What geeky phone do you have?

My contract for my current mobile is up soon and I'm trying to figure out what phone to go with next.
Currently I have a Samsung A811, but for my new phone I want to get something that will do other stuff as well as make calls. I would like to get something that I can email with, and that could be a replacement for my MP3 player.

My ideal phone currently would be a Nokia N97. I like the idea of the big screen, keyboard and 32GB storage space plus SD storage. Not so keen on the N97 Mini. Unfortunately I'm with Telstra and they don't want to support this phone. I would just jump ship to another carrier but my wife wants to stay with them.

Anyone have any ideas on other phones that are good, that may work on Telstra.

I am bias, I will admit that. I say the iphone. But if you can wait untill the end of the year you can get the next gen. it will have a bigger camera, and be able to run multiple apps and arange them with folders like a nokia. (that is if you believe the rumours)

Another option is to try this link : http://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3

you can tell it exactly what you want in a phone and it will give you a list of phones that will support it. you can tell it what network you want (2, 3, 3.5). Everything you could wish for.

Lut us know how you go.

Matt1971 wrote:I am bias, I will admit that. I say the iphone. But if you can wait untill the end of the year you can get the next gen. it will have a bigger camera, and be able to run multiple apps and arange them with folders like a nokia. (that is if you believe the rumours)

I am bias in the other direction. I'm not at all a fan of anything Apple. So I'll be staying away from the iPhones.

and arange them with folders like a nokia.

This part made me laugh, wasn't Apple sueing Nokia for copying their tech and now they turn around and copy Nokias.

Thanks for the link.

hey there,
Well I'm going to vote for the iPhone, even though I hear you that you don't like them, and I'm sure there are a lot of fan bois that will try and convince you it was the best thing since sliced cheese. But I'm a fan of technology that turns on and does what I need it to. Be it my iPhone, XBOX or PC.

So all I would say is that I have heard a lot of press about the reliability of the N97 and the symbian OS on it. Cnet Reviews I also hear that NOKIA are coming out with something better around the time of the next iPhone release anyway...

As for the patent issues, I think everyone is as bad as each other in that regard, I'm sure M$, Apple and Nokia all have a spurious patent division.

From my own experience, I gave up on nokia's a while ago when the UI became bollocks, and motorolla when the build quality was appalling (last good motorolla I owned was the Brick, and Son-Of Brick). Yes IPhone locks me into ITMS and their app store, but at least it's usable. Actually I've just remembered by Nokia 6230 I used to be able to program with scripts for penetration testing... but I digress...

so after all my waffle, I recommend the sony-ericsson's just because the models with the cybershot camera/zeiss lenses and good cmos chips take an excellent photo.

P.S. I am REALLY sick of my auto spellcheck trying to replace NOKIA with NOOKIE...

Well years back I brought the Nokia N95 for the GPS and 5 Megapixel camera. I found the maps lacking in speed and accessibility; however, even though I have changed to the iPhone 3G S, I still use the old one for its camera. It does take forever to lock the image though, so I often end up with blurry shots of anything vaguely moving. I love the iPhone, although by the sounds of it the next gen will surpass this in function quite comprehensively, so wait if you can.

Do you have basic specs that you're wanting to meet in a new phone?

• MP requirement for camera
  
• Video capabilities
  
• Minimum display size
  
• etc
  

If you break it down to dot points of the basic minimum requirements you want the phone to have, then we may be able to suggest something that comes close or, preferably, greatly exceeds it

xombiekitty wrote:Do you have basic specs that you're wanting to meet in a new phone?

Not really, I was just wondering what others had that was pretty good. I had pretty much decided on a Nokia N97, but I have to figure out how to work around getting my wife to agree to go elsewhere for it.

I would probably like a decent camera in it, around 5MP, I also like the idea of having most of the front face of the phone as a screen so a nice big screen would be good. I would like it to be usable as an MP3 player as well with a 3.5mm speaker output as well.

I know it probably narrows it down to an iPhone and little else, but I won't be going for the iPhone.

I just noticed that Telstra finally has the Nokia N97 Mini on their site.

The downside is that this is Tel$tra. It would be $2054.88 over 24 months for the Mini with no data (or $5 for 5MB)
Or else I could get the regular N97 with Virgin for $1224 with 300MB per month. And the N97 is the better phone. It has 32GB storage (as opposed to 8GB on the Mini), and it has the fm transmitter, and the keyboard has number keys on it (the mini has neither of these).
It makes me wonder why anyone uses Tel$tra at all.

I swapped to Telstra because no one else had coverage for our area.
It's pretty frustrating paying a company for access to a network when you can't make or receive calls or surf the net, but you get charged for it anyway... so after a lot of phone calls to Optus (who I use to be with) and discussions with other companies (who were very apologetic that they didn't have 3G coverage for my area) I ended up with Telstra. I can't tell you how many phones i went through, and how many friends gave me there old phones because Optus refused to admit it was a problem on their end for the loooongest time!

I have an iPhone now (don't groan ) which I own outright because I prefer not owing anyone. I have pre-paid and that way I know how much I'm spending and can monitor if any mysterious funds disappear through drop outs, etc (nothing so far, thank goodness).

I'm not up on different phones much these days because I'm happy with what I have, but I use to always have Nokias and loved their reliablity The last phone I considered getting before the iPhone was a Nokia due to the features just outshining everything else.

If you don't have coverage issues and you know you already like the Nokia, then go for it As for the cost, maybe offer to take your wife out on a date once a month with some of the difference you can save from going with Virgin

xombiekitty wrote:I swapped to Telstra because no one else had coverage for our area.

Honestly, I've never had coverage issues when I was with Optus, in fact I very rarely had dropouts until I went to Tel$tra. I just love talking for a while and then wondering why the other person has gone quiet.
I think coverage is about the same for most networks in town, and when you leave town to go to one of the other smaller towns you lose everything including Tel$tra.
I think if Tel$tra didn't hype the "coverage" so much, they wouldn't have any customers. The last few times I spoke to a Tel$tra staff member I had enough warning to think "3, 2, 1, Go!" right before they brought out the "coverage" argument.

xombiekitty wrote:As for the cost, maybe offer to take your wife out on a date once a month with some of the difference you can save from going with Virgin

Come on! How about I just offer her the Homer Simpson night out.
"Come on Marge. We're getting drive thru and doing it twice"

I admit I tend to biased against anything "i". The way most Mac enthusiasts go on about stuff I'm not sure whether Steve Jobs or L. Ron Hubbard has the bigger religious cult.

That said I did let myself be talked into an iPhone. It's good. That said, the number of touchphone equivalents coming out is increasing and with Apple unwilling to allow anything unofficial on their phones it can be a pain. I'm debating whether to jailbreak mine or not.

I did however recently purchase this to decorate my phone with.

Oh and allow me a small rant at Vodophone. When I signed up for the new contract they said Overseas SMS are included in my plan. Great! Except that means only Overseas SMS with whom they have a contract with the telco in said country. If they don't have a contract the SMS aren't delivered. Probably not an issue to most people but for me it's a major pain in the arse!

For those iPhone fans out there, or apple ones in general, I can recommend the following podcast found on: http://twiiphone.com/

I even wrote a review for it on iTunes. I have actually been meaning to review all the pod casts to which I listen; however, this was the first I gave an opinion upon.

I've been looking over the new 4.0 iPhone Firmware and it basically offers everything people jail-broke the pervious iPhones for, including the ability to have more than one program open at once - other than iPod. Finally.

Baralier wrote:

I did however recently purchase this to decorate my phone with.

I had a good look at this site and I have to say it looks excelent. The wallpapers are a bit of a crock but to get custom covers like that is so good. I have to ask though, what are the covers like?

The cover is nice. Goes on easily enough, you just have to position the camera hole properly. Supposedly they can be peeled off easily if you want, though I haven't tried.

Although I was very tempted to get one of these instead

I'm close to getting my new phone since my contract ran out last week.
I've narrowed it down to 2 phones, the N97 Mini or the HTC Desire. I'm still not 100% sure which one I should go with, but with my luck, I always seem to pick the wrong thing anyway.

The HTC runs on Android and I have mostly heard good things about that, but the only thing I can see that it doesn't have is a front camera and the QWERTY keyboard.

Anyone have any experience with Android phones?
Also wondering what it is like typing on an on screen keyboard?

I also noticed that at JB hifi they have these phones on the Tel$tra plans and you get a gift card there as well. $100 gift card if you are new to Tel$tra or a $50 one if you are already with them. Probably because Tel$tra customers are already used to being ripped off.

As of yesterday I am the proud owner of a HTC Desire. And I'm loving it.

Typing on the screen is really easy now, but at first it was quite hard, until I realised that the tutorial was deliberately making mistakes to help teach the word prediction feture.
I'm still learning all the in & outs of it but it is a really good phone.