Hey everyone, I've got several itches which need scratching so I'll just get right in to it ! My wife and I have recently returned from Hungary after a year, and we need to decide which carrier to go with. My wife is a LOT less finicky than I am when it comes to phones (heck, she's perfectly fine with her nasty Palm Centro.. she actually likes it !) and I was using an jail broken iPhone 3G which I was actually ok with over there using Vodafone. Excellent service, really.
Unfortunately, ATT wasn't very nice to us and even though they said they'd wave the ETF if we sent in documents proving that we were moving over seas (which we did ASAP), they didn't. And on top of that, we didn't find out until just now, and the ETF went into collection. So I paid $500 to restore my wife's credit, which was almost perfect before that! Needless to say, I don't want to give ATT any more of our money.
It's either Sprint or Verizon. Both seem to offer decent phones, but I've heard that the EVO (which is the primary reason to go with Sprint, not sure about the Epic?) is hit and miss and that the battery life is less than stellar. Sprint seems to be slightly more expensive if you go with a 4G phone (and why wouldn't you go with one?) because they charge you $10 per phone for a service which doesn't yet exist in most places, realistically speaking.
Verizon on the other hand, while perhaps being slightly cheaper ($160 a month for the family plan with talk/text and 2 data plans) doesn't offer unlimited talk between any mobile phone. Only 5 friends per line and other Verizon subs. And unlimited nights/weekends start at 9 pm opposed to Sprint's 7 pm.
All that being said, it kind of boils down to which carrier currently has the best phone(s) for a person who is most concerned with:
1. Call quality and reception. (after all, we do still make PHONE calls, right?)
2. Speed and consistency of data throughput.
3. Intuitive GUI across the board. The iPhone seems to actually excel in this department. Maybe because there are less options to fiddle with than on other phones in its class.
4. Accurate, intuitive and comfortable keyboard whether it be touch or otherwise.
5. Speed. There's nothing worse than a sluggish OS on a phone. I was using my friends Verizon version of the Samsung GalaxyS the other day (Fascinate?), and everything on it seemed to be very zippy, except for when I tried getting a gps satellite to fix on our location. I handed it back to her because I got utterly frustrated waiting for something to happen. Heck, my several year old HTC Tilt was able to get a GPS fix in seconds.. what's up with that ?
For the time being, I'm using an el' cheapo, no frills Boos Mobile phone (which is fine if all you care about is text and calls. The UI is just, well... not even worth getting into a discussion about. My wife on the other hand, has nothing, and I was going to just give her the T-Mobile SIM I was using in my iPhone when I first got back here (I came back before her) and let her top it up, but that's not exactly cheap either, and there's no data unless you pay a silly amount more. And for that, you may as well just sign up for another plan at that point.
So here I (we) am/are. I guess it's silly to ask (yet again) about whether or not it's worth it to wait for a dual core processor or for Gingerbread. But I'd love to see some continuity between the Android handsets, and overall more stability within the OS, but I guess that's what 3.0 will be bringing to the table. But is it silly to ask whether or not any of the current offerings will be able to handle the 3.0 update ? After all, the Samsung phones I'm looking at on Verizon and Sprint aren't even on 2.2. Are they going to be ? And why the delay if yes ?
Not sure of what else to ask, really. I guess my questions sound standard, redundant and loaded ? I really want to know what people's experiences are between carriers, and phones, from a standpoint that lots of domestic traveling will be going on. We love to hike up in the mountains upstate and such, drive to different states for the occasional trip etc..
And though I haven't really mentioned anything which would indicate that I want my phone to be ridiculously slick looking and feeling from an visual and functional (and audible too, though that has nothing to do with looks) point of view... I totally do.
Thanks for reading!
Doug
Unfortunately, ATT wasn't very nice to us and even though they said they'd wave the ETF if we sent in documents proving that we were moving over seas (which we did ASAP), they didn't. And on top of that, we didn't find out until just now, and the ETF went into collection. So I paid $500 to restore my wife's credit, which was almost perfect before that! Needless to say, I don't want to give ATT any more of our money.
It's either Sprint or Verizon. Both seem to offer decent phones, but I've heard that the EVO (which is the primary reason to go with Sprint, not sure about the Epic?) is hit and miss and that the battery life is less than stellar. Sprint seems to be slightly more expensive if you go with a 4G phone (and why wouldn't you go with one?) because they charge you $10 per phone for a service which doesn't yet exist in most places, realistically speaking.
Verizon on the other hand, while perhaps being slightly cheaper ($160 a month for the family plan with talk/text and 2 data plans) doesn't offer unlimited talk between any mobile phone. Only 5 friends per line and other Verizon subs. And unlimited nights/weekends start at 9 pm opposed to Sprint's 7 pm.
All that being said, it kind of boils down to which carrier currently has the best phone(s) for a person who is most concerned with:
1. Call quality and reception. (after all, we do still make PHONE calls, right?)
2. Speed and consistency of data throughput.
3. Intuitive GUI across the board. The iPhone seems to actually excel in this department. Maybe because there are less options to fiddle with than on other phones in its class.
4. Accurate, intuitive and comfortable keyboard whether it be touch or otherwise.
5. Speed. There's nothing worse than a sluggish OS on a phone. I was using my friends Verizon version of the Samsung GalaxyS the other day (Fascinate?), and everything on it seemed to be very zippy, except for when I tried getting a gps satellite to fix on our location. I handed it back to her because I got utterly frustrated waiting for something to happen. Heck, my several year old HTC Tilt was able to get a GPS fix in seconds.. what's up with that ?
For the time being, I'm using an el' cheapo, no frills Boos Mobile phone (which is fine if all you care about is text and calls. The UI is just, well... not even worth getting into a discussion about. My wife on the other hand, has nothing, and I was going to just give her the T-Mobile SIM I was using in my iPhone when I first got back here (I came back before her) and let her top it up, but that's not exactly cheap either, and there's no data unless you pay a silly amount more. And for that, you may as well just sign up for another plan at that point.
So here I (we) am/are. I guess it's silly to ask (yet again) about whether or not it's worth it to wait for a dual core processor or for Gingerbread. But I'd love to see some continuity between the Android handsets, and overall more stability within the OS, but I guess that's what 3.0 will be bringing to the table. But is it silly to ask whether or not any of the current offerings will be able to handle the 3.0 update ? After all, the Samsung phones I'm looking at on Verizon and Sprint aren't even on 2.2. Are they going to be ? And why the delay if yes ?
Not sure of what else to ask, really. I guess my questions sound standard, redundant and loaded ? I really want to know what people's experiences are between carriers, and phones, from a standpoint that lots of domestic traveling will be going on. We love to hike up in the mountains upstate and such, drive to different states for the occasional trip etc..
And though I haven't really mentioned anything which would indicate that I want my phone to be ridiculously slick looking and feeling from an visual and functional (and audible too, though that has nothing to do with looks) point of view... I totally do.
Thanks for reading!
Doug