Can someone give me a general overview of smartphones?

randomrogue

Diamond Member
Jan 15, 2011
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I know. I'm archaic. I'm still using a dumb phone though. Mostly because of the battery life but also because I have been moving between countries quite a bit these last couple years. I'd rather read a book than browse facebook so that helped postpone it as well. Recently my phone, which I've had as pay as you go for about 4 years ($12 a month), has started to get funny on me. It didn't work in a country I had business in even though it worked on my previous trip. Yesterday it entered demo mode and wouldn't get out until I took the battery and sim card out - twice.

I can get full 4G data plans now for $30 a month with 1.5GB or $37 for 3GB of data. Unlimited calls and sms. How much is typical bandwidth usage?

I was thinking of just buying the phone outright rather than get a plan. Should be cheaper that way. I live in Europe so the plans aren't expensive but the phones are. So if I buy the phone in the states and the plan here I probably come out ahead. However when I go to a phone store they rabble on about the amount of cores, the type of processor, and how one has better music and another a better camera as if that's some kind of logical comparison.

I don't want to spent too much but I also don't want to be cheap and get a garbage phone. I've used a $100 smart phone and the thing was a joke. The response time on that thing was too slow for practical purposes. My girlfriend has a S3 mini though and that thing is very nice. It's tough to swallow spending so much though when my $30 phone has served me so well all these years.

Get the Nexus 4 and be done with it? Is it worth it to me to spend almost twice as much on something like a HTC one, S4, iphone 5? The lack of a removable battery bothers me as does the lack of a memory card slot.

How do I make sure I'm getting a phone that's fast enough? How do I compare? The nerd talk coming out of these phone peddlers is useless to me. I want to watch videos, youtube, GPS, browse the net, pod casts, and I'm pretty sure I don't want a phone that's big enough to need a purse.
 

thecapsaicinkid

Senior member
Nov 30, 2012
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The decision to buy a Nexus 4 pretty much all comes down to how much you want/need removable battery/storage and if LTE is viable where you are.

I stream all my music, have unlimited data and don't care for removable batteries. LTE is also super expensive where I am so the Nexus 4 is quite literally the deal of the century. Fantastic device.
 

randomrogue

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Jan 15, 2011
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We have 95% 4G coverage here and where I live I only know of one dead spot which is a 5 minute stretch on my commute to work but not a big deal.
 

s44

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Oct 13, 2006
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If you were in the US, I think a secondhand (= $300) Galaxy S3 would be a no-brainer. LTE, awesome AOSP support, still easily fast enough, swappable battery, and as much RAM as this year's flagships.

Problem is that in Europe the international S3 (i9300) has a better GPU and headphone output, but less RAM, no LTE, and limited AOSP ROM support (thanks to Samsung's proprietary chipset vs the super-standard one in the US models). I would seriously consider Swappaing an AT&T S3 from someone willing to ship internationally even though you won't be able to get Euro LTE on it.

For a little more you could probably get the LTE version of the i9300 -- the i9305. That has Euro band LTE and the extra RAM, and though AOSP support won't be great (same proprietary chipset), Samsung is still updating the device. IMO at $425 or so it's a reasonable choice. Any higher and you might as well bite the bullet and get the i9505.

If you liked the S3 mini, the S4 mini will be out soon, including an LTE version. Screen will be halfway between the S3 mini and the regular S3 in both size and resolution, it will have LTE, and probably about the same processor speed as the regular S3 (which is a generation faster than the S3 mini).
 
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