Fabienne

The die is cast now I own the phone and I am very happy with what I got. It doesn't matter to me if it's .0005 nanoseconds faster than something else. I am pleased with the speed I surf with. You just have a different set of needs and wants than I do for your phones. You love to fiddle with the inner workings of your phone, and for you your Nokia just makes you a happy phone guy. You can set it up just the way you like and code like mad. If you don't like something, you like to change it and that's great. Me, I do want to have a certain amount of things done for me. I am a practical coder/nerd sort. If it doesn't immediately impact my world, it's nice but I don't want it. Android using phones are great. There is no doubt that they are quite spiffah. I would have been very pleased with an EVO and I do agree with the idea that tethering should be and was (at least with Apple and AT&T) a right, by Jove, a given birthright! But, they got wise to it all and they took it off and charged $30 for it (except for one clever Hans to secreted it in an app which was sold for about 3 hrs on the Apple App store as an innocent flashlight app and turned out to be THE EVIL FREE TETHERING APP IN DISGUISE)---bet you didn't know about that one. True. I don't use tethering very much. So, it would be nice but if I use it about once or twice a year....it's not really a game changer. When I was going to buy the phone, if I had wanted to buy a plan as inexpensively as possible, I would have stayed with Cincinnati Bell. The only real choices they had were Blaze (which had a bad review or two with friends) or Nexus One at $500+ up front, that was no bargain. I am not doing too badly on the AT&T plan. They have a lot of things that CBW didn't have (like actually being able to talk to someone on the phone when I call...imagine that). I was happy with CBW and now with ATT. What is wrong with that? Nothing. And...I don't get people who need unlimted data. WTF is up with that. What do you do? Play games all day long? Look, Cincinnatus, I surf the net and do all kinds of stuff that a normal person does and I don't use up my 2 Gigs. Just don't . Maybe I'm a grind and work too hard, but that's my life. I like it. I don't need unlimited. I had that with CinBell and used very little. And, your icon. I really like it but but he is a Spartan (nude warrior carrying large round shield and spear wearing a Corinthian helmet=Spartan). Cincinnatus was a Roman. I like the warrior but implying that Cincinnatus a Spartan is like calling Davey Crockett an Englishman. Pax, amore, et art histore. Everyone gets to buy the phone that makes us happy. I found mine, at least for the while. If you continue to dig your Nokia I am really glad for you. Phones are fun, useful and we are lucky to live in a time and place where we have such great choices.

Thanks. I did do a lot of exploring first. I think the one I liked the best was the EVO (at the time it was THE Hawt Android using phone). The Milestone looks like something I would have gotten along with well, too. Lots of features and I think that CBW is a very very good company. I really don't have any complaints about them as a carrier. I had very few dropped calls and their service was at least very good if not excellent. The differences among carriers and smartphones is really marginal. I have not had anyone reliable say that they got a real junker of a smartphone (except one person who was not at all pleased with their Blaze from CBW), and don't know anyone rational who is dead set against ATT or CBW. I suspect that capitalism really does work.

I did get the iPhone 4 and I must say that was the right choice for me. I like the quickness of AT&T's 3G system (remember I was coming from EDGE on a Blackberry 8320 on CBW). I did already have quite a few apps from owning an iTouch, so I wasn't without basics, but I really love the array you can choose from, the price of them, and the fact that they work. I think Apple does a good job of vetting apps before you see them in the store. The design and size of the phone are perfect for me. It's a bit heavy but not too much. The real glass and metal on it are wonderful. I have not had any antenna problems with it, and I did put a case on in (from Carrymobile.com which is a flip case and I highly recommend it). AT&T has been great to work with. Very knowledgeable people in their Norwood store, great people on the phone, I can get into my account and check my minutes and data use very easily (CBW was a bit hard to get through to on that score). They even took my word for a promise one of the guys at the store gave me (waived the set up charge). How often does THAT happen? My calls are clear. I have had two dropped calls in the time I have owned the phone (> 1 month) and I can't say that I have had more than my Blackberry on CBW (I live near the Bermuda Triangle of phone coverage in Ault Park). The e-mail is just as good as Blackberry's for my use, and it's real easy to send and receive photos, videos and any other jimcracks and gee-gaws that you want to send to your friends. I had a talk with a vendor recently and offered to send him a photo of a shipment right away! I could say that with confidence knowing I could actually take a picture and send it off without going through loads of reprogramming, suffering and madness. The apps are really good because it seems like everyone has an app which works on iPhone, and it's cheap. Here are some of the ones that are useful for me: Netflix-If you have a Netflix account and access to wi fi, this is the app for you. Free. iMovie-Takes a bit of getting used to but once you get the hang of it, it's quite professional. $4.99 Weather.com Camera+-You can't take a bad photo with this app, and you can do so very much with it. Photobucket-Great way to take pics and send them off anywhere in lots of formats (like putting them on a forum like this). Audioboo-Make podcasts and publish them, even on iTunes. Free and really good looking interface. Atomic Web-.99 and a full throttle tabbed browsing experience. Pano-Take panorama shots of your favorite sites. Works great. Big Oven and AllRecipes-You can find out how to make anything at all for dinner. Every recipe you can possibly want is in either one or the other. If you are a woman who has to come up with great things for dinner, these are indispensable. iBooks-There are plenty of free books here, if you like classics, you can have it all. Where to?-What to do when friends and family are in town. WordPress-Publish your inane observations on life here. Really great full featured app which allows you to do just about everything from your iPhone that you can do on your computer. Free. Actually, the list is endless practically. I bet you can get some of those on Android Market, too. iPhone just did everything so well and demanded so little of me that this was the best choice for me given that I need a phone which was easy to operate and had a lot of things it would do. When you run your own business, that is paramount. Fiddling with a phone, loads of extra charges, auxiliary equipment needs, and such just make an object that much less desirable. Android phones have a lot to offer, too. Some of them I am sure can do things best of all the crowd, and if your carrier is the kind that you are wedded to, I don't think you would go wrong with an Android phone (like the Motorola Milestone). I am saying that for my needs and wants the iPhone delivers.

I finally got my new smartphone.It was a difficult choice, and there were a lot of nice possibilities. I actually liked the Cincinnati Bell Blaze. It looked and felt good in your hand, the price was very very reasonable. It was fast, the interface was good. The only problem was the touchscreen felt very plasticy indeed. That fact started to erode the "wow" factor quickly. If I am going to live with a phone for years, I want it to feel substantial. Then there was the EVO. Wow. Real nice phone. Big, yes it is big. But the screen is big. It does all the things you want: movies, pictures, talk to your friends, talk to your enemies, get loads of apps from the Android app store. The color scheme was creative, too. I liked the salesman, he was on me a bit much but they want to sell the phones, right? There was a wait for it. Downside, that old devil battery drain. It would make good sense to carry a spare charged battery with you at all times, since you can pop out the batt and pop another one in. It was no cheaper than any other phone, and the carrier was making you pay a $10/mo premium just to have an EVO. Yes you can make it into a Wi Fi broadcast spot, the bad news is that will cost you $30/mo...you are tethering basically. Alas, EVO ended up getting fairly pricey, even if it is a great phone. And even though the screen is big, the colors are not very saturated. The Torch felt great, nice substantial thing with a neat slide. Downside? It's a Blackberry. That is great if you never had a smartphone before, it's neat-o but the interface is clunky, it is limited in playing video (which it is not designed primarily for), the apps are somewhat limited and used to be real hard to figure out how to download and operate. Just not very intuitive. They may have changed that but... Other operating systems and apps are so good, if you like apps Android is a better deal. The Torch is beautiful though, and I think it's exclusive to AT&T.

Ah thanks. Now I know a lot more than I did before. I did just get off the phone with a guy who unlocks BB's and he told me that more people want a Blackberry which works with Cincinnati Bell than they do a Blackberry which is unlocked and that I would be better off selling it wiped through Criag's List than to go through the trouble of unlocking it and going through e-Bay. Who knew? He says that he can't even unlock Cin Bell because he has no demand for the non-CinBell phones.

I have a Blackberry that I want to sell. I got it from Cincinnati Bell. I want to know what other companies it would work with so I could list it as a phone which works with Cincinnati Bell and other companies. Does anyone know? I have heard that it all depends on the frequency of the phone and that T Mobile works on the same frequency, at least with iPhones but I don't know if that applies to the Blackberry. Thank you for any light you can shed on this.

If I were to be acting 100% rationally, I would just say %$@#!it all. I am turning in my Fartberry at the end of my 2 year bondage to Cincinnati Bell, dig out my old Nokia, drop the data plan, and forget any of the bells and whistles a phone can do. I already have a perfectly good video/still camera, a nice iPod Touch which does everything I want and save a wad of cash every month. Do my podcasts through my computer (and my $3 microphone). There isn't anything that a smartphone can offer me that I don't already have. Phfffft.

When you get through with your speed tests, why don't you post them on the Smartphones thread? I bet there are a lot of smartphones out there which would like to get in on the contest.

Yes, here here! I just started a topic for smartphones because the name of this topic is "iPhone" and it seems that at least half of the talk is about other phones. Like I said before, I am still trying to make up my mind on which one I want and I am taking my time because I like the process. I wish I had more experience with other phones but I don't. My friends who have iPhones also love theirs. I am glad to know that you are having fewer dropped calls with AT&T than with CBW. Actually, I am mildly shocked but that's just me. I also had a Nokia flip phone ( which did age gracefully) and have the famous "tractor" Blackberry 8320. But I would like a phone that has features I can take advantage of fully. Right now, if I pay $30/mo for my data plan, I think I am using about $5 of it and CBW is laughing about that. How can I take advantage of getting on the 'net if I can't stand to stay there for more than 5 minutes? I have an iPod Touch (2nd Gen) and it outdoes my Blackberry in all ways on the internet if I have wi-fi access. So, that is my advertisement for iPhone, the Touch is a very good introduction to the iPhone. Slick, reliable lovely interface.

There is an iPhone thread which has turned into a combination iPhone and Smartphone thread. For all those who are in the market, I think there should be a separate smartphone in general thread to share our experiences and help in the make-up-your-mind arena. As the number of smartphones has proliferated recently, and their quality has increased dramatically (along with their features) maybe it's the plan and the carrier which should be the thing that is the deciding factor. I have a Blackberry 8320 from Cincinnati Bell. It's a workhorse of a phone. It has dropped calls but that is rare. It has good clarity of calls except talking on the headphones or Bluetooth gets complaints from the people I am calling. It takes pictures (very good ones), smeary video, surfs the net slowly and painfully, and the apps just stink. The battery lasts all day every day. I can't play music very well and the general desktop interface is a mess. BUT it was free. Free. Free. Free. Wait, it wasn't really free, it had to come with a plan. I am using Cincinnati Bell and I have been pretty happy with them up to this year. They were polite and helpful whenever I asked a question. BUT you cannot call them and ask them anything. No. Not. You may not call The Phone Company! All in all I think their prices are fair, no worse than anyone else. I do get coverage coast to coast (thanks to their love/hate affair with AT&T). Are you happy with your smartphone? What's so good about it? How about your carrier?

I decided to try to make my Blackberry 8320 lose bars just by covering the lower left hand portion with my hand. I was practically under a cell phone tower and right next to the airport (Lunkin) and get fabulous reception. It worked. I lost one bar right away. I kept the rest as long as I held it that way. I tried that in the AT&T store, and I could not make the bars drop, though the salesman did. Different set up with the signal to begin with, but that was the outcome. iPhone is just real popular, polished, well presented, and does a lot with very little trouble. Everyone else would love to have that kind of user loyalty. In the realm of smartphones, it's a real horserace. No one has the perfect phone, no one offers a great plan to go with it either. I went to see the EVO a couple of weeks ago. There is a waiting list to get one as well. It's big and very attractive, easy to use (though not exactly intuitive). You can buy an extra battery to go with it for when the first one dies on you (it's $40). It does turn into a wi fit hot spot (for $30 extra dollars a month, that's not pro rated). There is a $10/month surcharge just to have an EVO. So now we are up to $80 extras for the first time around for a few extras. iPhone is also $30 for tether, but you can pro-rate with AT&T they told me (so if I am out of town twice a year and only need a week, I can have that). I didn't mind the size of the EVO, but the screen does not have the color saturation and clarity of the iPhone. They don't really let you try it out for long in the store, you get a jabbering salesman attached to your ankle right away and he is banging on to the extent that you just want to bounce the phone off his head. :yap:-youwantobuythisdoyoudoyouhuhhuhhuh? So, I just left. I will go back again to take another look, but they make it a real pain to give it a good try out. I don't know anyone who has one that I can just sit and try for an hour.

Agreed about RIM. I suspect that the bar is being raised in a lot of places. For instance, at a job the boss might want to talk to you face to face when you are in Dubai and he is in Cincinnati. The ability to watch training films and talk to customers and peers face to face might be a very important thing in getting the problems solved quickly. I used to work at GE and there were a lot of things which could have been resolved if the engineers involved could have shown each other the subjects about which they were talking. For me, I need: video, podcasting, fast internet on the fly, lots of space, camera. I have not totally decided yet. I did go out to look at the EVO but gad, they have a waiting list like the iPhone now.

Well, what's the verdict? Great invention or not? Since there is a wide wide range of opinions on smartphones here, I would love to know what you two think about your new acquisitions (beside the obvious delight you have had with tormenting your islanders via Pocket God).

I can only say what I saw with my own eyes.The AT&T guy picked up the phone in his left hand and held it for a few seconds and the bars dropped from 5 to one in a matter of seconds. He put the phone down and I picked it up after it had gone back to 5 bars. I wanted to make it do the same thing. See for myself. I picked it up and it would not repeat the performance. I held that phone for several minutes and those 5 bars stayed on the whole time. No I don't' understand what happened, I only know that is what happened to me. And I was holding it the way that should have made the bars drop. Left hand, lower left corner. That worked for theT AT&T guy but not for me.

Yea, I could not get behind the thought of the iPad. Why? I just bought a great netbook (an Asus) for $359 and what would a more expensive iPad do better than the ASUS? Make phone calls? I don't think so. Just didn't do much for me and I think it's just a fashion accessory. (for hipsters---ewww). LOL