Chindie Posted January 12, 2011 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2011 Haven't had chance to hear much from CES. did any imminently available Android phone get announced, ala the Apple thing of announce right before going to market? I've less than a month to find the perfect phone and suspect the waiting post Christmas probably didn't help me out at all... Perhaps it might be better to say this - if you were buying an Android phone in the next couple of weeks, what would you be gunning for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tegis Posted January 12, 2011 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2011 Buy a ZTE blade (retailing in sweden for £150 without a contract) and wait for the shit hot phones later in the spring/summer. Or keep your old one for a bit longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 The LG Optimus 2X is out in February. A ZTE Blade is branded as an Orange San Francisco over here, they are £99 and can be unlocked to any network for free in less than 2 minutes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meath_Villan Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 zte blade £89 from argos and it takes 2 mins to unlock on the net for free Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Chindie hold on for the Atrix, SGS2 or whatever HTC announce (Desire refresh?) at MWC. LG are the first to release a dual core phone for a reason. It'll be outshone when new dual cores are released from the big guns. Though Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc looks gorgeous. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 I'm still quite tempted by a sim free Nexus S, though I have pretty much decided I am not buying a new phone until March. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Nexus is OLD, it's just a galaxy s. Which feels like a Nokia 3310 in light of the phones announced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Yeah, but when you waited 9 months for an update (**** you HTC!) then having Google's baby is a very attractive proposition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 12, 2011 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2011 Don't think I'm really in the position to buy a phone to make do with over the period waiting for decent tech to come out. I think I'll either see if the Nexus S can win round, decide that the Desire HD is good enough for me, or just hold onto the N97 past the contract end and see month to month whats likely to take my fancy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 To be honest 2.2 is the last meaningful update Rev. Also I think the manufacturers have got the message, get updates out fast. Sony Ericsson Arc launching with 2.3 case in point. Personally I'd rather a better phone than one that gets updates fast. Plus vanilla android is still inferior to the custom UI overlay that the OEM's put in. For example the Media player on the Nexus S is a pile of shit, while the one on the Galaxy S is utterly superb. While HTC Sense is just a dream to use compared to vanilla 2.2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Chindie seriously I'd advise to wait a few months. Epic phones coming soon. Well worth the wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PieFacE Posted January 12, 2011 VT Supporter Share Posted January 12, 2011 I have a Desire at the minute running the latest Leedroid ROM and i'm pretty happy with it! Though, It's upgrade time! Now... do i go get a Desire HD or wait for something new? I'd like to stick with HTC phones, been using them for years and i'm not afraid to admit i'm a bit of a fanboy of HTC! Never had a problem with any of their phones and they're always solid and reliable. I'm quite happy to keep chucking money at them as I have no reason to choose anyone else... So my dilemma is, do i go for the Desire HD, or does anyone know of any phones they have in the pipe-line which will do more new and exciting things? Any advice from the android tech-heads in here would be most appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 How often do you upgrade? The Desire has only been on the market for 9 months! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 The Desire came out in Feb last year so it's been out almost a year now. Wait to see what comes out of mobile world congress, HTC will be announcing new phones at it and a desire 2 is almost certain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 I see apple are following androids lead now with the wifi hotspot in iOS 4.3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Nexus is OLD, it's just a galaxy s. Which feels like a Nokia 3310 in light of the phones announced. One way of looking at the Nexus S is that as it's released, a few months later, newer phones will be released which will supersede it. Another way of looking at it is that it's still right now the top hardware available. SAMOLED / 1GHz Hummingbird / SGX540 is still the best around until the next wave of phones are available. So the same as the Galaxy S, which is a top phone but marred by Samsung software and their ability to bugger anything up with crap software. Even now you still have to lagfix the Galaxy S. But Nexus phones aren't about being the phone with the top specs. It's a Google showcase, it's meant to be lean and fast and completely and utterly open. It's the first phone with Gingerbread and it will be the first with Honeycomb and so forth, but with generic, non-branded, fully-optimised builds from Google. It's not Samsung's view of how to build a phone, it's not HTC's, or Vodafones etc. It's yours. I can plug my phone in to my computer and install whatever OS I want unrestricted. In fact, Google encourage you to try out different Android builds. So for me, I don't care that the hardware will be out of date fairly soon, I only care that I'm on the Nexus path and I'll get a smooth, stable experience with no manufacturer or operator crap bundled and I'll be in complete control of it. That's gotta be worth a lot more than a 1.2GHz SAMOLED+ phone or a dual-core Tegra that won't actually do anything more than the Nexus, but will be stuck on old versions of Android for years.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Rev Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 The Desire came out in Feb last year so it's been out almost a year now. Wait to see what comes out of mobile world congress, HTC will be announcing new phones at it and a desire 2 is almost certain. February? It was either the last weekend in March or the first weekend in April depending on which network you were with as far as I was aware. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Dirk that's where things start to split. 2.3 has absolutely nothing of interest in it over 2.2. Also vanilla android is still inferior in many ways to to the skinned versions. For example the media player in the nexus s is appalling, while the one in the galaxy s is awesome. The contacts and SMS in the galaxy s, I love. It's again an improvement on the stock android. So it comes down to what is more important getting the updates as fast as possible or having a delay but a superior experience. HTC have delivered a significant improvement over stock android with sense and many people are not bothered by the delay given most of the updates from here on in are minor to most users. So it brings it to me, what do I want from my phone. Internet, 95% of my time is spent on the internet. So I want a bigger screen from my next phone, I want dual core to speed the internet experience. I watch movies too, so I want a beautiful screen and plenty of storage space for that media. I also couldn't live without swype. I want it light and I want decent battery life. So basically hardware is what masters to me most to me. Software to you, it's great that there is so much choice that we can both get exactly what we want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darrenm Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Dirk that's where things start to split. 2.3 has absolutely nothing of interest in it over 2.2. Also vanilla android is still inferior in many ways to to the skinned versions. For example the media player in the nexus s is appalling, while the one in the galaxy s is awesome. The contacts and SMS in the galaxy s, I love. It's again an improvement on the stock android. So it comes down to what is more important getting the updates as fast as possible or having a delay but a superior experience. HTC have delivered a significant improvement over stock android with sense and many people are not bothered by the delay given most of the updates from here on in are minor to most users. So it brings it to me, what do I want from my phone. Internet, 95% of my time is spent on the internet. So I want a bigger screen from my next phone, I want dual core to speed the internet experience. I watch movies too, so I want a beautiful screen and plenty of storage space for that media. I also couldn't live without swype. I want it light and I want decent battery life. So basically hardware is what masters to me most to me. Software to you, it's great that there is so much choice that we can both get exactly what we want. Darren I understand what you mean about the manufacturer 'improved' versions of things but I never see much improvement over the stock Android stuff. The Samsung media player was nice with the CD circle etc. but apart from that doesn't do a lot more than stock. Same with SMS and dialler, with my SGS I always found myself longing for the stock ones, because they perhaps didn't look as nice or didn't have extra features but worked nicely. Gingerbread has lots of improvements under the bonnet. The NS is absolutely lightning because of the concurrent garbage collections in the Java VM now. Visually not loads different though. 2 different ways of looking at it I suppose, but I'm really happy with my NS, then again I'm a fiddler Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CVByrne Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 I was talking more about the video player in the galaxy s than the music player. But you see my point, software doesn't really matter much to me. It's all about the hardware and my galaxy s feels dated with the new phones coming in the next few months. Different things for different people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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