Anything out there better than the iphone?

[BongoBanger]

Another huge thing that most of these things lack is large internal flash memory. You simply cannot get a smartphone with 16GB internal memory that I know of aside from iPhone.

The Nokia N96 has 16GB internal plus another 16GB expandable giving it 32GB. The Samsung Omnia also has this as does the i8510. Most of the N-Series can also take 16GB cards.

The original question is a bit strange. If you're buying a phone you should buy it because it works for you. If you want an awesome UI and an integrated experience and accept the restricitions that gives then get an iPhone, if you do a lot of e-mails and business functionality then get a BlackBerry or a Nokia E71. If you want a combination of the two and are prepared to accept some compromises then get an Omnia or a Diamond.

Horses for courses.

 

[DigMe]

The Nokia N96 has 16GB internal plus another 16GB expandable giving it 32GB. The Samsung Omnia also has this as does the i8510. Most of the N-Series can also take 16GB cards.

Cool! Glad to see some other companies have finally gotten on board with that!

 

[kdarling]

the HTC Touch HD looks pretty impressive, although I don't think any of these phones will have the sales figures and therefore support that the iphone has.

IIRC, there were over 14 million WM phones sold last year. So the total of all models surpasses iPhone sales... which means there's plenty of support. And diversity of choice.

I also disagree that WM devices are more stable. 2.0-2.0.2 did give the iPhone quite a black eye in terms of crashing and stability, but even then, there is a huge difference in experience between an iPhone app rash and a WM crash. With an iPhone, if the app crashes, oh well, back at the home screen you go, and you can often relaunch and pick up where you left off.

Yes, Apple was smart to crash back to the home screen. OTOH, many owners have to go through restores to fix odd bugs. I can't think of any other phone where you have to reload the entire OS in order to recover. A WM reset is nothing in comparison.

The biggest problem with WM is its ancient 32 process limit and weird memory map. WM7 should be based on WinCE 6 or 7, which fixes that. Can't come soon enough.

 

[littlewaywelt]

Having owned a Treo 750 and a Samsung Blackjack I totally agree with your statement. Yes, you can make a WM device do more and you can do more hacks with it.

The problem is that of all the things I've seen a WM device do, it does them all very poorly.

Very poorly? I couldn't disagree more. It's not as elegant as iPhone, but it does many things very well and in a vastly more powerful and customizable way, even at the most basic level, like calendars, email and phone usage. Nearly every feature ppl complain that the iPhone is missing is available and works for WM.

Sure, you can edit Microsoft Office documents, and I did so when I had a Treo 750. I can't say I enjoyed the experience, nor did I actually produce anything productive, or that didn't require serious cleanup on an actual desktop before sending out. Contact and calendar sync was also a chore, especially if you have a solution in place other than Microsoft Outlook.

I had difficulty for the first few months with active sync, but then it worked perfectly. It was capable of syncing much more info than apple does. Other than Outlook? iPhone doesn't even do outlook or entourage syncing well, let alone lotus. With regard to documents, of course it's cumbersome to do on a small phone, but the point is that the capability is there if and when you need it. Plus being able to make a small edit and send a document back was huge.

The same I've found true for most of the other features. A lot of times they felt kludgy, had bugs, or I otherwise didn't feel safe relying entirely on my WM device for something.

I ran many solid programs, had lots of registry edits, and I had more crashes with iPhone in two months than I did with two plus years of WM usage.

I also disagree that WM devices are more stable. 2.0-2.0.2 did give the iPhone quite a black eye in terms of crashing and stability, but even then, there is a huge difference in experience between an iPhone app rash and a WM crash. With an iPhone, if the app crashes, oh well, back at the home screen you go, and you can often relaunch and pick up where you left off. With Windows Mobile, my phone crashed a lot, and every crash involved the whole phone, forcing a reboot whether you wanted to do it or not. On WM, there were times when I found myself having to muddle through the day with an inoperable phone, having to go back home, reset the device and re-sync to get my data back.

I never had a complete failure of either my treo 700w or wx in two plus years.

To me, that goes way beyond "just being pretty." And it was mainly because of my poor experiences with Windows Mobile that I had decided (until the iPhone) not use a smartphone for contact or calendar organization again. Even the Blackberry I used since then was solely an e-mail and phone-only device the way I used it. And a bad experience on a Blackberry where it started deleting all my e-mail slowly over the course of several hours kinda soured me on that platform, too.

The only thing I had similar to that in WM was the daylight savings bug, which was a monster of a problem.

After the WM fiasco, it took several months for the iPhone to gain enough trust from me to go back to using it as a calendar/contact organization tool. Though the ability to have my stuff synced across multiple computers and on MobileMe was a big help. This way I know if ever the iPhone does bail on me for the day (which it hasn't at all yet), I can at least get to a computer with web access and regroup.

I was also hesitant about iPhone initially, and it does keep things in sync across multiple platforms more consistently than active sync was capable of doing.

 

[Emth]

@itster

Firstly in regards to video recording, I find it funny when people just list off features that a certain phone doesn't have without really thinking how useful they might be. As far as I (and obviously many other people are concerned) video recording is not an important feature in a phone. I have had phones capable of video recording for years now and never once used it for anything other than testing it out, nor have I ever seen anyone else recording video on their phone. Maybe it's useful if you're on site at the next major terrorist attack.

Secondly, it's all very well bigging up WM, but the fact is there isn't a single phone on the market at the moment that puts everything together perfectly. The Omnia has a poor screen (low res, inferior touch interface as well as no glare reduction - important for me), the Diamond is a poor media player and has a much smaller screen. The Touch HD may be the iPhone killer in some ways, but by the time it comes out the iPhone will be half the price of it, and the iPhone2 will surely be well into the development cycle - meaning they won't be directly competing anyway.

 

[kas23]

@itster
Secondly, it's all very well bigging up WM, but the fact is there isn't a single phone on the market at the moment that puts everything together perfectly. The Omnia has a poor screen (low res, inferior touch interface as well as no glare reduction - important for me), the Diamond is a poor media player and has a much smaller screen. The Touch HD may be the iPhone killer in some ways, but by the time it comes out the iPhone will be half the price of it, and the iPhone2 will surely be well into the development cycle - meaning they won't be directly competing anyway.

1) HTC has confirmed that the Touch HD will not be available to the US market. iPhone owners can breath a sigh of relief.

http://gizmodo.com/5059900/htc-touch-hd-pretty-much-never-coming-to-the-us

2) I can't see the iPhone becoming anymore cheaper than it already is. Also, Apple products usually don't fall in price, the specs just improve while price remains constant.

 

[kdarling]

1) HTC has confirmed that the Touch HD will not be available to the US market. iPhone owners can breath a sigh of relief.

Later rumors claim the Touch HD will be coming to the USA with Android installed. That could be very interesting.

ATT sure hasn't put all its eggs in the iPhone basket. They continue to add competing smartphones to their portfolio, including the Diamond series. Would not be surprised if ATT picked up the HD as well.

 

[samiwas]

you guys gotta be kidding me right? "the mighty iphone"
you mean the device that cannot record video out of the box? or have an sd card slot? geez! even a free phone can do that stuff!

You mean that stuff that some of us don't care about? Yep. You are correct.

first of all you cannot compare units sales company vs company because apple does not license it's crappy OS to other vendors. Crappy i say???
yes crappy.. consider this.. how come apple os is not installed on generic devices?
let me help you with that.. COMPATABILITY!
notice how xp can be installed on a mac but osx cannot be installed on anything but an apple configured unit?notice how when apple allowed other vendors to build macs and it failed?

What, are you new? People have been installing and running Max OSX on PCs for a while now. Sorry.
The other vendor thing was quite a while ago, but if I recall...it never was that the operating system didn't work on those devices, it was that the vendors weren't producing high-quality results, which at the time was very much what Apple was going for.

notice how windows mobile 6 sold 18 million licenses and 11 million the year before? all during the iphone hype!
MS sold 14.3 million wm6 license in 6 months! iphone has not reached 10 million yet with 2 devices. you Apple waterheads better hop MS does not come up with their own phones because you know it will have the right amount of power to run their own very smoothly.

Yes, we get it. Windows has a bigger footprint than Apple does. I had almost forgotten this until you reminded me of the most obvious fact ever. Even though I love my Apple stuff, I would hope that no one here really thinks the iPhone is crushing other phone's sales at the moment. It's putting a big dent in them, yes...

There is actually no real innovation to the iphone besides multitouch.. wow.. wooooooow.. who cares about that in the real world besides kiddies?
can iphone sync with exchange??? oh wait, jobs begged MS for licensing.. yes it can now but has not made a tiny dent in the business world.

Wasn't the whole marketing campaign for the iPhone "The Smartphone for the rest of us"? Doesn't that in itself imply that it was not intended as an actual business phone? Due to people wanting it, they added the exchange support, so at least now they can compete. I don't think they envisioned every business professional suddenly dropping their backberry or WM phone, however.

for all you apple junkies.. touch screens have been out since the 90's with palm devices and the buttons on the screens have been out even longer.
and what is up with the heat sensing screen?? thats the most idiotic thing i have heard of! do the idiots at apple realize how many women have long nails and would not be able to use the phone?

HAHAHAHAHAH....yes, I'm sure this was at the top of their list when designing the thing. "Oh but what about women with long nails??? I guess we should just stop production!" News flash, homie...I watched some chick on the train yesterday endlessly texting on her iPhone (with that damn click sound turned on) and she had some very long nails. People can learn to function around barriers.

oh and the drm!! you guys must love that stuff that apple has you tied down with.

Only if you previously bought tracks from iTunes. iTunes is now going DRM free. My entire library is mp3 and thus DRM free and plays just fine with my phone. I have no issues there. And losing the DRM off an iTunes track is pretty freakin' simple.

i cant believe how much people hate MS that they would go and buy an inferior product with the basics not even avaible on the device for expansion and allow themselves to be controlled by jobs
it's like asking what would you prefer communism or democracy and you idiots would choose communism because it's cool to be a commie..
pathetic fools indeed!

See, here's the thing. My iPhone purchase had nothing to do with my hatred for MS, which I don't even really have, but because the iPhone does the things THAT..I..WANT..IT..TO..DO. I know it's really a crazy thought. You very well might not get it, but (sit down for this)...I do not care about MMS, video recording, carrying every song I've ever owned around with me, or hacking registries and junk. I just don't care. I wanted a phone that I could use to carry some tunes with me, sync my calendars, send and receive email, and enjoy while using it. And guess what...it does that perfectly for me.

here is a link to help you realize how stupid you waterheads really are when comparing sales to MS
http://www.intomobile.com/2008/08/0...mobile-licenses-misses-20-million-target.html

Yes and McDonalds sells more cheeseburgers than Friday's. Are McDonald's cheeeseburgers better? Good God no. Sales don't mean jack to a lot of people.

<quote>by the way, my wm6 and 6.1 has never ever crashed no matter what i have done to it and i do plenty! i have had the treo 700wx, sch-i760 and xv6800[/QUOTE]

Yeah, mine doesn't really crash either.

I don't get why every little WM fanboy thinks that every phone user wants every feature known to man, and that they all want to hack it to death and make it do cool ****. We don't. We're the rest of us.

 

[Marcio Figueira]

Is there a phone out there right now that anyone thinks is better than the iphone in terms of style, performance and features?
I used to update my phone almost every other month, but nothing has made turn the other way yet.
Notable mentions:
HTC Touch HD
Nokia Tube

the nokia n96

 

[xraydoc]

The BlackBerry Storm looks very appealing to me. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE my iPhone, but there is ZERO AT&T service inside the building at work. Not just the iPhone's fault - no one on GSM (AT&T, T-Mobile) gets any service, though Verizon and Sprint work perfectly, so that's up to 14 hrs per day when I can't receive or make calls.

I doubt I'll switch (back) to Verizon and give up the iPhone, but if I had to do it all over again, the BB Storm would make for tough competition.

 

[Bryan Bowler]

Is there a phone out there right now that anyone thinks is better than the iphone in terms of style, performance and features?

No.

 

[dannyboxer]

Dude, nothing in the world can beat the iPhone except the next iPhone whenever it comes out. The iPhone just dose everything so well as looks so good. Just be happy with what you've got and enjoy it instead of just constantly looking for new things.

 

[chris200x9]

define better, if you mean more open (as I do) yes and I regret my iphone purchase every day.....if you mean feature / tech than no there are things comprable but not better.

 

[BergerFan]

I wanted a phone that I could use to carry some tunes with me, sync my calendars, send and receive email, and enjoy while using it...

There it is, in a nutshell.
Sure, other devices can do a whole lot more, but honestly, do you truthfully enjoy using them?

 

[okrelayer]

google phone, bb thunder, and iPhone are pretty much the only viable
Phones.

 

[sandra7109]

I am waiting for the BB storm to come out and if it's as good as it sounds I will be switching.

 

[Mr. Giver '94]

I understand, I am one of those that won't be changing phones for a long time because I love my iphone, but I have been noticing a lot of iphone wannabe's popping up the last couple of months and was just wondering if anyone thought any of these phones might give the mighty iphone a run for the money.

Nope. The wannabe iPhones are just that. They lack the features, UI, and user friendliness that the iPhone offers.

 

[kdarling]

They lack the features, UI, and user friendliness that the iPhone offers.

Depends on what you're after.

Sure, the iPhone UI is dirt simple so anyone can use it (mostly), but it's just so... 1980s with its grid of icons and inactive homescreen. I had really expected Apple to break through with some new UI paradigm, but all they did was go back twenty five years, even to non-multitasking. Well, I suppose there's some genius in that, going back to simpler times.

One of my grown up kids already an iPhone. Another just got one the other day. He was understandably excited about Google Maps, having never had a smartphone before.

My wife said we needed to go look for costumes at a certain Party City in another town. But were they still open? Aha, time for a little fun.

He grabbed his 3G iPhone, and I opened an old WM5 non-touch flip phone with just a numeric keypad. He grinned, since I had no keyboard. He clicked Maps and started typing "party city", after which he'd scroll the resulting map to the right one. (Assuming there weren't more than ten listings, of course.)

I clicked my Live Search Mobile button and spoke "party city in wayne new jersey". A few seconds later I hit a key twice to indicate that yes, I meant wayne and party city. Up came the listing. A couple of clicks later and I was talking to the store.

Which way was easier, simpler, faster? Just a thought. Always more than one way to skin a cat.

 

[cellocello]

Which way was easier, simpler, faster?

The iPhone.

 

[Delpheno]

The iPhone excels at two things and two things only:

1) User Interface
2) Music Player

/thread

 

[kdarling]

The iPhone.

Nope. The magnet on our refrigerator with Party City's number was.

 

[kas23]

It just seems like the best part of the iphone is the pride of ownership. I keep hearing these (hollow) arguments:

1) It does have many features because it as designed to be that way. An since it is does its (namely, few) designed features well, it must be a superior phone.

2) It looks better - this one is true, but shallow and subjective.

3) You enjoy using the iPhone better than other phones - again, very individualistic.

4a) This is the way Jobs intended the phone to be - nice excuse for missing features.

4b) If Jobs believed it was an important feature, He would have gave it to us - note the capital H.

5) Just be happy with what you've got and enjoy it instead of just constantly looking for new things - Just keep telling yourself this.... (btw, I copied and pasted this comment, ironically, something people on this forum are clamoring for).

6) Other phones just have features that we don't care about or don't use.

OK, I refer you to this thread:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/322785/

This thread is currently on page 27. But still, people don't care about missing features. Again, that URL was copy and pasted.

7) The iPhone is great. You knew exactly what you were buying, so don't complain. Sounds like complacency to me....

8) The iPhone is more versatile and has more potential. This remains to be seen. Currently, there is no software Nazi decided what does and what does not go onto WM. Hey Steve, where's Tom Tom? Where's MMS? These are not technically difficult to implement. Someone just doesn't want them implemented.

This list can go on.

Me, I'm currently out of my contract and need a new phone. I am looking for every excuse in the book to buy an iPhone, but economically and practically, its just not making sense. I kno Apple products are usually superior, but I just can't turn a blind eye to this one.

People state that Jobs is holding back features and will release them when the competition heats up. What competitive advantage could holding back features give you? And I'm not asking for exotic features, just basic ones that come with even free cell phones. Well, I'm getting a new phone in 1-2 weeks. Maybe I'll wait for 2.2 to come out, but my hopes are not high for big changes. And I love Apple products! I just feel we're being taken for a ride with this one. I'll probably end up with a HTC Touch Pro on the 21st, but also buy an itouch.

 

[MrMickS]

Ha ha... after reading all of the people saying that they'll go to a Series 60 phone rather than the iPhone I have to ask "what are you smoking?". I've used various Series 60 phones over the past three years and there is nothing that would make me go back to them.

What didn't I like?

• Arbitary vendor firmware changes
• Applications on the phone that are unsupported by the vendor so useless
• Multiple browsers with no ability to change which is used. E.g. following an embedded link in an email starts the WAP browser not the Web browser
• Severe slowdown when you have a lot of text messages (not limited to Series 60, affects Series 40 Nokia Phones too).
• WiFi/3G/GPRS handover that didn't pick the least cost/best service
• Battery life. If you tried to use the N95 as a smartphone it needed almost constant charging.

After using one of the last Series 80 phones I was hopeful that the dropping of this meant that Nokia had incorporated all of the best things from this, such as the messaging app, into Series 60. I was wrong. If Nokia continued to develop Series 80 phones I'd look at one of these as an iPhone alternative, to me Series 60 is very short of being smart.

 

[zachplaysguitar]

This ister guy is just trolling. His join date (10/12) only shows that all he did was join to start trouble by coming in here and calling all iPhone users idiots for liking something they bought. If you really like WinMo that much, go to a forum that centers on it and sing its praises there. Unless you have some intelligent points that can be made without insulting people get out of here because no one wants to hear it.

 

[leandroc76]

ister ,

You really shouldn't hold your anger back... it's not good for you.

It is interesting how how your perception of the "BEST EVAR!!" OS was so distorted.

Do some research about the history of OS X and why OS9 and earlier were being abandoned...

Next do some research on how EASY it was and still is to be backward compatible from Win 98 to Win 2000 or XP.

Most of us "creative professionals" are not buying Logitek Webcams to plug into our Mac Pros or iMacs (which already have webcams built in), however I challange you to buy a Canon 5d or a Nikon D3 and see if your Windows environment can handle 20,000 RAW files as smoothly!

I challenge you to show me where PC's are more reliable in video capture and editing in a Windows environment or even Linux, without struggling after two weeks.

I doubt you'll find it any easier.