What smartphone

[donttrythisathome]

First off, a confession. I am a complete Luddite, know-nothing!

I have an ancient PAYG phone at the moment but I am being lured by shiny smartphones.

I want one so I can check e-mails/the internet easily, to take photos and videos that I can integrate easily with my computer (An Apple Mac), and to blog easily. I use Blogger for my blog. I also want to send texts, in particular cheap international texts, and have good reception. Being able to access the music on my ITunes would be good too.

What would you recommend please?

Sorry, I meant to add. Simple to use and good battery life.

And I've had ancient phones for so long that I don't want something that "will do". I want something really nice.

Spoilt brat, me ;-)

The obvious one is an iPhone, I'm assuming you're not wanting to spend that much?

Although I love my Samsung Galaxy S2 more than I could say, I do think that an iPhone would make sense as you're an iPerson already.

Dh used to use this site to find phones for callers when he worked for Vodafone

Btw, for cheap international texts, to some extent the handset is irrelevant, you need to be looking at add-ons to achieve that, have a read of this. That said, if you're mostly messaging people who also have smartphones, you can use instant messaging rather than traditional SMS texts to cut costs. So for example, if you're messaging someone else on an iPhone, it goes as an iMsg over the internet, rather than an SMS over the traditional phone network.

Similar to you, I'd 'made do' with a (perfectly adequate) series of PAYG phones until last year, when I decided to go all out for an iPhone. I absolutely LOVE it and use it for so many different things. I'm sure the Android phones are just as good but as Winkly says, you are already an iPerson so if you want to go all out, the iPhone is the way to go.

I have a blackberry torch, i totally love it.

What i like about is, that it has a large screen (which is great as other blackberry's like the curve have teeny screens with teeny writing) which is also a touch screen, but you don't have to use it as one, as there is a mini mouse type thing you can use. Also there is a larger key pad, which is great for me and my fat fingers there is a good camera and the whole phone is very easy to navigate.

The text prices will be down to your network though, however if you will be travelling abroad with it you will want a phone that is tri band.

Also you may want a phone that has bluetooth, although most smart phones have this as standard, but if i remember correctly the original iphone did not have bluetooth as a feature. and there camera was crapola.

Thanks everyone!
I'm not sure if I'm an I person as such, although I much prefer their computers.
The text messages info is handy. Instant messaging wouldn't work for me as the people I text internationally don't have smartphones generally.
So it doesn't have to be an iPhone if another smartphone would be the same or better for what I need.

I think you probably have to accept the inevitability of an iPhone. Samsung Galaxy maybe is the other option. Have to mess around converting the music from your itunes to their music player I believe.

I think an iPhone will integrate more easily with your Mac because That Is What They Are Meant To Do, but it's certainly possible to use an Android with one (at least, I've never tried but I know people who do) although a very quick Google suggests using Google apps (like Calendar, Contacts) etc to act the middleman might be easier for keeping those two things in sync. Depends a bit on what you're using now.

I don't want to bang on the iDrum too much but if you want a very simple smartphone/laptop combo, the iPhone will be the one for you. If you want to spend considerably less dosh but potentially have some more hassles to work through one of the Androids will be dandy. My DH has the opposite combination, a Windows laptop with an iPhone, and occasionally things which I thought were straight-forward just .. aren't.

What do you use iTunes for? I did a google on using iTunes with Android and it wasn't very positive - there are a number of things there to make it work but none of them sound hassle-free. If it's not Apple content but rather mp3s or your own DVDs that you've ripped to files, you probably don't need to use iTunes at all to synchronise the content.

Thanks!
Actually thinking about it, I don't know what I'd use ITunes for except listening to music as I don't know what else it can do.

See? Complete luddite...

Well you'd use iTunes for generally synchronising between your Mac and your phone, downloading and transferring apps and data for your phone (assuming you got an iPhone) and also updating its operating system. If it's purely for listening to non-Apple content, it might be better to abandon iTunes as your media player on the Mac (gasp at the heresy) and sync the phone with something like this maybe. The Calendar and contacts you could do via Google, the documents ... well, maybe you don't care about that! If you were going to use the smartphone as a mini-Kindle for reading books whilst on the move, you can also do this without needing any actual connection between the Mac and the phone, for example, you just have your Kindle library (which exists in the 'cloud' like your Google calendar) on both devices.

I think if you just want something you plug in and - voila - off you go, I would seriously think about going for an iPhone. But I am biased!

Thanks "tribpot*. It does make me think that what's the point of having the Mac if I use non-Mac calendars, media players etc. I can (sort of) use what I need on it now, and I do feel that maybe the iPhone would be easier.

What is the internet speed on it like though. Want something fast (think i missed that one off my long list!).

You wouldn't use a non-Mac calendar, you'd still use the Mac calendar application, you'd just tell it your calendar was 'donttrythis at gmail dot com' or whatever, and so it would keep your phone and calendar in sync via the Google calendar online, rather than you keeping the two in sync whenever you attached the phone to the Mac via a cable.

The iTunes one is more of a problem for me, Macworld is heavily dependent on the use of iTunes and it all looks a bit strenuous to work around it.

The speed of your internet connection is dependent on the phone company, not the phone, really. And of course where you are when you try to access the internet!

Oh right, thanks again. Strenuous is so not me...
What kind of things do you do on the phone with the ITunes then (curious)

The current android sony ericssons have amazing camera and video ability if that is what rocks your boat.

Thanks, see that sounds good now too!

Then you don't want a crappy hyped iphone.

To be honest you don't even need a fancy smart phone and a Nokia N8 or similar could do what you need. iphone's can't compare to Nokia when it comes to cameras and social media is available on almost every standard internet phone and it's still crap when compared to doing it on a laptop.

You'll end up getting "text neck" or "claw fingers" if your doing a lot of typing and reading from a small phone screen.

Nokia let you stream your music for free last I checked. So it may be better to move away from the "glorified kiosk" that is the Apple Mac and instead run a NAS device. You can also access your music and content anywhere that has net connectivity.

apologies for hijack - I am in the market for a NAS - bit confused about options - could you recommend/advise?

Basically, I want broadband coming into wireless router then I want everything sent to / stored on a NAS - then we will view everything from smart TV / laptop / iphones (sorry) - don't have and am hoping don't need a desktop anymore. Also want to store music on here and send to Sonos / airtunes or similar (music currently all in iTunes but am happy to convert if necessary)

Was loking at QNAP NAS but not sure how all this will fit together in reality (just moved house, so havent bought anything yet - just got laptops and phones and have ordered Virgin broadband). And people keep confusing me with boxee box, that apple one etc.

I just want one RAID device to store and stream all files - music, video, photos (wireless printer, digital photo frame etc) etc - is this possible?

NAS sounds waaaaay beyond my ken. Even had to look up what it is (still not sure). Will look into the N8, thanks.

befuzzled, you might be better off starting a specific thread for that.

There was a thread about NAS recently.

Thanks! I must have missed that thread. You're right - I'll hop on over there and keep this thread for smartphone recommendations - thanks