Smartphones

My phone got cut off again today! this is driving me crazy, I wish telecom or c mobile did proper 3G so I could switch

I just bought the Samsung Galaxy Note 2, wow... what a phone!

I am totally in love with it so far. I even love the s-pen, despite thinking I wouldn't use it much. It has so many cool features too!

Yeah those things look awesome. Unfortunately not in the budget for me anytime soon, but I'm pretty content with my best phone in the world ever

Yeah those things look awesome. Unfortunately not in the budget for me anytime soon, but I'm pretty content with my best phone in the world ever

So what's that?  Before I got this one I would have said that's the Nokia N95 8gb   

My xperia Play.

Pokemon and Final Fantasy on the go! who would have thought it's possible.

Seriously though I dont know what I will do when I need to upgrade as I doubt a new model with a gamepad will be released.

So...I'm yet again considering getting a smartphone, as a christmas present to myself.

I don't know whether to go with Android or Windows phone...any advice? I assumed Android would be a dodgy choice seeing how google don't get on with the Chinese government very well. My friend however says that Windows phone charges a lot of money for apps. Which would you go for?


I'm considering the Nokia Lumia 920 or the Sony Xperia T. I want a smashing camera and potential for lots of storage so I can use the phone to replace my lost ipod. Perhaps the Nokia is not the best for this since there's no microSD slot. Any suggestions? Maybe the galaxy S3? It's all so bloody confusing.

 I am probably getting the Galaxy S2 for a birthday present to myself. My son and 2 friends back home have it and are very happy. My son is a geek and says the S3 is not as good as the S3 for reasons that were incomprehensible to me. But as you say NATO bloody confusing...

I am probably getting the Galaxy S2 for a birthday present to myself. My son and 2 friends back home have it and are very happy. My son is a geek and says the S3 is not as good as the S3 for reasons that were incomprehensible to me. But as you say NATO bloody confusing...

Are you sure he's not talking about the Galaxy NOTE 2? The S2 definitely isn't better than the S3.

I have a Note 2 and it's superb.

No he is NOT talking about the NOTE. He doesn;'t wan that at all. Last time I spoke to him he said the III was buggy but that was a while back. He has just bought himself (and I am paying apparently) the Asus Zenbook. He is a geek and knows about these things.

As another geek, I can confirm that the s2 is nowhere near as awesome as the s3.

Ok James I will check out if I can afford the S3 when I get home...

Samsung Galaxy SIII

As a shopper, I bargain like a puppy hunts, so for mah brand new Samsung galaxy S3 I overpaid. It is not uncommon for me to bargain the price up when I shop, but that's not what happened this time. In my head for a few months I'd been working with the proposition that an S3 costs 4000 or more, so when the lady said 4200 for a GT-i9300 with 16GB built-in sdcard, I thought "Score!" because the real price should be 3400 or thereabouts. Yes, you did read that right. In any case, I bought it.

Day 1: Impressions...

It's huge. Also fast. With nary a Google in sight. Search defaults to Baidu. The weather and news apps link to Sina. There's a thing called Samsung Apps that calls up an online store that isn't Google Play. The "Add Account" setting, which I presume is this phone's analogue of a gmail sign in, will let you add a Samsung, a ChatON, an Email, an LDAP, or a Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync account. If the email account you set is to gmail, maybe you're phone can connect, but I don't know. I don't want to try.

This phone came with Android 4.0 and pretty much the first thing I did, after wifi-ing into the home internet, was go Settings > About device > Software update. The update is big, but on wifi it's a breeze, so now I have Android 4.1.1. But still no Google.

This phone... it's going to be dropped. It handles like a greeting card, or a rectangle of beveled glass. It's the wrong combination of thin and wide, which is probably what I first thought way back when I first got my HTC Desire, but added to that is it's slick. The front glass is flat, which is fine, but the back shell is glossy. The whole device feels as if it is covered in a thin glaze of oil. Which it will be minutes after you first pick it up. Oh, for a matte, unpolished rear end! It would make the teacup saucer ergonomics bearable. I may have to take some sandpaper to it.

On the upside, the battery seems to be a winner, and I discovered that I wasn't in fact cheated twice. On purchase of this device I had confirmed several times with the lady that this was indeed the 16GB model, but when I got home, the file manger I installed said 3GB used, 7GB free. It was the 10GB model (of which I have never heard) and I paid for 16? No, it's the 16. On the 16GB model, only about 11GB is accessible. I don't know why.

Day 2: Now, to find a sensible firmware...

My Lenovo has a matte finish CP and that's partly why I like it. I have dropped it a surprisingly small number of times. But you could probably get a case for your Galaxy that would make it less slippery.

Also, I have my phone (that also runs on Android 4.0) synched with my gmail account and I have no problems. It actually works much better than my computer gmail for some reason. I don't have google anything else either, I just have my email synched.

Samsung Galaxy SIII


It's huge. Also fast. With nary a Google in sight. Search defaults to Baidu. The weather and news apps link to Sina. There's a thing called Samsung Apps that calls up an online store that isn't Google Play. The "Add Account" setting, which I presume is this phone's analogue of a gmail sign in, will let you add a Samsung, a ChatON, an Email, an LDAP, or a Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync account. If the email account you set is to gmail, maybe you're phone can connect, but I don't know. I don't want to try.

see my previous epic postings... exactly the same problem but mine was an SII a year earlier ...

if you find a way round this let us know please

Yup.

And as LD suggests, one can add a gmail account to the phone and it'll sync nicely. However, even with that gmail account on the phone, my preferred rss reader (Minimal Reader, which syncs with Google Reader) still tells me I lack "a google account registered on this phone." It seems the usual google apps hegemonic expansionist propaganda tools have been excised from this "Android 4" (baseband version: I9300ZCDLJ4). In their place is registration with "Samsung Account", which doesn't give you access to google apps but does give you access to "Samsung Apps".

The solution is likely to be the flashing of something.