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I'm getting a cell phone for the first time do any of you guys have suggestions on what to buy or look for?

Something that does not involve Apple. iTunes is an awful virus to get.

I've been pretty happy with the Samsung Galaxy.

Consider that which follows:

1. What do I want my phone to do (new, internet, ect.)?
2. What is my budget for initial payment to get phone?
3. How much will this cost me to operate phone monthly (keep in mind if you have contracts, this is a monthly fee)?

This will give us a better idea what you are looking for.

I suggest you need to think long and hard whether being able to browse Facebook 24/7 is worth the cost of a high-end computer, because that's what you're paying for a smartphone. If it's not, just get the cheapest phone you can on a contract where you only pay for minutes and texts you actually use.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I suggest you need to think long and hard whether being able to browse Facebook 24/7 is worth the cost of a high-end computer, because that's what you're paying for a smartphone.

If all you do with a smartphone is that, your argument holds water, but I posit that a great many people make more use of the functionality of their phones.

 Ouze wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I suggest you need to think long and hard whether being able to browse Facebook 24/7 is worth the cost of a high-end computer, because that's what you're paying for a smartphone.

If all you do with a smartphone is that, your argument holds water, but I posit that a great many people make more use of the functionality of their phones.

For example, taking pictures, posting them on Facebook, and then getting fired from your job when they see those pictures on Facebook.

We also have a 40,000 post long thread in the DCM forum dedicated to this function.

I suggest a LG smartphone. They're of a good quality, and relatively cheap, too. Memory may be an issue, but I got a SD card with mine for free, so no need to worry about that. SD cards are cheap, anyways, so.. Nokia is a solid option, too.


This one was my first smartphone, the LG Optimus L3 (one huge name ). It's small, so it fits in your pocket easily. Same goes for your hands. It doesn't have a big memory, but it's cheap (€75,-) where I'm at, and decent quality. It does, however, not have the latest Android operating system, and the screen is rather low-res.


My current phone, the LG E440 Optimus L4 II (another huge name!). It's using the latest Android operating system, has a decent camera, and I got a free MicroSD with it, which is cool. I bought it for €125,- which is stil cheap for a smartphone. Good screen, hasn't crashed while I've had it, which is around 6 months. I'd recommend this beauty


And as for normal cell phone - smartphone: I'd go smartphone. As long as you have an internet connection somewhere, calling and texting people who have a smartphone is free (as long as they have Skype and Whatsapp, both of whom pretty much 99% of the world has on their smartphone). You can do way more on a Smartphone than on a normal cell phone - mine has certainly come in handy.

 Fafnir wrote:
Something that does not involve Apple. iTunes is an awful virus to get.

I see what you did there. I see it and i love it.

Exalted.

The basic choice is between a standard phone and a smartphone. Amazingly, you can still make and receive calls and texts on a standard phone. They are cheap to buy and run, and less liable to be stolen.

Smartphones, of course, give you many genuinely useful functions such as GPS mapping and truly mobile email. I recently swapped my old Nokia for a shiny Sony M and I love it. (Except for the small size of the touch screen buttons, which make it difficult to type.) The system is Android, which is an open source OS from Google.

IDK what sort of contracts you can get in Canada. In the UK we can easily get cheap PAYG (Pay As You Go) deals where you buy the phone and top up credit when your account runs low. As long as you don't use the phone, you don't have to pay anything. You are not tied into a contract so you can switch operators very easily.

OTOH most of the monthly payment contracts, which let you get a phone cheaply, tie you in for 24 months.

If you have never had a phone, I would recommend buying the cheapest phone you can find, and running it as cheaply as possible, until you get an idea how much you really want to use it. You can get a more advanced handset later on if you need it.

If you get a smartphone I recommend one with a memory card slot, and that you save your photos and other data onto it. If the phone breaks it makes things a little less miserable.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

IDK what sort of contracts you can get in Canada.

As far as phone and internet plans are concerned in Canada, they rank slightly below "putting nails through my genitalia" on my scale of pleasantness.

It all depends if you want a phone just to make calls, or if you want a smartphone to use the internet on.

I got a cheap LG phone and a years service for $100 and it does what it is meant to do - make calls.

And +1 on the Apple advice too. Avoid them like a bubonic plague infected rat.

A cell Phone is... well, just a cell phone. In my opinion you don't need to take pictures, play games, go on internet, use facebook, etc... There still is a laptop.
A cell phone is for calling and texting. No more, no less.

I myself have a nokia. Yeah the old square ones. It fits my needs.

I don't want to carry a laptop with me so a phone that can browse the Internet and take photos and all the other things is great. I don't want to carry a laptop everywhere just to use the Internet. Also my phone has 3G, my laptop needs wifi or the phone to tether, so I'd need the phone anyway. I'm visiting my gf now so don't want to drag a computer around but do want to browse the Internet and Twitter, etc, I never use Facebook though. I have an iPhone 4S, I don't understand the hate. It's like listening to people fighting about what console is best, xbox or playstation. It really doesn't matter, as a functional tool it's very good at what it does and I'm very pleased with it.

so you are telling you can't be without the internet?
Even with your girlfriend you go on twitter etc?
I don't know how your girlfriend likes that, bit if I do that my girlfriend will be mad with me for hours. I don't have the urge to use the internet when I'm in direct social contact with others. In real life that is.

I pay £16 for my nokia lumia 520 with unlimited texts, unlimited 3g and 100 minutes of calls a month, it's a nice phone.

Smartphones, once you set them up properly, are hugely helpful tools that can squeeze all your other various gadgets into one pocket. Offhand over the course of an average week I'll use mine to:
Plan out a trip with maps, gps, and good food/gas locations
Schedule calendar dates with automatic reminders
Alarm clock
Take pictures of family/friends and pass them around
Easily pass different forms of data around with text/email
Plug into a car stereo for fresh jams on the go
Respond to email instantly
Occasionally call people

And do it all on a big touchscreen that takes seconds to switch tasks with some practice. Once you get used to it, it's hard to go back to a normal cellphone. Just make sure you have a good protective case, and some means of backing up all your information. Smartphones have a death wish and will frequently try to leap out of your hand and plummet towards the pavement.

Well I tend to spend whole weekends with her, or for New Years I was around for four days. It's not like I'm on twitter in the middle of a dinner date. I also tend to use it when I'm on the train as I have a 90 minute commute. since having the phone, I tend not to sit down with the laptop and browse the Internet in the evening. I do it piecemeal throughout the day.

Smartphone: because you will take a crap at some time, and you don't want to be bored when you do it!

If you're a filthy drunk, or intend on becoming one, then the likelyhood of loosing things increases substantially. I recommend a practical but shameful brick phone.

I've never had a smartphone myself but most people that I know that do have an iPhone. Some that have switched to the Samsung/HTC versions have preferred them over their iPhones. I've also noticed that iPhone screens seem to be made out of eggshells.

 d-usa wrote:
Smartphone: because you will take a crap at some time, and you don't want to be bored when you do it!

That deserves an exalt, I think.


Also, a lot of people are complaining about itunes. It's a totally fair rap in my experience. At one point a few years back I bought an ipod nano - the first idevice I ever bought. It was a triumph of engineering - everything worked super well, it was amazingly compact, the little screen was crisp and clear, the video the camera shot was HD, the genius feature was terrific. It was probably - no definitely - the best mp3 player I ever owned, hardware wise.

Itunes, though. It was the massive turd chained around that things neck. It was so awful, so unusable, and so irrevocably tethered to the mp3 player that I finally sold the nano to a coworker (for only $5 off what I paid retail, which was mindblowing).

I imagine to Apple, software development for a competing platform is not a high priority for them, but it's a real shame they didn't make more of an effort.

It also doesn't help that it's a system resources hog. And that the way it stores metadata is just awful. Just awful.
Not to mention that they always try to sneak in extraneous software updates with the millions of ones iTunes will need. Good luck getting it off your computer once it's been installed, too.

I've had a Samsung Juke since '08 and couldn't be happier with it.

Like seemingly 90% of the population of london I have an iPhone and really like it.

I have never damaged it but I rarely get to the pub these days so that could be why.

On The cost side of things calls and texts are easy to work out but data can be more tricky. I use mine for allot of work, so regularly use my phone as a wifi hotspot, this burns through data like a bitch. So if this is a possibility go for unlimited data, most contracts will charge an arm and a leg for going over limits and its easily done.

I have a Sony Xperia Play. It was the first new phone I got, the previous ones were all second hand brick type phones. So this being the first smartphone I got, with an added gaming side (at the time I got this it was gaming better than my laptop which could only run minecraft at 5fps) it has served me well and still going after about 2 years I think, and I hope to continue using it!

But yes, just get one based on what you will actually use it for! What do you want from the phone, and buy to that specifically, and your budget too.

HTC One right here. Pure badness.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
HTC One right here. Pure badness.

I just read this article about companies not expected to survive 2014, and was much saddened to see HTC was on that list (!). They've got a lot of problems, which is a shame because previous to my Samsung, I always had HTC phones and I liked them a great deal. In fact, my stepson is still using my Nexus One to this very day - a spectacular phone in my opinion.

I'm still stuck in the whole "Should I get an HTC One? Or an S4? Or a sim-free S3? Or wait until they're all a bit cheaper? But then I'd mainly use it for mobile internet, but then I have no idea what data usage level I'd be at, but unlimited internet only comes with 3, and only on sims with a bazillion calls and texts...

"Maybe my blackberry can hold on another few days whilst I figure it out." *Forgets about a new phone completely* sort of thing.

I have a Japanese HTC One. It's very good. The body is sturdy enough, although my screen has a single crack in the middle from being dropped about six inches. Just bad luck on my part, I think. The Japanese one has an SD port, but I don't think tha american ones do.