HTC Desire HD and Z outed today in the UK.

The Desire HD is basically the Evo 4G from here in the USA, rebadged and without 4G.

Thanks for the opinions fellas, I appreciate it!

I ended up with lowly (compared to what's out there) HTC Hero. Pretty decent little Android phone though. I decided that tethering was important to me for one thing. The phone was free, they gave me a $75 gift card, and I only pay $55/mo for 3 gigs data, 450 daytime min (I never use daytime), 6pm free evening/weekend, free call ID/VM/waiting, no activation fee... seemed like a great deal.

Plus I just couldn't live with myself if I put more money into Steve Jobs' pocket and contributed to Apple's retarded iSociety (man I wish iRacing was called something else).

That's the worlds worst plan ever

60$ a month, Unlimited Data, 200 Daytime (I never talk on the phone ). Free Evening/ ID, Waiting, No Activation, and my original phone only cost me 100$ (iPhone I bought seperately.)

There are no Android phones that seem even.. kinda usable.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

Greetings,

So I've decided it's time to bite the bullet and get a proper phone now. Looking for advice on what phones, or specifically what OS I should be considering.

The temptation is to just go snap up an iPhone 4G, but something tells me that there's probably something a lot better since the general masses flock towards the iPhone

Opinions please!

Get a Blackberry. It does what you want it to, does what you need it to, and isn't flooded with stupid apps and incompatability. Good for E-mails too is the Blackberry, and not to mention the Blackberry messenger which enables you to message other blackberries without any cost at all. Android and iPhone have alot of things to do with your time, but if you actually have a life an iPhone or an Android phone is, just another phone.

Edit : Too late

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I ended up with lowly (compared to what's out there) HTC Hero.

That's what I've got. Are you on a long contract? That processor is getting quite long in the tooth now.

If the lag starts to bother you, you can always root it and install one of the 2.2 ROMs, apparently it's much quicker than any earlier Android release. But you have to root your phone to install it - officially the Hero can't run 2.2.

My friend also just got a Hero and likes it just fine. Very solid hardware, if yeah, a little dated.

PULSE MINI FTW!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111111111

seriously it is a pretty good little phone. cost me £80 PAYG and android 2.1 same as the expensive ones.

Quote from BlueFlame :

Get a Blackberry. It does what you want it to, does what you need it to, and isn't flooded with stupid apps and incompatability. Good for E-mails too is the Blackberry, and not to mention the Blackberry messenger which enables you to message other blackberries without any cost at all. Android and iPhone have alot of things to do with your time, but if you actually have a life an iPhone or an Android phone is, just another phone.

Edit : Too late

No.

I would suggest anyone that is thinking of a Blackberry to either not buy one, or to go remove themselves from the gene pool as they are too stupid to live.

Blackberries have shitty software (slow). Perfect example. My Ex-GF.. Opening hers and my thread of conversation.. 15 minutes to open it. My iPhone (which as it's a thread, contains all of them)... instantly.

Rebooting the phone as well... (which her BB needed a lot.. nearly every day) 10 minutes to boot it up. iPhone takes 1 minute tops, and it takes the longest because of the JB (I have a lot of background apps running for my own linux nerdy stuff.

Internet browsing is a tragedy. Only the latest OS makes it useful.. but it's still garbage.

RIM needed to get off their ass 3 years ago and design something better. Instead they sat on their hands with their Java-based BB OS, and their massive cache of business users. However that advantage is being taken away. I have push Email on my iPhone, internet that work, texting that is NICE to use, everything I could ever want, and it's nice to use.

Her phone must have just sucked then. I open up text messaging threads containing THOUSANDS of texts every day with no delay whatsoever. If I were to get another phone today, I would probably go Android just because I'd like to try that OS out, but I am perfectly happy with my BlackBerry as it gets the job done for what I use it for, which is 90% texting/IMing people.

Once again, Dustin has no clue what he's blathering about. But we should all be used to that by now.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Once again, Dustin has no clue what he's blathering about. But we should all be used to that by now.

No. I am actually right about something!

Blackberries are antiquated in the days of now. People who buy them currently are fools and deserve the torture of dealing with shit.

I am going to have to agree with Dustin on this one. (Wait, wut?)

The "latest" BB is just bad, to put it nicely. Like already stated, its miles behind in terms of software, and hardware wise its falling behind at a considerable rate too.

Investing in a BB these days is just dull and stupid.

Say what you want, the only real "smart phones" worth talking about these days are iOS and Android. Maybe W7 Mobile when it comes out later this year too.

Quote from Jakg :

What do you use your phone for?

The iPhone is restrictive and expensive... but what it does do it does simply and brilliantly. Like all Apple products... but you pay a price.

Android (when rooted) gives you much more control over the device. No company deciding what apps you can't have, and you have a lot more customizability. But it's not 100% stable, and no Android phone is quite as slick as the iPhone. Android is going to keep being developed, and you have a lot more chance of getting the new "good stuff" on an Android phone than on an iPhone.

Personally, a keyboard is the killer feature. I *hate* software keyboards, so I bought a T-Mobile G1 (outside of the UK - HTC Dream). It's the launch Android phone, and is now (thanks to the custom ROM community) running the latest 2.2 version of Android. It does everything I need (read emails, check Facebook / Twitter, surf the internet, tethering and record my MPG, oh yeah and be a phone) with a great keyboard... but its not exactly quick. I love Android, but i'm really starting to get bored with the "lag" in my phone. And it's still the only decent Android phone with a hardware keyboard.

The iPhone has an *amazing* software keyboard - I can use it just as fast as I can the hardware one on my phone. Based purely on this, and it's overall slickness, probably going to be my next phone...

HTC Desire "Z" announced for the UK today. Desire, with a keyboard (and everything else a little better). £429 for pre-order so undercuts the iPhone 4 by £70... tempting.

Personally I'd get an HTC. Apple products are seriously overpriced

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

That's the worlds worst plan ever

60$ a month, Unlimited Data, 200 Daytime (I never talk on the phone ). Free Evening/ ID, Waiting, No Activation, and my original phone only cost me 100$ (iPhone I bought seperately.)

There are no Android phones that seem even.. kinda usable.

Heh, so I pay less a month, got paid $75 to take the phone instead of paying 100 FOR the phone (and then licking Apple's rear buy buying outright an iPhone to boot), have the same features (and no SYS access fee or 911 fee either), more than double the day minutes (which you're right, is useless, but still) and 3 gigs that I'll never use up (seriously...) and you conclude that it's a worse plan?

In regular use there's really no drastic difference in ... "usability", it functions quite similar so far. If I treat it like my friends iPhone it seems to do the same things so I'm not sure what you're on about (yet).

Quote from thisnameistaken :

If the lag starts to bother you, you can always root it and install one of the 2.2 ROMs, apparently it's much quicker than any earlier Android release. But you have to root your phone to install it - officially the Hero can't run 2.2.

I have no idea what that means... (rooting) But yeah I'm on a long contract of 3 years. Supposedly I'll be getting the 2.1 OS within a month or two but from what I can find on the intertubes that's been the case for 9 months already

I seriously considered a Samsung phone after looking at the AMOLED, man what a nice screen.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

everything I could ever want, and it's nice to use.

just as long as you dont ever touch it

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I have no idea what that means... (rooting) But yeah I'm on a long contract of 3 years. Supposedly I'll be getting the 2.1 OS within a month or two but from what I can find on the intertubes that's been the case for 9 months already

Hell I only got 2.1 a few weeks ago. Are you on 1.5 then?

2.1 is pretty sweet if only for the fact that you get turn-by-turn sat nav for free, and you can overlay Google data on top like locations of ATMs, petrol stations, car parks, food, etc. even Street View if you've got the bandwidth for it. And it works really well too, it's got me to and from gigs already in towns that I've never been to before.

Edit: Rooting: Android is a Unix-based operating system (just like iOS actually) but you don't have root user privileges. Root is the 'super user' on a *nix OS and has full access to the system, and on an Android phone you have to do some shennanigens to get root access. But when you do, you can do stuff like installing different versions of the OS manually. Like Linux, there are people producing different distributions of Android that you can install if you have root access to your phone.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

Heh, so I pay less a month, got paid $75 to take the phone instead of paying 100 FOR the phone (and then licking Apple's rear buy buying outright an iPhone to boot), have the same features (and no SYS access fee or 911 fee either), more than double the day minutes (which you're right, is useless, but still) and 3 gigs that I'll never use up (seriously...) and you conclude that it's a worse plan?

In regular use there's really no drastic difference in ... "usability", it functions quite similar so far. If I treat it like my friends iPhone it seems to do the same things so I'm not sure what you're on about (yet).

I use a craptonne of data. I average 10 GB a month on my iPhone The buying the iPhone was actually because my old phone BROKE. It was the best replacement phone I've ever purchased.

It's a worse plan simply because it's unlimited basically everything... for such a close price.

Shot: When are you gonna stop trolling and show us your antenna engineering degrees, and all the phones you've developed that are flawless as well? We're still waiting, else your trolling is just crazy German anti-humor.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

I use a craptonne of data. I average 10 GB a month on my iPhone

who is your provider then, because ro-bell-us just changed their unlimited data plans... they're truly not unlimited, they're like 3gb and they charge huge overage fees...

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

I use a craptonne of data. I average 10 GB a month on my iPhone

How?

You must be doing nothing else but downloading porn on to your phone every day. And presumably you don't ever visit anywhere that has a wifi connection you can use?

My fair-use limit is 1Gb a month and I never get anywhere near it, I don't think I've done over 500Mb in any given month. That said I'm paying less than half the price of any iPhone contract available in the UK, and receiving considerably more contract minutes/texts/data than you'd get on those bare-bones iPhone contracts.

IMO the Hero is a good deal. Yes the iPhone is faster and slicker but it doesn't have any features the Hero doesn't have.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

When are you gonna stop trolling and show us your antenna engineering degrees, and all the phones you've developed that are flawless as well?

1) im not trolling
2) you trying to call out people for trolling is just comical
3) i dont have to prove anything to you

I get my HTC HD Mini some months ago, it's just perfect for me. Small, portable, good looking, smooth, amazing battery life, high build quality and the most useful device you can have in your pocket. But smartphones are very personal, so just read reviews and make your decision...

Quote from bunder9999 :

who is your provider then, because ro-bell-us just changed their unlimited data plans... they're truly not unlimited, they're like 3gb and they charge huge overage fees...

Bell. I haven't got nary a word either about my data use.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

How?

You must be doing nothing else but downloading porn on to your phone every day. And presumably you don't ever visit anywhere that has a wifi connection you can use?

My fair-use limit is 1Gb a month and I never get anywhere near it, I don't think I've done over 500Mb in any given month. That said I'm paying less than half the price of any iPhone contract available in the UK, and receiving considerably more contract minutes/texts/data than you'd get on those bare-bones iPhone contracts.

IMO the Hero is a good deal. Yes the iPhone is faster and slicker but it doesn't have any features the Hero doesn't have.

I tether. A lot. I also tend to stream my music from my laptop at home to my iPhone in the car

Quote from Shotglass :

1) im not trolling
2) you trying to call out people for trolling is just comical
3) i dont have to prove anything to you

Then shut the **** up with your bullshit.

Quote from dawesdust_12 :

Then shut the **** up with your bullshit.

Bahahahaha

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Bahahahaha

Sorry Ben, but for the millionth time, I'm still right.