Android or not ?

A

agn

Disciple
It all happened when I didn't have internet connection at home and was "unplugged" for a week. :mad: That's when I realised (and used my bro's phone to check mail) I needed a phone that could connect me to internet. Next week I bought an Optimus One for my dad on father's day. First time using an android phone and the experience was great.

So now my 2 yr old SE's battery is dead and I'm back on my good old trusty Nokia 1100. But the battery is kinda weak (barely 2 days). So I need a cell phone which will enable me to be connected (not full time) when I want.

1. Q: Budget?
A: Around 15k

2. Q: Preferred Form Factor(flip, bar, slider)?
A: Bar

3. Q: Preferred display type?
A: Any

4. Q: Do you have any brand preference or dislike? Please name them.
A: Any, but not much of an SE fan.

5. Q: Preferred input method (Touchscreen, QWERTY, etc.)?
A: Any

6. Q: Camera required or not? If required, please specify type like front camera/flash/etc.
A: Not so important as I have a DSLR.

7. Q: Preferred operating system? (Android, Symbian, iOS, Windows Phone etc).
A: Any.

8. Q: Preferred connectivity options? (3G, Wifi, Edge etc).
A: I'll be on 2G / EDGE mostly until 3G charges come down a bit. Good to have all as I plan to keep the phone for atleast 2 years.

9. Q: What is your intended use for this phone(internet, camera, multimedia, mails, etc)?
A: Calls mainly. Not much. Maybe an hour or less per day. Also Gmail/Ymail, gtalk, RSS feeds daily. A little bit of browsing/watching movies when I'm on the road which is not very often. Not into gaming.

10. Q: Any other requirements?
A: No compromise on voice quality as calls are most important. Need battery backup for atleast 2 days. Future proof as I don't want to change the phone for next 2 years. Not planning to mod my phone (if I go for an android based phone) unless it's an official stable CM7/MIUI or official stock update.

11. Q: If you have already considered a phone then please mention the model.
A: Have considered Nokia C6-01, Optimus One, XCD35 and Defy.
Nokia C6-01 - The MobileStore guys told me not to buy it, when I went in to buy Optimus One for my dad, due to call dropping issues. Not sure if they were talking about C6 or C6-01.
Optimus one - good but I read that flash requires atleast 800MHz processor ?
XCD35 - poor battery life.
Defy - Still on Eclair and high SAR rating. Also read that it won't get official GB. Is it true ?

Suggestions please.
 
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For 15k budget, among your considerations, Dell XCD35 and Optimus One should be instantly kicked out.

I would vote for Motorola Defy simply because you need to keep it for 2 years. It's a sturdy build and a very VFM device. There's CM7 and MIUI AFAIK on Defy, don't know how stable they're at the moment. Other than that, you could consider Spice Mi410 which is spec wise a little better than Defy.

Android or not depends on your requirements. Nokia phones are good multimedia devices and offer better battery life compared to similarly priced Androids, but Android offers better web experience and good integration with google services. 2 days of battery life may be just about possible with an hour of calls a day and medium internet usage for Androids.
 
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@OP
Nokia should not have any such issues IMO. They have the best in the business internal antenna stuff in their phones.
XCD35 IMO does not have poor battery life since i use ZTE Blade with custom ROMs and battery life is really good with the newer PS RLS4 and Gingerbread leak ROMs
 
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Defy all the way...

Why

1.rugged and tough phone

2.The froyo is official on defy now. the only thing is u have to update

3.The custom rom of ginger bread for defy is out cm7 and mui

4.capacitive touch, 3g,wifi,and most big 3.7 inch screen for video watching,gorilla screen,and amzing overclocking.

it has good reason to buy

Bye
 
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Have tried Defy and must say its just awesome for that price point , screen also is very big , and regarding your android or not question android any day bro :) , buy one and you wont repent for sure .
 
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If you are okay with charging your phone daily, then Spice Mi-410.
No Android phone can give you two days battery backup with normal usage.
Some guys might claim that the Nokia phones are able to give 2 days of battery life, may be that's because you might not like to fiddle with it's features, apps and interface.
But if you get an Android mobile, it's hard for you to resist it's features and fiddle with it's fluid UI. So battery may automatically come down to 1 day.

BTW, i heard Optimus One is having a great battery life (after all, it's packing in a 1500mAh battery)....
 
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+1 to arun687's comment :) .. I've been using the DEFY for about 2 months now, had the stock eclair for 3 weeks, then upgraded to the Indian froyo (when the update was available) for 2 weeks, then flashed CM7 for Gingerbread, Now I have MIUI for the looks.. Funny thing is that the stock eclair was the one which I didn't like.. Every other OS made the phone better IMO..

I have dropped the phone like 10 times and drenched it in rain, man the phone won't die.. MOTO is known for the build quality and this thing surely is VFM.. The cons of the phone are 1. It doesn't have front cam, 2. Primary CAM is not that great, given that it's 5 MP.. Call quality is awesome, but the thing is that the SAR rate is high.. If you only use your phone for 1 hour or so for calls, then DEFY is the best without a doubt.. :)

EDIT: MIUI gives me like 30-36 hours of battery, not bad for it's looks... Not too buggy either.. And OP you are right, it won't get official Gingerbread.. But who cares.. :D
 
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Well I would have said optimus one seeing op's requirement for good battery life., good call quality and soon to be released official gingerbread. However since your budget is 15 k, you can also check out nokia c7 and e6. Nokia c7 has good battery life and extra mic for noise cancelling, but design may not be upto everyone's taste.
 
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Neither CM7 nor MIUI officially support Defy as far as I can see. And browsing through their forums the unofficial releases are not stable either. Somebody is complaining about something or the other all the time. I was leaning towards Defy. But absence of official GB support and buggy unofficial ROMs have confused me. Also, Moto hasn't started rolling out Indian Froyo for Defy yet. :(

I would consider Nokia, but I don't know what's symbian's future once they start moving to WP platform.

Is any other manufacturer going to release any new models that's worth waiting for ?
 
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@raksrules, How many days/hours does your XCD35 last on a single charge and what's your usage pattern like ?

Another thing that bothers me is if I invest 15k on an android phone and they don't get official updates beyond GB (the current release) what's the point in investing so much ?

Any one had a chance to try Symbian Anna ? If so, what was it like ? How's the google services integration on Symbian like ?
 
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^ I doubt if any phone in this range will guarantee you the Icecream Sandwich update. Sure Nexus S will get it, but less chances that phones like Defy would. Dell XCD 35 (I use one too) gets me through 40-45 hours of battery with ~90 mins of calls a day, 20-30 texts/email, ~30 mins of browsing and apps. No games, no wifi, no 3g and no gps.

Also if you're okay with increasing the budget a little, Nexus S will be an excellent buy. 2 days of battery life maybe possible with light use but difficult, Android is pretty heavy on the battery. Unless you travel a lot and find it difficult to charge the phone everyday, I would say anything in the range of 30+ hours of battery life is okay to live with IMO.
 
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@Enigmatrix - AFAIK, advantages of i9003 over nexus is just the gorilla glass and 720p recording. But Nexus S has better CPU, GPU, Gyro and LED Flash. Plus the MOST IMPORTANT - developer support. Stable cyanogenmod available for nexus s. But not even a decent custom rom is available for i9003.
 
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agn said:
Another thing that bothers me is if I invest 15k on an android phone and they don't get official updates beyond GB (the current release) what's the point in investing so much ?
Click to expand...
Agn, official updates are nice and all, but I don't understand this obsession with latest Android. Though only you know your true requirements, so pardon me if you do have a specific requirement, but ..

Initially, Android was lacking important features (Apps only on phone memory, no bluetooth file transfer, no JIT etc.). So 1.6 -> 2.1 and 2.2 was a very important update. But progressively, feature enhancements are geting less and less. The Android development API for 2.2 and 2.3 is largely the same (except for front camera and NFC API, but that is determined by hardware and cannot be grown by an OS update). Especially on a 15k budget, 2.3 is not much use because hardware is unlikely to have NFC, front camera, or AMOLED to save battery in dark themes supported by 2.3. LCD spends same amount of power in dark and light themes.

But even today, Android 1.6 is better than Symbian / Blackberry / Win Phone 7 (for Android target audience and 15k budget at least). It is a rare application that works only on 2.2 but not on 2.1; and it is even rarer to find an application that works on 2.3 but not on 2.2.

Do you have a specific reason for insisting on latest Android all the time, or is it just on principle that you demand immediate OS updates?
 
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OS updates could mean bug fixes (if any) and slight performance improvements. I've read/heard that updating to Froyo from 2.1 has improved performance (UI related) on a few phones. I don't need too many features. I've listed my requirements on the first post itself.
 
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agn said:
OS updates could mean bug fixes (if any) and slight performance improvements. I've read/heard that updating to Froyo from 2.1 has improved performance (UI related) on a few phones. I don't need too many features. I've listed my requirements on the first post itself.
Click to expand...
If you don't have any specific requirement, other than mentioned in the first post, you practically don't need the latest Android. As for bug fixes - any detailed review of the phone (and TE comments) will tell you if the phone software / hardware / drivers have any serious bugs. So you would get into the purchase fully knowing of the bugs. If you still buy the phone, presumably the bugs were not serious enough.

So doesn't make sense ditching a good phone just because its update scenario is not clear. Just my 2 cents.
 
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