Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 47 total)
  • What's the best, most wonderful "smartphone"?
  • cfinnimore
    Free Member

    Time for contract renewal.

    What’s the best phone I can hold the phone companies to ransom for?

    Htc one or Xperia Z so far.

    cp
    Full Member

    Don’t bother with contract, buy a reduced nexus 4 from Google play and move to giffgaff with a recurring goody bag to suit.

    nickjb
    Free Member

    What cp said. £200 up front then £10 a month with no tie in.

    samuri
    Free Member

    Wow! That’s hard to ignore. I was just about to order an HTC One as well. Oooh, more indecision.

    PeterStarkiss
    Free Member

    Recently upgraded to an HTC one mini, no charge.
    Not the vast size of other phones and whilst I’m no phone geek, after two weeks I’m very happy with it.

    stumpy_m4
    Free Member

    Liking that myself, my contract ends at end of month and was thinking of going to giffgaff anyway but need to get the iphone unlocked first and there’s alot of shops that won unlock an iphone on orange/EE network !
    May sell the iphone and buy a nexus 🙂

    cp
    Full Member

    giffgaff has been great for me so far – been with them about 6 months. Fast data with tethering (which gets used a lot, plus I also have a data goody bag on a 3g dongle which works great too), good coverage (02), very easy to use/set up the goody bags, voicemail that works, and works well (unlike T-Mobile, that just wouldn’t work no matter what I nor T-mobile did for the entire duration of the 18 month contract)…

    and calls to freephone numbers are actually free, which is nice.

    samuri
    Free Member

    won unlock an iphone on orange/EE network !

    I’m with O2 and they unlocked my iphone for free, have you asked EE?

    samuri
    Free Member

    twenty quid for EE to do it.

    https://explore.ee.co.uk/unlock

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    One with one of these:

    IanW
    Free Member

    Smartphones a bit of a misnomer for something that just clever enough to let you update your status but cant tell me which are the best tyres for Cannock.

    Anna-B
    Free Member

    Orange have really p*ssed me off with my contract recently which is up for renewal soon, thinking again about giffgaff….this makes me think even more! Why Nexus 4 rather than anything else…? And is it worth getting the 8gb rather than the 16 to save £40?

    stumpy_m4
    Free Member

    @ samuri .. Have already been in touch with EE about unlocking it and getting mixed messages back , Twice ive registered to get it unlocked and nothing and then tonite i had a message saying they will be in touch within 20 days .. so fingers crossed
    Have taken it locally to get it done as well and neither phone shop would do it as its on orange and EE ?

    martinxyz
    Free Member

    The nexus 4 is only £159. is it the 7 that’s £200 and worth going for?

    edit: ok, I see the size of the 7!

    Stoner
    Free Member

    £199 is for the 16GB, £159 is for 8Gb

    personally I see no reason to go for the larger size if you commit to the google cloud service like wot I do. I have a wodge of games, local music & podcasts, photos and apps and have barely used 3Gb.

    martinxyz
    Free Member

    Yeah, I’m the same, I wouldn’t need it.

    gravity-slave
    Free Member

    Couldn’t decide last year and as above, went N4 on Giffgaff. Hard to ignore at the new price, as anything else ‘latest and greatest’ will be updated tomorrow anyway!

    Still super happy with my choice. I travel a lot so went 16GB – cloud content no good on planes or abroad (or even in the Dales!) Micro SD slot or usb-otg support would have been great, but in reality, 16GB is plenty for all the music, video and photos you ‘need’ for a trip.

    Also note, Giffgaff doesn’t have to be every month so there’s potential to stretch it and save even more over a contract.

    mangatank
    Free Member

    I’ve had pretty much every iPhone since they were released and I think the latest version of Android is finally as good as iOS and that the HTC One is the best Smartphone I’ve owned…by quite a margin. You won’t be disappointed with it. Oh, and if you go for it, get the Proporta leather case too. 😉

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    Still super happy with my choice. I travel a lot so went 16GB – cloud content no good on planes or abroad (or even in the Dales!) Micro SD slot or usb-otg support would have been great, but in reality, 16GB is plenty for all the music, video and photos you ‘need’ for a trip.

    I just wasn’t convinced by the 16gb and no extra slot, just too far down the apple route for my liking.
    Having come from an original HTC desire with monthly clean outs required to keep it from running out of space I decided to avoid that.
    I went down the S3 route with 32gb and 32 on a card. Currently running at 25gb storage with not much music on it. Fairly happy with my choice in that respect. I spend too long travelling and not in great reception or on planes in flight mode to rely too heavily on cloud for some things – my dropbox & docs syn partially to the phone for stuff and a few other things.

    I am tempted to get one cheap now and have a play with Ubuntu on it to see how the 1 platform thing goes.

    Flaperon
    Full Member

    EE will price-gouge for anything – roaming / data / unlocking / new SIM cards.

    I reckon the Lumia 925 is the best phone you can get at the moment. Not as many apps as Google or iPhone, but the ones that are there are generally higher quality and realistically the only thing missing is about 20,000,000 fart apps.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    has anyone looked at moving over to Three PAYG now that theyve changed their pricing: 3p/min calls, 2p/txt, 1p/Mb?

    I did a quick check against my cheap vodafone monthly contract where I pay about £22pm, and it would have come out at around £11pm on Three. Slightly more if Id bought a Three bundle.

    prawny
    Full Member

    I moved to Three earlier in the year. Coverage has been good, not amazing up in scotland last week but good enough. Only had to ring customer services twice, they were acceptable both times. Much improved on a couple of years ago.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    +1. I went for the 8Gb as I don’t store my life on the phone 🙂

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    @stoner – I will be moving to Three contract as soon as the new iPhone comes out. I have been using a Mobile WiFi device for last 6 months as a trial and I get great 3 signal strength and speeds in London, Surrey and Hampshire which is where I need the coverage. That being said if I unlocked my 4S that PAYG deal looks attractive and worth a try whilst I wait (hope) for 5S pricing to ease a little after release. I think I’m correct I’m saying 4G speeds will be free with 3 vs a premium contract on the other networks.

    Currently on EE but hacked of after they increased “fixed contract price” by £1+ a month despite still being in the lock in period.

    Stoner
    Free Member

    cheers jambalaya – I just need to check coverage in Stoner Towers as we are out in the sticks and the maps are not accurate enough.

    We currently use a Vodafone femtocell which (when the service is not f*****) is very good. But vodafone network coverage is appalling generally and bandwidth at high traffic areas like Paddington station is awful.

    I was listening to the news about Voda launching the 4G service with a big fanfare, while spending most of last week in Mid wales without even a GPRS voda signal. Fed up of them now. Fortunately both our phones are on 30day contracts so no tie in.

    DaveyBoyWonder
    Free Member

    My contract is up for renewal next month and I’d kinda decided to get the best deal I could on an iPhone simply because I detest with a passion my current android phone (cheapo Galaxy Ace). Is the iPhone no longer the default option when going for the best then? Might have a wander into town at lunch and have a look at some shops. Oh, and haggling for price/phones – thats best done over the phone I guess, not in store?

    samuri
    Free Member

    +1. I went for the 8Gb as I don’t store my life on the phone

    There’s a guy here at work who does and his wife ran over his phone in the car. He’s turned from a well organised, professional individual into an absent minded, unreliable cloud-head. 😉

    I had a think last night and spent ages looking at pictures of Nexus 4’s.
    A Nexus 4 on Giffgaff will break even in month 14 and save me money thereafter against an HTC One on the contract I’m looking at and the point is, I’ll care about the phone a lot more.

    So I’m decided. HTC One.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Is the iPhone no longer the default option when going for the best then?

    It hasn’t been the default option for many years, and the general consensus nowadays is that they are slightly behind the best androids. Bear in mind Android phones vary hugely because it’s an open OS that can be installed on a huge range of handsets from cheapo to top-end.

    cp
    Full Member

    and the point is, I’ll care about the phone a lot more.

    What will happen when you break/lose your HTC One after a month? Then you’ll be left phoneless with a long contract to see out that you wont be able to do anything with unless you buy a new phone outright.

    jambalaya
    Free Member

    Is the iPhone no longer the default option when going for the best then?

    I didn’t suggest iPhone as the thread was all about other models but it’s definitely the best choice for me. I’ve had a 3, 4 and 4S – I had tried early Android / Google phone which was terrible (so that has killed my desire to try Android again) and went back Blackberry for a little while which is hopeless at anything other than email.

    IMO iPhone is the “best” all round but you pay a premium for it, something you are either happy to do or not.

    samuri
    Free Member

    What will happen when you break/lose your HTC One after a month? Then you’ll be left phoneless with a long contract to see out that you wont be able to do anything with unless you buy a new phone outright.

    Broken phones are replaced on the contract. Lost phones covered by home insurance although that’s the same for the Nexus too.

    ell_tell
    Free Member

    What will happen when you break/lose your HTC One after a month? Then you’ll be left phoneless with a long contract to see out that you wont be able to do anything with unless you buy a new phone outright.

    Mind you if you lost the Nexus 4 you’d have to stump up the cost for buying a new phone outright as well…

    I was tempted to go Nexus 4 and sim only but I didn’t have £200 expendable cash lying around to chuck at a phone so continued with the contract and got an HTC One (yes I know it works out more in the long run) which is a great phone. Almost makes my Nexus 7 redundant but they pair together nicely.

    unovolo
    Free Member

    Be interesting to see what happens now Microsoft have bought Nokias hardware division so a Nokia Lumia will essentially be a Microsoft phone.
    Not a complaint as I love my lumia running the Windows Phone OS.

    trail_rat
    Free Member

    “It hasn’t been the default option for many years, and the general consensus nowadays is that they are slightly behind the best androids”

    yet to meet anyone thats still happy with their android on the 2nd and third year of ownership.

    Mugboo
    Full Member

    Nexus 4 ordered for the wife, thank you.

    cp
    Full Member

    yet to meet anyone thats still happy with their android on the 2nd and third year of ownership.

    I’m 2.5 years into android after 2 years on iPhone. No way would I go back iPhone, android has been great and I see no reason at all to change.

    bruneep
    Full Member

    “It hasn’t been the default option for many years, and the general consensus nowadays is that they are slightly behind the best androids”

    yet to meet anyone thats still happy with their android on the 2nd and third year of ownership.

    Waves at ratty.

    Never ever had an iPhone. Happy s3 user

    br
    Free Member

    I didn’t suggest iPhone as the thread was all about other models but it’s definitely the best choice for me. I’ve had a 3, 4 and 4S – I had tried early Android / Google phone which was terrible (so that has killed my desire to try Android again) and went back Blackberry for a little while which is hopeless at anything other than email.

    Quite an eye-opener is a comment like that, just how much money have you spent on phones?

    For me I’ve got by with all of 3 (types) of phone since I went onto GSM in the late 90’s (had analogue ones before, including some fixed car phones) ; a Nokia 6110 for a couple of years, Nokia 6310i’s for about 8 years and currently a 4 year old Nokia E71 on a £10pcm sim-only deal.

    You’ll very rarely get a ‘best phone’ answer on here, but a multitude of this, that and the other replies.

    Similar to when someone wants a £30k motor – they get told to buy a 15yr old Skoda and buy haribo with the change.

    HTC One ftw I believe.

    Although the Samsung galaxy note 2 is awesome

    dannybgoode
    Full Member

    Lumia 925 also here and love it. If I was upgrading right now though I may hold out for the Lumia 1020…

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 47 total)

The topic ‘What's the best, most wonderful "smartphone"?’ is closed to new replies.