Why did you choose the phone you now carry?

[Johnny Vinyl]

Just like everything else in life, we buy "stuff" that appeals to us. Cell phones are no different, and in fact, we seem to pay quite a bit of attention to them. As these devices get smarter and smarter and offer us an almost one-box solution, the importance of choosing the right phone is becoming more and more of a necessity. 2012 has been a great year for new product introductions and there is still more to come.

I was due for a new phone this year and could have waited until the release of the iPhone5, the Galaxy SIII, The Nokia Lumia and yes, even the BB10 early next year. But when I saw the Galaxy Note 1 , I knew it was the phone for me. I chose it for 2 basic reasons. The large 5.3" screen and the S-Pen. After playing around with it prior to my purchase I became convinced there was no turning back and other phones were no longer a consideration. After about 3 months of ownership I can say that the appeal of the phone is just as high, if not more so. I find myself using this phone far more than I ever did with previous ones. The picture and video quality are outstanding...or at least good enough for me. I'm a happy camper!


So tell me about your phone and why you chose it?

 

[ack]

Usability, security, form and coolness factor - 4S

 

[Keith_W]

Lightness, incredible screen, durability, and LTE. The second best phone on the market behind the Galaxy S3 - HTC One XL.

 

[MylesBAstor]

One biggggg reason-screen size. Another was 4G. Galaxy 3S here.

 

[treitz3]

Hello, John. Good to see you are doing better. This post from the sounds of it will not be up the alley of what you were looking to have answered but since you asked, I'll offer to you why I choose the phone I have. In a word, price. I have a Samsung phone through the Verizon network. It's called Straightalk and it's offered through Wal-Mart at ridiculously low prices. I can pay $48.00 a month for unlimited text, web and talk or I can pay $37.00 a month for 1000 minutes of text, web and talk. Since I only use the phone for talking [remember back when talking was what a phone was actually used for? ], my bill is always $37.00 a month. There is no roaming, no additional fees or taxes and here's the kicker...no contract.

Everybody else around me has a smart phone including my wife. I guess I'm old school. I use the phone to talk. When I want to talk Internationally, I use Magic-Jack via the computer. The only thing is, I have to be at the computer to use it so that isn't really a cell phone but I do put in 10 bucks a year on top of the $29.00 yearly fee and I pretty much talk all I want when calling overseas and I still haven't had a year to where I use up the 10 bucks for international calls. So, for the grand total of $483.00 a year I remain connected to the world. So, to answer your question?

Price and the Verizon network [reliability of signal].

Tom

 

[FrantzM]

In many countries outside the USA Blackberry is used extensively , talk time is very good, their messaging sys BBN security is good but other features as just OK ...

 

[flez007]

Corporate standards - 4s here

 

[Dimfer]

Galaxy SII - Bell has promo w/ Costco when I renewed my contract (free phone plus $50 Costco gift card) Tried the new Razr for a few days - nice but too big (I put my cel phones in my pant's front pocket a lot), returned it and got the SII.

 

[DaveyF]

4s for me too, looked at the 5 today..pretty nice. BUT I'm on the 's' version plan.( So it will be the 5s that gets my money). Here's also hoping that Apple will come out of the Ford way of thinking ...give 'em any color so long as it's black! ( or black and white in their case).
Have you seen the new colors that the new ipods come in.....very cool.

 

[Peter Breuninger]

Timely thread.

I'm switching phones and if needed providers next week. I've had an iphone for 2.5 years and I despise it... butt dialing, it never hangs up, very slow Internet, it you look at it wrong it dials. Plus, I'm a PC man at heart. I was a fanboy of Steve Jobs as an entrepreneur but the Apple business model is a little to "Moonie" for me. It's like a cult. And I'm sure they like it this way. The sheep lining up for new iphones makes me chuckle. I'm going S3 I think, the big Q is do I stay with ATT or go with Tmobile... hmmmm.

 

[JonFo]

Since I'm in the mobile software Biz, I see touch, and use them all. But for me personally, the most important thing is user experience as a holistic total.

For me, the iPhone family (4S today, a new 5 next week) delivers that well beyond any of the other OSs, and their hardware is incredibly well designed and put together. Not perfect, but truly great.
As a videophile (as well as audiophile) I enjoy the display quality of the iThings, which is typically superior to alternatives. The new iPhone 5 screen is just gorgeous, with really accurate colors and great contrast ratio. Never mind the addictive retina display.

 

[rblnr]

Timely thread.

I'm switching phones and if needed providers next week. I've had an iphone for 2.5 years and I despise it... butt dialing, it never hangs up, very slow Internet, it you look at it wrong it dials. Plus, I'm a PC man at heart. I was a fanboy of Steve Jobs as an entrepreneur but the Apple business model is a little to "Moonie" for me. It's like a cult. And I'm sure they like it this way. The sheep lining up for new iphones makes me chuckle. I'm going S3 I think, the big Q is do I stay with ATT or go with Tmobile... hmmmm.

iPhone 5 -- works better than anything on the market for me. But so do Macs IMO, so thats where I'm coming from. From my use, Android couldnt even scroll smoothly until recently and the platform is fragmented. Certainly dont want a bigger phone either as I'm a pants pocket guy. Haven't had any of the probs you describe with anything but the original iPhone in 07, and they were infrequent at best. Don't really care about cult, moonie or any of the other ways Apple gets portrayed, just what works best.

In NY metro area anyway, Verizon is far better than AT&T, my original carrier.

 

[ack]

iPhone 5 -- works better than anything on the market for me. But so do Macs IMO, so thats where I'm coming from. From my use, Android couldnt even scroll smoothly until recently and the platform is fragmented. Certainly dont want a bigger phone either as I'm a pants pocket guy. Haven't had any of the probs you describe with anything but the original iPhone in 07, and they were infrequent at best. Don't really care about cult, moonie or any of the other ways Apple gets portrayed, just what works best.

In NY metro area anyway, Verizon is far better than AT&T, my original carrier.

I'd rather have the 5, but the upgrade price of ~$400+ is too steep; I'd rather spend the money on 1mm of ultra-fine MIT cabling - and unfortunately, I happen to have two channels.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Galaxy SII - Bell has promo w/ Costco when I renewed my contract (free phone plus $50 Costco gift card) Tried the new Razr for a few days - nice but too big (I put my cel phones in my pant's front pocket a lot), returned it and got the SII.

That's how and where I got my Galaxy Note. Same deal as well. Called my provider (Rogers) and they wouldn't match it. So I jumped ship after 12 years.

iPhone 5 -- works better than anything on the market for me. But so do Macs IMO, so thats where I'm coming from. From my use, Android couldnt even scroll smoothly until recently and the platform is fragmented. Certainly dont want a bigger phone either as I'm a pants pocket guy. Haven't had any of the probs you describe with anything but the original iPhone in 07, and they were infrequent at best. Don't really care about cult, moonie or any of the other ways Apple gets portrayed, just what works best.

In NY metro area anyway, Verizon is far better than AT&T, my original carrier.

I have no proiblem carrying my Note in my front pocket. Fits like a glove!

Those iPhone screens are nice though!

 

[amirm]

Droidx for me. Bought it 2 years ago when it first came out. I was a very early adopter of "big screen" phone since believe it or not, I rarely use my phone for calls but mostly as a portable office. Lots of browsing, email, etc. So the big screen was great. As was the durability and feel of the device. I have dropped it more times than I can count and it looks almost new! Its black look was also pretty cool at the time. I also like the hard buttons on it.

What I didn't like at first was the extremely buggy Android OS. Email would not work hardly at all with hotmail. Crashes were common. Two OS releases later, those problems are almost behind me. Sadly the last OS update made it work a lot slower. It hesitates at times to do things. That is the only thing making me want to upgrade. As usual, software developers only test their bits on the latest phones, and not understand how to write optimized code. So like the PC, we have to keep upgrading if we want to stay the same .

I was going to get Samsung SIII but my carrier, Verizon, will take away my unlimited data if I go for the $199 subsidized price. Full cost is $645 which is too much. I am waiting for the next gen Droid to come out, hoping that maybe a better phone or depress the cost of SIII.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Email works great on the Note. I have my Hotmail account linked to my gmail account, and with the notifications I can respond immediately. ICS has worked great so far and I'm looking forward to the Jellybean upgrade in Q4.

 

[Ron Party]

iPhone5. Had the Droid. Good bye, good riddance. What a significant upgrade. User experience is exponentially better.

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

iPhone5. Had the Droid. Good bye, good riddance. What a significant upgrade. User experience is exponentially better.

Hi Ron, how have you been and nice to see you!

I experienced the reverse. Hated my iPhone 3G and switched. Goes to show we all have different needs, wants and expectations. Nothing wrong with that. And I'll say it again, I love the iPhone5 screen quality. I'm hoping Samsung takes cues and does something to come close or better it. That's not to say I'm dissatisfied with their AMOLED screen, but a Retina type display on my Note would kick some serious a$$ with it's huge screen size!

 

[JackD201]

2 x 4s'. Different carriers since both can be dodgy.

In a word, Sync.

I've been a Mac user since 2000. Sync'ing was always a chore before the iPhone. I didn't want to go back to Windows just for that especially since Windows users had the same problems.

Truth be told, I don't even want to have a phone. As far as form and function go, work wise, my favorite phone was and still is the Blackberry Bold series. Unfortunately they had a tendency to fall apart on me. At one point I had the Bold and an iPhone. When my 3rd Bold's cursor crapped out, I'd had enough. I still miss actual QWERTY buttons.

Touch screens and voice commands don't do it for me. I'm in a bi-lingual country. You can imagine how frustrating predictive text is in our case.

 

[AMP]

I had been a dyed in the wool blackberry user for a very long time and switched to the iPhone 3g in late 2009 when the BB platform started to stagnate. At the time it was more of a new toy than anything. I did, however, wait until MS Exchange support was fully baked as that integration was a necessity for me.

Now I'm set on the iPhone for two reasons:

1) User interface - I've tried many of the Android devices and (personally) find the user interface a bit clunky much in the same way that I found Windows 95 clunky in comparison to the MacOS of the day.

2) Killer App - I'm a BMW guy through and through (to the point of basing my business on the damned things) and newer BMWs have integration with some very useful music apps (MOG, Pandora, Spotify) via the iPhone. Since I'm still grandfathered into an unlimited data plan I can access the entire MOG library from my nav screen and have instant access to just about any music that I wish to listen to. Long road trip? Dial up a Pandora station and discover some new stuff that I haven't heard before. Find something I like on Pandora, well then I can switch to MOG and call up an entire album of that artist. Tracks I like can be marked and I can go back to that list when I'm not driving to listen further or possibly purchase. My wife and I drove from Tucson to San Francisco this past summer and never touched the music library loaded to the iPhone and instead just picked a track or a genre to see where it might take us.


The individual features of the phones like display size and resolution, number of cameras, dock connectors, etc are of limited importance to me. I'm application driven and as long as the applications do what I need / want them to do then I'm happy. Currently running an iPhone 4 as I didn't see a real point in changing to the 4s. I may pickup a 5, but I'm going to wait to be sure that the OS is stable (it's not now) and that my primary applications and external devices are compatible.