it’s nearly 300 pounds more.

That depends really doesn’t it?

iPhone 4s: £349 (from Apple)
iPhone 5c: £429 to £529
iPhone 5s: £549 to £709

Samsung Galaxy S4 Mini: £339 (from Samsung)
Samsung Galaxy S4: £499
Samsung Galaxy S5: £579

To get back to the OP and away from arguing about phone OSs:

My in-laws got a cheap Samsung Galaxy handset as their first smartphone. I think they’re called Galaxy Ace now, but there are similar phones from other manufacturers (HTC Desire, I think). Have a look at the handsets on the £8-or-so a month contracts, and see if you can have a play to find the one you like best, then look at buying the handset upfront and avoiding being tied to a contract.

I wouldn’t bother looking at the older handsets.
My wife has got a Galaxy Ace II and it was fine when she got it. But, apps are getting bigger and bigger and it always seems to be running out of memory. She only has a couple of small puzzle games on it, iTunes radio and a diet app.

I told her that I’d get my old HTC Desire unlocked and back to factory defaults and she could try that.
It was no better. Once loaded with a few apps, it was full. Annoying thing is that when I used that phone regularly, I had tons of apps on it and they all worked fine. But, as the apps got more and more bloated, it cocked things up.

I’m going to have to talk to someone in a phone shop, aren’t I?

Urghhh.

I’ve got some ideas though, thanks folks.

On my second Win Phone which I have just updated to 8.1 which includes features that were previously available on the Jesusphone and Android.

Was a good phone before no made even better ,I have a jesusphone for work and although its beautifully made and has probably got all the features anyone could want it just annoys me.

Have owned Android phones as well and all are great in there own way but for me I prefer the OS of windows phones.

Im on 7.8 Danny. Bought a Lumia800 on fire sale 18 months ago. They were getting rid of all the Win7 hardware, before the release of Win8 (400 quid handset for less than 100 quid, unlocked).
The Win 7.8 patch makes it look just like Win 8 (mini tiles etc) but its Win7 underneath and there is no ongoing support. ive no idea what REAL differences there are. Still, works great.

Was listening to LastFM on it out on a towpath ride over the weekend and got a text.
It paused the music, read the text to me, gave me options to “ignore, reply or call back”, Called back, (discussed meeting at a pub), hung up and resumed the music, No hands required.

Never gets old.

I’m going to have to talk to someone in a phone shop, aren’t I?

If you want to spend about a hundred quid on the handset, just buy a Moto G. That’ll be my next handset.

Another happy Lumia owner here I’ve got a 720. You can pickup a 520 windows 8 for £91 sim free. 8)

The Mrs cant even ‘just’ delete her photo’s on her iphone. The just works thing is a myth in my view.

Another happy Nokia lumia user here,got the 8.1 update on my 920 that makes it at least as good as android/iOS .Much easier to use than android and a 520 can be picked up for about £70!

The mrs has a moto g from vodafone. Loads of minutes n txt n stuff. £11 a month, including handset over24 months Would combine the phone with an otter box (phone case) to protect against immersion/bouncing

I’ve got an iphone 4, it is good, integrates really well but not as interesting as the android stuff…

Buy a Moto G, you won’t regret it.

I bought one as a temp phone until the nexus 6 is released, I think I’m just going to keep the Moto G now. It’s a seriously impressive phone for the money.

I too like Windows phone had a710? Now got a1020 for the camera. My daughter has the 625 @ £12 per month 1gb data, unlimited text and about 200 minutes. Nice and simple to use and good for photos. At first larger screens seem cumbersome but they really make a difference in usability.

I loved my Windows phone but it wouldn’t work in my cars hands free – my model was renowned for Bluetooth problems after an tinterweb search. Think it was an HTC 8x.

The shop offered me an Apple IPhone which I really didn’t want but took because I knew it would at least work in my car.

I have to say, it just does what it’s meant to do, when it’s meant to do it and does it well, no messing with menus, no tweeking things,

Moto G all the way!
I’ve had iphones 3g-4gs inclusive and trotted out the ‘it just works’ & ‘no need to fiddle line’. I’ve now got a Samsung Galaxy S4 Active.

Android is just as user friendly as Apple and all the services I thought Apple offered as an advantage are there and free (music match in the cloud etc).

The premium you pay for an apple phone is frankly laughable. I’ve bought a couple of Moto Gs as presents and the vfm is unbeatable. As first timer I’d suggest you get one sim free from phones4u (110) and if three works well in your area get a rolling 1 month contract on an unlimited data plan. Don’t fanny about with 1gb or less.

Keep your Nokia and your £25 a month and buy an iPod Touch. Boom!

The Mrs cant even ‘just’ delete her photo’s on her iphone.

I can, my wife can and my daughter can.

If I was like the OP, and coming at a new phone from a blank slate…so not being tied to a specific ‘ecosystem’ or calendar type etc….I would just get a Moto G.

As it is, I am heavily, literally, invested in Apple. So **** iPhones, currently a 4, for me.

I can, my wife can and my daughter can.

I’m sure you all can, I think my Mrs has worked it out now, but it didn’t ‘just work’ And deleting stuff from Icloud where they kept getting backed up from seems to confuse a few people if the questions on google are anything to go by. Ive never had to search google for advice on how to work my phone- she’s at it all the time.

I’m not saying they are intrinsically bad phones, but the ‘just works’ mantra is misleading.

I got my 1st smart phone this month – couldn’t have cared what it was as long as it was cheap. Paid nothing for the handset & it costs me £6 a month.

More money for shiny bike bits 🙂

If it’s your first one then get the OS that most of your family/mates are on. That way when you have no idea how to do something they can just show you.

The premium you pay for an apple phone is frankly laughable.

Absolutely!

£349 for a new iPhone 4s when you could have a new Galaxy S5 for £579.

Laughable 😀

What are the major differences between iOS and android that people see? Far as I can tell they are essentially the same thing, they just work slightly different, the whole general concept is the exact same though. window phones diverge a bit though.

Save yourself a fortune, get a moto g with a giff gaff 12 quid a month goodie bag! (If you want a better camera and more power get the nexus 5)

And talk about integration, what do you lot do with you phone that needs integrating? calender? use google? music? get spotify and stream. films? install netflix, iplayer, showbox or xbmc and stream. etc.

i personally don’t need all this integration nonsense that people talk about.

the moto g looks good for the money but my concern is the memory storage.
it has a max of 16gb internal memory and no sd card slot. with it running on android 4.3 (jelly bean) as well, i can tell you that once you’ve taken into account the memory space jelly bean and all the pre-installed apps consume there will only be 8 or 9gb of usable memory available which can get gobbled up pretty quickly by photos, music, apps etc.
once the memory starts to get full the phone will slow down as its RAM also starts to get overloaded.

The premium you pay for an apple phone is frankly laughable.

While this may be true. It’s also laughable the amount some phones are worth a year or so down the line. Apple products, while commanding an amusing price tag, hold on to that value for grim death.

the moto g looks good for the money but my concern is the memory storage.

Then get a phone with expandable memory.

gonzy – Member
the moto g looks good for the money but my concern is the memory storage.
it has a max of 16gb internal memory and no sd card slot. with it running on android 4.3 (jelly bean) as well, i can tell you that once you’ve taken into account the memory space jelly bean and all the pre-installed apps consume there will only be 8 or 9gb of usable memory available which can get gobbled up pretty quickly by photos, music, apps etc.
once the memory starts to get full the phone will slow down as its RAM also starts to get overloaded.

Only if you put files on your phone, personally I embrace streaming so don’t need large capacity, I’ve the 8GB and I get on fine(I don’t really play games though, that is where you need to consider higher capacity). Haven’t run into any memory issues really on games I’ve tried.

And talk about integration, what do you lot do with you phone that needs integrating?

For me:

Calendars: my wife and I share calendars which we can see on our phones, tablet or when sat at a PC.

To-do list: Same as calendar.

Contacts: she adds a contact it immediately appears on my phone and the tablet.

Apps/Music/Video: I download an app then she automatically gets it too for free.

Books: If I’m reading a eBook on the tablet then later decide to read some on my phone while I’m on the train then it magically knows what page I got to.

Web: if I bookmark a page or save a password on my phone then my tablet gets it too. I can also see what pages are currently open on my tablet and open them on my phone (and vice versa).

Photos: take a photo on my phone, it appears on the tablet so I can edit it on a bigger screen.

Nothing groundbreaking, but makes first world life easier.

i personally don’t need all this integration nonsense that people talk about.

Well judging by your list you clearly do, you’ve just found other ways to do it. Which is fine.

Well judging by your list you clearly do, you’ve just found other ways to do it. Which is fine.

true enough I suppose, my photo’s for example just upload automatically to drop box. Books I just use kindle, so get them on any device(I haven’t really thought of this as integration, but I suppose it is now you mention it). Point stands that they are just different shades of the same thing.

The Google alternatives are just as good/cheaper than icloud and do everything mentioned above re:integration.

Well done for comparing the prices of a 3x superceded 3.5″ phone with the latest 5″ samsung range topper. Try comparing the 350 quid 4s with a MotoG! How much for a 5S with 64gb versus an S5 with a card in it? 😉

If you have good signal & umlimited data the Moto is fine as google give you 50gb of cloud storage and 20k songs to stream for free. Who cares about resale? Give it away in a year and you’re 100 quid down. Take an iphone out of the cellophane and you’re 100 quid down too. 😉

Then get a phone with expandable memory.

you mean like a galaxy s4?…got one thanks…i was merely suggesting that anyone who would consider the moto g should also think about the phones limitations especially if they require the phone to do more 😉

Well done for comparing the prices of a 3x superceded 3.5″ phone with the latest 5″ samsung range topper.

That was my point earlier. It “depends”.

It is no longer true to say Android is the cheaper option and Apple is laughably expensive. Android is available on a large range of devices, some of which are more expensive than Apple and some of which are cheaper.

You have to compare Apples and lemons 😀

Ha HA Graham 🙂

Why is it by the way that products named after fruit seem to polarize opinion so much (Orange)

Let’s not mention Blackberrys then…

I’m sure you all can, I think my Mrs has worked it out now, but it didn’t ‘just work’ And deleting stuff from Icloud where they kept getting backed up from seems to confuse a few people if the questions on google are anything to go by. Ive never had to search google for advice on how to work my phone- she’s at it all the time.

I’m not saying they are intrinsically bad phones, but the ‘just works’ mantra is misleading.
It must be said, when iCloud was first set up, you couldn’t delete photos from it, but that was updated pretty quickly.
As far as deleting photos from the devices is concerned, It’s always seemed intuitive to me, you either open a photo to look at it in detail, then tap the little waste bin icon, and tap the confirm button, or else, if it’s pretty obvious from the thumbnails, tap select, tap the photos you want to delete, then tap the bin.
Not wanting to appear picky, but I’m struggling to see how that process can be seen to be complicated; it’s not appreciably different to a desktop format.

Let’s not mention Blackberrys then…

It’s funny how STW’s greatest Blackberry proponent is very quiet these days. 😀

I think it was the icloud thing CZ, they kept coming back to her phone from the cloud. There is every chance that she was not doing something right but that is my point, they are lauded as the phone that just works for the non tech savvy, and going on the moaning I hear from the Mrs and my neice its not the case.
She can now delete from the cloud, but says she has to delete the pics she doesn’t want from her phone, then delete all the photos from the cloud, then back up the pic left on her phone back to the cloud. If there is a better way I’d be glad to hear it, it will make her think I am an iphone god. But the fact I have to ask would suggest to me that its not that intuitive.

Ive never had to search google for advice on how to work my phone- she’s at it all the time.

I can send my kids around to help her if she wants. One is 7 and can use her Mum’s iPad/iphone without the help of goolge including deleting photos amongst many other thins. The other is 11 next week and can create and edit movies amongst other things, never had to use google either.