Mobile phones & tablets thread

[Daniel]

I am looking at getting an Xperia ARC, anyone here have it? If so, any thought and/or concerns?

I can't stress enough how much you should look at a Windows Phone 7 handset

HTC have announced the Titan and Radar which run Windows Phone 7.5 as standard, Samsung have announced a couple of phones too and of course Nokia's phones are due to hit later this year. Apparently Mango transforms an already good OS into a fantastic one. It addresses most of the big issues, especially multitasking which really does hobble my phone in terms of useability.

I know a lot of people don't seem to like Wp7 on here having tried it for short bursts, but any OS that you don't know seems crap until you understand how it works. I was a Nokia person until this phone and whenever I had to use a Sony Ericsson or a Motorola or whatever I was totally lost. Just like I'm lost if I have to use an iPhone.

In other news, Microsoft announced a couple of days ago that Mango will start to be pushed out in about a week or a week and a half. The RTM ROM's have been leaked and I could just flash my phone, but I'll wait for it to come out to me properly.

Again, WP7 is not about apps as iOS seems to be, you've got fantastic things like Bing Vision and Bing Audio (like Shazaam) which are inbuilt and which can talk to the marketplace or for instance an Amazon app. So you walk into a CD store, see a CD that you want, use Bing Vision and you can order it straight from Amazon or if you were somewhere and you heard a song you could get Bing Audio to identify it and then go to the marketplace and buy and download it there and then. Whilst I understand where Henners and Dave are coming from with widgets and how you can configure things a bit more with Android, I think WP7.5 has a lot of plus points.

[youtube]rBNPimlwDNk[/youtube]

[ArrowsFA1]

That, to me, looks like a drawing app. The point would be for that to understand and process my handwriting...

It may look like a drawing app, and you can certainly draw away to you heart's content if that's what you want to do, but as someone who uses it I know I can write notes, which is particularly useful at meetings, which the app will also record.

Exactly, the screen is bigger, but the functionality is the same (if not less).

The two things operate in a similar way e.g. apps & operating system, but that does not make their functionality the same. If they were the same then I'd be watching Grand Prix on my phone

[Daniel]

I was quite sceptical of the IPad but I think that I'd actually quite like one now. I have a job where work is quite ad-hoc and may involve travel and staying away. My work laptop heavily locked by down by our London based IT department and it doesn't even have a disc drive to watch DVD's. For periods where I might be staying away I think an iPad would actually be quite a good entertainment device. This doesn't mean I'm planning on rushing out to buy one but next time that I might have a prolonged period away from home I think I'd definitely be thinking about buying one.

I never realised the iPad had a DVD drive!

[GridGirl]

An IPad doesn't have a DVD drive but you know that already and quite fancied a b*tchy comment! Boring! My point was was actually that an IPad would allow me to watch films and tv series that we have already downloaded on iTunes much more easily than trying to prat about trying to get something to work on my heavily locked down work lap top if I was working away from home. It wouldn't take long to put whatever I wanted to watch, play or listen on an IPad. I think it would be far easier than travelling with two laptops.

[CaptainRaiden]

I was quite sceptical of the IPad but I think that I'd actually quite like one now. I have a job where work is quite ad-hoc and may involve travel and staying away. My work laptop heavily locked by down by our London based IT department and it doesn't even have a disc drive to watch DVD's. For periods where I might be staying away I think an iPad would actually be quite a good entertainment device. This doesn't mean I'm planning on rushing out to buy one but next time that I might have a prolonged period away from home I think I'd definitely be thinking about buying one.

Just as a comparison for you to see what you get for your money in terms of hardware.

iPad 2 - 64 GB - best you can get: 604 GBP
Hardware Specs:
CPU: 1 GHz dual-core (underclocked to 800Mhz) Apple A5
Storage capacity - Flash memory - 16 GB, 32 GB, or 64 GB[1]
Memory 512 MB DDR2 RAM

Now for the same money the specs in a laptop that you can get:

Any of the new Dell Inspiron laptops - In the 500 to 550 GBP range
Hardware Specs:
CPU: New gen Intel 3 Ghz Dual Core or 2.2 Ghz QUAD core processors (That's double or triple of what Apple is offering for the same price)
Storage Capacity - Starting at 640 GB up to 1.2 Terabytes (That's 10 times of what Apple is offering for the same price)
Memory - 4 GB DDR3 RAM Easily (That's 8 times of what Apple is offering in the iPad for the same price, and better RAM)
AND a DVD drive

The ONLY advantage, touch screen? Meh.... -- Add to that, thousands of applications and games that Apple can't match right now. Big money wastage to go for an iPad 2 IMO.

As for battery life, Dell is now coming up with battery life up to 12 hours, and probably even more if you use Dell Extended Battery Life thingy.

Dell Adds 12 Hour Battery Life, New Intel CPUs To Vostro 3000 Notebooks - HotHardware

[Daniel]

It may look like a drawing app, and you can certainly draw away to you heart's content if that's what you want to do, but as someone who uses it I know I can write notes, which is particularly useful at meetings, which the app will also record.

Whilst that's impressive and I'm sure it works well, do you not think that you could probably write notes far quicker on a laptop?

I guess I'm probably an odd person in that I'm not really a gadget person, some people have always wanted that "computer in your hand" thing and I've never really got it. The form factor of a laptop or a desktop is just so condusive to productivity and to precision. I post on another forum where iPad use is rather common and although the autocorrect function is quite good, there are still a lot of spelling mistakes, a lot of wrong words substituted by autocorrect and a lot of people accidently clicking dislike or like or thanks for comments. I think a lot of people are simply impressed by how much technology Apple can cram into such a tiny little rectangle and I agree it is quite a device, but are you actually any worse off just using your phone and laptop?

[CaptainRaiden]

I can't stress enough how much you should look at a Windows Phone 7 handset

Please don't listen to Daniel, anyone. Windows Phone 7 sucks, (Bing, really?? ) it's better to stick to Android.

[Daniel]

An IPad doesn't have a DVD drive but you know that already and quite fancied a b*tchy comment! Boring! My point was was actually that an IPad would allow me to watch films and tv series that we have already downloaded on iTunes much more easily than trying to prat about trying to get something to work on my heavily locked down work lap top if I was working away from home. It wouldn't take long to put whatever I wanted to watch, play or listen on an IPad. I think it would be far easier than travelling with two laptops.

Wow you're good!!!!!!!

Speaking as an IT person, your laptop is a tool which you're not meant to be using to play DVD's install hello kitty desktop themes and so on and so forth on.

[Daniel]

Please don't listen to Daniel, anyone. Windows Phone 7 sucks, (Bing, really?? ) it's better to stick to Android.

Bing is fine on Wp7, the only issue is they don't do am image search. But of course you can just go to google anyway which I often do

[Daniel]

Just as a comparison for you to see what you get for your money in terms of hardware.



Now for the same money the specs in a laptop that you can get:



The ONLY advantage, touch screen? Meh.... -- Add to that, thousands of applications and games that Apple can't match right now. Big money wastage to go for an iPad 2 IMO.

As for battery life, Dell is now coming up with battery life up to 12 hours, and probably even more if you use Dell Extended Battery Life thingy.

Dell Adds 12 Hour Battery Life, New Intel CPUs To Vostro 3000 Notebooks - HotHardware

Why would someone want to save £100 or so and have a device that is far more functional?!?!?!?! What are you smoking man! Plus you won't look really cool whilst using a laptop.

EDIT: A funny thing I've noticed in the UK is that people seem to delight in being able to say they spent more than they needed as if it's some sort of status symbol. Person X spends £200 on something and person Y spends £300 and didn't have to rub shoulders with riff raff or shop around. Look at me! I've got more money (and less sense) than you!