Smartphone Shootout 201
An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek's David DeJean makes the mistake of trying to compare the experience of Web surfing on a BlackBerry, Palm, and HTC smartphones to the experience on the iPhone. According to the DeJean, the three don't come close, but it's very interesting to read about the pros and cons of what can (and can't) be done with current mobile hardware and software."
how connected do we have to be? (Score:2, Insightful)
I've posted around this topic before. While it might be an interesting technical and "can we do it" discussion, ultimately (IMO) the "smaller is better" and "everything in one device" approach seems doomed to fail.
I liken it to the early days of cell phones (albeit not tiny) where it was new, it was exciting, and vendors were rushing to flood the market, while consumers were rushing to get their new status gadget.
However, instead of making better and better phones, the trend is to cram more crap into the
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What I want from a phone is to make phone calls, and every once in awhile, check the time. But apparently, they don't make those phones in the US anymore. I can't even get a
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:4, Interesting)
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If I want a new ringtone I just bluetooth the mp3/4 across. I can't believe that *all* those phones aren't available in the US.
Ringtones are a big money maker for the cell companies and for the recording industry. My wife and I upgraded our phones with verizon and were shocked at how much it cost to download one simple ringtone (it was like 2 or 3 dollars!). I'd imagine with all the P2P sharing/piracy of music, the RIAA or someone else related to the recording industry has probably shut down the possibility of freely sharing music between your PC and your phone in the US....
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Also, they look for any excuse they can find to make you connect to the net. Often times just doing it without asking, which of course costs me money. They also recently rearranged their content pages for downloading ringtones. I now have to click about 7 or 8 links before I can buy
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:5, Insightful)
What, are you kidding? Quit buying ringtones, stupid!
Consumer whores like you are what enable the industry to be as screwed up as it is!
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If San Francisco gets municipal wifi (heck, even if they don't, there's probably already enough free & open access points where I spend most of my t
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I own a reasonable amount of stuff, if that's what you mean. However, none of it was "shit" when I bought it.
Anyway, back to the point: nobody needs ringtones. My phone, for example, sounds -- gasp -- like a ringing phone when I get a call! If you don't like the phone company's business tactics, then don't support them. Deal with not having a ringtone, or get yourself a phone that you can load them on yourself. But don't reward the assholes for attempting to screw you! You're alre
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No I'm not; twice is enough! (Once is reasonable, because you don't see the bandwidth charges until afterwards. The second time, though, you should have known better!)
Maybe it hurts, but nevertheless it continues to appear to be the truth.
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Um...buy a better phone and service that doesn't lock you into that BS? My Treo 650 can use any MIDI file (or, with the free MiniTones [download.com], any MP3 file) as a ringtone. The two I'm using now were ripped from my MythTV box and put on an SD card, but downloading them wouldn't cost anything extra because my service plan includes unlimited data.
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/Nokia-1600-Phone-Unlocked/d
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The iPhone *is* a real tablet computer running a real operating system. It is crippled a bit, yes, but some of us would like to have a couple key features without having to haul a laptop around.
Oh, yeah, and if you haul around that laptop and want mobile internet access, you're going to have to go through those cell phone companies and sign a contract.
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well tablet computer, is an attempt at comparing it to a Personal computer? to me the iphone is more a cool web appliance/phone, not a Personal computer. except for promising hacks, you can't load a program onto the iPhone, correct? Being able to hack it, just brings it up to par with say a Tivo, IE it may become a appliance that can be hacked, but is a Tivo also a Personal Computer? Being able to do fancy stuff in a web-page doesn't
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Your Archos device, as far as I know, isn't running general purpose (though modified) OS. Just because Apple hasn't opened the iPhone to 3rd party developers doesn't mean that there isn't a full SDK somewhere that allows you to make desktop-type applications for it.
It's a real computer, but just a closed platform. Those are different sorts of distinctions. I could make a closed platform desktop system and not allow people to write their own applications, but if it ran on a desktop chipset, had all the d
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I'm not sure how the other browsers are, but the default IE one sucked, at least compared to iPhone. (also, w/ Sprint I tended to avoid unl
Pocket Space (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say lack of voice dialing is a compromise on the phone experience.
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I might have the opinion the sky is muave, but that doesn't make it so. You can't offer factually incorrect information and then say it's OK because it's your "opinion".
Second, define "real OS". I'd like to think that a real OS allows you to install things, compile things, and edit files on the machine. From what I've heard, the iPhone is locked down, so it's not any more of an
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the question you meant to ask is, "do I really need to be that connected." You probably answered correctly.
But what about the question you actually asked? Do people need to be that connected? Well I really need to be that connected and I chose my phone with that in mind. If a lot of other people agree with me, they'll make a similar choice. If no one felt they needed this, these platforms would die out, wouldn't they? But that's not really happening, is it?
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:5, Informative)
I've had mine for a few weeks now. I use it for movies, music, my primary camera, and it is also my primary Internet connection because I have moral objections to giving comcast money. It is, of course my only phone as well.
I've never even come close to draining the battery in a single day, even using it to browse for hours while listening to music, or streaming h264 video over wifi, using it as a phone, etc.
Your claims are based entrely on uninformed opinion, and NOT any sort of experience or fact.
Also, the browsing experience is perfectly fine. The ability to easily and autmatically zoom to content negates the claim of screen real estate. Everything can be as large or as small as you like.
In short, you are a well spoken troll, but a troll nonetheless.
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I wonder if there is a similar sort of implementation for Pocket PC. I have a Fujitsu LOOX, which has a 640x480 4" screen, but using Pocket Internet Explorer (even with an add-on that allows for multiple browser windows) is still clunky and frustrating in general. A browser that could zoom in or out using the stylu
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No, you need to get an iPhone, too, so that the two of you can have meaningful, deep discussions via the iPhones. :-)
(No, no, I'm not serious. Really.)
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to disagree with you. The problem with the "all-in-one" model has traditionally been that you get a device that's a not-even-jack of all trades, master of nothing. There's a tremendous effort to cram everything possible into one device without any good design on how to have these features coexist. The result, in my assessment, has always been a device that isn't truly worth carrying around.
I've tried using devices from Palm, Blackberry, and Microsoft, and in each case I feel that same annoyance-- it does a lot of things, but does each of them too poorly. And they're big and clunky. Now, I have an iPhone, and it doesn't do everything, but what it does it does pretty well. Many have complained the that the touch screen interface would make it hard to type, but for the most part those complaints weren't made from experience. The touch screen, for the most part, has successfully navigated the interface problem of having all-in-one devices. Instead of trying to come up with one set of buttons that serves all the different functions, you make the buttons change depending on what you're doing.
You complain about the battery, but as an iPhone owner, I'll tell you that I regularly go a full day or two without charging it. That's not the best battery lifetime I've ever gotten, but it's acceptable. Admittedly, I mostly use the phone, PIM, and iPod functions. I don't really use it to watch video very often, and I only use the internet capabilities for the built-in e-mail client. Every once in a while, when I'm caught in a bind and need access to some particular bit of information, I'll use the web browser, and that's it.
As far as mobile web browsing goes, no, you don't really need 24/7 connectivity, and if you need to do very much, it's better to use a desktop client. However, now that I have a web browser in my pocket, I can tell you that I do find it more useful than I would have thought. I've been in situations where I couldn't find the location of something or I needed to find someone's phone number, and I was able to fetch that information on my iPhone web browser pretty easily. I would have otherwise been pretty lost, and had to wait until I found an internet connection to find the thing I was looking for, so the whole thing was really helpful.
And though I wouldn't advise using the iPhone on EDGE for heavy everyday surfing, it really will work in a pinch. You'll be able to load a real website, the website will render properly most of the time, and it isn't entirely frustrating to browse around a little. Using the web browser in short bursts won't drain your battery too terribly quickly. EDGE is slow and uses more battery than WiFi, but like I said, it'll do if you really need a web page or two right then.
So if all you're saying is that the iPhone isn't a good replacement for your laptop or desktop computer, I'll go along with that. But if you're saying it isn't useful to have your e-mail client, MP3 player, web browser, calendar, address book, Google maps, digital camera, and cell phone be all in one slim, easy to use device, then I think you're crazy. If you think the iPhone doesn't execute this decently well for most people's uses, then I think you're either biased or ignorant.
I guess you could also argue that we should all slow down, stop using our fancy gadgets and doodads, and just not be "connected" most of the time. Do most of us absolutely "need" a cellphone? I guess not. Human civilization went for a long time without any internet or telephones at all. But all things considered, I'd rather have a cell phone than a landline, and I'd rather have mobile e-mail than not. Ideally, in my mind, I wouldn't have to have a "phone" at all, but I could have a wireless IM/VOIP/e-mail device. However, you need ubiquitous wireless internet access in order to do that, and nobody is really providing that yet except cell phone companies. Cell phone companies won't sell a IM/VOIP/e-mail device unless it's also a phone.
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Feature list comparisons do not always tell the whole story, ESPECIALLY when a software interface is involved. It doesn't matter if it includes the kitchen sink, if you can't figure out how to get to it easily, it's sluggish at best, or the phone resets 50% of the time you get there and the other 50% of the time your hacking the OS to forcibly close all apps to keep the memory from being full.
Oh, and the MDA loses the media playe
Re:how connected do we have to be? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, yeah not as good as a full-fledged computer for some things, but it's not supposed to be a replacement. That's one of the reasons I never understood all the complaints about the speed of edge. Sure, faster is better, but realistically the amount of web browsing you are going to do is more limited by the small size of it than anything. If you are doing a massive amount of web browsing, then do yourself a favor and get a real computer. If, on the other hand, you are waiting for someone who is late (everyone is around here), if's f'ing great.
Also, in my personal experience, the battery life is great. Which in part due to the lower speed edge chip.
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In the end, the 8525 sits in my desk drawer and I use my old Razr instead. It's a crappy Internet phone, has no chance at doing the palmtop thing, but it's
Direction of Connection (Score:3, Insightful)
However - the thing I find useful about devices like the iPhone is being able to arbitrarily connect to the outside world at a time of my choosing. I love to be able to review maps, or do quick lookups, or glance at email (again when I want - I have even disabled automatic updates of email as I don't like the hourly chime that I have new mail). That is what connectivity was suppo
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The only reason any of this technology is necessary is
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Do you need to be that connected so you can browse the web? Maybe not. But sending and receiving communications in whatever format you want: be it email, voice, txt, pics, chat and/or videochat? That's the purpose of cell phones, taken to its logical conclusion in the digital age.
And if you're going to give people workable email and videochat, wh
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And do those same people really need to be contactable 24 hours a day? If not, then they do not even need a mobile phone in the first place.
Seriously, this is the same argument that people use against mobile/cell phones before they actually own one. But once they get used to having one (and to leaving it turned on all the time - yes Mum, I'm talking to you) then most people get dependant on the technology. I find now that I feel terribly isolated
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Did anyone else read that Nokia 9300 review that Gadget Guy linked to and have their brain start to hurt? It reads like it was originally written in Japanese, then sequentially babelfished to German, Spanish, Korean, and finally to 18th Century English (does Babelfish have such an option?). Bizarre.
How else would you get passages like these:
Conclusion (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableAr
Funny:
One thing that became obvious to me as I looked at these various Web interfaces is that data speed isn't as important as good software.
You think????
The good news, as you might expect, is the Apple iPhone. The genius of Apple is its ability, over and over again, to completely reinvent, from the ground up, the user interface for hardware, and to support it with brilliant software. Web browsing on the iPhone is a paradigm shift, a completely different experience -- just as the BlackBerry was, in its time, a paradigm shift.
The elements of the technology that makes the iPhone so different will find their way into other devices, just as the BlackBerry's thumbpad and push e-mail have become more or less standard on smartphones. Touchscreens and direct interaction with the Web page will become standards of their own sort because they've come along just in time as computing, both personal and business, moves to the Web.
I've stated this to many people who've asked me about the iPhone. Even if it FAILS, it's technology, features, etc. will be copied into many other phones.
What I want to know is... (Score:3, Funny)
http://www.willitblend.com/videos.aspx?type=unsaf
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What? Sticking something into a blender is NC-17 now? Crazy Americans...
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Nokia E70 (Score:5, Informative)
links to Maddox's comparison between E70 & IPhone.
Re:Nokia E70 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Nokia E70 (Score:5, Informative)
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I'd also like to point out that the year is 2007 and I just PURCHASED MY FIRST WEB BROWSER (Opera for the E61). I never in my life thought I'd actua
Darn (Score:3, Funny)
From personal experience... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I got the iPhone and now I'm probably going to dump my Blackberry. Having and using the iPhone has soured my Blackberry experience. I'm now tired of seeing the HTML in e-mails instead of viewing the full e-mail. (For those of you without a Blackberry, it absolutely sucks at HTML mail - it displays all the code instead of stripping it out, FWIW, I use the client-side push instead of server-side push so that may be the problem) Having the iPhone and seeing e-mail as it was meant to be seen changed that.
Similarly the mostly-full version of Safari has changed my usage of the Blackberry's crippled browser.
As the article states, the iPhone is not without its problems. Safari crashes (I've never seen the Blackberry browser ever crash) semi-often, say once every 2-3 days in my usage, and its lack of Flash support is annoying. I haven't missed Java yet.
Data speed is it's albatross, but with the "real" web, I've personally been able to look beyond its mobile speed deficiency. When it's on a fast Wifi network, it REALLY shines and I'm still amazed by how well it does in rendering sites. Youtube has never looked better.
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Sounds like a problem on your client-side push setup. Whenever I see a message on or touched by a BlackBerry, it is completely stripped of all HTML. Same with Exchange Direct Push (unless you're running the latest software, which supports HTML email.)
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FIGHT (Score:4, Funny)
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Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously! (Score:2)
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The iPhone is probably one of the first phone devices to actually have a usable web-browser. I played with it in the store for quite a bit and found that their rendering engine is capable of displaying full pages with correct layouy by drawing the webpage at a higher resolution internally and scales down with anti-aliasing. You can see pages as they were designed (for the most part) and very easily zoom in and out. It's better than
Biased (Score:3, Insightful)
Even before the review starts it defends the iPhone with it's virtual keyboard and then how it's screen is in a class by itself.
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True, true.
However, a big advantage of the iPhone is that you can do more. Want to know what movies are showing and where? Look it up. Want to know a store's hours? Look it up. Yada, etc. (Admittedly, the recent appearance of iPhone-optimized web pages do help a lot.)
"But I can call up XXX and just ask", some people will say. Sure, you can make a phone call. You can also do that while sitting at your computer. So, why don't you? :-)
Six pages of commentary? (Score:3, Funny)
What about the nokia n800? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:What about the nokia n800? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Nokia 770's sceen resolution blows the iPhone away, but the screen is physically much smaller than I had thought it would be. It's actually almost identical in size to the screen on the Palm TX although much higher resolution.
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I don't own one, but I was trying one out in the Apple store (out of curiousity only, it's too rich for my blood) and tried looking at Slashdot. As far as I could tell, it seemed to work just fine. I looked at some of the comments and then started to add a comment of my own. I struggled a bit with the typing interface, but most reports seem to indicated that with time it's a decent interface.
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I am away from home a lot and got the iPhone in part to keep up with Slashdot, CNN, etc. It's great if you keep in mind that it's not supposed to replace a laptop or desktop for browsing. The browsing experience in my opinion is far better than other smartphones I have used.
To answer your question about large Slashdot pages, it has some strange behavior when loading any large page. It bring
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If the openmoko could run the apps that have been ported to Maemo it would be awesome.
I use my 770 for GPS primarily, but it is a pretty decent gizmo for quite a few different apps.
It's a phone, not a BMW (Score:2)
But Does It Run Linux? (Score:2)
I haven't heard about Blackberry/Linux. And though I'd guess there's no iPhone/Linux yet, it seems inevitable.
Is there somewhere to look that shows which of these top smartphone HW platforms are most fully exploited by running Linux on them, so we can do whatever we want with our phones?
1280x1024 on a 15" monitor? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah right. What wonderland is he living in?
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Had to download a PDF to get the detailed specs from Lenovo's website.
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Mobile communications and PDAs (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a software engineer and need to be connected most of the times. Recently, I was in a situation where I had to be in hospital for around a month to attend to my father, and let me tell you, the laptops don't really last much without a power outlet and Wifi isn't ubiquitous. Its anoter thing in normal life to drive to starbucks and check news and mail while sipping coffee, and its another thing to attend to client calls and mails while sitting at place you don't want yourself and your family to be in! The irony is, it is these places that you'd need the connectivity the most! You can drive to another coffee shop, if the connectivity sucks, you can't go around shifting to other hospitals for the same reasons!
I have a Sony Ericsson W800i NON-smartphone. The phone only supports basic GPRS (think 48kbps, yep thats bits), and I'm glad that I'd found the combination that served me well for all my business needs and enabled me to attend the family at the same time.
1. Get Gmail mobile app: Its a Java MIDP application, and it just bulldozes all email clients out there. Nothing like to be able to access all your mails even if you have low speed connecivity.
2. Get Opera Mini: This (Java MIDP) application lets you use even secured sites. Can't tell you how many times it saved my ass. Being able to watch Youtube in free time is one thing, being able to access online banking site when you most need it is another!
3. Inbuilt IMAP/POP email client with SSL: You want instant email, its there. The client doesn't suck that much and it gets the job (notifying you of mail) done pretty well. You can use it to have always on access to your corporate account.
In short, Java on mobiles absolutely rocks and serves pretty well. iPhone has that one down for me (and the reason I'd stay away from it). Get the basic "life-saver" apps first and setup well, and *only* then look for frills like flash, 3G (basic GPRS is ubiquitous, never found a place where it doesn't work!) and touch screens.
Oh, and choose your phone well. If your phone has tendency to lock-up thrice a day, or your browser crashes randomly, you might find it very disappointing on the rainy day!
- Akhilesh
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I am a big fan of Java and third party apps as well, but the iPhone includes enough functionality I do not need them.
Oh, and choose your phone well. If your phone has tendency to lock-up thrice a day, or your browser crashes randomly, you might find it very disappointing on the rainy day!
Which is, again, why the iPhone is so nice - because instea
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GMails pop interface is useless. It ignores your filters, and for some reason it pops sent mail as new incoming mail.
The web interface can't interface with your phone. Like having the option of calling someone who just sent you an email.
That's why people use the gmail java app.. it's gmail designed specifically for phones.
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If they are a contact with a phone number, the iPhone can dial them directly from the contact page (or any page that displays the phone number). It recognizes phone numbers and allwso you to click to dial (confirming you really want to place a call first, of course)
That's why people use the gmail java app.. it's gmail designed specifically for phones.
The web browser is also specifically d
Not sure how fare this comparison is... (Score:2)
But once you install JVM and Opera, everything changes.
Sure, I can't really expect them to hack each phone before reviewing it, and I guess I should blame Palm for not including a real browse
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What do you mean? After I installed Opera, all I get is a bunch of halfway rendered, mostly unusable pages.
Slashdot works fine, but don't try to login to ebay or any other javascript heavy site. Not to mention the browser is slow as molasses. You know it's struggling when
crap blazer runs faster.
Nokia e61i (Score:4, Informative)
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The one thing I *hate* about the iPhone... (Score:2)
Sprint PPC-6700 (Score:2)
It has an extremely active community that has constantly back ported new windows mobile features into customized roms to flash your phone with. Goto the HTC Apache forum at ppc-geeks, http://www.ppcgeeks.com/viewforum.php?f=5&sid=6eba 1082d61ffec1693259b6d3560f0c [ppcgeeks.com]
Load up windows live search and get localized search results for restaurants, stores, anything. Add in a Blue-Tooth GPS receiver and get search results by distance from your present location.
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I'm no Microsoft fan, but PocketPC/Windows Mo
Thanks for testing out the crappy ones (Score:4, Interesting)
T-Mobile Ameo [pdadb.net], 640x480 screen and real 3G broadband speeds.
Or wait awhile and pick up a phone in the I-Mate Ultra [pdadb.net] line. They all look sexy, and they all have a screen that blows the iPhone out of the water. And of course they all support real 3G speeds as well.
Or heck, just never get lost again [mobileplanet.com].
All those prices by the way? Unlocked phones. If you are going to sign up for a contract, why pay $500 for a phone, when you can get a high quality (albeit not top of the line) Windows Mobile phone for under $100.
Hell, don't like Windows Mobile? Go with Symbian. They have some high-res devices that are a lot cheaper than $500.
For $500 you could almost BUILD your own cell phone and get something far more capable then what Apple is dishing out. Does anybody know of an after market supplier of GSM or CDMA chips?
Have you used an Ameo??? (Score:2)
I got a chance to use one those suckers in a focus group. Yes the resolution is high, but it's larger than a paperback! If I am going to have something that large, why not just carry a small laptop with a 3G card? The form factor made no sense, and the way the whole UMPC idea has died on the vine means not many other people see the sense in it either.
Also, the one I used was terribly choppy in terms of res
use of the browser (Score:2)
Shootout? (Score:2)
Yet another 'shootout' without Nokia/SE.. (Score:2, Informative)
Opera anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess the ability to run a third-party browser would be an "unfair comparison" to the iPhone.
My thought EXACTLY (Score:5, Insightful)
A HUGE advantage of PalmOS-based and Windows-based phones is that you can actually add software to them. Thus, such a comparison is meaningless. Don't like Blazer? Replace it with Opera. What are you doing on the iPhone? Sure Safari is great...but let's talk about the datebook application that takes half a dozen clicks to set the time of an appt (rather than me just clicking on the time band on a PalmOS unit)...or being forced to delete email messages one at a time (unlike a PalmOS unit...on which I frequently hit "select all" and then "delete" if I have read all the message already on my desktop). Even those advantages to palmOS are against the DEFAULT applications...and both applications can be replaced with countless other commercial, shareware, and freeware alternatives. Extrapolate to all of the other applications installed.
Yes, the Palm Blazer web browser is insanely lame...and most users will not replace it. I am not making excuses for Palm. They should have replaced this application with something more powerful years ago...and Apple is innovating...and I welcome our new overlords...if only to motivate the other slackers, but let's be fair. These love letters to the iPhone masking themselves as fair and unbiased reviews are getting tiring.
Here's my distilled version of the article...made objective...at least for the PalmOS:
- The iPhone browser rocks...and it is a good thing because you are locked into it. Oh yeah, connection speed is horrible unless you are using wifi. Not exactly a browser issue, but hard to ignore.
- Palm blazer is okay, but has problems with many sites and takes awhile to render pages.
- You can replace Blazer with Opera, but you'll have to find a JVM first, install it, and then twiddle settings forever to make it stable. Why the heck does Palm make Java apps second class citizens? Oh yeah, that is a business decision. Nevermind. Like most Palm users, I can't wait until "universe" gets out of beta...and, unlike the iPhone, I'll actually be able to install it.
Man, if Apple would just open up the iPhone and obviate the need for folks to reverse engineer every application, I would just shut my pie hole. The availability of one terminal application isn't cutting it for me. Guess I'll see what the future holds...and hopefully it's going to be a 3G future.
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I can think of no company that is as utterly disappointing as Palm. I suppose there's probably some behind the scenes story of how someone pillaged the company in the manner of the 80's corporate raiders who bought companies for the purpose of stripping them down and selling the parts. I can think of no o
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I love how the article glosses over Opera. It's barely mentioned once, and certainly not looked at.
Yeah, it's silly. Of course mobile browsing comes on top using - surprise! - the iPhone, when the other tested alternatives are absolutely horrible. Makes me wonder about the article's agenda, especially with the mention of "trouble installing a third-party browser"...
Opera Mini already has 0.24% [hitslink.com] of the entire browser "market share", according to some statistics. Now, that's impressive, especially when you convert that percentage to something more absolute. For example, there is one Opera Mini user for eve
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Opera Mini 3 is a pretty good browser. Opera Mini 4 beta looks quite nice, and makes a fairly decent attempt at copying the iPhone browser's zooming functionality*, but parts of it are painfully unstable, requiring the user to remove the battery to reset the device (this is based on my testing with both the Treo 650 and 680). I just got finished sending some feedback to the Opera team about some of my experiences with Opera Mini 4 beta:
While Opera Mini 4 beta is certainly the nicest looking free browser for the Treo, its instability makes it unbearably frustrating and practically impossible to use.
The browser frequently locks up the Treo on multiple sites, requiring the battery to be pulled. Trying to press Stop doesn't do anything, nor does waiting well over a minute for the browser to say something other than "Loading 0/x kB". This has happened numerous times when trying to access a number of different Web sites, including the following:
* When clicking on "My Opera" in the "Bookmarks..." section of the main window
* When clicking on "Yahoo!" in the "Bookmarks..." section of the main window
* When clicking on Tech Pulse Podcast (http://techpulsepodcast.blogspot.com) in the "History..." section of the main window
* When trying to click on the link to the iPhone ad in the middle of the front page of www.apple.com
Most of the time, entering an address manually (e.g. www.techpulsepodcast.com) does work.
*Yes, I think it's fair to say that the Opera team copied the iPhon
Re:Ya nice benchmarks (Score:5, Insightful)
He starts off saying both virtual and normal QWERTY are bad. No examples, no proof, nothing. BUT yet then in another part states why the iPhone screen is so much better giving specific pixel info.
So how come he doesn't go into detail then about the pros and cons on the keyboard? Why spend so much detail in one section (display) but not really any details at all about the input?
His rules that he created are biased. You can;t use the devices then create the rules. He should have gone out and asked people what they expected, used that for the rules then compare. He made the rules when he already knew the answer. That has 0 value.
Why didn't he put other browsers on the smart phones that accept them and give feedback on those? If he was going to go on what is the default fine, but since he gave so much detail on the screen size why didnt he say things in the browser review about 3rd party options may solve the issues.
He does all the real details on the thing the iPhone is very strong on (display) and doesn;t put the same detail to his other rules. Something does not add up.
So please tell me how my post was a troll?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot, a site originally all about Linux and similarly geeky things, has been overrun with Apple fanboys, Microsoft apologists and all around assholes. There a few who are extremely insightful (most of them I have marked as friends), and you learn to try to ignore the Apple hype articles. What annoys me (besides the Apple hype) is that I have the Apple section turned off, yet I
Some one help out parent? (Score:2)
Soon we will have run all those pesky freeBSD, windows and GNU/Linux fans out of here and we can rename the site MacDot! Yeeha
Not a phone (Score:2)
You just said it all right there. Being a Phone and a PDA is key to what makes the iPhone appealing, the whole class of devices like the N800 are a niche that just cannot be as large as smartphones because it means you have to have at least two devices on you.
Also, for me, the N800 is just way to large a thing to carry around all the time. Devices like that have never appealed to me because in the end I'd rather have a laptop.
PPI (Score:2)
There is another way to solve this, by increasing pixel density so a small screen present readable text even at very small sizes. I can read the article and summary text on Slashdot easily without zooming in
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is certainly the optimists view. What tech compan
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that thinks it is all hype.
I've been saying this for a while: the iPhone is nothing new (short of a few slight UI improvements, if you want to view them that way). It's extremely overrated, and offers nothing over what other smartphones offer. It'll work as a web browser, PDA, phone (and now I hear you can load software on it [slashdot.org]), but it ain't the second coming, and frankly, mo
Re: (Score:2)
No argument there.
However, you're misunderstanding the target audience. You seem to think that the iPhone is targeted at people like you, who have or are interested in smartphones. The iPhone appears to be targeted at the cash-flush, "mass-market consumers", and not at tech geeks. There's a whole lot more money to be made by selling to mass-market consumers, and these p
Hype? (Score:2)
Is hype totally based in fact hype? Or is it simply information presented?
What sold the iPhone at launch was not hype but TRUST. Because people enjoy
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Why are POP and a camera "basic" features? I never use my camera in my phone and in my last one (T610), I would inadverten
Depends on page and connection... (Score:2)
As the article says, I'd rather have a better browser with a somewhat slower connection, but the ability to do WiFi means a lot of the time I don't even have that limitation.