Google Nexus One Hands-On, Video, and Impressions 262
wkurzius writes "Engadget has gotten their hands on a Nexus One and have put their first impressions up for the world to see, including whether or not they think it's the 'be-all-end-all Android phone / iPhone eviscerator.' Their opinion? 'Not really.'"
Only one question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Have you been paying attention to T-Mobile at at all lately? Because that's not even true. They're 3G coverage has expanded to the point in the last year alone that it's at 85-90% of AT&T's 3G coverage. They cut the timetable for their rollout of 3G from 36 months to 17 months. I literally had 3G turn on overnight in my own neighborhood just a couple of nights ago.
And even IF you don't have 3G coverage in your area - you will soon - and if you have WiFi in your house (who doesn't?) you'll be off and
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They're 3G coverage has expanded to the point in the last year alone that it's at 85-90% of AT&T's 3G coverage
so what, like 2% of the US then?
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and if you have WiFi in your house (who doesn't?) you'll be off and running with high speed internet access when you're at home.
If you have WiFi in your house, you already have that, and without having to deal with the tiny screen and awkward data entry.
In a phone, Wifi is a fallback, at best. The only advantage a phone has over other internet devices is portability. And "must be near a hotspot" is not portability.
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Android's primary target market is *currently* sessile early-adopter geeks who are near hotspots 90% of the day. That, plus the fact that wifi is wayfuckingfaster than North American mobile networks, means your point is nearly moot. Except for those using their phone on the road.
As Android spreads out to more mobile networks, things will even o
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Wayfuckingfaster? Baah.
I pull about 2.5 megabits per second over Verizon's 3G on my Droid, every place I've bothered to test it. This is a good bit faster than most intentionally-free public access points that I've used, and I'm very pleased with its performance on CDMA. 3G coverage has been absolute, for me, as well -- except in a few small rural Ohio towns where no cell phones work at all.
At home and at work over WiFi, sure, I can do a little better than that (6 and 7Mbps, respectively) -- but not bett
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I don't know what you're smoking, but I've had my Android a lot longer than that and it was larger than 'a few square miles' in Orlando alone. All of Orlando, in fact.
Up in New England, T-Mo sucks. Down here in Florida, it's the best service. It all depends on your area. They are, however, improving all the time.
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"why give the T-Mobile users hardware they don't need"
I have a bit of a question about this. . . is it *really* any more expensive to create a radio frequency generator that can tune *either* set of frequencies? Why would the phone need additional hardware? Every radio has a tuner mechanism to choose the frequency. I mean, my 30 year old FM radio can tune 88Mhz *and* 107Mhz. Why can't a cell phone radio tune 1700Mhz *and* 1900Mhz? It's not fundamentally different technology, it's just a different frequency?
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Can't lock in the customer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H frequency that way.
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You apparently never studied RF physics.
88.1 mHz to 107.9 mHz requires a much smaller antenna than anything in the gHz-plus range. Add to that the fact that the FM band only spans 20mHz so you don't need a very agile tuner.
Now, you want fifteen times that range, and also ten times the frequency... oh boy are you in for a much bigger antenna that's going to weigh down your device... not to mention you're not going to see anything in the 1800 mHz range that is ever going to be interesting.
Notice that the iPho
Re:Only one question... (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt that the antenna is the actual problem. From what I remember and it has been a long time 20 years since I did any serious antenna design. You actually need longer antennas for lower frequencies eg 1/2 the wavelength for a dipole and 1/4 for a whip antenna. So the phone antenna can be quite small. Similarly I would be surprise if you couldn't make a fairly broad band antenna at for a mobile. The biggest problem with broadband antennas is impedance mismatching and hence VSWR problems mainly for TX. As you move up the frequency a given antenna can generally operate over a wider band more easily because the wavelength difference between the antenna length and the TX frequency becomes for a given TX band. A 20MHz (capital M for Mega not small for milli) TX band at 100 MHz will give you ~ a 20% variance in wavelength which is larger than the wavelength variation from 1.7 GHz to 2GHz.
Having said that I haven't done any RF design for phones so there may be some gotchas antenna wise that I am not aware of but I suspect the problem if it is a space problem may come from other front end requirements such as the high Q crystal filters, diplexer if they use one, and power amp (depending on design) but I am only guessing. Certainly there are lots of small quad band phones that seem to have solved this problem. Expense is another factor.
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You apparently never studied RF physics. 88.1 mHz to 107.9 mHz requires a much smaller antenna than anything in the gHz-plus range. Add to that the fact that the FM band only spans 20mHz so you don't need a very agile tuner.
Frequencies at that range require an extremely large antenna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_low_frequency). You apparently never studied SI units.
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The difficulty with microwave (ghz) is that because wavelengths are so short, the entire circuit needs to be tuned, not just the antennae.
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"You apparently never studied RF physics."
Not much, not in depth. Only a little bit, while studying for an Amateur Radio Technician license. But, enough to know that the following statement isn't completely accurate:
"88.1 mHz to 107.9 mHz requires a much smaller antenna than anything in the gHz-plus range."
I call BS on that. The length of the antenna that is required is *inversely* proportional to the frequency, because the length of the antenna is a function of the wavelength of the frequencies being tuned
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AT&T has too many smartphone customers on their network already... just look at the complaints from the iPhone users where there is 3G coverage, but the network's too congested. You haven't seen the "AT&T is the network with the fewest dropped calls!" ads lately, have you?
Roaming? (Score:2)
why give the T-Mobile users hardware they don't need
I would take exception to that, what happens when you go into an area where T-Mobile is not and AT&T is? AT&T doesn't have as wide data coverage as Verizon, but T-Mobile is behind further still... even if there were a cost to it, I'd prefer to at least have the option as a T-Mobile user to consider paying for data roaming and it certainly takes a lot of shine of an "unlocked" device that you can realistically only use with one carrier (unless the
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AT&T is actually a roaming partner of T-Mobile in markets where T-Mobile has no towers, AT&T is on the frequencies they use elsewhere, and therefore can't take customers who get their bills in such zip codes. So, you use AT&T's network and T-Mobile doesn't charge extra for that if you're on a nationwide plan... and who isn't these days?
In the early days of cell phones, I used to take a CellularOne phone into NH from MA, and it would say "Would you like to enter a credit card to use BellAtlantic
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
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The N900 PIM-specific functionality is far behind what Android or iPhone is capable of. If you're OK with that, then I would be inclined to agree. The N900 is a solid device.
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The N900 PIM-specific functionality is far behind what Android or iPhone is capable of.
But it does run the google-apps mail & calendar web version well - both main and mobile versions.
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Games? I don't play them on a phone, but a lot of people sure seem to.
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I have an N800, and I'm familiar with Maemo. It has a lot of fairly basic deficiencies. For example, there has been a bug open for several years about the fact that it's impossible to set your preferences for date format. That's a bit of a killer for me, trivial as it may seem, as I use ISO format everywhere, and the last thing I need is my phone and organizer using a different format from everything else.
I've also been displeased with Nokia's lack of continuing support for older devices. When I went throug
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Get a Nokia N900 if you want that killer feature.
Debian ... check ... check ... check
root access
ssh + screen
apt-get install damn near anything ... CHECK!
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nokia took a big turn a few years ago, dropping the "free after service provider subsidy" models in favor of going very geek. I had one of their recent phones earlier this year while I was waiting for my subsidy to get an iPhone to come available.
The initial failures of the Ovi App Store were annoying, and with only the built in apps available to me it needed some work. They're racing in the same division as much bigger fish called Apple and Google, but they seem to have a neat device in the Booklet 3G... just a plain Windows netbook with a $300 provider discount making it $299.99, and Best Buy was kicking in another $100 to make it $199.99 over the holidays. The killer feature on this one is a solid battery.
They're really going for the geeks... but are there enough geeks who will pass on both Apple on AT&T and Google on Verizon and T-Mobile?
Re:Only one question... (Score:5, Informative)
In Q3 2009 Nokia sold 16.16 million smart phones. Apple sold 7.04 million.
Apple's market share is certainly growing, but in the world of cell phones, they don't come much larger than Nokia.
Re:Only one question... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not quite an apples-to-Apple Inc. comparison there.
Apple effectively has two very similar packages in "smartphones", would you like the 3GS in 16GB or 32GB. Some non-S 3G phones are still in inventory and selling at a discount. And let's not forget Apple has the bigger App Store, and developers who target the iPhone also get to see their apps run on the iPod Touch which isn't considered a "smartphone" for lack of a phone.
Development for Nokia's line of phones is much harder, because there's more than one screen size and a much wider range of capabilities.
It's a little more than just product moved that matters. Nokia's App Store is nothing compared to the iTunes App Store, and we know 30% of all money that goes through that goes straight to Apple.
Another question (Score:2)
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Yes, but somehow Apple iPhone division made more profit worldwide than Nokia, even though Nokia sold over 100 million more phones.
You can pull out numbers to go either way.
Nokia are a big fish, but they have stumbled majorly. They risk being made irrelevant like Ericsson and Motorola if they don't change this. They fucked up the same way Microsoft fucked up and lost this battle as well.
I liked Nokia, but the fact it took someone like Apple to shake up this industry shows how out of touch they really are.
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The large majority of the Nokia smartphones are being used as dumbphones: The owners never install an application, and only scratch the surface in terms of the phone's capabilities. Compare that to the iPhone...
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They're racing in the same division as much bigger fish called Apple and Google,
I’m sorry? Apple and Google may be big companies, but in the mobile phone sector they are not able to hold a candle to Nokia. Nokia has ten times more experience and market share, than both of them combined!
(I’m not exaggerating. They did car phones in 1981 and their first really portable mobile phone is from 1987. Apple’s global market share is somewhere around 4%. Google’s is negligible. Nokia’s is somewhere around 45%.)
Yes, they were a bit resting on their laurels, and got c
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Apple has made it's trademark in limiting the number of products their software runs on, so there's fewer possible configs to support. iPhone has had one screen size its entire life, and the iPod Touch has always been an iPhone without the cellular modem stuff which is pretty nice if you're often around WiFi and have non-smart phone on you.
Google is open sourcing its phone operating system... so any provider can call up any hardware maker they want to make a GooglePhone. They're only making a device of thei
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Paying $500 + signing a $100/month contract on a phone which may get bricked on the next update because you hacked it: priceless.
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There's much to like about the Pre, feature-wise anyway. The one thing that makes me hesitate is Palm's long decline in quality. I use to be a rabid fan of Palm, but each generation of products has been flakier than the last. The last straw was my Centro, which had too many problems to mention, and finally stopped working in less than a year. After I ditched it I vowed never to buy another Palm product. The Pre tests that resolution, but not quite enough.
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Are the right wingnuts resorting to calling people "hippies" now? Boy, talk about running low on brainless insults. You guys should have rationed your rudeness to make words like "liberal" and "socialist" last longer. Oh wait, conserving natural resources is "fascism", isn't it?
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Wrong kind of "locked." I want to know if I can change/mod the software.
Android on the HTC Magic has a settings menu item to enable USB debugging so I have hopes for being able to install my own applications.
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Not if other Android phones are any sort of indicators.
Google just trying to see what sticks? (Score:2, Interesting)
In the past, when Google was a smaller company, we'd see very direct and targeted products being developed. First was their excellent search engine, then AdSense, and then GMail and Google Maps. The quality was good, the feature set was quite complete, and they were rife with innovation.
Lately, however, it seems that Google has just started throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. There seems to be a significant lack of focus. Android, Chrome OS and Nexus One follow this path. There's nothing about the
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Google just trying to see what sticks? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, but this is what Google wants everyone to believe. They want you to think that they're just messing around and dabbling in every tech-related market. But the truth is far more subtle and interesting.
Google's real product, its core focus, has always been and remains its analytics. Everything they have developed or acquired--GMail, Maps, YouTube, Android, and of course, Google search--has been about one thing, and one thing only: gathering data and analyzing it in order to better match the consumer with the advertiser. You want to know/buy something. Someone else wants to tell/sell it to you. And Google's entire business model is about profiting off the need to make this connection efficient.
When viewed in this context, it becomes crystal clear why they have their hands in all these seemingly disparate technologies. They have a huge advantage, in that by cross-indexing the data they have collected on you, they can have a very complete picture of your preferences. It doesn't matter that YouTube doesn't turn a profit on its own. It doesn't matter that GMail and Android are free. In a sense, these things are not really products. They're more like...well, bait. They are a means to understand you better, and in turn, sell that understanding to people who want to sell you their products. Therefore, you are not Google's customer. The advertisers, the ones who pay Google for their analytics, are their real customers.
Given Microsoft's recent unveiling of Bing (and their "cashback" program), it appears that MS management still doesn't understand Google's strategy. They are trying to compete in this one area, thinking that if they could attract people to use their search engine, they would be competitive. While that tactic might have worked a decade ago, it's much too late now. They are throwing money at the problem because they don't understand that Google is successful because they offer services that are free, easy to use, and effective, then take the data they collect and sell that knowledge to advertisers. They have misunderstood in the same way that people misunderstand why Google developed all these different technologies and offered them for free.
It's also one more reason why I won't use Android, despite how good it is. I already use too many Google services. I don't need them to know even more about me than they already do.
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LOL
I think if you did that, you'd probably discover she's about shoes. Prada or Jimmy Choo. And handbags. Then again, I don't think you really need Google to tell you that.
Re:Google just trying to see what sticks? (Score:5, Insightful)
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100% wrong. Advertising doesn't pay enough for google to be the Iluminati. No, what google does very well is it implements huge backend systems that are cheaper and more reliable than anyone else.
It does this by :
1. A custom (Linux based) OS and file system and failover system (by duplicating all data 3x)
2. custom, super-cheap hardware based on PCs
3. Hiring the smartest programmers it can possibly find, although it tends to pick people based upon educational achievement and not
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100% wrong. Advertising doesn't pay enough for google to be the Iluminati. No, what google does very well is it implements huge backend systems that are cheaper and more reliable than anyone else.
And it's by selling precisely targeted ad space online that they pay for all those backend systems and services. They're profitable and have plenty of costs, so they must have at least one strong income stream. As far as anyone (outside a few who really know) can tell, that's the ad business.
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It's also one more reason why I won't use Android, despite how good it is. I already use too many Google services. I don't need them to know even more about me than they already do.
no. by using an android phone they aren't going to know any more about you than if you just used their other services over the web. the thinking from google is that the phone is just a hook. if they can get me using it on my phone, then i'll use the web interface at some point and contribute to their ad-based revenue. in fact,
The summary sounds misleadingly negative (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't see exactly what's wrong with this phone. All that was meant by the "not really," I think, is that it isn't mindblowingly superior to other Android phones. It looks very nice.
I laughed at the live wallpaper crashes (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, hope I dont come across as a jerk. I have big hopes for Android, although I dont see myself leaving my iPhone soon. The Nexus One seems to have a very nice interface with some software features that Apple would do well to copy. I dont like the look of the hardware, I'd prefer the iPhone. Its good to have strong and healthy competition in any market, I dont think Android handsets have been on par with the iPhone yet. Im trying not to get too excited over the Nexus One, as too often we hear "iPhone Killer" bandied about. Perhaps if we didnt have such high hopes, we would be more tolerant of Androids current flaws, rather than instantly dismissing the device when it turns out not to be made of solid gold and curing cancer. I remember the ridiculous hype over the Droid, with a massive marketing campaign, and then it seems to have just fallen dead? When I hear of the Nexus One, commenters will often mention "the Droid sucked" or "this is so much better than the Droid" etc.
I hope the Nexus One comes out soon so I can see it, although New Zealand seems to only have one or possibly two Android handsets on sale?
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And while I do agree that wallpaper changing should be simple, in reality on most Android phones they work on the core first and move outward to the UI, OS X development works first on the UI then works on the core.
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Sorry to hear your wife has had problems. Is it so bad that it would put you off Android in general?
No, she just finds it confounding at times. She loves the look and feel of the UI. I think it is easily the equal of the iPhone. But android lacks the minimalistic Steve Jobs feel, which may be a problem in the longer term.
This morning she discovered that addresses in the contacts app link directly to google maps so the phone can guide her to her clients site. She was very impressed with that.
The funny thing is that when she asked me why I had heard of Android I said well.... its linux based. She runs ubunt
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But a phone, if it dies when you are stranded somewhere...its life or death. I've grown attached to my phones, funny to think that ten years ago I didnt actually have a cellphone. But now, the thought of bei
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If you are going to say you are not hearing good things about a product or a person, please share what that bad thing is. Otherwise, go back to your cubicle at your PR firm.
Android is remarkably difficult to crash. There are some applications that crash from time to time, but an application crash does not take your phone offline. Google's built in aps are remarkably reliable. Third party applications can extend or replace included applications (like the dialer or address book) it is possible that an unst
Critical (Score:5, Insightful)
No multitouch? Okay.
No physical keyboard? Okay.
No multitouch AND no physical keyboard? Sorta fatal combination.
Re:Critical (Score:4, Interesting)
I am wondering if Apple has some sort of patent on using multitouch in a UI which is preventing other phones from implementing it without getting a license from them. On the face of it, I'd consider it an obvious invention since the whole reason humans have thumbs is so they can manipulate objects with 2+ digits. But you never know with our crazy software patent system.
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Also there's tons of prior art. Anyone have an answer to this question? Why aren't other touch screen phones supporting multitouch?
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Why exactly do you need to hit more than 1 key at a time? Hint: You don't.
Or maybe you were suggesting that multitouch is necessary to make a touch-interface that doesn't screw up all the time. It isn't.
I've got the G1 with the new updates and the on-screen keyboard is almost as easy to use as the physical one. I rarely pull out the keyboard any more because it isn't worth the time.
Nexus six (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, I think I'll wait a few years for them to release the Nexus Six. Maybe it'll come with a Voight-Kampff machine built in.
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Hmm, I think I'll wait a few years for them to release the Nexus Six. Maybe it'll come with a Voight-Kampff machine built in.
Just don't ask me about my mother. I hate it when people do that.
Nexus One (Score:3, Funny)
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I can't wait until they come out with the Nexus-6 models.
I might even call mine... Rachel.
You will need to load it with memories of course.
Ok.. (Score:5, Informative)
So you can buy a Nexus One for $530 and pick up a data SIM for $29 a month. You get unlimited voice, unlimited SMS. I think the data SIM is capped at 5 gigs/month....which at 4 minutes/megabyte comes to thousands of 'minutes' a month. 5 gig is a little sparse for watching youtube videos, but more than adequate for finding information and checking maps.
2 year cost comes to $1,226. Iphone 3G two year cost is $1,975. Pretty substantial savings.
I would guess that google voice is/will be a ton more flexible than other voice providers...can probably do VoIP using wifi whenever you are near a hotspot. Can most likely auto-forward to a home VOIP system whenever you are at home or the phone is turned off. If you have wireless internet at home and at work (who doesn't?), that basically means unlimited everything whenever you are there.
Better display and better hardware than the iphone as well.
To be honest, this sounds like a winner. This smartphone can do many of the tasks of a real PC, yet the 2 year cost is about what you'd pay on the cheapest plan offered by a major wireless provider in the United States.
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I just wish it had a real keyboard. I have tried playing with the phones with on-screen keyboards, and it just doesn't work for me. I'd love a Nexu One + G1 Keyboard. I like the new OLED display tech and faster cpu on the Nexus One. I love the keyboard on a G1. Wish I could get both in one phone.
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Who says the Nexus One has an OLED? I keep on seeing it from people commenting on articles about the phone, but it's not said in the articles themselves.
Honestly I'm not sure I prefer OLED for phones. As much as I'd kill for an OLED display at home, it seems like a bit of a problem for something I'll be using a lot outside during the day.
I agree about the keyboard thought. I would love something like the Droid, but I'm not about to switch to Verizon for it.
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Re:Ok.. (Score:4, Informative)
The Nexus one only really supports T-mobile. I did think about that...VoIP on a wireless link does sound pretty unreliable. There might be static, garbled communications, needing to speak loudly into the phone...even dropped calls. Then I thought "just like the kind of service I'm getting for ~$40/month through AT&T right now..."
At least with google voice, you'll get great reception when you are connected via wi-fi to a decent internet connection (like at home for sure). Probably get about the same quality at home as you'd get on a real landline. And you don't have to pay any sort of long distance charges, or worry about minutes. Plus, all your voicemail gets transcribed and you can read it right there in gmail. Sounds like a winner to me.
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where do you get a data sim for $29 / month?
T-mobile. And posting from my iPhone on that very plan...
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Better display and better hardware than the iphone as well. To be honest, this sounds like a winner.
Sorry, but I've heard this argument before in discussion about the iPod. 1,001 times before. Every time I hear it, it clearly tells me the commenter just doesn't get it. You clearly do not understand why the iPhone is successful. Here's a tip: the iPhone wasn't the best hardware when it came out. It's never been the best hardware. There's always been phones with superior hardware offerings. Yet it still is an enormous success. Figure out the reason for that "yet" and you might realize why your "better hard
The only question I have: (Score:2)
not really? hmmm ... (Score:2)
the "not really" comment in the article is comparing it to the iphone. i wish people would realize that there will never be an
"iphone killer". android is a calculated chipping-away at the iphone. from TFA, the nexus one sounds like a big chip.
This is a engineering issue, not Googfle's call. (Score:4, Informative)
T-Mobile and ATT operate on different 3G frequencies. Supporting all frequencies would be prohibitively expensive.
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T-Mobile started life as VoiceStream doing GSM before Cingular decided that was cool and they'd join in. This lead to an awkward phase where they were distributing dual-protocol phones and had different rate tiers on the different networks. Yet again, when Cingular got the assets of the failed AT&T Wireless, they had to do another round of hardware swaps for those incoming customers.
Verizon has announced their LTE network with enough advance notice that they should be able to avoid such a costly rush ch
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You can get commercially available unlocked iphones. They just cost so much that nobody does it.
Apparently people would rather spend less money up front, and more money in the long run. Either people's budgets are so precariously balanced that an upfront fee is unviable, or humans are just bad at math. Possibly both.
Re:More vendor/carrier lock-in (Score:4, Informative)
Right now, in the USA, there's only one provider (T-Mobile) willing to discount your service if you decline the hardware subsidy. If you want to use anybody else, you pay the same rate even if you decline the upfront money.
Either T-Mobile subscriptions will go through the roof, or we've got proof that the public just doesn't care. People with money seldom understand math, see also: Las Vegas.
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FYI Their are a couple other options from MVNO [wikipedia.org]'s, for instance http://www.pagepluscellular.com/ [pagepluscellular.com] seams to have decent reviews, and uses the entire verizon network. Their unlimited plan is about as cheap as I have seen (no unlimited data plans though)
(never used them, only looked at there site and am thinking...)
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I'm in a true fringe area... there's two farm's fields within eyesight of where I sit.
Re:More vendor/carrier lock-in (Score:5, Funny)
I'm in a true fringe area... there's two farm's fields within eyesight of where I sit.
Are you sitting on the fence?
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No, not me. I am in Australia and all I know about Verizon is what I read here, so I assume it is a very bad word.
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And I need to go inside a steel and cement storage building to lose a signal here in Orlando while my friend with his iphone can't even get one less than 4 miles from one of the largest universities in the entire state.
I can cherry pick anecdotes too.
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You can get commercially available unlocked iphones. They just cost so much that nobody does it.
Note that this is a US-only perspective.
Here they are not generally network locked, except for prepaid. But they are still DRMed up the wazoo.
You can jailbreak it, but why fight the supplier when you can choose a non-evil one instead?
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when most carriers do not even offer a no contract option, it has nothing to do with being bad at math.
the current model has carriers competing only on what cool new phones they offer. that's a whole heck of a lot cheaper than competing on their service / customer service / features / restrictions.
t-mobile is the only US carrier i know of that offers new customers a no-contract option for smart phones. i'll be getting an unlocked phone and jumping over to them as soon as possible.
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unless if you use it in daylight...
Re:AMOLED screens in a completely different class (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed, I have a Samsung Galaxy (which has an AMOLED screen), and indoors it looks amazing, way better than my friends' iPhones' screens. Introduce direct sunlight though, and you're looking at a dull, dark-grey mess.