Android or iPhone?

[CableTwitch]

I'm going to toss in a vote here for the Nokia N900. I've had it a while now, and its more or less a joy to use. I cant say I've used it nearly as thoroughly as most people here would, but for everyday working, its a diamond. Call quality is excellent, multitasking is a breeze, the interface is fairly intuative and skype integration is handy for times when you can have wifi available.

I'm no linux user, I have to say. But various friends who have played with it said they'd consider one for porting things to, and having the physical keyboard would certainly make things easier when playing with terminal screens and the like. 32GB of onboard storage, its not exactly lacking in that area too. The screen is clear and crisp, the touch interface, although resistive, is still pretty bang on. Theres no multitouch, but there are gestures that are easily learned. Plus you can use the stylus for greater precision when doing stuff like selecting text.

For the downsides, battery life can be a bit of a pain at times. With heavy use, it'll require recharging quite often. I've even managed to burn it out in less than a day, but thats with an almost constant 3G connection. The other thing that might be a deal-breaker for some is that apps for it are rather thin on the ground, but I would imagine anyone with any interest in porting apps could easily recompile for the device, as its running maemo. And there has recently been proof that you can run Android if you boot from a microSD card, if you so desire.

I'd certainly recommend it, somewhat because I'd recommend anything other than the iPhone, but mainly because its actually a rather good unit. Go play with one if you get the chance. Theres been a bit of debate over the firmware vodafone ship on their devices, but as its an open platform, you can easily reflash to the generic nokia build and nix any worries about that.

[Rhythm]

ANY Symbian?

I got given a Nokia 5800 from work last year, first Nokia i've had for about 8 years. It's easily the worst phone i've ever used.

1. When handing over between 2g/3g, it gives up and just gives no signal until you reboot.

2. Each time the internet is used it keeps prompting me for the profile (wap/gprs/whatever), EVERY FUCKING TIME. You can't stop it either.

3. Browser is crap

I know S60 or whatever it is is considered the worst of the Symbian lot, but whatever, it's worse than any featurephone or smartphone i've used ever.

OK, I'll qualify that by saying the 3 Nokia phones I've used in the past five years have performed better *as phones* than either the iPhone or the Android handsets I've used. Two of them were E-series phones and the other was, strangely enough, a Nokia 5800, which was a nice slick little handset IMO.

[Darkflame]

but but no compass
[/as an augmented reality nut, darkflame is still very upset with Nokia over the n900]

[wanye]

the nokia 5800 users i know are very happy with their handsets. i've spend a bit of time playing with one (my gf has one) and apart from the s60 UI issues (it needs a massive overhaul, but the OS itself is stable and works well, especially when multitasking) the phone is great. she has no problems with 2g/3g signals, and the phone hardly ever gets rebooted.

i can say similar for the n97. i had some big issues with it back when it first arrived, it was crashing several times a week, but since upgrading to V20 firmware, it has been stable and a lot more useable. hopefully v21 will fix the last few niggles i have with it

also, nokia maps is now completely free. thats FREE satnav software for symbian phones in pretty much every country imagineable!

finally, the compass works on my n97, im not aware of nokia ditching it....

[Darkflame]

Well, that's the crazy thing, nokia was basically the first to put a compass in phones, so I haven't got a clue why the n900 lacks one.
I'm in the market for a new phone still, and given I'm currently using qt to develop stuff, a symbian phone would make sense, but the lack of a compass holds me back. Hopefully the next model has one.

[sack]

I'm still waiting on this one to be honest - I think Android is the way to go, but it's a matter of the OS maturing a little and the handsets catching up with what is asked of them.

so until then my phone makes calls and sends messages so it'll do

[seanyseansean]

Android definitely needs a slicker UI, by default it does look a bit austere, although the Nexus One with the live wallpapers is lush.

[Guru-Meditation]

Android definitely needs a slicker UI, by default it does look a bit austere, although the Nexus One with the live wallpapers is lush.

The live wallpapers are cute but a bit overkill. Nice eye candy, and some have some fun interactivity to them, but I wouldn't say it's something that makes Android better than other OS options. It's one of those things that'll catch your eye during a presentation or when seeing someones phone though. Uses less battery than you'd think too.

[Darkflame]

I think by "slicker" most people mean looks and fancy shit anyway though.
Its the Android pretty good functionary wise anyway?

[piku]

Its the Android pretty good functionary wise anyway?

Yes. And so is the iPhone. They're both good devices that work well today.

I own a first gen iPod Touch which is starting to grind to a halt for some reason (I think it has problems indexing 2000+ MP3s). I also have a T-Mobile G1 which occasionally has siezures when complicated things happen. It's nice not having to sign out of IRC just to look at a web link on my Android phone, and to automatically receive background notifications. It's nice having a proper music player on my iPod Touch that syncs with my computer.

Neither devices make me want to hurl them across the room, unlike my N800 which had a spongy touchscreen that mis-read what I was trying to press, and had annoying slowdowns for no real reason.

Android phones also have some of that 'augmented reality' stuff in them.

The Nexus One looks like the first 'non beta' quality Android phone that I've seen. The Android OS will also improve over time in the same way OSX has.

Assuming Android isn't a passing fad, my next mobile will be an Android powered device too. In my phone I've actually found something genuinely useful. It's the cross between a phone/gps and PDA that I've wanted since I got rid of my Palm III.

Nokia should bin their Maemo thing and just use Android, they can then focus on making hardware rather than tech-geek obsessed Linux implementations.

[piku]

I think by "slicker" most people mean looks and fancy shit anyway though.

It usually means they've been watching too much Star Trek or Scifi and assume animations and flashing things are good UI design features. They're not. Palm nailed this years ago.

I might leave my PC on all day, and interact with it for extended periods of time. It's allowed to have swirly window animations, little sounds and bubbles that boing into vision to get my attention.

My phone I only interact with for specific reasons - I want to talk to someone, I need to check my email, I'm supposed to be at a certain place and have forgotten the address, etc. My phone sits on standby for 92% of its battery life according to the battery meter.

In all those situations where I interact with my phone I want information quickly and efficiently, with the minimum of waiting or tapping at UI controls. I'm using it for a specific purpose, not to entertain myself. A slick UI is one that is 'invisible' - you don't think about using it, it doesn't annoy you.

[arron]

I think by "slicker" most people mean looks and fancy shit anyway though.

It usually means they've been watching too much Star Trek or Scifi and assume animations and flashing things are good UI design features. They're not. Palm nailed this years ago.

My Palm III is an extremely usable piece of kit and it's 10 years old. And it's got very few bits of fancy chrome. I'm very into bits of kit that just work and do what they're supposed to do, easily fixed if something goes wrong and if they can survive a fall to the floor from my jacket pocket, so much the better.

Part of my job involves the use of handheld devices for doing various assessments in certain urgent circumstances and it's a very good exercise in seeing which manufacturer has got carried away thinking their product belongs on Star Trek through the UI they included and the easy of use you have from the supplied control system. By far the worst is one that decided a dedicated Windows tablet PC was the way to go wired permanently on an instrument to operate it. As you need two hands to lift it, and has no shoulder carrying strap, it's useless for the mobile task the device was designed for. You can't operate it unless you have at least two people thus making it a poor second or even third place compared to the devices it was designed to replace. The software looks like someone took a good basic package that had been used for years, slapped on database support and the ability to embed photos and sound files into the basic measurement data. How you can find time to take photos and record sound when you're carrying around a noisy tonne of kit using a lousy tablet device I don't know. I think they basically designed the whole ensemble for a tech demo and someone decided they could sell it afterwards and the developers didn't say anything in fear of losing their jobs.

It's definitely a case of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A7V vs, the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V_tank ..

[Darkflame]

I think by "slicker" most people mean looks and fancy shit anyway though.

It usually means they've been watching too much Star Trek or Scifi and assume animations and flashing things are good UI design features. They're not. Palm nailed this years ago.

I might leave my PC on all day, and interact with it for extended periods of time. It's allowed to have swirly window animations, little sounds and bubbles that boing into vision to get my attention.

My phone I only interact with for specific reasons - I want to talk to someone, I need to check my email, I'm supposed to be at a certain place and have forgotten the address, etc. My phone sits on standby for 92% of its battery life according to the battery meter.

In all those situations where I interact with my phone I want information quickly and efficiently, with the minimum of waiting or tapping at UI controls. I'm using it for a specific purpose, not to entertain myself. A slick UI is one that is 'invisible' - you don't think about using it, it doesn't annoy you.

oh, I quite agree.
But I see slick being used to mean so many different things it isnt clear what it means beyond "type of interface the person writting the word likes"

[Portland]

Still loving my Magic, droid ftw here. Took a lot to yank me away from Symbian, loyal since the days of the P800 - who says this touch screen phone business is anything new?

[Portland]

No edit? Meh

On the Jesusphone front, it's taken several iterations to get the white phone to spec. In isolation I'd now consider the 3GS, but the camera is still lacking and it's just too damn expensive.