Recommend me an XT phone

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Recommend me an XT phone

NonprayingMantis

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#35678 14-Jun-2009 13:55

I am a fairly high user, so postpaid is it for me.

Had a quick squizz through the list and all phones are within my budget (although obviously price is a factor, functionality is more important).

features I regard as very important:

Good Camera (video taking, playback and upload to youtube is important as I like to take impromptu videos of the kiddies for the grandparents)
Good Email cpabilities for work
Intuitive UI/OS
Easy to use music player (with decent storage capacity)

Features that would be nice, but not essential:

qwerty keyboard
bluetooth
Wifi
good map/GPS interface.

so far I like the Sony W995, the Nokia N85 (although that does seem a bit expensive - are there any major benefits to paying that much extra as it seems very similar to the W995 which is half the price almost?). I also like the N75 for it's slide out keyboard. possibly Nokia E71

Blackberry is a maybe, although I have never used one before.

(of course another option is to wait for the new iPhone - which looks damn impressive, not sure about using a touch screen exclusively though)
speaking of touch screens, the Samsung 480 seems great value - anyone used the touch screen on that?

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scottjpalmer

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#224878 14-Jun-2009 14:04

E71 is an awesome phone - lot's of Geekzoners will back me up on that :-)

Fossie

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#224892 14-Jun-2009 14:52

e55...when it comes out....and if tc will carry it.

zocster

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#224913 14-Jun-2009 15:51

Blackberry Bold!

NZtechfreak

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#224936 14-Jun-2009 16:41

E71 is good, E-Infotech have it for around $600 now, which is a great price on this handset.

The N97 fits your wanted feature profile pretty well also... but its pricey right now as just come out...

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paradoxsm

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#224969 14-Jun-2009 18:09

E71 or e75 would be my main picks, both symbian smart phones which can have added applications.

Ericsson is nice phone but does not have native application support.

Only windows mobile phone was the palm treo pro and my experience was not that great for compatibility with older generic applications, display was horrible and keyboard was horrible. It's camera took rather amazing snaps though for such a basic unit.\

email support should be good on both (or try another email client if the built in one does not take your fancy)

Both have nice, qwerty keyboards that work on a light press, I especially like the E75's "phone-esque" appearance and the keyboard is particularly nice to type on as well as sliding away when you want to use it as a standard phone.

I found the e75's camera to take rather nice 3mpix snaps but again the new sensor may also be in recent yields of the e71. Both phones don't over sharpen images either which is a big positive and results in much nicer quality.

music players in both are decent but are "playlist manager" type applications, I prefer folder players which you can of course load-on if you prefer. the e71 has the smaller jack plug but has a loud audio output, i'm unsure on the e75.

both have GPS

Both have wifi

only the e71 has the built in SIP client (VoIP calls from a router) I'll be swayed in that direction * I could be wrong, can anyone confirm this?

(these are only phones that have been released direct by TelecomNZ, there may be better phones not released in our market)

*edit* edited "e85" back to the correct "e75" bad bad autocorrect..

Nety

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#225158 15-Jun-2009 09:47

I just got the e75. It does have a standard jack for headphones which is great (means I can use my nice headphones instead of the nokia rubbish.

I got it because I wanted a full querty keyboard but did not want a 'big' phone. In that regard it is fantastic. In fact in almost every regard I have found it very very good. However where it might let you down it in the camera department.

I did have a SonyEricsson k800i which had a fantastic 3mp camera with a true flash. In comparison the e75 has a OK camera in good light but seems to struggle in poor light and the flash is a joke (LED). It will be the one thing I miss from the Sony. Don't get me wrong it is not a bad camera but it just is not in the same league as the k800i one. Although having said that one area where it walks all over the k800i is the speed of the camera. It is very quick to focus and take the shot it also gets back from the reveiw screen to the viewfinder screen in a fraction of the time that the sony took.

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bags1

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#225187 15-Jun-2009 10:52

LG Arena http://www.gsmarena.com/lg_km900_arena-2666.php

ping182nz

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#225202 15-Jun-2009 11:35

I like the look of the Nokia N97, Can you get it anywhere in NZ yet?

scottjpalmer

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#225325 15-Jun-2009 18:45

ping182nz: I like the look of the Nokia N97, Can you get it anywhere in NZ yet?

Not "officially" - there are a few parallel importers offering them though, check out the latter part of this thread

Aaroona

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#225354 15-Jun-2009 19:37

scottjpalmer: E71 is an awesome phone - lot's of Geekzoners will back me up on that :-)

Im behind you 110%

Although, as far as Emails go; don't go expecting HTML from these phones, which was one disappointment for me :( (especially because i use Exchange 2007, and also recieve a lot of HTML formatted emails)

but for basic email stuff, its pretty good.

The E71 is actually rock solid (although, im not intending on trying to damage it to see its limits), as the other day it slipped off a couple of books i was moving, hit the wall, and then fell to the floor.

It actually left a dent in the wall, and no damage on the phone from the impact or the fall which was quite amazing for a phone these days. It feels beautiful in the hand (if in doubt, pop along to the closest Parallel Imports or something where you can physically play with a model [not sure if Telecom have working models in store]), you'll understand what i mean when you do.

As far as the camera goes - the camera does an okayish job depending on what you're wanting it to do. For me, it's doingo kay for live streaming (yes, live streaming) and the regular photo and video.
Just take note here, it took me a little while to work out; the autofocus camera thats on it only focuses when you press the T button before taking the photo.

Other than that, the phone seems to be solid, i havent had any problems with call quality, it has a loud speaker for what it is. Loud ringer.

The battery life is also a big plus (Mind you, coming from someone who came from an iPhone :P)

Really, what it comes down to in the end is what you are happy with.

Like I said previously; pop down to Parallel Imports or something and try a couple of phones out while you're in the store, at least then you will have more of an idea of what you want, they have quite a nice range (AFAIK) of working display models.

Hope this helps.