The CrunchGear team published a very detailed comparison of the major Smartphone choices to help first time buyers make the right choice. This is the first of many product comparison research posts that the team is working on.
They compare the top seven current smartphones. The phone I use, the Motorola Q, is included. Frankly, it was a poor choice and at this point I wish I had just bought a Blackberry or a Treo. The keys on the Q are too small, and the user interface could not be more poorly designed. I keep dropping the damn thing hoping it will break (giving me the excuse I need to buy a new phone), but it’s a sturdy little phone. We’ll see how it does with the “oops, I dropped it in the toilet” test.
CrunchGear also posted on “Ten Things I Hate About Smartphones,” another good resource for buyers.
Audiovox makes a great smartphone, they keep a low profile though.
Motorola Q is my pick in the smart phone arena the mainly because I am with Verizon Wireless. Besides I wrote a really nice review of it myself on my site.
Blackberry Pearl is the best phone I have ever had by orders of magnitude. I even took photos with it on a Mediterranean cruise. Before it, I had a succession of Windows 5.0 phones, and had to reboot them all the time. The TMobile MDA had trouble finding the network, and got poor reception. The Cingular version of that phone found its network, but crashed regularly. And they didn’t work well with Bluetooth. The Blackberry Pearl does it all. And it sounds great as a phone through either the Plantronics or the new tiny Samsung head set.
Do not, however, drop your Blackberry in the toilet. About two years ago, I had a string of episodes with Blackberrys and toilets, and they do not survive!!!!
Mike, it looks like you have a typo on the smartphone210.jpg link.
http://http//cr...e-buyers-guide/
I’m really digging my T-Mobile Dash. I refuse to pay 29.99 a month for slooowwww Internet so the included WIFI is really handy.
i am for the e61 nokia..
I too have had my fair share of Q problems and ditched it after a few months.
I bought my Q for the form factor first, everything else second. I am frustrated with it sometimes but the increased functionality over a “dumb” phone is still enough that I cope. I haven’t really have very much trouble, anyways–just minor annoyances from WM5SP and its UI etc. Also of course VZW’s incredibly poor offerings mean that even the gross WM ui defeats whatever any other phone besides smartphones might offer. I’m all about pocketability so it was no contest.
By the way, you can sometimes rescue phones from toilets etc! Rubbing alcohol is your friend.
Blackberry Pearl all the way woo!
This review is terrible. Nothing fleshed out at all — just a mention of the players. How is this helpful again?
I have a Treo 750v that I unlocked and am using it on T-Mobile. It is a nice smartphone – especially the wireless sync with Exchange.
I so want one. However, T-Mobile (and every other carrier I think) doesn’t have a plan for e-mail and internet that caters to the biggest and most interested demographic – high school and college kids. T-Mobile, my carrier, only offers their Total Internet for the smart phones which costs an astounding $30/month. Dial-up like speeds for $30 with the ONLY difference being the ability to take it anywhere. Piss poor service. I’d buy the Dash if they could get a plan aimed for my demographic.
Why don’t ALL smartphones have Wi-Fi abilities?!? It’s ridiculous that only two in this list do. If I’m at home or at a hotspot I don’t want to have to pay my cell phone company extra data usage fees just to do a quick search on the internet, I just want to hop on a free Wi-Fi connection.
I have had the T-Mobile Dash for a little over a week. I love it so far, but I haven’t been able to hook it up to corporate email yet as I’m waiting for an Exchange Upgrade to finish so I don’t have to use something like Goodlink to get mail on my phone.
Prior to this I had a Blackberry 7100 and a Motorola V360, so I don’t have much basis of comparison. This phone is a good upgrade from the Motorola back into the world of email-enabled phones… plus I can read RSS feeds and TechCrunch on it wherever I am so that’s huge for me as well.
I’ve recently gone the other way and ditched my Nokia n80 smartphone and got a PDA. I was tired of carrying a brick in my pocket that had poor battery life, a tiny screen, slow OS and poor phone reception. Now I’ve got a nice small phone to carry around with a bluetooth modem and my PDA which is much more capable to do my online stuff.
I like the idea of one device doing all, but it’s still a few years away for me.
I use a Samsung i320N (Windows Mobile 5)
Mike, you say the interface is horrible, is that because you don’t like Windows Mobile 5?
You can’t go wrong with a Treo or Blackberry. Everything else seems to have problems. At work, we have a remote sales team that all use smart phones. We spend 90% of our time supporting the 10% who don’t use a Treo or a Blackberry.
Oddly enough, our most recent problem has been with Windows Mobile phones not syncing correctly with Outlook.
i’m apt to benq p50 smartphone.
I love techcrunch. its always my first source of news every morning. This, however, is not what i hope to see each morning… But hey.. its a blog, right? No real rules to owning and operating a blog, right? So i guess that means that Mike can do whatever he wants, and as long as TechCrunch keeps bringing in the $$$$ I think Mike WILL do whatever he wants. heh
Now that my rant is over, i agree the the keys on the Q are too small. Same with the Treo. Some BBs are OK, but not the ones that share 2 letters per key. What a hassle that is to type with, especially when you type a word not in the dictionary. The PPC has nice size keys, but every one I have ever used from either Sprint or Verizon has a problem freezing. It is most likely due to Windows Mobile 5, or some strange hardware incompatibility with WM5.. I dont know.
If you want something solid, my advice is to get a tiny laptop with Skype
You’re missing the SE line of phones. SE M600i and SE 990. Both are awful. I have an SE M600i and have given up. It was an excellent concept, down to the rocker keys, but awful execution. The phone is unbelievably buggy. I’ve since given up. The only smartphone that’s worth having right now is the Blackberry Pearl.
I’ve loved my Treo 650 P
(I purchased mine the day after I saw a friend use one … impulsive?)
I am reading all these posts from Australia and cant belive how behind you guys are with phones! Non of them are even HSDPA!??? Dont you have it there? Conversly we dont have the Pearl….which looks great but I presume is still not fast….
This is a killer PDA phone – this is going to kill the Nokia E61 & The Motorola Q