[UFO Chicago] mobile phone advice sought

[Larry Garfield]

On 02/07/2012 10:49 AM, Brian Sobolak wrote:
>
> On Tue, February 7, 2012 1:01 am, Larry Garfield wrote:
>> Warning: Biased content follows.
>
> That's certainly expected, even welcome.
>
>> At this point, there are only two serious platforms in contention,
>> Android and iOS.  Blackberry is sliding rapidly, webOS was stillborn
>> (due more to business failure than technical failure), and Windows Phone
>> (or Mobile, or whatever they're calling it this week) is still going
>> nowhere fast, even with Nokia getting in bed with them.
>
> iirc, weren't you a Palm fan?

Yes.  I carried a Palm OS device of some variety as my primary portable 
gadget until I moved to the Galaxy S / Vibrant in July 2010.  Palm had 
basically flubbed their launch by then and Android had taken over as the 
second major player besides iOS.  Also, they really dicked over their 
developers in the first year:

http://www.garfieldtech.com/blog/goodbye-palm

(Read the comments, too, for a well-formed rebuttal.)

I am quite pleased to see webOS getting open sourced, as I think it's a 
great move.  The OS never got the treatment it deserved.  I suspect 
we'll see the dev environment end up on Android sooner rather than later.

> I have to dig deeper on the price aspect of some of your suggestions. I
> like the idea of 'vaguely open' from Android vs the closed model of iOs,
> but it's also not the primary decision point for me.
>
> For example, I have a child, so a lot of what this phone will be used for
> quite frankly is "here's a game, can you be quiet for a few minutes
> please". My wife has a Nexus G2 and we haven't had a ton of luck with the
> games. iOs seems to be more appealing here.

Android's software library has been surging of late, so there are tons 
of games available.  I have not really done any comparison for 
kid-friendly games, but you can browse through both platforms' catalogs 
on their respective websites to get a feel for what's available. 
(There's over a half-million available for both, I think.)  Depending on 
the age of the kid, I know the usual "push the screen and various pretty 
colors appear" games are available in various forms.

Also... What's a Nexus G2?  I've never heard of that.  There was the 
Nexus One, Nexus S, and Galaxy Nexus.

> Also, the camera on the nexus is pretty crappy.  (Again, a camera is
> important with kids. Helps placate the grandparents.) It's not good at
> capturing a still image.  I am not sure if that is the hardware or the
> software, but it appears to be a limitation.

Camera quality varies widely depending on the device.  I have no 
specific advise here, other than do your research.  And admittedly, none 
of the Android manufacturers put as much emphasis on the camera as Apple 
does.  The iPhone 4S probably can claim "best camera phone on the 
market" without too much difficulty.  There may be a second or third 
best that is good enough for you as well; I haven't looked into it.

> You're definitely right about the keyboard aspect. Having a built-in
> keyboard usually adds bulk, but big gains for usability. The software
> keyboards often seem to suck. I know people can become very productive on
> them, but they just don't seem to be very practical.

I would not be able to use the soft keyboard on my Vibrant without 
Swype, which lets you drag your finger from letter to letter to form a 
word rather than tapping.  After about 15 minutes practice it's 
surprisingly fast, and reasonably accurate.  It does have the "damn you 
autocorrect!" problem, but so does every soft keyboard ever.  Sadly it's 
not standard on all devices, but should be.

> I'm surprised more haven't made mention of Motorola. I saw they had a
> system where the phone was basically the "brains" of a laptop.  That
> strikes me as much more practical than a tablet -- use your phone when you
> want, and when you need a laptop, jam it in and all of your "stuff" is
> right there.  Might need to wait for the 2nd generation on that as it
> seems that v1 had some bugs.

You refer to the Motorola Atrix line, with its optional lapdock.  I 
agree it's an interesting approach.  It's also on its 2nd generation 
already, I think.  I have not used one so cannot speak to its quality. 
It looks like it's on AT&T, though. :-(

> I'm also a very loyal tmobile customer. They've been 100x better than
> other carriers to work with. So giving them up for another might be tough.

I know the feeling well.  I'm due for an upgrade this summer, and I'm 
not sure what I'll be getting yet.  Ideally the latest Motorola Droid 
(best keyboard on the market, from what I've read), but that's Verizon-only.

--Larry Garfield