My first smartphone -To be decided

**jfreak_** · October 10th, 2012

Hi guys.. Long time since I have posted..

This is my current phone

And I am thinking of getting the Lumia 800 for around $350 from my home in south asia. What do you guys think? I know its a one year old phone which is not going to be upgraded and I cannot afford the latest and greatest phone. All I need is to listen to music, play the occasional mini-game,keep track of football scores and trawl through wikipedia and 9gag and most importantly integrate my workplace official outlook account into my phone (is this possible?) Calling and carriers are no concern since I travel A LOT to very diverse countries and I need to get a separate phone there anyway. Also don't care about 4G, LTE or any of the newfangled wireless connections which is not available in my home country.
Also FYI, the S2 costs $450 and Lumia 900 costs $500 which is out of my range anyway.
The 3.7" screen is a bit worrying, I would have preferred a 4" but can't find anything comparable in my price range. I have no clue whatsoever about HTC phones.
I also do not care about app store size, since I guess the commonly used apps will be there on all platforms.
Also I don't care about front camera. The back camera should be just decent enough as I have a top of the line point and shoot camera.
Yeah, I don't pirate music so Nokia's free music for a year scheme is attractive (I understand its DRM free now.. I think).

There so what do you think, good choice or not or you have alternate suggestions? I connect to my Ubuntu system only when I am home (which is rare) so Ubuntu compatibility is not a deal breaker.

**thomasw_lrd** · October 10th, 2012

I had an HTC phone, and I really liked it. I believe it was the Inspire 4G. It was a little buggy, but I never was sure if it was Android or HTC's interpretation thereof. Everything worked well, but occasionally the camera software would crap out, and I would have to restart the phone to get the camera to work.

**mamamia88** · October 10th, 2012

Originally Posted by thomasw_lrd

I had an HTC phone, and I really liked it. I believe it was the Inspire 4G. It was a little buggy, but I never was sure if it was Android or HTC's interpretation thereof. Everything worked well, but occasionally the camera software would crap out, and I would have to restart the phone to get the camera to work.

same phone i had until i dropped it in the toilet. actually ordered another and should be in tommorow. good phone no front facing camera and bad battery but it's easy enough to slip an extra fully charged battery in my wallet if needed. check out cowboom.com for decent deals on phones.

**aysiu** · October 10th, 2012

I've owned only three smartphones, but the best has been the HTC Glacier (MyTouch 4G). I had to give it up because I switched carriers, and the phone is tied closely to the carrier in the US.

**IWantFroyo** · October 10th, 2012

The cheapest option (if you can buy a plan from a GSM provider):
http://www.amazon.com/HP-P160-Unlock...ywords=hp+veer
It was discontinued, and is IMO a good phone. The software works nicely, and you can install homebrew easily for patches.
It isn't a good idea if you want a big screen, though. It's screen is tiny, although the operating system it has works well on small screens.

**mamamia88** · October 10th, 2012

Originally Posted by IWantFroyo

The cheapest option (if you can buy a plan from a GSM provider):
http://www.amazon.com/HP-P160-Unlock...ywords=hp+veer
It was discontinued, and is IMO a good phone. The software works nicely, and you can install homebrew easily for patches.
It isn't a good idea if you want a big screen, though. It's screen is tiny, although the operating system it has works well on small screens.

don't reccomend anything with palm os since it's basically dead

**Merrattic** · October 10th, 2012

HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy SIII

**IWantFroyo** · October 10th, 2012

Originally Posted by mamamia88

don't reccomend anything with palm os since it's basically dead

webOS was more or less dropped by HP, but still has an excellent homebrew community, isn't locked, and is now open source. I still don't regret getting my Veer.

For me the big problem is lack of competition among app developers. It's not the type of phone you play games or have a lot of apps on. What it does is call, email, and SMS and it does it nicely.

If you think you want to try rooting, ROMS, or more than 5 apps then get an Android or iPhone.

**Redzky** · October 18th, 2012

Originally Posted by thomasw_lrd

I had an HTC phone, and I really liked it. I believe it was the Inspire 4G. It was a little buggy, but I never was sure if it was Android or HTC's interpretation thereof. Everything worked well, but occasionally the camera software would crap out, and I would have to restart the phone to get the camera to work.

Ya, that's Pretty much what you run into with Android phones. Everything is pretty much worked out with a restart and lasts til you get your free upgrade every 2 years or so, depending on your plan.

I got the Evo 4g Design at the moment. Works fine, I used to have Evo 4g. I still use the Evo 4g when I take pics though because I like how they come out.

Had them both for about 2 years. They both work fine and I cracked the hell out of the glass on the Evo 4g. Should be getting my upgrade soon.

**CharlesA** · October 18th, 2012

The Android phone I have has issues with 3G sometimes and Winamp like to "crash" but keep on playing until I hit the "force close" button. I've had a coworker mention the same thing happens with the stock app on his S3.