Mobile Phone Megathread

[Rudolf Miller]

To clarify, this is how it works.

Upgrade at discounted price and signing 2 year contract -> you are forced to a capped data plan

Pay for a phone at full price -> keep grandfathered data plan

http://www.dailytech.com/Verizon+Wir...ticle24703.htm
http://www.dailytech.com/Quick+Note+...ticle24720.htm

[Rudolf Miller]

http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/25/s...-s-iii-review/

S3 review, glowingly positive.

Still fucked here in the US

[Mythago]

Upgrade is due, however being a student I don't really want to spend too much money on a contract or pay a one off. I'm with O2 in the UK and I'm looking at the HTC One V and the Sony Xperia Arc S as two possibilities. The HTC runs Android 4, while the Sony is only Android 2.3 Anyone have experience with either? Or is it worth spending the £80 on the HTC One S?

Final question, with the Galaxy S III coming out in the next month or so, is the price of the Galaxy S II likely to drop (or is it worth the £80 one off payment?)? All the monthly payments for these contracts are the same.

[Phrixus Zephyr]

Just got an S3, first proper smart phone (SATIO was a piece of crap) and i've spent the last 4 hours re-arranging apps and widgets and setting up anti-theft GPS nonsense. Keeping me occupied if nothing else.

Any suggestions of apps or general pointers about Android in general are more than welcome.

fakeedit; I keep seeing Winamp on all the app suggestion pages, is Android's built in media centre not any good?

[Ted Breakers]

fakeedit; I keep seeing Winamp on all the app suggestion pages, is Android's built in media centre not any good?

Nope its shit. Doesnt even have a widget on the S2 anyway...

I use Power Amp, its very nice.

Other "Must have" apps for me are:

Astro File Manager
Aura (Evemon)
Dolphin Browser HD
Ebay (This is freaking awesome)
Pulse
Shazam
Skype
Tapatalk
Tesla LED
Widget Locker
Xabber

[Phrixus Zephyr]

The S3 has an widget for it, but i'll get something else if it's crap.

So i know how to move the Dolphin icon in place of the standard internet icon in the fixed bar. The problem is the icon name for Dolphin is really long, so what i end up with is instead of { ... 'Message' 'Internet' 'Applications' } i get { ... 'Message' 'Dolphin Br' 'Applications' }. I'd rather just keep the standard internet icon and label and just have it use Dolphin instead. How do i make it do this?

[Sparq]

Hmmm, I have a Galaxy S I. I was messaged this morning by my carrier to alert me to the fact the SIII is available to order and existing customers are waived the early upgrade fee.

I'm happy with my S I but the S III is pretty tempting. Though I'm not sure if I want to saddle myself with another 24 months of contract and be paying more per month than I am/was on my S I contract.

[ctrlchris]

fakeedit; I keep seeing Winamp on all the app suggestion pages, is Android's built in media centre not any good?

Nope its shit. Doesnt even have a widget on the S2 anyway...

I use Power Amp, its very nice.

Other "Must have" apps for me are:

Astro File Manager
Aura (Evemon)
Dolphin Browser HD
Ebay (This is freaking awesome)
Pulse
Shazam
Skype
Tapatalk
Tesla LED
Widget Locker
Xabber

I use winamp on my SII
Its pretty legit tbh.

The stock one made me mad for some reason.

[balistic void]

You only have "androids built-in media center" if you are using a Nexus device running stock-android. Otherwise you are using whatever Samsung/HTC bundled with their device. Samsung are bundling some itunes lookalike cloud service with the SGS3 I think.

Been using google music myself, but after a year on the market it still has some epic shortcomings. Most obviously: when you create/edit a playlist on your PC it does not get synced to the phone UNLESS you actually reinstall google music on phone. Bug has been open on their tracker for a year now...

[Aypse]

Just got an S3, first proper smart phone (SATIO was a piece of crap) and i've spent the last 4 hours re-arranging apps and widgets and setting up anti-theft GPS nonsense. Keeping me occupied if nothing else.

Any suggestions of apps or general pointers about Android in general are more than welcome.

fakeedit; I keep seeing Winamp on all the app suggestion pages, is Android's built in media centre not any good?

Titanium backup Pro, Amazon App Store (for the free app of the day...most are crap but occasional win), dropbox, go sms pro, swiftkey X

[Rudolf Miller]

Acquired Galaxy Nexus to dodge Verizons metered 4G. My 4G doesn't have amazing reception, but the difference between Android 2.3 w/Motoblur and 4.04 pure Google is night and day.

[Krugerrand]

So probably going to get my first smartphone within the next month. Would people suggest the S3 then, or if not what are probably the best alternatives?

[Cividari]

S3 and One X seem very similar although I personally think the One X looks much much better but that is really a minor thing.

[Aramendel]

The One X has a better design, the S3 better features and longer battery life (and a replaceable battery and an SD-Card slot).

A cheaper runner up would be the Galaxy Nexus. Should be at the very least 100$ cheaper and "good enough".

[Navigator Six]

A cheaper runner up would be the Galaxy Nexus. Should be at the very least 100$ cheaper and "good enough".

Plus you'll be able to get OS upgrades immediately and likely for the next coupla years, unlike the other two.

[Mortvvs]

A cheaper runner up would be the Galaxy Nexus. Should be at the very least 100$ cheaper and "good enough".

Plus you'll be able to get OS upgrades immediately and likely for the next coupla years, unlike the other two.

Thanks to community support you'll get updates for many years. I'm still using the Galaxy S, which has been abandoned by Samsung quite a while ago, and thanks to cyanogen i can even run ICS on it. People buying an Android phone and not using the many awesome and well developed after-market distributions made by communities like xda are just doing it wrong (imho).

As for Galaxy S3 vs One X, I'd go with the Galaxy S3 (fanboyism aside), it got a faster cpu (check benchmark comparisons), bigger battery, sd card and thanks to the hype it's going to sell better than the One X, which results in better community support/more roms/mods/kernels etc.

[Aramendel]

Plus you'll be able to get OS upgrades immediately and likely for the next coupla years, unlike the other two.

I would be careful with the "immediately" considering it took them half a year to get ICS on my normal non-Galaxy Nexus S.

[Navigator Six]

Plus you'll be able to get OS upgrades immediately and likely for the next coupla years, unlike the other two.

I would be careful with the "immediately" considering it took them half a year to get ICS on my normal non-Galaxy Nexus S.

Very true, but that's been the exception not the rule as I understand it.

[Fourfingers frankie]

Just got an S3, first proper smart phone (SATIO was a piece of crap) and i've spent the last 4 hours re-arranging apps and widgets and setting up anti-theft GPS nonsense. Keeping me occupied if nothing else.

Any suggestions of apps or general pointers about Android in general are more than welcome.

fakeedit; I keep seeing Winamp on all the app suggestion pages, is Android's built in media centre not any good?

Got an SIII myself (20.50 with T-Mobile) and flipboard is amazing on it. Even makes facebook look less like shit

[Devec]

Maybe a bit of a stupid question but other than probably being more efficient are smartphones really making good use of the multi-core architectures yet? In other words, do they really benefit from so much procession power?

On topic of guarding your phone, what is the best way to get some good protection on it in case you lose/get it stolen? At the moment I have nothing installed on my phone to protect it in case it goes missing so I'm thinking about getting some apps for it. However most apps for security seem to cost money so I'm not keen on buying something without being able to try it out and see if works the way I want it to. I'm guessing some kind of remote control and or tracking is what I'm looking for.