mcgillianaire | The Mobile Phone Poll

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The Mobile Phone Poll

I upgraded to the new iPhone OS a few days ago and it's a thing of beauty. There are several new features but the ones that have affected and impressed me the most are multitasking, folders for apps, google suggest in safari and the homescreen wallpaper. Some of these features were only available in jailbroken phones previously. The multitasking feature allows me to use Spotify in the background. The folders feature has enabled me to condense eight pages of my 100+ apps into the single main home screen. However the one feature that I have not warmed up to yet is email threads. It's not quite working well with my Yahoo account. Anyone facing similar problems? Any tips?

[Poll #1604812]

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i'm with rogers, and i pay WAYYYYYYY less for my features than the standard user b/c i'm on a special customer retention plan.

my phone plan contains:

- 250 daytime minutes
- free evenings beginning at 6pm
- free weekends
- unlimited texting within canada
- voicemail
- caller id
- call waiting
- free rogers-to-rogers local calling

this costs a discounted price of $25 but due to even further discounts, i actually pay $0 for all these features.

then i have an international texting add-on that costs $7 for 50 texts.

and lastly i have my actual iphone data plan, which is $35 for 500mb of data.

with the system access fee, 911 fee and taxes, i end up paying $50ish per month. i'm on a 3 year contract that ends in 2012.

>i end up paying $50ish per month.
Blimey! That is a bloody good deal. Thanks for the phrase "special customer retention plan". I'll try and use that the next time a contract runs out! I'd forgotten about the Canadian system access and 911 fees. Is it still $6.95 for the system access fee? The only thing I don't like about your contract is that it runs for 3 years. Can you at least upgrade the handset during the contract?

ugh yes, the system access fee is still $6.95! very annoying. i hate the 3 year contract terms as well but i think you can at least upgrade your hardware during that time. there may be some eligibility rules however.

it's somewhat reasonable if they allow you an upgrade of some sort, although like you point out, there's always strings attached. thankfully i don't think 3 year contracts are an issue here in the uk. i thought 18 months was bad enough given that we could only upgrade the phone in the last month!

It's a Nokia 1600, as it has been for about three years now. I have no need for anything but voice and texting, and its battery lasts for ages between charges. I've never, ever, had anything but a PAYG phone; I just don't use them enough for a contract to be worthwhile.

That makes sense. I'm even surprised you own a mobile phone and that's a compliment as far as I'm concerned. :) How much do you PAYG for? When I first moved to London I bought that monochrome Nokia which was quite popular at the time with cheapskates like me. And like your 1600, it was perfect for voice and texting, but its best feature was the battery. I still have it and even though it switches off/restarts sometimes, I keep it as backup. And at least once every year I lend it to a friend as a transitional phone until they acquire a new one. It's like the Toyota Corolla of phones.

I don't do much voice calling, but I do find texting very useful, and I think that's what I'd miss most if I suddenly found myself without a mobile. Until last month T-Mobile offered a very nice deal (for me) which was very expensive for calls (40p/min) but very cheap for texts (3p each). Unfortunately that's now been discontinued and they only offer one PAYG tariff - 25p/min for calls and 10p per text. Still, I doubt I'll find anything much cheaper, given that I might only send a dozen or so texts a month.

>given that I might only send a dozen or so texts a month
:) Btw, I found this book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Icons-England-Bill-Bryson/dp/0552776351) on Kindle and thought you might like it as well.

My phone is a Sony Ericsson Android device (Xperia X10), so I'm not sure which one I should've picked. I went with Sony Ericsson since that's the maker.

I currently also have unlimited local calls for six months because of the promotion going on when I got the phone. And then I have to pay $12 a month on top of that for voicemail and call display. I have a three year contract that will then take me to... August 2013 (I just recently got my phone).

I also still have my PAYG UK phone through Orange, which I use while overseas, and which I also take when I'm going to a club/concert for the night, since I don't feel like risking the health and safety of my $500 smartphone.

Ah, and there was me hoping only XTC and other unlisted devices in my poll used Android! Glad to have been proven wrong. Does your $62/month include taxes? That's almost exactly what I pay a month for my iPhone: 600mins, 500 texts, 24 month contract. I don't think I've ever used more than 150mins but I do use at least half the texts. The two people I chat to the most are my dad and sis, and I use Skype so it doesn't get counted as part of my plan. Do you use up a lot of your minutes usually? It's interesting how every place charges/doesn't charge for things. That's interesting you've still got your PAYG UK phone. And hope you've got insurance on your Xperia!

> and it's a thing of

Really?

I find I'm mostly just annoyed with the so-called "upgrade." The only thing I like about it is the orientation lock. Other than that, it seems like a bunch of useless garbage that only serves to (quite significantly) slow the computer down. Many things that used to be v. snappy now take a second or two to accomplish. Bah!

Maybe if multitasking actually worked in any kind of helpful way, it would be ok, but I totally don't find that it actually does anything useful.

I haven't noticed a slowdown but I'll pay closer attention now. I guess it's all about expectation. I had been planning to jailbreak my phone but thanks to some of the changes I don't feel the same urge. I agree that there is significant room for improvement, not just with multitasking but also with folders. At least it's available and something to work from. For me the primary benefit of multitasking is using Spotify in the background and that's important because all my music is there. I spend most of my time reading the news or books, and it was annoying having to choose between that or Spotify.

Ahh...

Yeah, I can totally understand if you regularly use an app that blanks out everything else. I just don't tend to do so on regular occasion, so haven't noticed as much of an improvement (I just use plain ol' iTunes for my musical needs).

I have an HTC Magic which I love love love. I've had it for a few months now and am really enjoying it. It came down to a choice between two phones, Nokia E71 and the Magic and I'm SO glad I went with the Magic, I am in love with the Google functionality. I use Google Calendar as my diary and Gmail is my primary email, it's a really useful feature. All of my contacts are backed up as Gmail contacts online. Browsing the web is easy too. The one thing I don't like is the battery life, it does so much that it eats the battery. In fact, it's charging right now! It's definitely my favourite phone ever.

In terms of internet usage, I only connect to WiFi networks for free, like my home network and the university's free WiFi because it is SO expensive to use the Vodafone network to go online, I'm on their cheapest plan which doesn't cover any internet usage and it's not worth it. Besides, my boyfriend has internet access on his phone at all times, so we just use his to look up things when we're out, or I just call him and ask him to look up things for me!

I was hesitant to get a touch screen phone after my previous unpleasant experience with a Sony Ecrisson phone with partial touch screen, it would send text messages with your face when you were on the phone, idiotic. Previous to the S-E, I'd always had Nokia phones and loved them. The next phone I get will very likely be an Android, I can't give up the Google functionality, it's very handy for me.

The plan I am on is only good value because of the free Vodafone-to-Vodafone calls and it's cheaper than my previous plan, so that's good, seeing as I'm a poor uni student these days.

Wow, that was longer than expected!!

My contract is up for renewal soon, and I totally want an HTC. Wouldn't have an iPhone thrown at me; overpriced rubbish that they are.

The iPhone is overpriced but it certainly isn't rubbish!

Thanks for sharing your Magic lovingness! It's the first I've heard of it. I'm only familiar with the Desire device so far. I must admit I didn't know anything about HTC phones until very recently but all I've heard are good things about them. I think it's great you're taking advantage of the Google functionality. My main email account is with Yahoo so I don't know if it makes a huge difference by using an iPhone instead of an HTC.

The battery issue is something you just have to accept with a big screen device. Lots of energy is expended by the graphic intensive display but there are tips you can Google on how to conserve energy. It's what I do with my iPhone. And I'm not sure about the Magic, but with the iPhone there are several kinds of wireless portable chargers, and some of them are surprisingly affordable/cheap. There's one for the iPhone which a couple of my dad's friends use and it's like a hard casing which also acts as a charger. And then there's one which plugs into the phone like a USB memory stick.

It's interesting you were considering the E71 because I told my dad to choose between that and the N97. He got the N97 and is not very happy with it. Whoops! I've offered him to take my iPhone, but he got for me as a birthday gift and I think the last thing he wants to do is learn how to use a new phone from scratch.

And as for that S-E experience, you weren't alone. It was a common problem to that phone worldwide. S-E lost a lot of market share when they entered the smartphone arena. Poor coordination between their constituent companies.

Nokia is a safe bet wherever you live, whatever your needs. I've only ever owned one myself personally but it was probably the most reliable unit I've ever used. Like I mentioned above, it's like the Toyota Corolla of mobile phones.

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