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Who gave up on using a smartphone?

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Blanka:
Just received a smart phone from my boss last week. Today I returned it. I'm not made for smart phones. It was a new HTC wildfire S running droid.
Why did I ditch it:

- Email: Email on a phone sucks big time. First you are bothered 24/7 with new emails, and because of that live-email receiving combined with an impossible keyboard, you forget to react. I also dislike to receive a stressful job mail after dinner at home. When you are at your PC, the mails are marked read already, and you forget to reply once more. I disabled Mail. I went back to reading my mails when I enter the office, and just then.
- Contacts. This is a Droid problem I guess, but managing contacts on Droid is horrible. Especially when you use a sim with contacts, an office Exchange account and a google account for the market that you don't want to use for anything else. You loose total control over witch contact is where, and many disappear until reboot.
- Typing: a 3 inch touchscreen just sucks. And the keyboard always covers at least 50% of the screen, giving no clue what field you are typing in anyway. You often miss options that are under the keyboard. One of the reasons I connected to many unwanted services, put contacts in the wrong folder or missed important settings while setting up stuff.
- Apps. Apps suck big time. They are the web being crippled. Each app wants you to login with an account. Apps harvest tons of useless data. Apps decide how a webpage looks. No Ctrl+, no CSS overrides, no Greasemonkey, Apps don't have add-block. Apps want to update every week, each demanding a password for the market/app store. No saving of images, no bookmarking of interesting pages. Often the screen is too small to make the App usefull anyway.
- Location services: they are so bad programmed, most Apps are close to malware. 1: None of the apps works with GPS! They only give location services with network information. Manual entering of location is not possible. Websites however have no problem entering a specific location. You can even make bookmarks for more locations.
- A mobile OS is like a marketing tool. Everything is set up to drain money in an app-store, or to drain money by using up your plan. A PC OS is just a background service. Being modest, serving and unobtrusive. Mobile OS-es are just plain irritating salesmen.
- Account mayhem. Everything needs accounts and harvests data. If you look on how much crap you agree too, it is scary! I want a hosts filter on my phone. Need to jailbreak it for that.
- Recharging. My old phone works 4 days on a load. A smarty maybe 9-5, but thats it.
- Stress: I found myself messing with the phone many free hours, not giving fun but only adding stress on all the stuff that DOES NOT WORK on Droid. Had a similar experience with IOS. Even Windows Millenium is free breathing compared to mobile OS-es.
- Switching between network connections all the time. From Wifi, to GSM to 3G to GPRS. Every use demands different settings. Total annoying.
- Calendar is crap (Droid problem). I tied the office Calendar to an iPod that I use as alarm clock now, so I read all new appointments when getting out of bed. It was one of the main reasons I thought turning to a smart was nice, but this works very well too.
- Can't delete programs I don't need (Facebook etc.)
- Everything is about consuming. Creation on a phone is not possible (I don't count Hipstamatic in that second category).

What I did like:
Having a real small camera/video/memo recorder.
Having a mobile WIFI hotspot for a true computer.

My plan sits 50% useless in a nokia 3310 now. The 3G service being not used :)

Anybody having a similar experience?

SNAAKE:
I use my smart phone for some things like music, videos, gaming, maps, whatever else help me get things done.

I dont care about all these dumb apps. I have my PC for "apps". you know..with the keyboard and a giant screen. not a fan of texting/emailing with phone either. I dont waste time trying to figure things out on the phone. if something needs to be done, I get on my computer and take care of the business :burgerking:

TopJimmyCooks:
Opposite here.  I really like it and benefit from it.  I use gmail, google contacts, calendars and a lot of google related items, so it's well interfaced.  I agree it's much harder with Android if you don't toe the google line, just like its hard not to use apple store, etc. with an iphone. 

In my job, commercial construction, I am often away from the office and I use a notebook pc.  there are many situations where It's undesirable to use the PC. I.e. no network, unsafe or dirty conditions, and the phone is great there.  Once I got the passwords in for the 3 or 4 protected wifi's I work in, transition from wifi to 3g is seamless.  If I do download an app or large files, etc. I am usually in a wifi area and haven't ever gotten near my data package limit of 2 gigs.

I agree soft keyboards are annoying, so I always use a phone with a hard keyboard - Palm, then blackberry, now android/droid.  I skipped getting a 4G phone even though there is coverage where I live because there aren't 4g keyboard phones available here. 

Best thing while working:  in my line of work (hiring and managing many subs and suppliers) I have 600 contacts that i use regularly and probably 400 more that I could clean out.  970 work and maybe 30 personal.  There's no good options I've found for a dumb phone that handles a long list contacts nearly as well. 

I agree many of the features are only good in a pinch - website browsing - painful but improved with the current hardware, music playing rough compared to Ipod, etc.  But it's a worthwhile multitool for me.  I'm the type to carry a swiss army knife even though I think a little case pocketknife is good to use as well.  Interesting to hear the counterpoint. 

[hey, why did this thing just decide to reboot itself?? :lol]

jimfath:
For a LONG time I resisted the Smart phone. Then, last December, Verizon had a BOGO on the droid 2 with a $200 dollar rebate. My gf talked me into it. They were about $75 each after the bogo and rebates. (The Iphone was about to be ported on Verizon and I think they were unloading their inventory before they made the announcement) Begrudgingly, I ended up using and relying on the phone lot more than I thought I would.

I use it for texting, phone calls, GPS, emails, and sometimes games and music (rare). That's it. I don't use the phone's app versions of anything I can do at home on my laptop. I tried but found the small screen and the limited options of most of the app versions beyond annoying though, I've been pretty gun shy about spending ANY money on apps. So many bad and ineffective ones that I feel like I've been burnt one too many times.

NiN^_^NiN:
First off I will say that the wildfire really isn't a worth phone for work it really is more for the teenager or the person who wants to use apps etc not very work friendly but id like to relay my experiences on a decent android phone.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Email: Email on a phone sucks big time. First you are bothered 24/7 with new emails, and because of that live-email receiving combined with an impossible keyboard, you forget to react. I also dislike to receive a stressful job mail after dinner at home. When you are at your PC, the mails are marked read already, and you forget to reply once more. I disabled Mail. I went back to reading my mails when I enter the office, and just then.
--- End quote ---
You can set a Peek and Off Peek time for the emails so you only get emails automatically from say 9-5 then you have to manually go into the mail app to sync your emails after 5 this is on all android phones including the wildfire

I am unsure if there is an option to only set an email to not automatically set as read but I believe there is.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Contacts. This is a Droid problem I guess, but managing contacts on Droid is horrible. Especially when you use a sim with contacts, an office Exchange account and a google account for the market that you don't want to use for anything else. You loose total control over witch contact is where, and many disappear until reboot.
--- End quote ---
Now this would be the way you setup or playing with the settings. You can set google to copy your sim contacts or not it depends what you set it as (If i remember correctly it's a setting when you first run the phone)
You can also set it to only show sim and exchange contacts as well.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Typing: a 3 inch touchscreen just sucks. And the keyboard always covers at least 50% of the screen, giving no clue what field you are typing in anyway. You often miss options that are under the keyboard. One of the reasons I connected to many unwanted services, put contacts in the wrong folder or missed important settings while setting up stuff.

--- End quote ---
This is cause the wildfire screen and resolution is too small as i said it's not a phone for work (I personally don't think it's a decent phone for normal use either) You are better off with the HTC Desire range or Samsung Galaxy range.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Apps. Apps suck big time. They are the web being crippled. Each app wants you to login with an account. Apps harvest tons of useless data. Apps decide how a webpage looks. No Ctrl+, no CSS overrides, no Greasemonkey, Apps don't have add-block. Apps want to update every week, each demanding a password for the market/app store. No saving of images, no bookmarking of interesting pages. Often the screen is too small to make the App usefull anyway.

--- End quote ---
As I said the wildfire has too small of a screen and resolution so apps really dont work well (I know i had to setup the original wildfires for work) it's that specific phones issue not the android OS.

It really depends what app you are using obviously different apps might need a login (Facebook for example) but it depends on what apps you are using im using a lot of different ones for personal and work related and only needed one extra password for one of the apps the rest worked with the google login.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Location services: they are so bad programmed, most Apps are close to malware. 1: None of the apps works with GPS! They only give location services with network information. Manual entering of location is not possible. Websites however have no problem entering a specific location. You can even make bookmarks for more locations.
--- End quote ---

Now this depends if you have Network assistance turned on most apps use the first location they are given which is based on the tower I myself disable this from the get go and just use GPS but the few apps I use for gps work well it depends if you are getting horrble apps or apps that don't work very well on that specific phone im making a general assumption as I don't know which apps you tried.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- A mobile OS is like a marketing tool. Everything is set up to drain money in an app-store, or to drain money by using up your plan. A PC OS is just a background service. Being modest, serving and unobtrusive. Mobile OS-es are just plain irritating salesmen.
--- End quote ---

Now I really don't understand this besides creating a login for google to use the market that's it i have never purchased an app as there is always a free alternative to what I need and it all depends how you use your phone and what apps you use that depends on how much data you use on your plan the PC is the same browsers and games etc are setup to use yur plan it's just that it's a bigger limit so you don't have to worry really if you go over your limit. Saying a PC os is modest and unobtrusive is the same as a phone os depending what apps you have setup to notify you they are both the same in my opinion.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Account mayhem. Everything needs accounts and harvests data. If you look on how much crap you agree too, it is scary! I want a hosts filter on my phone. Need to jailbreak it for that.

--- End quote ---
I would say it depends on what apps you are getting. True quite a few apps have a few scary things you have to agree to but again same for the PC.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Recharging. My old phone works 4 days on a load. A smarty maybe 9-5, but thats it.
--- End quote ---
Well that's cause the smart phone does a lot more I have a android phone that's just used as a phone no 3g or wifi and that lasts about 3 and a half days cause I'm not syncing stuff and only use it call and play/use apps throughout the day.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Stress: I found myself messing with the phone many free hours, not giving fun but only adding stress on all the stuff that DOES NOT WORK on Droid. Had a similar experience with IOS. Even Windows Millenium is free breathing compared to mobile OS-es.
--- End quote ---
I can see it being stressful if you don't know the system and are trying different settings.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Switching between network connections all the time. From Wifi, to GSM to 3G to GPRS. Every use demands different settings. Total annoying.
--- End quote ---
Now this I understand but there is a widget that allows you to turn wifi on and off as standard My phone is always 3g/HSDPA and I only every change to wifi when im at home or the office so why you would be swapping between gsm and GPRS I don't know unless you in an area that only has GPRS but once you get back into a decent area it will go back to 3g.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Calendar is crap (Droid problem). I tied the office Calendar to an iPod that I use as alarm clock now, so I read all new appointments when getting out of bed. It was one of the main reasons I thought turning to a smart was nice, but this works very well too.
--- End quote ---
I can't say I have had this issue but the calendar you are using is HTC's calendar and not the android calendar but I have never had issues with it being setup as an alarm I think most of these problems are cause it's a subpar handset for general use to be honest.

--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Can't delete programs I don't need (Facebook etc.)
--- End quote ---
Yep this is partly HTC and the carriers fault it's a stock app but if you root you can uninstall it.

--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---- Everything is about consuming. Creation on a phone is not possible (I don't count Hipstamatic in that second category).

--- End quote ---
Again this depends on the phone but the wildfire would be all consuming and it wouldn't be a fun way to consume it either. A proper android phone gives you a great variety of creation. You can take photo's and manipulate them (some good apps out there that do basic functions like you would use in photoshop) there is also video editing apps that allow you to cut/trim and combine video files with affects and audio tracks and of course there is a lot of other apps you can use for drawing etc there are many ways to create on the phones but the wildfire isn't really set up.

If you had a chance to get another phone as a test I recommend the Galaxy SII it's got dual core which will make it smooth and fast and the bigger screen makes typing and emails etc a lot easier.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---What I did like:
Having a real small camera/video/memo recorder.
Having a mobile WIFI hotspot for a true computer.

--- End quote ---

All are very handy features I think once you have a decent phone to use them you will like them a lot better.


--- Quote from: Blanka on October 11, 2011, 02:40:58 pm ---My plan sits 50% useless in a nokia 3310 now. The 3G service being not used :)

--- End quote ---
It's a shame I think you should give a proper smart phone a go if you have the option :)

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