Cell Phones

[SeijiSensei]

"8-12 year-olds"

[Ledgem]

Does anyone have any ideas about how to silence the camera sound on Symbian phones? With Windows-based phones you just had to hack the registry (if there wasn't an option to reduce the volume to 0 already) and there were some clear steps to it. I've been searching around the internet every so often but can't really find any good solutions for how to make the phone on the camera not make a tone when you take a picture. I understand the "security" reasons for having it but I always felt that it was stupid to have a digital camera play the shutter sound when there are no moving parts.

[Vexx]

I just find the choice of sounds to be obnoxious in cellphones. I just want a quiet chirp to simulate a button click.

For the first time --- I'm up for a phone upgrade with my cellular provider and .... I don't see a phone I like better than the one I have. The more expensive ones have crap i don't want and nothing matches the features I have in the current model.

If anyone knows of a cellphone that matches the features of a Sony Ericsson W810i *and* is a flip/slider that protects the screen as well as uses a standard stereo jack instead of those stupid "universal" mutant plugs -- I'd be interested in hearing about it.

[octobomb]

id say iPhone rocks :P its totally worth it to

[Epyon9283]

I just got rid of my HTC Touch (and Sprint). Windows mobile is such a piece of garbage. You should be able to use a phone one handed but the stupid windows mobile interface was designed for a stylus so all the on-screen widgets are tiny. WM is also slow, buggy, and crashes a whole lot more than it should. There were many, many times when I'd get a call or text message but couldn't do anything because the phone would start vibrating and lock up while vibrating. I'd have to do a soft reset to get it to stop. That'd stop me from answering the call. There were many times when I'd get text messages or voicemail (because the phone service sucked and I couldn't actually receive the call) and I'd get no notification. The phone's screen would also light up randomly and frequently which burned through the battery. There was a damn light on the phone that would blink if it was on. Why the hell do I want it blinking all the time? I want a blink if I have a message or a missed call. The message light was orange while the "I'm fine" light was green. They were right next to each other and being red/green color blind I could never tell which was which.

I'm back to a blackberry. Got a Curve 8310 from AT&T. The service is more expensive but it at least works. The phone is also a hell of a lot more reliable than a WM phone.

[Vexx]

Yeah, you'd have to beat me severely before I'd use WinMobile...

And iPhone... :P I have a philosophical disagreement with a system that requires my eyeballs be on it to use (touchscreen can evil if you're trying to walk, etc).
Hard buttons can be finger-memorized so I don't have to look to click.

[WanderingKnight]

And iPhone... :P I have a philosophical disagreement with a system that requires my eyeballs be on it to use (touchscreen can evil if you're trying to walk, etc).
Hard buttons can be finger-memorized so I don't have to look to click.

Yep, physical feedback is extremely important in interface devices. Typing in a screen keyboard sucks big time if you're a touch typist.

Add that to the hype, AT&T lockdown and Apple's unwillingness to open up the phone for third-party developers, and the thing's certainly not worth the pricetag.

(But not that it matters anyway, I can't get it legally where I reside )

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I just find the choice of sounds to be obnoxious in cellphones. I just want a quiet chirp to simulate a button click.

I'm still not used to people gawking at me while I'm taking pictures, but at least when I'm using my DSLR I feel a bit more confident about it (size matters? ). I just feel like an idiot using a cellphone to capture a lot of things, not to mention that I only use it to capture the most random things.

As for your phone request, I know the feeling of upgrding and realizing that you can't find anything better than what you were using. The W810i is a music-based phone in a candybar form factor, it seems. I haven't examined the latest phones recently so I'm not sure about a slider model, but Motorola has a candybar-type music phone (not the ROKR, there was a second type that they released a year or two ago - maybe a ROKR2?). I "upgraded" from my beloved MPx220 to a Nokia N76 - both the N76 and N75 are music-based phones, and they're clamshell form factor ("flip phones"). The N76 is a bit flashier, seems to be a RAZR-copycat with media controls on the outside (I hate the internal keypad), and has a standard 2mm audio jack. Unfortunately to use the radio you still need to use Nokia's included headphones; the jack is a bit longer than the usual headphone plug and has an extra band, presumably for the radio antenna connection.

The audio player is nice and it supports the audio through bluetooth protocol (A2DP I believe), so if you have a pair of bluetooth headphones (as I do) then you can use it. You can even play music through a regular bluetooth headset, but of course the quality is limited as headsets weren't designed for that Nokia included a 1 GB MicroSD card with my phone, and it has two converters (so you can use it in either a MiniSD or SD card reader). The supposed maximum supported memory is 2 GB, but I don't know if that's just because that was the maximum memory size available at the time.

The battery life is about as bad as the MPx220 was: ~3 days, if that. My big gripe is that the battery indicator seems to go down exponentially. On day one I'll still have five battery bars; on day two it'll be down to four and I might see it go to three; on day three the battery dies some time during the day. Given that the phone and battery were official and new I presume it's more of a software-side glitch than a bad battery, but you never know.

I've also come to find that I hate Symbian. The MPx220 ran Windows Mobile 2003 (second edition?) and it allowed me to do quite a bit, both in terms of synchronization, program support, and hackability. When I switched over to a Mac system I figured I'd go with a Symbian phone to be able to use iSync (I am aware that you can buy progams to sync with Windows Mobile). There are barely any free applications to run on Symbian, and I feel like there was a wider array of Windows Mobile applications. The interface feels less slick than the Windows one did; with Windows it felt like there were more shortcuts you could take to get to what you wanted, or perhaps it was just organized better. The Symbian interface feels very stiff and not always intuitive.

My biggest gripe is with the way Symbian handles your contacts list. With Windows Mobile you could just start entering numbers and it would automatically begin matching based on both numbers and all possible letter combinations. For example, suppose I want to call "mom" - I enter 6, and the phone immediately switches over to the contact list. It shows "6" at the top and then I see contacts that match, either based on their first or last entry names starting with M, N, or O (and the matching aspect is highlighted), and it also shows phone numbers that match with the 6 (either beginning with area code, the first of the three digits, or the first of the four digits if I remember right). I enter 6 again and it further refines the entries. 6 again and for me, "Mom" is all that's left on the list. Hit down and call, and there we go. Effortless and easy. With Symbian I have to go to the contact list manually, and begin typing in the letters of the name using the tap method. It's a vastly inferior method and I never realized how much better the Windows method was until I lost it.

Originally Posted by Epyon9283

I just got rid of my HTC Touch (and Sprint). Windows mobile is such a piece of garbage.

Probably depends on the hardware. I loved Windows Mobile on the Motorola MPx220. That was running Windows Mobile 2003 SE, I believe. It had a slow load time (perhaps due to the phone's hardware) and every month or so it was a good idea to reboot it, but it worked nicely and had wide program support otherwise. I ended up having to replace it about two years later because it'd take forever to load the "Accept/Deny" screen when I had a call, sometimes to the point that the call would shift over to voicemail. I'm not really sure why, but I presume something was going in the hardware. Since it wasn't able to operate very well as a regular phone I figured it best to replace it (although I still have it).

Symbian is stable and quick to load, but I don't like the way things are laid out. When the time comes to change phones again I'll be limiting myself to Android-based phones and Windows Mobile phones. Unfortunately there are no clamshell Windows Mobile phones on the market at this point in time...

[Kyuusai]

I am growing increasingly weary of the incompetence of phone interface designers. They're all terrible (even SymbianOS has turned to crap), but they are really so terrible they're insulting. If you want me to see red, put a Blackberry in my hands and tell me to configure it. I want one just so I can smash it.

And now touch screens are starting to take over. Tactile feedback is one major point I've been harping on for years as touch screen phones have been rolling out. I am capable of operating my phone, even texting, while engaging fully in other activites--or at least, I used to be on my old Nokia. My RAZR ended that. I love the form factor and screen on my RAZR... that's it. The rest I hate, but I just hated it less than any other phone available.

You know what, though? I think I'll be getting an iPhone. Yes, it's a touch screen like I hate, but they've done SO MUCH ELSE RIGHT that I'm willing to make the sacrifice. Sure, it's loaded with features, but I'm OK with that. Cameras in phones have finally become good enough to replace a normal digital camera for casual purposes, and the iPhone finally means that email and web browsing are to usable enough that I feel less need to be near a computer. After using it for myself, I'm really impressed. Add to that the fact that it's a great media player (unlike every other media player phone), and it's pretty much clinched. Oh, and all in a form factor that's thinner than my RAZR and with an interface that doesn't get in the way of its functionality. I hate having an exposed screen, but my RAZR's constantly dirtied screen has broken me, and by golly the iPhone is hard to scratch (and besides, that's what Hori screen protectors are for).

I'm a huge fan of Android, but from the demos I'm getting the feeling that it will be some time before the usability reaches the level of the iPhone, and the initial hardware doesn't look like it'll be nearly as nice. OpenMoko with Android will be marvelous, with some time.

Here's what will be the determining factor for me: The iPhone will hit East Asian markets shortly after the release of the 3G model in June, so certainly East Asian language input methods will be part of the OS. If they are available on western iPhones, I'll pick one up (and promptly jailbreak it).

If not, I'll wait for a mature Android platform.

[Epyon9283]

There are a couple of clamshell WM phones out there but none of them are running wm6.

I tried to make myself like Windows Mobile... I really did. It didn't really seem to do much well. My phone had a 400Mhz processor and 128MB of RAM. Thats faster than the first 5 or 6 computers I've owned. It took forever to do anything. When you turned the screen on (to do anything with it) it would take 2-3 seconds to redraw the clock on the HTC touch home screen plugin thing.

The task manager in WM was worthless. Closing apps didn't really close apps. It'd just send them to the background so they could continue to chew through RAM and consume CPU cycles. Its a damn phone.. I shouldn't need to concern myself with making sure apps are closed so the phone doesn't hang in a couple hours because it ran out of RAM. I shouldn't have to remember to close the camera app so that it wouldn't continue to eat CPU cycles and kill my battery even faster.

On startup WM used about 50MB of RAM. Zuh? Thats more than their desktop OSes used in the late 90s and they did a hell of a lot more.

I had to copy wav files from my memory card to the windows folder so that I could use them as notification sounds. Why?!

I had to use a registry editor at one point to try to fix something. That just seems so wrong to have to do on a phone.

I realized quickly that I had to keep my ringtones on the internal memory of the phone because it shut off power to the memory card when it wasn't in use. That meant that it'd take that much longer for the phone to ring when someone called. It also caused hangs.

Text messages were treated as emails so you couldn't see them in a threaded display. Made following a conversation more difficult since you had to switch between the inbox and the sent box.

Pocket IE is just awful. Any non dead simple pages caused the thing to hang for seconds at a time when trying to scroll around.

Lucky for me my phone had a Java VM so I could use opera mini. Unlucky for me my phone didn't have a keypad so I couldn't control Opera Mini. The thought of paying for Opera Mobile crossed my mind but I didn't want to spend more money on that phone.

[Epyon9283]

Originally Posted by Kyuusai

I am growing increasingly weary of the incompetence of phone interface designers. They're all terrible (even SymbianOS has turned to crap), but they are really so terrible they're insulting. If you want me to see red, put a Blackberry in my hands and tell me to configure it. I want one just so I can smash it.

I never had much trouble with the interface on Blackberries. At least its responsive. *shakes fist at windows mobile*

[[DOT].L]

Ahaha, I remember owning a Dopod windows mobile that took forever to boot up. Finally got fed up with it and switched two years ago.

[Sephi]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I just find the choice of sounds to be obnoxious in cellphones. I just want a quiet chirp to simulate a button click.

For the first time --- I'm up for a phone upgrade with my cellular provider and .... I don't see a phone I like better than the one I have. The more expensive ones have crap i don't want and nothing matches the features I have in the current model.

If anyone knows of a cellphone that matches the features of a Sony Ericsson W810i *and* is a flip/slider that protects the screen as well as uses a standard stereo jack instead of those stupid "universal" mutant plugs -- I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Only clamshell models protect the screen. I haven't saw a slidephone that protect the screen yet. As for the question.

The Nokia N95(8b)? It's a slidephone and it uses a normal stereo jack. My sister has one. The building quality is quite solid imo, just somewhat bad battery performance and not the fastest phone. But i can't imagine it not having the features your old phone has. Though it might help if you name the features your looking for

Though personally i'm not to found of slidephones. At some point the slider just dies Though the building quality might of improved now, but i still hear to much bad from slidephones. I rather have the usual candybar form.

[Vexx]

The only quibble I have about the "candybar" form is that huge exposed screen that screams "scratch me!!!" Clam shells (aka Cap'n' Kirk) are the best for protecting screen and keys.... but at the moment, I'm not too keen on my choices - in large part because of the OS "descent into the hell of who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea!??".

The 810 is a happy toy that I like (especially the user interface and theme capability - right now my phone is all Horo-ized... a few months ago, it was Kagami-ized). I used to use Nokia devices quite a lot though so I'll probably browse their selection a bit closer.

[Sephi]

I'm using the K850i myself. Perhaps that or the W960i is a alternative seeing your quite found of SE interface. The K850 also offers a lot of themes. You can even make your own or use a .swf(flash) as background. But the K850i is using a as you call "mutant plugs" And i'm unsure about the W960i. And the W960i is using Symbian so not sure how much that affected the UI.

As for the screen being exposed to scratches. The latest cell phones usually have a scratch proof screen. Of course that doesn't mean you can grind it over the asphalt. But they are very scratch resistant. I got the K850i for about 3 month now. And the screen is still scratch free.. More ironic is that there is a scratch near the buttons and at the back...

[EXEs]

Hey Vexx, ever have the headphone jack problem with the W810i? Because it's quite loose on my phone, and I can't put it in my pockets or it unplugs and *loud random music* ensues .

[Vexx]

Actually, yes, the mutant plug interface often knocks off, exposing passerby to the noise I call music. Also the connector jack end (so you can actually use any headphone you want) releases too easily.

I did find a nice belt pouch for the w810i but I had to actually slice a hole in it for the plug interface (x-acto for the win). Once I did that much of the "loud random music" problem went away. I'd like to get one of those stereo bluetooth headsets but I kind of gag at the prices when I have so much else to waste money on.

I have to confess though that I use individualized ringtones and my ringtone for my wife is the chorus melodic part of the Lucky Star theme. That really freaks some people out.

I will say I'm kind of surprised I've not scratched the screen yet -- but then I've been pretty paranoid about it since the day it arrived.

[EXEs]

A mod, huh. Pretty cool I must say. And yeah, the Lucky Star ringtone - I scared a few people with it too . Btw, if you got a screen protector, it's pretty much impossible to scratch the screen. Through these 1 1/2 years, I've accidently dropped my phone on a regular basis, and are hardly any scratches. This phone's near indestructible.

[King Lycan]

lol I love my tilt ...i didn't till i started using custom Roms from XDA Develops..but everyone seems to hate WM6

[guest]

Anyone know about the service between Virgin Mibile and Tracfone? I am using prepaid cell phone and would like to switch from T-mibile to either of the two. I don't use my cell phone much and I do use email, mostly from my cell phone to my email address for picture sending purpose. Anyone ever try these two?