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Why My Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone

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Stoic Joker:
Even in a backwater like Paraguay it is becoming seriously hard to buy a new "dumb" phone. Whether you want it or not, the only options available are the not so-"dumb", the smart and (when money is not a problem) really smart phones.-Shades (August 23, 2011, 03:22 PM)
--- End quote ---

Remember back in the 80's when people thought it would be so cool to have a cellphone that would fit in their pocket. And here we are 30 years later still hoping for the same thing.

OOooo but its got a 4" screen... Right. ...And I'm supposed to put the rest of my shit where?

nudone:
Exactly why I'm still using a Samsung D900. It's "crap" but it's thin enough to go in my pocket without being a problem (specifically why I bought it, via eBay). It's amazing, you can use it like a phone (I know, incredible) and it's even got Tetris on it. So where's the smart bit? At home built into a computer that has an internet connection.

alxwz:
Well, I have a pretty 'dumb' phone ... SE K530i. Had it for years, and it's really good at ... making phone calls.
Much better than the nearly TOTL K750i I had before. And probably better than an iPhone.

And I have a Palm M515. Actually, I have four of them, plus an M500 and two extra batteries in case all of the others have worn out.

Why?

1) I don't feel like paying for a data plan. And I have a (non-data) carrier plan with a monthly basic rate of zero (okay, I admit it's a >10 y old plan for journalists with a 100% rebate on the monthly basic fee). For making phone calls, I rarely ever pay more than 10 Euros in any month.

2) I need a portable organizer (= PIM), but don't feel like putting my personal (PIM) data somewhere on the net.

3) I can lock down the PDA, which I can't do with something that also doubles as a phone.

4) I prefer putting my files on an encrypted USB thumb drive rather than on Dropbox, Evernote, or the like. Although I have to admit that both are tempting.

5) I have two pretty nifty cases for the M5xx form factor:
  a) Palm Leather Wallet case.
  b) Kensington aluminum hard case. So sturdy you can let a tank roll over it.

6) The battery of the PDA lasts for more than a week. And the one of the phone for several days.

7) I prefer reading paper books. Especially as my eyes don't get younger.

Those cases are actually the main reason why I had Palm Tungstens and a Win Mobile 6 smartphone gathering dust unused. I've never seen anything like those for one of the touchscreen-smartphones. I usually use the one I feel better suited for the situation. And I still have spares for those two as well.

cyberdiva:
Well, I've got a very dumb LG cell phone for which I pay $20 every three months.  :Thmbsup:  Admittedly, I don't use it all that often, but I have it when I need it.  And since I rarely use it, the battery goes for months on a single charge.  I confess, though, that I was about to buy an Optimus V android and join the more-or-less modern world, but then I found that there was no decent Scrabble game available for it.  I've got my priorities, and that for me was the deal-breaker.  ;D  So I kept my dumb phone and am continuing to use my PalmTX for everything else.  Yes, the TX has a very good Scrabble game  :) , as well as a Spanish/English dictionary, a French/English dictionary, a German/English dictionary, my calendar (Datebk 6), my contacts, memos, email, a not-very-good web browser, wi-fi, bluetooth, a bunch of movies, and more. )  

JavaJones:
Man, you guys are cranky! Get off my lawn, indeed. Hehe. Personally I love my smart phone. A few years ago before I got a cell phone at all, when all my friends pretty much had them, I was kind of against them. And regular cell phones *aren't* an essential for me - if I had one I would probably keep it off a lot of the time. But a smart phone, that's a different story. So damn useful all the fricking time. I don't see how any serious computer user can avoid their utility for long. They are an awesome complement to a proper computer or laptop.

On another note, an update from my friend who had an iPhone and wanted Android: He bought an HTC Evo 3D with Sprint and he's happy overall, but definitely has a few issues. I'm not clear whether he prefers it over his iPhone fully yet, but I know he's had some problems that he did not have with his iPhone, issues like random reboots and some browser pages persistently reloading. So that's not so great. He was never a huge app user on his iPhone and I don't think he is in Android yet either. But we'll see. I'm curious how things will be in a few months.

I think Mandork has it right: it really depends on which phone you get. And in that regard the iPhone/Android debate is almost *exactly* like the Mac/PC debate. Mac's "just work" (no, not really, but maybe more on average than PCs), largely because they are made by a single manufacturer, have a single OS, and Apple has not been too concerned about long-term backward compatibility nor allowing for a range of hardware upgrades (e.g. few graphics card options). PCs are vastly more configurable and flexible, available in a range of different models, but they have more problems, or at the very least there are *problematic models* and/or manufacturers. So that's the thing, with Android and PCs, you have choice, and choice means *you can make a bad choice*. With iPhone you really have no choice, and while certain specific Android models may exceed iPhone in some areas, *overall* iPhone is a more polished platform and experience. So unless you get a good device on Android, you're likely to find it less "easy to use" than iPhone.

That being said, perhaps an exception to this, or at least an addendum, is that I personally find the iPhone UI atrocious. Once you get it, it's fine, albeit limited and annoying. But having used Android, it's so much more intuitive. I've played with WP7 a bit and really didn't like that either, but it wasn't enough experimenting to say whether I preferred it over iOS. I'm curious to try more since some people do rave about it, but ultimately I'm pretty sold on Android as a base platform. The trick is getting the right phone, right manufacturer, right carrier, and that's a lot of combinations to get right.

So perhaps in summary: Android has higher potential for awesome, iOS has more consistent execution of good-to-awesome. And WP7 doesn't sell enough to matter. ;)

- Oshyan

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