Time For Me To Get A New Phone!

[Berger_4_]

Hey all...so my good ol' Nokia 6265i has finally broken down...and I need myself a new phone! I've got a couple years left on my contract with Telus and so I want to get another one with them obviously. And you yes you, faithful CPer can help me decide what I want! So anyways, here are the ones I'm thinking about...

LG Venus:
http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/..._lg_8800.shtml

LG Shine:
http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/..._lg_8700.shtml

LG Chocolate Spin:
http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/..._lg_8550.shtml

Motorola Razr2:
http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/...la_razr2.shtml

LG Chocolate Flip:
http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/..._lg_8600.shtml

Samsung SPH M620:
http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/...0_bundle.shtml

Motorola Krzr:
http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/...krzr_k1m.shtml

So...yeah! Any advice on what I should get, what I should stay away from, that'd be great. I'd love to get one of those Blackberry Pearls, but I don't think I can justify getting a smartphone (and 70 dollar a month phone bill) just heading into university haha. Anyways like I said, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Rhettzky]

The new LG venus is freaking awesome. The touch screen makes it so easy to navigate it's unreal and the camera works really great. I highly recommend it but I haven't tried any of the other ones you listed.

[Flaming Choy]

Originally Posted by Rhettzky

The new LG venus is freaking awesome. The touch screen makes it so easy to navigate it's unreal and the camera works really great. I highly recommend it but I haven't tried any of the other ones you listed.

It does look cool, but the split in the touch screens sorta annoys me. I wish it was just a single touch screen with a graphical partition of the screen area, that way if your watching videos or something (does it play videos) you can take advantage of a larger screen and for other application, you could keep the multi-tasking screens via a graphical bar.

[D to the iddy]

I own the Chocolate Flip and love it. I've heard of people having problems with the different versions of the Chocolate in the past (both slider and flip) but I, nor my brother (who owns the slider) have had any problems. However, I'm not one of the people who uses my cell for anything other than a phone though so I'm not sure about the music playing capabilities.

If all you're looking for is a solid cell phone and not a butt load of add-ons, I'd definately suggest it.

[Rhettzky]

Originally Posted by Flaming Choy

It does look cool, but the split in the touch screens sorta annoys me. I wish it was just a single touch screen with a graphical partition of the screen area, that way if your watching videos or something (does it play videos) you can take advantage of a larger screen and for other application, you could keep the multi-tasking screens via a graphical bar.

The top piece isn't a touch screen it's just a plain jane screen. The bottom one is where all the touching happens. It would be hard to take advantage of the touch screen part for more viewing area because it would just make the screen longer if you know what i mean. And yeah it plays videos.

The touch screen just makes it easier to navigate the menu's and the camera settings, etc.. and yeah, it looks cool.

[Flaming Choy]

aww, that's too bad, dual touch screen would be cool (but i guess it'd be too much like an ipod/iphone).

[NSFL]

I'm gonna say Samsung just because I've been a loyal Samsunger since my very first phone in high school and they've never let me down.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

I've used and testing every single one of those devices and I can say Samsung is the only one I'll consider.

The Mot razr and krzr are horrible devices with slow ass hardware.

[Berger_4_]

Yeah, I was kind of leaning towards that Samsung one, but I've heard that the texting on it is kinda screwy...is it true you've got to flip the phone over and then back again to start texting or something? I've heard bad things about the Chocolate slider (buddy a mine had one and it worked for maybe a month) but good things about the flip (another buddy has one and loves it)...decisions decisions haha...

Oh another question (most likely a dumb one...actually probably a really dumb one...) Is there any way I could buy a phone at full price from a different company (I was thinking about the Nokia slider from Rogers) and put it on Telus? Or is that completely out of the question?

[NSFL]

Originally Posted by Berger_4_

Oh another question (most likely a dumb one...actually probably a really dumb one...) Is there any way I could buy a phone at full price from a different company (I was thinking about the Nokia slider from Rogers) and put it on Telus? Or is that completely out of the question?

You can't do that with Telus. Since they don't use a SIM card, you have to use one of Telus' phones. With Rogers, you could buy any phone that's SIM capable and use that, but Telus just has to be a bitch about it.

[SebC]

Ugh... that Samsung's a horrible design. Tiny screen on the side where your keypad is.

[Cliche]

http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/...tc_p3050.shtml

Has anyone had experience with this?

[FanIn80]

I finally took the plunge and switched to a Blackberry about a year ago. Wow, I have no clue how I managed to get anything done without it!

I'm using a red Curve now. Hella fine.

[worth]

nm

[llama64]

Originally Posted by Cliche

http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/...tc_p3050.shtml

Has anyone had experience with this?

I've heard its a cool piece of technology, but as a phone isn't very practical. Mostly because it's entirely touch based for it's interface (ie, no buttons) which makes dialing a bit of a pain.

Nothing on the market really beats the Apple technology for touch interfaces, though the HTC does come close apparently.

Everything I've read points to one of the newer Blackberries (with the little roller ball thingy) as the smart phone de jour.

[Berger_4_]

Yeah so I was in to the cell place today, and I might have figured out a way to get a Crackberry without the data plan! I've got another two years on my contract, so if I buy the phone for full price, I might be able to get one with maybe a pay per use thing on the phone, which is awesome! I'd love to get a Curve. I tried out that Samsung, and SebC is bang on. That setup is gay. But the phone was just so small! The Venus is nice, but I think that touch screen could be kind of a pain to be fumbling with in the dark, or when you can't focus on it completely. It's an awfully slick looking phone though, that's for sure...Gawd I still don't know what to do haha

Oh and TCMB...how slow is slow? Does it slow down if you get to much music/pictures on it, or is it just really really slow all the time?

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Originally Posted by Berger_4_

Oh and TCMB...how slow is slow? Does it slow down if you get to much music/pictures on it, or is it just really really slow all the time?

If you play around with it, you'll see how responsive or "unresponsive" each command takes. If you have quick fingers to access certain points on the device, you'll be treated to some wonderful delay, possibly even not responding because you clicked too fast. Don't bother using the wap gateway to access wap content, cause you'll end up screaming at the phone to hurry up.

I've never had any sort of problems like these with Sony Ericsson, Samsung, or even the LG devices.

Motorola's newer devices (the ones that aren't available yet) are a bit better, but these ones are just horrible.

[Daradon]

Hey I used to work for Telus Mobility and know a ton about those phones and others including stuff you may not hear elsewhere including reliability issues (just HOW many of those did we take back for repairs? ) so you can PM me if you have any specific questions. But I'll try and give you some pointers here.

The Samsung is sleek, fun and does a bunch of stuff, but it can be annoying to use.

I don't know much about the Venus, but it's a slider and we took back more sliders than any other style of phone, (flip, block) didn't matter who made it.

Chocloate Spin, not a good phone, just like the original Razr. Just not put together well, always in for repairs.

Razr2, much better reliabilty wise. Has a price tag with it though as I"m sure you know.

Krazr, great all around phone.

LG Shine, great all around phone, my personal fav (besides Berrys)


And that brings me to Berrys, if you are sure you can get around a data plan, you may want to go with one, though I don't know why you'd want a Berry without a data plan to tell you the truth, you'd lose so much functionality.

If you do get a Berry I will warn you, the Pearls ended up being really buggy for some reason. They may have fixed the problem since I was there, but we brought back a lot of those compared to other Berrys. Usually the Berry was the tried and true device for both phone and data. Either they pushed the Pearl too fast or made it too consumer driven (as opposed to business). We still had lots of very happy customers with the Pearl though, we brought back more than we liked, but it's probably just cause RIM had spoiled us so far with reliability issues in their products (almost none).

I've heard good things about the BB Curve.

As far as phone companies, I have never found one to make significantly better products than others. They've all had their good and their bad. All of them have had an expensive phone model become a huge lemon, and huge successes in other models. I've had Moto's I've loved, and Moto's I hated. Same with Samsung. Never found a bad LG, but I'm sure they exist.

[GreenTeaFrapp]

Originally Posted by Cliche

http://www.telusmobility.com/ab/pcs/...tc_p3050.shtml

Has anyone had experience with this?

My wife has one and she's happy with it but it has to be charged and rebooted daily. But she's also got it with Bell and their $7/month unlimited mobile browser plan. Since she uses it mostly for browsing and she's got small fingers, it's great.

[Flames89]

Nokias or Sony Eriksson are the only way to go.

Samsung have assbackward software, and all the rest of them have CHEAP parts...