Alternatives to the IPhone

epz_2

£100 and 12months @£35 a month on t-mobile from mobilephonesdirect.

FYI i just found that the speaker on the phone is better than my sub notebook which is impressive given how compact it is.

Mr_Thrifty

Thanks everyone for all these helpful responses.

What I've decided to do is move from Orange onto a monthly Vodafone SIM-only tariff for a few months. That way I get good reception and a reasonable tariff. It is worth noting that, despite being with Orange for around 10 years, they weren't interested in giving me any kind of retention deal. Yet when I phoned up and asked for a PAC code for my wife's PAYG phone, they instantly gave her an incredible PAYG tariff (3p texts!). She spends about £4 per month by the way, whereas I have in the past been regularly spending £100+ per month (for work). I even pointed out to them that I wouldn't be able to use Orange's 'free' broadband and I get such poor reception at home that I would be using my BT landline for landline calls even though I get these for free on the mobile. Yet, they just weren't interested.

So, I'm going to stick with my current C902 handset for another 4-6 months or so, and then upgrade onto a contract tariff once the other manufacturers finally have some decent handsets. Probably a HTC on Windows mobile 7, assuming Microsoft actually release it sometime soon and HTC don't muck it up.

Mr_Thrifty

Oh yes, I also got fed up with listening to the following messages on Orange:

"Orange is committed to providing excellent customer service" (whilst keeping me on hold for ages then giving me contradictory information).

"We are experiencing high call volumes at present" (what, every single time I call? Then hire more staff!)

Also, as regards them saying they have the biggest 3G network, this may be true but quite frankly it's only 2G I care about. Does anybody really actually use a 3G dongle as their main method of connecting to the internet? And who needs 3G on a mobile phone anyway? You can get data and e-mails at perfectly OK speeds via GPRS/2G - the latency is so high on a mobile phone that it's a fast response time you want, not high sustained data transfer rates! Vodafone always seems to have better reception in my opinion. Can anyone confirm if they have more masts or something?

movilogo

not a single phone on the market today can do Adobe Flash content

Other than iPhone, every other phone in market can play Flash files

randomtask_2

Mr_Thrifty wrote: »

And who needs 3G on a mobile phone anyway? You can get data and e-mails at perfectly OK speeds via GPRS/2G - the latency is so high on a mobile phone that it's a fast response time you want, not high sustained data transfer rates!

not looking to contradict you, but you did state in your first post that you wanted to view websites properly using your mobile and for that, a 3G connection is noticeably better than GPRS.

I would add, a mobile browsing experience can be improved using a better browser - Opera was already mentioned but also look at Skyfire and further down the line, Fennec (developed by Mozilla to be the Firefox of mobiles)

Mr_Thrifty

randomtask wrote: »

not looking to contradict you, but you did state in your first post that you wanted to view websites properly using your mobile and for that, a 3G connection is noticeably better than GPRS.

Is the web browsing experience on a phone really much better on 3G than via GPRS? It's a genuine question (not looking to be a smartass). Or is it mostly down to responsiveness / latency?

I guess overall I would much prefer to be on a 3G network, but sadly with Orange I got neither 3G nor 2G. Being on the UK's "biggest 3G network" isn't much good to me if I keep getting cut off during calls because of poor reception. I'd far rather have a reliable, stable 2G connection and be able to talk on the phone without being disconnected, than be able to browse the web a little faster. I just wish Orange would sort out the reception around here!

randomtask_2

yes, there is a latency factor present on either 2G or 3G connections, but in my experience, pages render quicker and the connection is more reliable on 3G (though that's down to reception strength and coverage of the network more than speed)....if websites have images, they load and display far quicker and if you've a smartphone, downloading apps and email attachments is also far easier on 3G. Likewise, sending/uploading photos is a lot easier.

As for youtube streams or services like last.fm or spotify, I wouldn't even try on a GPRS/2G connection.

almillar

Aren't you talking about Flash lite Movilogo? Can you confirm that Blackberry, S60 and Windows Mobile do Flash properly? (I know that Palm WebOS is getting it 'soon').

movilogo

My Nokia 5800 runs on S60v5. It can play flash on web and can even play stand alone SWF files.

I can also run YouTube and BBC iPlayer on it

DarkShadow

Hows this ???