Mobile phones & tablets thread

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Originally Posted by henners88

If I was looking to buy a Windows phone I think I would wait another 6 months and see what else comes out. So many models are being released at the moment and in quick succession, it seems they just get better by the week. I wouldn't want to be stuck in a 24 month contract knowing there are better handsets available and ones that were released just a couple of weeks after mine. Then again that will always happen. WP8 is still very young and I think I'd want to see if more apps are being released on that service too.Its sometimes better to purchase the phone outright I agree, but in my case I would have saved 40 quid over the 2 years which I didn't think was worth it. It may well be a bigger difference with the Nokia and have no idea how much the 920 costs.

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The upgrade cycle isn't that short with Windows Phones though. As an example here's HTC's big screen WP7 release dates.

October 2010 HD7
October 2011 Titan
April 2012 Titan (Titan with 4g and more MP camera)

So IMHO it makes sense to buy now if you need a phone now, rather than waiting 6 months and then finding that a new phone is only 6 months away.

WP8 has all the apps from WP7 so it's not appless like WP7 was to start with :) I think a 920 will be around £450 sim only. You could gamble on the launch being a bit slow and the prices getting dropped a bit in a couple of months though......

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Originally Posted by henners88

Yeah my iPhone contract has 'unlimited data' but in the small print there is a fair use policy where they slash you data speed should you go over a gig. I don't know why they don't just say you have 1GB of data. Sounds better I suppose.

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Can't remember what my plan is, but I'm with Three and their coverage is dire so I've never troubled my cap...... Then again I tend to use my phone on WiFi 90% of the time so it's no big problem.

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Originally Posted by henners88

Yeah I won't be using 4G when it becomes available on my network if the prices are anything like they are now. I really can't see the justification when 3G is pretty fast and I'm mostly around Wifi networks anyway. Its just one of those services that will get small numbers signing up and when the rest of the providers get it they will just include it in the cost no doubt.

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I would consider 4G if it could be hooked up to a wifi sender and give me a decent speed. 3G currently happens to be about four times faster than my home broadband so the thought of getting 4G is very appealing even if it is very expensive. 4G could potentially give me a faster speed much quicker than the various campaigns in my local area to get quicker broadband which to date include features on tv shows, local papers, complaining to the council, our MP speaking in parliament as well as the hounding of the powers that be at BT.

The data caps mean that it's still going to be a poor alternative to your home wifi.

My home wi-fi speeds range between 0.8mg and 1.9mg though and we've done all the tricks such as moving routers etc to make it faster. Could be worse though as some of our neighbours get 0.3mg. Hopefully with a little competition prices for 4G will come down in the future and then I will think about looking into data plans. :)

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Originally Posted by GridGirl

My home wi-fi speeds range between 0.8mg and 1.9mg though and we've done all the tricks such as moving routers etc to make it faster. Could be worse though as some of our neighbours get 0.3mg. Hopefully with a little competition prices for 4G will come down in the future and then I will think about looking into data plans. :)

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You should be able to get fibre to the cabinet before too much longer.

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Originally Posted by henners88

Its reassuring to know that. I was fed up of Android phones being released weekly and my phone slipping quickly out of date. That's one of the reasons I chose Apple as you know where you are concerning the range of products. I have read a little into apps for WP8 and is it right you can't use BBC iPlayer on it yet? That would be a bummer for me especially during the summer when I'm in West Wales and wanting to watch the GP highlights. Reading a few reviews and it appears there will be quite a battle in the coming year to see if many developers will stretch their resources to include WP8 as its apparently a very different platform to design for. You will know more about that than me of course. I know iOS is always attractive to developers because of the revenue they make in comparison to rivals. As I said a few pages back, it seems iPhone/iPad users are more willing in any numbers to buy apps whereas Android users statistically tend to expect more free apps. I think this will change as nothing remains free forever. :)

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At the moment the videos on the BBC site don't work because of standards, but there's nothing to stop the BBC developing software for WP8 and I suspect with the similarities between WP8 and W8 RT, there should hopefully be an iPlayer app in the future. As always, if a particular app is a deal breaker then it's a deal breaker :) We use iPlayer a lot, I use TunerfreeMCE within Windows Media Centre and it's fantastic for watching BBC stuff as well as the of ITV or Channel 4/5 program. We don't tend to holiday much in the UK so an iPlayer app isn't all that important, though I'll admit that it is annoying in the morning when I go on the BBC site and see and interesting story and I can't play the clip......

BBC still not making a Windows Phone iPlayer app, blames Windows Phone 8, bugs | WMPoweruser

Reading this story, will an iPlayer app land on WP8? Who can say. It won't bother me either way. I'll get myself a Surface Pro, iPlayer runs just fine on the proper desktop version of Windows 8.

Reading my post I can see the problem...... People will buy a Surface RT or WP8 device and expect an iPlayer app or at least for the iPlayer site to work on it and when it doesn't.......

In terms of just streaming from the web, I can see why BBC don't support WP7, it would mean converting all the videos on their site into another format! And for what? A few percent of the market, but I think that if they get off their high horse they'll make an app for WP8.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

Why not just buy the phone outright? Ends up being cheaper over the life of your contract anyway :)

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With my network provider it doesn't really make that much difference.

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Originally Posted by Malbec

With my network provider it doesn't really make that much difference.

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So buy one outright ;)

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Originally Posted by henners88

The BBC would be mad not to accommodate WP8 regardless of market share IMO. Viewers are viewers at the end of the day. Plus if they covered their development costs by charging WP8 users a couple of quid as opposed to it being free elsewhere, I don't think many people would mind if it was something they wanted. There are ways around such issues I am sure.

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One would imagine that there are possibly some politics involved. They had two years to accommodate WP7 and didn't. Again, it doesn't bother me, but I suspect I'm not the typical user, I don't care about apps really. I use the accuweather app, the ebay app, the endomondo app, last.fm, and Vevo. I used to use the facebook app, but it's quicker just to use it on the web. Uploading photos to facebook is done with the built in facebook functionality so the only time I use it is to check in as it's better for that than the website.