Well guys and gals. It’s that time again. The mobile phone contract is up for renewal and I am free again to compare-the-meerkat for my next mobile phone. With all the time I spend doing other things, like my day job at PULSE, writing this blog, running various affiliate websites and now being married, choosing the best phone for me is always something I get wrong. Always! So my dear readers, I am asking for your help and expert advice on what phone I should get next. Any advice you could give me would be most appreciated.
To my mind there are probably only two (or possibly 3) strong contenders. Yep you guessed it, either the Iphone or the Gphone.
Iphone vs Gphone
Iphone is a simple choice, as it just comes in one flavour, the Gphone on the other hand is available at TMobile in the shape of the G2 and also at O2 in the shape of the Samsung Galaxy I7500. Windows Mobile / HTC, well to be honest, is not something that I am really all that keen on as in the Past I got an O2 XDA Orbit 2 and IMHO it was totally crap! So, WM devices are possibly lower on the list. Anyhow, I digress.
So for me I think these are the main things that I want from a phone.
- Good connectivity i.e. 3G and Wifi
- 3MP plus camera
- Easy to make a phone call
- Exchange email for work and normal (Gmail or POP/IMAP) email for personal
- Maps and GPS
- Ability to add apps
- Access to social networking sites particularly Twitter and Facebook
- Single click upload of pictures etc, to social sites would be nice
- Good at watching videos or even better “streaming” videos off the Internet
- Mstce.exe or PUTTY so that I can access servers whilst on the move. Brucy Bonus that one.
- Ability to take voice notes
I think thats about it.
So what can you tell me! What phone should I get?
I am [this] close to going and buying an HTC Hero with Android. I have had a similar sh*t experience with WinMob/HTC in the past, and vowed never to touch an HTC ever, EVER again. However, having played with Android on a Hero recently, I couldn't help but like it. It's a fast OS (as fast if not quicker than the iPhone) with quite a few good features straight out of the box.
The issue you are probably going to have with both the the iPhone and an Android phone is Exchange access. Where BlackBerry and the BES have this down to an almost T now (both Exchange and Lotus setups) it's one area where others are lagging behind.
Ohh, and as for your Brucy Bonus, ConnectBot is an SSH client for the Android platform. http://code.google.com/p/connectbot/