New Phone Suggestions

[kevm14]

You don't have to. The smartphone market is rapidly maturing. However, there are still points of differentiation.

The fact is, I wouldn't buy a Samsung phone. And the iPhone 5S has meh battery life and a tiny screen.

[Bob]

I am anxiously awaiting the day when my company allows phone choice and I can ditch the Blackberry (we have been told this was coming for years, but for some reason I think it may actually happen this year). I'll probably end up with an iPhone for many of the same reasons that I ultimately chose to buy an iPad mini as my compact tablet - it just works. I know this sounds incredibly boring, but I do appreciate a device where the features and apps just work the way they are supposed to. My Blackberry is so far away from this, it's not even funny.

[kevm14]

AT&T just dropped their prices again. 2GB of data in the family plan value or whatever it's called is now $40 versus $55. So my bill will drop another $15. It had already dropped about $30 for switching to an unsubsidized (off contract) mode. If I want new phones, and I want them subsidized, I lose that discount (breaks down per line). Now it's about even with what I would have paid on T-Mobile.

iPhones have problems, too. Especially with iOS 7. I don't think they are the gold standard they once were.

[Bob]

So I got some info on the phone choice program that is coming to my company. We will have the choice of the following phones: iPhone 5, Galaxy S4, Nokia Lumia, Blackberry Z10, Blackberry Q10. For me, I think it's a pretty clear cut decision to go iPhone 5.

[kevm14]

Wow, Lumia! I think the choice would between a Lumia (can you find out which model?) and the iPhone. I think there is a lot to say for the Lumia over the iPhone, though, just as Apple would want, you already have an Apple product so you'll have a tendency to want to buy into their walled garden. Not that all the choices don't involve some level of walled garden. But I happen to think MS struck the right chord with their walled garden. It's not a free for all disaster like Android (I think of Android like the Windows XP of phone OSs, though it is always improving), and it's also not totally locked down like the iPhone (the Lumia line gives you some hardware diversity and the OS itself is more flexible). They are also about to drop Win Phone 8.1 which is going to be pretty major.

I've had my Windows Phone since November 2011 and it's not been reflashed/reset once. No battery pulls or any BS like that. It's just as snappy as it always was, scrolling is still nice and smooth, etc.

[Bob]

I've had my latest Blackberry, the Bold 9900, for about a year now and I can assure you it's just as crappy as ever. It still needs to be reset frequenty, has zero app selection, is completely useless as a browser and has a battery that can't make it through the day. I'll probably go with the iPhone mainly because I know it will work and I am happy with the app selection and whatever synergies it has with my iPad.

[kevm14]

Yeah that is a pretty safe choice. I will say customer satisfaction with Windows Phone is actually very high, fwiw.

[Bob]

Stuff like this is why I go with Apple products. I don't fly United that often, but I'm sure similar things will be rolled out on other airlines (I already used a similar service for live TV on Southwest last year using my iPad) https://hub.united.com/en-us/news/compa ... evice.aspx

The new products and services will always get developed for Apple first since it is the most popular platform.

[kevm14]

Well you already have an iPad mini for that. But as an example, yes, Apple will tend to be developed for first, though globally, iOS is MUCH lower marketshare than Android. Windows Phone marketshare, in some countries, exceeds iOS, actually (not in the US).

[dochielomn]

Thoughts about HTC phones? Was just browsing around and basically saw something for the HTC One (M8) and then found this article/blog about it http://bgr.com/2014/03/25/htc-one-m8-review/. I think Kevin, you had an HTC phone at one point?