relatively small screen, the necessity to install iTunes on your PC, and the inability to use it in ways that Apple Does Not Approve Of. Android phones give you a much broader choice of size, performance and prices albeit don't have quite the same availability docking stations in the shape of pigs or other domesticated farm animals.

[D0oinMeCleanin]

Yes it's often screen size and memory that steers me away from iphones. I don't want to pay eleventy million pounds more than the cost of your basic model just to have sufficient memory, thank you very much Apple, I have plenty of large capacity micro SD cards that will do that for me.

I only have anti virus on mine because I download a lot of attachments from email (college work, photos of rescue dogs that need adding to the rescue page or photos sent to me by people who have adopted a previous foster etc) It hardly takes up any of my memory. My total apps atm including AVG are using about 5% of my 12gb internal memory, on top of that I have an 8gb memory card.

I use my phone a lot to entertain the kids if I ever need to drag them about with me, so I like that I can have one memory card filled with films and one with music without filling all of my internal memory and limiting the amount of apps I can have.

[NetworkGuy]

Just to add my 4p (re T-Mobile)... I have had the T-Mobile 'Full Monty' since end of Jan/early Feb (when my contract with Three ended). I was on a SIM only deal, costing £16/month (reduced from £31) but around 10 weeks ago, they removed some of the local masts and my service has been very poor.

So poor in fact that first they said they'd send me a "signal booster" box (local 3G transmitter which plugs into my home broadband) within a few days of complaining (but then after waiting in for a 'delivery slot' of 08:00 to 18:00 with no delivery, found they were out of stock, then stock would be in end of week, and then after call aweek ago on Monday, would not be until mid-July, I got a box on Wednesday last week)... However, before I knew box was going to be sent, I was given free cancellation from the service.

I had hoped to be able to use it as a backup to my home broadband but clearly since I couldn't keep a call without that breaking down, and my connections with T-Mobile now depend on my home broadband (and I'm in Bootle L20 Merseyside, not the middle of nowhere!), I've gone back to using Three (whose data I have been using for near on 5 years now, and found much more reliable).

Luckily, I went via www.TopCashBack.co.uk when I signed up for the T-Mob deal so was sent £101 (which has pretty much meant the last several months were free of charge). I can only say - use a PAYG to check network coverage

I'd even say spend 30-50 quid on an unlocked 3G mobile from Ebay or similar and try different networks before you settle on one, so you know you can use it where you go most (shops, relatives, work, etc) because if you get no 3G signal, you're stuffed whichever network you use, if you expect to be able to do a quick search online for the price of anything (to compare with a shop, for example)...

[NetworkGuy]

(Just in case you are wondering, they gave me a PAC and won't charge for the remainder of my contract, so I can move my number over any time soon... and the box came with a price on the note of 0.00 {normally 50 to 100 quid} so they may expect that back, which will be no issue for me to return, if need be... So currently I am making all my calls with the phone - it is, after all, unlimited, and would send a few thousand texts if I had reason to, but not to 'take the mick' just to use what little service I can get and have "paid for" ... If they can pay out £XX why not just drop the monthly fees by 1/3 ?)

[Dillydollydaydream]

I'm on my 3rd iPhone. I was tempted to go for a Samsung galaxy s4 this time but its too large for my hands can't MN one handed while feeding dd
I know they're not very customisable but I don't mind that. I have an iPad & iMac so I like how they all sync together.

[carolthesecretary]

iPhone no doubt.

DH has an iPhone and another smartphone (Samsung Galaxy I think) but far and away prefers the iPhone.

[Hardhaton]

Omg, it's public knowledge that most of the androids have lost half the memory due to software and anti virus. This all came out when the s4 came out! They also drain the batteries too quick.
It's classed as a little big phone for a reason, thinks its big but will never be up with the big boys

[Snorbs]

Hardhaton, please feel free to point to any evidence you have that backs up your claim that "most androids have lost half the memory due to software and anti virus".

[PersonalClown]

I don't know about 'most androids' but I do know about the Galaxy S4 being bloated out so that half of the memory is used up and you can only remove it by 'rooting' (Jailbreaking for Androids).

[niceguy2]

Hardhaton, I think your 'public knowledge' is anything but.

Android phone's don't come with antivirus preinstalled for starters. It's entirely up to you if you want to install it. I haven't. Android apps of course use up memory but the disk space is entirely separate. And this is where Android excels.

I have a Galaxy Note, my OH has a S3, my son had the S2. We all have 16GB RAM built in and unlike Apple if I want to store more stuff I just go buy a cheap MicroSD card from Amazon and off I go. I currently have 48GB storage on my phone. That's a lot of movies/music etc I can carry with me.

As for batteries, again total misinformation. Battery life can be just as good (or worse) depending on what you use the phone for. Back when I was an iphone user I used to charge my iphone daily. I still do for my Android phones. However....with Android I just bought a cheap battery from ebay and I now have one on charge whilst the other is in the phone. I no longer have to carry a charger around with me.

In terms of speed, flexibility and price, the Samsung Galaxy S4 kicks Apple's arse.

Where the iphone wins over is the fact the OS is same across all devices and it's got that desirability factor which makes people want it for no rational reason.

[YoniBottsBumgina]

I much prefer android. However if you have an ipad, I'd probably lean towards an iphone too. Get the one which matches your charger lead for the ipad - 4/4S if you have the older 30-pin connector and 5 if you have the newer "lightning" connector.

Battery life is shit on most phones now. It used to annoy me but I've got used to charging mine every night now since I use it quite a lot. It's the same with the iPhone 5 so iphones are no better as the specs rise across both platforms. GSM Arena is a good comparison site for specs of different phones, and they have reviews too if the pure numbers don't mean anything to you. They have an "endurance rating" in their battery tests, showing you how often the average user will have to charge the phone.

You don't need antivirus on an android phone unless you're installing stuff from sources other than the play store. Since you have to disable an option buried in the settings to do this it's very difficult to do so accidentally even if you do download loads of stuff from email.

However because you can turn this off temporarily it means you can choose to install other things - for example I put an older version of Flash onto my android tablet when flash support was discontinued.

[YoniBottsBumgina]

The pure version of the S4 has just been released (without bloatware) and the battery life is reportedly shorter than with the touchwiz UI, there is still plenty of storage on it too IMO.

[PersonalClown]

Is that in the Uk YBB?? If so I'll tell my mate to get that one.
She's been getting me to look at the differences between all the models even though I prefer iPhone. I guess she trusts my technical advice!

[PersonalClown]

Oh and regarding anti virus on Galaxys, she had her S2 sent back a few times as it kept buggering up and the technical person said not to add antivirus as they wrote it into the Android OS anyway.

I don't know if what that technical bod said is true but she hasn't had a problem since she got it back. (Dumbarse bloke in O2 told us that a Galaxy S2 wasn't meant to be used as a smartphone or have apps on it and that was why she was having problems.)

[YoniBottsBumgina]

Oh, no I don't think so. I was probably jumping the gun a bit but the reviews are starting to come out on phone websites which means it should be released soon.

I don't think android has antivirus built in but it does have built in protection against viruses by disallowing anything from being installed unless it came directly from the google play store. Perhaps that's what he meant?

[YoniBottsBumgina]

I really really really want a Galaxy S4 Active. It's water and dustproof and has an underwater camera