Smartphone ??

[Shriner]

Am thinking about going to a smartphone , which one do you kool kids like ? I would like good battery life, 4G ,andonid. What is Icecream sandwich and Jellybean -op all about ? The phones am looking at are Pentech-flex & Burst or Samsung- Galaxy S II / III or Galaxy exhilarate -am going with these because an cheap ,the phones are free, $.99 or $29.99 and have good reveiws .

 

[daytomann]

iPhone......

 

[n8thegr8]

iPhone......

He said he wanted a smartphone...haha

I have two friends that have galaxy s IIIs and they love them. Can't go wrong with Samsung.

ICS and JB are the names of the different OS versions. Think windows vista and windows 7. Each version is named after a dessert, in alphabetical order, so the next version that's about to be released is Key Lime Pie. They release a new version each year at the Google IO developers conference.

 

[daytomann]

He said he wanted a smartphone...haha

I have two friends that have galaxy s IIIs and they love them. Can't go wrong with Samsung.

No he said which one do you kool kids like. Lol!!
Kool kids like iPhones.

Cough* Android sux... *cough

 

[excat]

Of the options, the S III. Battery life on all of them will depend on use. If you leave your wifi on all the time, gps on, constantly use the web, etc. Easy way to save life is to keep wifi, gps, and auto sync of all apps disabled until you want to use that feature. Also,turning off auto sync saves on your data plan as well. Of course, if your intent is to get all your e-mails on your phone you would want to keep the sync feature on.

I'm cheap and have AT&T's cheapest data plan, so I keep auto sync off.

 

[Glock]

I too am really partial to the iPhone line... Ease of use if second nature.

Though, I thumbed an SIII the other day and really liked it too.

 

[Brandi]

Anything with "i" in front is bad. iPhone, iPad, iPeed.

 

[JCW355]

I have a samsung s2 skyrocket and am happy with that. I would buy another. Almost everything about it is like the samsung tablet I own.

 

[Devon]

Samsung Rugby Smart.

I am rough on phones and so far this one has held up well. It is water and shock resistant. It takes a beating riding on my hip.

 

[NightShade]

Started off with a blackberry a few years ago but they went really stagnant so ended up with a Droid 4. Have to toss it in the mix because if you really want to use a smartphone and not be tied to a touch screen all the time it's really worth a thought. Full keyboard is great for text and e-mail.

I rooted my phone and though I run the stock OS the main reason for the root is so that I can use a program called sixaxis, this allows me to use a PS3 controller wirelessly with my phone. I then run a nintendo or super nintendo emulator. I can sit at a dr's office while waiting for my wife and play literally any one of a few hundred high quality games. If you are nostalgic and liked the super mario brothers games or have some other you really enjoyed it's a great way to go.

As per the iPhone vs Android talk, if you want to be tied to one market for everything unless you jailbreak the phone then the iPhone is fine. I look at the apple way of doing things akin to the government, you only get what they think you should have. With Android based phones you can use other markets and if you want you can install directly from files by changing one setting in the phone. And iPhones basically are one flavor, yeah they made a few different versions but what do you get? Same basic features and more space faster cpu. Set all the iPhones side by side and see how many they really made just by looking. If you like variety then Android is the way to go. Plus if you have never owned a smartphone you will encounter the same learning curve so why not be bold?

As per battery life, the bigger the screen and the longer it is on the more the battery will run down. The "talk time" listed in the phone figures that the screen will be off and you will just be talking. Standby time is done in a lab with ideal conditions, your actual time will be much shorter, plan to charge at night and have a charger in the car as well. One at work isn't a bad thing if you drive a desk. Getting one of the "wireless" chargers can be worthwhile because once they are setup all you have to do is drop the phone on the charging mat and you are charging. Ready to leave, pick it up and go.

There are tons of sites for reviews that can be very helpful and if you want some of the extra abilities look for ones that are easily rooted just remember that once rooted you can break the phone so it's not for the faint of heart. If you can't handle installing programs on a computer don't root your phone, lol. And do go look at the actual phones that are running. Go to best buy or the carriers store and look around. Ask them to sell you a phone but your not buying today. They have the time to show some features you may like and the caveats of a particular model.

The OS versions of Android are based off of "sweets", version 2.3 being gingerbread, then it was honeycomb which was tablet only, then ice cream sandwich followed by jellybean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Usage_share_of_Android_versions has some more information about all the os versions. The current version you have on your phone will be limited by you carrier unless you root your phone and then you are only limited by the creativity of the people putting together a version for your phone. Cyanogen Mod is one of the very popular alternate os versions http://www.cyanogenmod.org/ their forums will also have a lot of discussion on phones and I would recommend checking them and some others out.

I know I dumped a lot of info out there but hopefully it does some good. If you ever want to test drive my setup drop me a PM and we can work something out.