The official tablet (and other useless electronics) thread!

[HAULN-SS]

Ive actually been thinking about going the prepaid phone route lately. It's just as cheap, other than the up front phone cost.

[Evan]

After seeing a lot of friends with the 'big screen' samsung phone, I have to say I'm tempted to try it... is there a way to get 'just the tip' to try it out without going 'balls deep' on a 2 year contract?

yes.

Google Nexus 4, with a Tmobile monthly4G no commitment plan or straight talk AT&T prepaid plan.

or buy a GS3 and use it with a prepaid plan but nexus 4 is a better and cheaper phone.

but didnt you just re-up your contract with a new sheepPhone a little while ago?

[Ken]

So the digitizer on my HTC Evo 3D started to flake out (after less than a year and a half...lame)
and coincidentally Ive been jonesin to experiment with some different phones anyway since android is starting to feel very stale.
my contract is (long since) up, and I ported my primary number to google voice so that gives me some flexibility to try a bunch of different stuff under prepaid plans without making a long term commitment.

So I picked up a Nokia Lumia 900 a couple weeks ago and have been playing around with it.


Its windows phone 7.5, not the newest winphone 8 that just came out unfortunately but it should give me a good idea what winphone in general is like.

the hardware is nice and the amoled screen REALLY pops, especially with the high contrast design of win phone. if youre into 'style' of your phone, its got a great industrial design. the polycarbonate case feels solid and bulletproof too.

I wont go into too much detail about win phone, but to sum it up, its a very good, intuitive and very fast OS. (even despite the older single core processor) with some drawbacks.

the good:
as stated above its very fast, fluid and intuitive. live tiles are a step beyond even widgets and its great to get everything you need in a quick glance at the phone.
i havent been left wanting for any apps, especially if im willing to pay $1 for something. And there are some apps that are better than other OSes.
Nokia music is like free pandora, but you can download a station into offline mode and listen to it without a connection. very cool
Nokia drive is a navigation app, but you can download maps for offline use. maps of the whole country, making it a real offline nav unit that works even when you hit that data dead spot.
IE is very fast, even faster than chrome mobile despite the slower processor. drawback is changing tabs takes an extra tap which is annoying

the bad
Nokia maps is a passable google maps alternative, but the maps dont have quite the resolution and its a little sluggish.
the win phone email app is terrible. far and away the worst part of the phone experience (and really the only bad part) It uses fonts that are way too big only 5 emails are visible on screen at a time and threaded viewing is clunky and takes too many taps. i need to play with winphone 8 to see if they have fixed this, but its a shame because everything else is very good, but email is a major use of a phone so it really kills the experience.


it was a fun experiment but I dont think ill keep this phone as my "daily driver" for much longer. as stale and boring as android is, its comfortable and does what i need it to do relatively quickly, so ill probably go back.

next experiment: google voice+voip on an android phone with a cheap data only plan

I have the 920, i guess i see your point about the e-mail only showing 5 at a time but the font size can be changed if that's an issue. I actually like the threaded viewing, removes cluster of the same e-mail being shown over and over again.

Overall though i love it, everything works perfectly and with the Snapdragon processor everything moves quickly. Camera is outstanding, tested the stabilization feature they touted by shaking my hand as a i took pictures and the results were pretty impressive.

Haven't gotten a chance to mess with the Xbox SmartGlass yet, looks cool though. I love the live-tiles as well, great to not have to click into the app.

Battery life has been great, i watch netflix during my lunch on it for almost an hour and i still get about 16hr life out of it. Love how it seamlessly syncs up with my music, honestly a big portion of why i switched from android. hated not having my playlists copy over without some dumb app. Even cooler that when playing it has artist pictures and such in the background. The Dolby Equalizer actually makes a difference too, so that's appreciated.

All in all, an awesome phone, especially for the relatively low price paid.

[Ken]

Oh, and for those who need the all important "group text" it works perfectly with those too.

[Evan]

yeah the 920 has the 720p screen so im sure that makes a big difference, along with evolutionary improvements in win phone 8. a coworker is about to order an htc 8x so I need to play with it for a while.

im sure 8 fixed 99% of the problems with 7.5, im just not sure im quite willing to do a 2 year 'balls deep' (as rj puts it) commitment on win phone 8 quite just yet.

after im done playing around with different phones ill reevaluate.

[Apoc]

After seeing a lot of friends with the 'big screen' samsung phone, I have to say I'm tempted to try it... is there a way to get 'just the tip' to try it out without going 'balls deep' on a 2 year contract?

open your miiiiiiind

[.RJ]

After seeing a lot of friends with the 'big screen' samsung phone, I have to say I'm tempted to try it... is there a way to get 'just the tip' to try it out without going 'balls deep' on a 2 year contract?

open your miiiiiiind

[JPolen01]

So it seems that facebook's offer and acquisition of Instagram for $1 billion may not have been just to show off their cash. Twitter is reported to have offered and had a verbal agreement to acquire Instagram for $525 million.
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[HAULN-SS]

Anyone using a windows phone? I was by ATT today messing with the Lumia 920. Turns out they are the only ones that have it and the 822 verizon has is similar specs but shittier screen and such. ATTs network is shitty compared to verizon at least in my area. Thought about maybe trying out the HTC phone, but it felt like cheap shit compared to the Nokia

[HAULN-SS]

well then i saw the previous posts. I guess the real question might be is there a win phone on a network that is not ATT

[Ken]

Yes, all other carriers have the HTC 8X i believe. There should be a Samsung ATIV Odyssey coming out soon as well for verizon. On a related note, love windows phone so far. Finally got around to trying out Xbox SmartGlass and that is really cool as well.

[WRXtranceformed]

My N7 is still rolling strong. No glitches, super fast, perfect for travel. Love it so far. Have had multiple comments about it from random travelers asking what it is, mentioning that the graphics are amazing, etc. If you're into Android, for the price I still don't think you can beat it.

I played around with the Surface tablet and I really liked it. might be a replacement for my laptop when that thing goes out.

[HAULN-SS]

Ehh..I aint really trying to buy an HTC phone. I might look into the Samsung. The question might be whether I can hold out long enough until Verizon gets the Lumia 920, or ATT gets real 4G in my area.

[Evan]

A coworker just got a HTC 8X on verizon. He is a big gadget nerd and he LOVES it like its his child.
The ativ oddyssey is a meh entry level phone.

To not buy an HTC just because its HTC is plain ignorant.

Verizon should get the 920 in march or april if they choose to carry it at all. Should be some new phones announced at mobile world congress in feb.

[Evan]

My N7 is still rolling strong. No glitches, super fast, perfect for travel. Love it so far. Have had multiple comments about it from random travelers asking what it is, mentioning that the graphics are amazing, etc. If you're into Android, for the price I still don't think you can beat it.

I played around with the Surface tablet and I really liked it. might be a replacement for my laptop when that thing goes out.

My N7 has gotten PAINFULLY slow for some reason. like....tap and wait 2 seconds slow.
I need to wipe it and start over, but no idea why it got so sluggish. My Evo3d never did that. :dunno:

[HAULN-SS]

The HTC felt like cheap shit compared to the 920, for starters. I just read a thing that said theres a new phone coming on the heels of the 920 called "catwalk" or something that will be aluminum. Might be an option on verizon if they dont get the 920, but I for one liked the weight of the 920..it passed the car door shutting test.

[Ken]

A coworker just got a HTC 8X on verizon. He is a big gadget nerd and he LOVES it like its his child.
The ativ oddyssey is a meh entry level phone.

To not buy an HTC just because its HTC is plain ignorant.

Verizon should get the 920 in march or april if they choose to carry it at all. Should be some new phones announced at mobile world congress in feb.

Ahh had no idea, last i checked the Odyssey was supposed to be basically the S3 but windows. After i got my 920 i stopped caring lol.

[CaptainHenreh]

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Rexy want. I actually thought of something like this a while back, but...eh. I'm happy to let someone else run with it.

[Apoc]

lulz. The Enlightened are mostly on the east side, where Microsoft and the like are.

[WRXtranceformed]

That's weird Evan, I haven't had any issues with lag at all. Sometimes it is a little sluggish swiping screens right after you boot it up (as it is updating email apps, etc.). Other than that though it has been rock solid.