I am in search of a smartphone. Trouble is I have never owned one as I have always been at home with the family or at work. We had (past tense) a cheap basic emergency phone in our glove box which satisfied the rare occasion I needed a phone on the road. Unfortunately, my mother has fallen ill and I foresee myself traveling regularly to see her over the next 3-6 months. As it is 90 minutes from home and 60 minutes from work I will need ways to keep in contact with my wife and children and my mother while I am on the road.
The long of that short is: I don’t know what I need or should want. I know I can get a basic phone but I would like GPS and wouldn’t mind a device.
Budget: $100-$300 ($300 is pushing it but if it scratches the itch I would bite the bullet to avoid upgrading for features I want in a year)
Network: AT&T (cheap add-on to my parents’ account and they roll over shared data every month and have over 20GB unused)
Location: Seattle
Computers: 3 PCs in the house, all Windows 7 (kid's), 8 (wife's), or 10 (mine)
Absolute Needs: Talk & Text
Almost Needs: Email & GPS
Thoughts on other features:
Camera. A solid camera for getting pics of the kids and my mother would be fantastic, especially indoors (poor lighting) and outdoors (harsh lighting). My wife does a cooking blog and her Point and Shoot is long in tooth so something that would do well there (e.g. macro shots) would be a HUGE perk. I hate cameras with long startup / long focus times. A very good “point and shoot” quality camera phone would justify a budget over $199.
Video Recording. Getting some videos of my mom with the kids would be great (same variable lighting conditions) and of our 18 month old. A perk is our disc golf partner likes to take videos and slow motion ones to check out our form.
Screen. I would like something that is usable outdoors in the sun. Seems I shouldn’t go below 1080p.
Size. I work in slacks and often use cargo shorts at home. I have never sized out these devices but fitting in a pocket is a need.
PDFs. I do a lot of academic research in my spare time and have a lot of my library scanned to PDF (but not OCR’d). Being able to load a 200MB PDF and read it would be an excellent plus (I use a 10” Windows tablet right now for this).
PDF Text-to-Speech. I just started playing with this feature a month ago. Wow! If I could use a phone on the go during commutes to “read” my books to me that would be pretty awesome.
Battery Life & Charging. I would love wireless charging as I am horrible about plugging stuff in & making space on my desk for cables. But with the fast charging this is less of an issue. Something that will last all day with 2-3 hours of calls, 1hr of pdf reading (200MB documents), 2 hours of audio would be a basic expectation.
Video. We have Amazon Prime, but don’t use it much. We do stream some video from our NAS. Being able to store a couple videos from our library would be nice (just saw Amazon Prime allows the use of SD cards now on Android).
Audio. Syncing with a Bluetooth ear bud seamlessly so when I take my hour walk at lunch I can listen to lectures and audiobooks that would be great.
Fingerprint Scanner. Sounds like a nice perk if fast enough.
Remote PowerPoint Control. I do teaching presentations once a week. I use a wireless clicker. If I could use a mobile phone—especially with the Power Point viewable on the phone—to sync with a PC to remotely push slides through that would be fantastic.
Apps. The only thing I know I will pick up is The Olive Tree Bible app.
Btw, I don’t have a Facebook, Twitter, or participate in other social media activity. I am pretty boring and spend my time with the wife and kids.
Thanks for suggestions and advice. I am sure there are things I will learn I would have LIKED once I get a phone so I am sure people can tell me about features & apps I may want.
Btw, decent computing power is a want—I don’t want a slow phone. Our emergency phone was an ancient Android where everything but talk and text was a horribly slow experience ($50 phone 5 years ago off contract, so a bad device). So enough storage (or expansion), RAM, and processing power so that in 12 months I am not bemoaning my device is important.
The long of that short is: I don’t know what I need or should want. I know I can get a basic phone but I would like GPS and wouldn’t mind a device.
Budget: $100-$300 ($300 is pushing it but if it scratches the itch I would bite the bullet to avoid upgrading for features I want in a year)
Network: AT&T (cheap add-on to my parents’ account and they roll over shared data every month and have over 20GB unused)
Location: Seattle
Computers: 3 PCs in the house, all Windows 7 (kid's), 8 (wife's), or 10 (mine)
Absolute Needs: Talk & Text
Almost Needs: Email & GPS
Thoughts on other features:
Camera. A solid camera for getting pics of the kids and my mother would be fantastic, especially indoors (poor lighting) and outdoors (harsh lighting). My wife does a cooking blog and her Point and Shoot is long in tooth so something that would do well there (e.g. macro shots) would be a HUGE perk. I hate cameras with long startup / long focus times. A very good “point and shoot” quality camera phone would justify a budget over $199.
Video Recording. Getting some videos of my mom with the kids would be great (same variable lighting conditions) and of our 18 month old. A perk is our disc golf partner likes to take videos and slow motion ones to check out our form.
Screen. I would like something that is usable outdoors in the sun. Seems I shouldn’t go below 1080p.
Size. I work in slacks and often use cargo shorts at home. I have never sized out these devices but fitting in a pocket is a need.
PDFs. I do a lot of academic research in my spare time and have a lot of my library scanned to PDF (but not OCR’d). Being able to load a 200MB PDF and read it would be an excellent plus (I use a 10” Windows tablet right now for this).
PDF Text-to-Speech. I just started playing with this feature a month ago. Wow! If I could use a phone on the go during commutes to “read” my books to me that would be pretty awesome.
Battery Life & Charging. I would love wireless charging as I am horrible about plugging stuff in & making space on my desk for cables. But with the fast charging this is less of an issue. Something that will last all day with 2-3 hours of calls, 1hr of pdf reading (200MB documents), 2 hours of audio would be a basic expectation.
Video. We have Amazon Prime, but don’t use it much. We do stream some video from our NAS. Being able to store a couple videos from our library would be nice (just saw Amazon Prime allows the use of SD cards now on Android).
Audio. Syncing with a Bluetooth ear bud seamlessly so when I take my hour walk at lunch I can listen to lectures and audiobooks that would be great.
Fingerprint Scanner. Sounds like a nice perk if fast enough.
Remote PowerPoint Control. I do teaching presentations once a week. I use a wireless clicker. If I could use a mobile phone—especially with the Power Point viewable on the phone—to sync with a PC to remotely push slides through that would be fantastic.
Apps. The only thing I know I will pick up is The Olive Tree Bible app.
Btw, I don’t have a Facebook, Twitter, or participate in other social media activity. I am pretty boring and spend my time with the wife and kids.
Thanks for suggestions and advice. I am sure there are things I will learn I would have LIKED once I get a phone so I am sure people can tell me about features & apps I may want.
Btw, decent computing power is a want—I don’t want a slow phone. Our emergency phone was an ancient Android where everything but talk and text was a horribly slow experience ($50 phone 5 years ago off contract, so a bad device). So enough storage (or expansion), RAM, and processing power so that in 12 months I am not bemoaning my device is important.
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