I am torn. Divided. Do I go right or left. If I make the wrong choice, I will suffer for months, no years, it could be painful to get through.
I am, of course, talking of my choice of mobile phone.
Contracts typically run for two years these days. A scandalous length of time. And I have been waiting, and waiting, in anticipation of this day.
But, I like my little blackberry device and was planning to wait to see how Blackberry 10 turns out at the end of January. They have built up a certain amount of loyalty with me. I love having a full keyboard, this blog post is written on one. And I have a matching Playbook tablet.
And yet I find myself tempted to jump ship, to upgrade now, to a new and pretty 4G device. Not to Apple’s walled garden. There is something about iPhone that just does not sit right with me. Perhaps it is the way Apple tightly define what you can and cannot do. And I like messing with settings and suchlike, being able to try different things and understand the impact they have.
The temptress is Android. To Jelly Bean no less (that’s versions 4.1 to us mortals). Two devices are on my radar. Both Samsung. The S3 and the Note2. A nice shiny, early Xmas present to myself. The Note 2 especially draws my attention. It is effectively tablet and phone combined. And with the stylus I could perhaps completely ditch pen and notepad.
So very tempting. My precious!
But could I live with the immense size of the thing. And the little bits of Android quirkiness. And no physical keyboard. These are all critical elements of the decision process.
I suspect I will procrastinate. I love technology. And occasionally fall for the marketing hype. But I don’t like parting with my cash either. And on my staff plan, my company will pay a sizeable chunk towards the cost of the phone, for such high end monsters as these, I would have to stump up a size-able amount of cash too.
What do you think? So should I upgrade? Or wait it out? What is your phone of choice?
Not having keys makes no difference – I was very surprised when I went to iPhone how quickly you adjust.
Seamless integration is major.
I think size could be an issue. I often carry iPad too and work both side by size. I like being able to travel light most of the time tho.
I am with you on seamless integration Marten. I am in some ways fortunate, in my job I get the occasional opportunity to “test” handsets – I had to write material for iPhone and Android so spent a month with each earlier this year. I still find the Blackberry keyboard, particularly the 9900, a joy to use. I still struggle with my Playbook onscreen keyboard. A part of me wonders whether the Note handwriting recognition will replace the keyboard altogether!
I’m doing a similar kind of dithering myself right now. Been toying for some time with the idea of treating myself to a tablet for xmas and if so, which one ?
My dilemma is I don’t actually need one – my work provides me with a laptop, and at home I have a desktop, a netbook, and a macbook pro – so I’m having a hard time trying to convince myself that buying a tablet would be justified. I can feel myself weakening though and may soon take the plunge. When I do, I’m probably going to go for the Asus/Google nexus 7 tablet over the iPad mini. I love my Macbook and my Ipod but Apple’s aggressive/bullying litigation strategy against its competitors is turning me against the company.
[In a strange way, too – or maybe it’s the way I think that’s strange – apple’s attempt to stifle competition from their rivals is almost akin to an acknowledgement of the quality of competing products. If they weren’t as good or better than the iPad then they wouldn’t be fearful of losing sales to them?]
Hi Duncan – I think you are right about Apple, their aggressive stance against their competitors is very off putting and may turn some people away from them. It is also a testament to Samsung’s products. I find it hard to understand how some basic design features can be copyrighted. I mean curved corners as a copyrighted idea !?!
Apart from being unable to afford a high end phone, my reasons for not buying them are simple: the large phones are very hard to manage with my tiny hands. But I’m guessing you don’t have that problem. I like Samsung because no matter how many times I drop one, it’ll never break! Again, I don’t think you are quite as clumsy as me.
Useful thoughts. I managed to drop the Blackberry Torch I was using a few days ago and completely shattered the screen, I am back using my old Blackberry now, so maybe I am just as clumsy!
I have asked Amit Rawat to make a review of HTC DNA, S3 and Iphone 5, which made my decision much easier on picking the phone I want. Here is the article, http://bit.ly/10taabP . I hope this helps. I got S3 🙂 because the DNA does not have SD card slot.
Thanks, thats a useful review. The Note II has a 3100 Mha battery, I am feeling myself drawn in that direction.
I liked the fact of Note 2 that it has stylist pen.
Would it be downright scandalous to suggest a Pay as You Go phone. I have a Net 10 phone that has a full QWERTY keyboard and everything, and I only spend 25 bucks a month. But I don’t feel that driving need to access the internet on my phone ALL DAY LONG like some people. (Although I do have access, should I wish it, but as I don’t purchase the unlimited plan, it costs minutes.)
Lol, not at all scandalous queenie and if I was paying the monthly charges I would probably go that route or SIM only. My work provide the contract though and divvy up £250 for the new phone. I don’t use Facebook, for some reason I have an aversion to it, but do use email, web browsing and a number of other apps that use internet access.
I think a Galaxy Note II is the top contender. Though that means I would be almost doubling what the company are putting in. Hmmmm. Do I clear those cobwebs and dust from my wallet?
I think a trip to the phone shop at the weekend might be a good plan. Get one in my hands, see how it feels and how well it performs.
Ah…my phone is a phone…no internet, no texting, no camera, no games…just a phone, for emergencies (and the car mechanic who thought he was calling Hubby, even though I’M the one who brought MY car into the garage…)
Upgrade! Upgrade! Oooh, Upgrade!
(But I am rather a tech junkie. I cannot move without my iPhone)
Wait, for sure. No, maybe go ahead and buy now. Well, prices will, may come down. But maybe they won’t…
I think the worst thing I did was buy a touch screen smartphone. It’s great, I just can’t put it down and have lost all sense of mindfulness. Helps me multitask, procrastinate, and have so much at my fingertips lol but in the key perspective, I got used to touch very easily. I have android, but not the new jelly bean.
I’m the odd one out in that I still love my blackberry bold! I NEED a keyboard! Funny how most of us are pretty passionate about our phones!
Well, I have an old Sagem myx-1. It supports screen savers (I have a nice one with a an airplane hitting a cow). Anyway, you have probably made your decision until now, but I will just say I would have sold my soul to the devil for an upgrade and therefore I would have voted for it. If you haven’t upgraded yet. there’s always the possibility of waiting for this beauty: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/03/201331581416684728.html
I’ve been pretty happy with my iPhone – kinda does what I need and doesn’t make a fuss about it. It’s 3 years old and I’ll hang onto it until the iPhone 6 comes out later in the year and go from there. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the apple, all those settings and choices in Android are largely unnecessary for what we (well, I at least) do with the device in reality.
Thamks for your thoughts Charlie 🙂