recommend me a smartphone

[greedyisgood]

Hi I need a smartphone which will be used primarily for surfing, watching movies and capable of office applications. Also wifi is a must for internet mobility. I also prefer a smartphone which has a good web browser that can support and display any format completely. Maybe I can spend only for around $350. Any recommendations? Thanks

[chikorita157]

There is a variety of choices to choose from. Android, Blackberry and iPhone uses the Webkit rendering engine, so it is not an issue.

iPhone is relatively easy to use and have access to a lot of apps, but you are locked into iTunes and also the AppStore, unless you jailbreak. If you want to get this, I suggest holding off for awhile until the 4th Generation iPhone comes out. iPhone 4.0 will give multitasking which other smartphones currently provides.

Android on the other hand is completely open and you can load pretty much any app and customize the device. Verizon Wireless seems to have a good choice of phones like the Droid and Droid Incredible that recently came out. If you go for T-Mobile, there is the Nexus One. However, Android is not completely polished because it had been out for 1 year or so, but it is improving. Don't bother with Android on AT&T as they prevent you from removing their apps and restricting you to their AppStore.

Blackberry is another popular choice because of the RIM Messaging Service. More oriented towards business use, but I don't know about the media functions on them since I never used them. Unless you go for the Storm from Verizon Wireless, you are pretty much stuck with a non-touchscreen device as the majority of them don't have them except the Storm... unless I am wrong...

Don't bother with any Windows Mobile phones since you probably will find them very clunky and having to reset the device to make it work.

[greedyisgood]

Thanks for the informative advise also can you recommend me a specific brand/model that will suit my needs,

[synaesthetic]

Motorola Droid
HTC Nexus One
Palm Pre Plus (this is also very cheap these days)
Or wait for the fourth-gen iPhone and it to get jailbroken. iPhone is pointless unless jailbroken, imo.

[Vexx]

Are you already on contract with a telecom with subsidized phones? That affects "how much you have to spend". Most of the phones I might point out run around $500 unsubsidized but can be almost pennies with a two year contract.

Oddly, I'm so annoyed at the "$30/month for data plan over and above the voice plan and we'll beat you if you go over 5GB" BS that most of the major carriers have that I'm just sitting on my "screw you, AT&T/Verizon, and the horse you rode in on" chair on the subject.
(Keeps glancing over at Cricket...)

[greedyisgood]

whats the difference between iphone from itouch?

[Rennir]

iPhone, as it's name suggests is a phone. The itouch, on the other hand is an mp3 device, it plays music. The differences between the two are the iPhone can call people(along with the hardware that is built in so calling is possible), iPhone has a camera, and the iPhone is slightly bulkier. But otherwise, they're pretty much thr same.
________
Og kush seeds

[Ledgem]

I'm kind of surprised that nobody is discussing the phone operating systems.

Avoid Symbian (all older Nokia "smartphones" ran this OS). It felt pretty dumbed down.

Windows Mobile was good when I used it a few years ago - it contributed to making the phone I was using at the time my favorite smartphone. It's come along nicely since then, although I haven't used the latest one.

Android looks decent - haven't used it, but it should be comparable to Windows Mobile.

iPhone OS (which I'm currently using) is wonderful, but very restrictive. Compared to my other smartphones it's arguably very limited - I can't hack the phone's internals (easily), there's no accessible file system for easily getting files onto and off of the phone; you can't sync it over Bluetooth... in exchange for that, you get a very clean user experience. Despite those limitations, you can still do quite a bit with the phone, too. However, whereas the version of Windows Mobile that I used in the past made my phone seem like a miniature computer, the iPhone is a completely different type of computing device. It takes some getting used to, but I'm quite happy with it. The virtual keyboard is great, and I've typed many lengthy emails and documents using it with very little issue. But text entry is something that varies from person to person - some people are fine with the virtual keyboard, others insist on having a physical keyboard that has tactile feedback.

I'm an AT&T customer but didn't want to swap my excellent plan for their outrageous iPhone plan. I purchased my iPhone (1st generation, 16 GB capacity) for about $270 on eBay and jailbroke it. If you didn't want to bother with potentially waiting through multiple auctions, you could easily get one at a $300 price point - I don't think many people will bid higher than that. The newer iPhones are also up on eBay, but watch the firmware versions, as not all of them are jailbreakable at this point.

[chikorita157]

Actually, all the iPhones are jailbreakable since the Spirit Jailbreak released a while ago that supports the new boot rom found on the newer 3GS. Pwnage Tool works with 3.1.3 for older boot roms as well.

But when 4.0 comes out, you have to wait for a new jailbreak... Which is probaly next month.

[synaesthetic]

in before day-one jailbreak of iPhone 4th Gen.