Torn between four phones(gs4, htc one, lumia 920, bbz10)

[ajumbaje]

So I've been focusing on three different phones to replace my 4s in may and have narrowed it down to three. Htc one, Nokia lumia 920, and the blackberry z10

What do you all have and think of each of those given that each has a different os?

Here are the pros and cons I have come up with on each one:
Htc one
Pros
Great design
Big app selection-comparable to ios
Awesome screen/audio

Cons
Memory not upgradeable
Android can be buggy(close friend of mine had issues with his gs2)
Phone is upgrades can take a while due to amount of phones/carriers

Lumia 920
Great design
Option to choose colors besides grey tone
Camera
100$ on contract w/att
Windows phone interface looks attractive
Nokia maps!

Cons
Os not as mature
Nowhere near as many apps
Only available in 32gb

Bbz10
Pros
Swipe interface
Keyboard w/ one hand and adaptive keys
Expandable storage

Cons
Brand new os
Doesn't look as well built
App selection very lacking

What I primarily do is text, email, post of forums, music, check sports scores, secondary camera, and navigation(preferably offline) Facebook, and twitter. Thats about 90 percent of what I do on my iPhone 4S

I'm leaning towards the lumia in cyan. Thoughts??

 

[onthecouchagain]

The lack of apps of both WP and B10 make them a non-contender to me, irregardless of the One's shortcomings.

 

[blackhand1001]

Why not the galaxy s4. The plastic isn't that bad and your most likely gonna be putting a case on any if these phones anyway. The battery life on the s4 is much better than the one.

 

[ucfgrad93]

The lack of apps of both WP and B10 make them a non-contender to me, irregardless of the One's shortcomings.

Agreed. The hardware is nice, but the lack of apps is a deal breaker for me as well.

 

[kasakka]

While Nokia hardware is nice, Windows Phone is a terrible OS in my experience. It can get cluttered as you add more stuff to it and the browser is the worst - it doesn't support lots of stuff and you can't even clear the cache without removing all your saved password (truly idiotic!). Plus upgrading the OS seems to be hit and miss (no WP 8 for some phones etc).

 

[paulsalter]

What about the eco system you currently use

If you use iCloud/iTunes a lot you might want to check how the different phones handle this

These work fine on Android (unless they have DRM), but not sure how BB/Windows phones handle this

If you use Google for things, I believe Windows phone has problems here (contacts/calendar)

Just a couple of extra thoughts

 

[watchthisspace]

Any reason why you are upgrading your iPhone 4s? Why not an iPhone 5??

Out of your needs, the HTC One ticks all the checkbox's.

Windows Phone:
-No native Twitter client
-Facebook client is not that good
-Music player leaves a lot to be desired and lacks simple features.
-Not sure if there is a Tapatalk app for Forums, but a lot of sites are mobile unfriendly with IE because they're usually coded with Webkit in mind.
- No idea about sport scores sorry.
- Whatsapp exists for texting.

I can't comment on BB10 as I really don't know anything about the operating system.

HTC One:

Has everything to fulfil your needs.

 

[ajumbaje]

Screen space width and just looking at something besides ios

 

[MuffCabbage]

Any reason why you are upgrading your iPhone 4s? Why not an iPhone 5??

Out of your needs, the HTC One ticks all the checkbox's.

Windows Phone:
-No native Twitter client
-Facebook client is not that good
-Music player leaves a lot to be desired and lacks simple features.
-Not sure if there is a Tapatalk app for Forums, but a lot of sites are mobile unfriendly with IE because they're usually coded with Webkit in mind.
- No idea about sport scores sorry.
- Whatsapp exists for texting.

I can't comment on BB10 as I really don't know anything about the operating system.

HTC One:

Has everything to fulfil your needs.

There is a Twitter client.
Facebook is built in, but there is a FB app. I havent used it but I hear it isnt on par with iOS. The People hub works well enough for me and FB chat goes thru standard messaging app.
Music Player does leave scrubbing to be desired for sure.
There are alternatives to Tapatalk (Foroplex, and Board Reader), but the Foroplex dev is working with Tapatalk to bring their app over to WP right now and discontinued support for Foroplex to do it. Not great for me who bought Foroplex last month
True about IE mobile. About half of mobile sites dont use mobile.
ESPN Score Center works for sports scores/updates.


TO answer OP, I would be between the 920 and HTC One. Both are great phones. I prefer Windows Phone, but there are huge reasons to go with the HTC One, number 1 being the larger number of apps available on Android if WP doesnt cut it. My biggest distaste for Android is simply the poor touch performance and the mismatched UX which WP nails.


I basically just miss SnapChat at this point personally.

 

[scott craft]

I also prefer Windows Phone, but if you are a big Facebook user or use lots of apps the HTC One is the better choice. The app selection for Windows Phone is growing rapidly but plenty are still missing and Facebook on WP is pretty poor whether it's through the app or the integrated Facebook.

 

[ajumbaje]

Ok...I lol'd at the att store when I saw "muffcabbage".

Can you live tile espn for news/teams? That would be sweet so I can channel out Kobe/lebron talk

 

[Michael Goff]

When it comes to "app selection", you really shouldn't care too much about numbers. You should really be focused on asking yourself what you're going to use the apps for and then try to see if they have what you need.

Whether it has 50k or 500k, it doesn't matter as much as it does if you can find a good app to do what you need.

 

[ajumbaje]

When it comes to "app selection", you really shouldn't care too much about numbers. You should really be focused on asking yourself what you're going to use the apps for and then try to see if they have what you need.

Whether it has 50k or 500k, it doesn't matter as much as it does if you can find a good app to do what you need.

That's my philosophy. So far, so good with what I need

 

[MuffCabbage]

Ok...I lol'd at the att store when I saw "muffcabbage".

Can you live tile espn for news/teams? That would be sweet so I can channel out Kobe/lebron talk

You can Live Tile 1 team it seems.

I actually just learned that and set it up, so I dont have it showing what gets updated to the tile yet.

And is there something funny about my name? I hope not because it's what my mother called me as a kid.

 

[ajumbaje]

That works, especially when they get the MLB app underway. I assume there will be an nfl one also for the 2013 season

 

[Stuntman06]

I am primarily an Android user (and my post will reflect some "bias" towards Android). I have a few comments:

Htc one
Pros
Great design
Big app selection-comparable to ios
Awesome screen/audio

Cons
Memory not upgradeable
Android can be buggy(close friend of mine had issues with his gs2)
Phone is upgrades can take a while due to amount of phones/carriers

All phones can be buggy. My experience with an older Android device (HTC Desire Z) and a newer one (Samsung Galaxy S3) shows that the stability of Android has definitely improved. It also helps that the SGS3 is a flagship device and the DZ has a more limited audience because of its physical keyboard. The HTC One is a flagship device and I would expect that it would be quite stable.

With regard to software updates, unless you know there is a feature in a future update that you really want or need, you should focus on what the phone can do for you on day 1. The only other issue is bug fixes. For a flagship device, I expect that any major bugs will be fixed in a timely manner.

If you are one who really has to have the latest version of Android ASAP, then you may want to consider a Nexus 4 if it suits you. You will have to decide if the N4 is right for you. With no option to expand storage, that may not be an option for you.

Bbz10
Pros
Swipe interface
Keyboard w/ one hand and adaptive keys
Expandable storage

Cons
Brand new os
Doesn't look as well built
App selection very lacking

I noticed that you indicated that the keyboard was a pro for this device. FYI, you can download Swype for a buck (will go up to 2 bucks soon, I believe) or SwiftKey for 4 bucks. These are alternate keyboards you can use on an Android phone. Both are excellent keyboards and I find them both to be superior to the stock Samsung or HTC keyboards or other keyboards I have tried. They allow me to type faster and more accurately than other keyboards.

What I primarily do is text, email, post of forums, music, check sports scores, secondary camera, and navigation(preferably offline) Facebook, and twitter. Thats about 90 percent of what I do on my iPhone 4S

All of the three phones you are considering should be able to handle all of that. For taking videos, the Lumina is probably the best because of its anti-shaking feature. I would give the Lumina the edge in the camera. Nokia seemed to have come up with some impressive camera phones the past few years. Although the really high-end cameras were on Symbian, I expect that this technology to migrate over to the Lumina. The HTC One has taken an interesting approach to their camera design, focusing on larger sensors rather than more. I am a little skeptical as I am not impressed with the camera on my old Desire Z. BlackBerry has not had much history with regard to good cameras on phones. Their TimeShift feature is interesting, though.

For navigation, I used to use a Nokia N97 running Ovi Maps. There are some features on Ovi Maps that I would like on my Android phone, namely lane guidance and offline maps. I believe the Nokia maps for the Lumina (I think it's called Here) is going to be very good as well.

If you want offline maps on Android, you will have to download an app for that. There are a number of mapping apps available. There was one that came with my Desire Z, but I did not use it. I primarily use Waze when online and NavFree when I need offline maps. Waze is also available on the Lumina now.

 

[ajumbaje]

I like swiftkey and swype, but the z10 is a little different. It adapts to your typing style, so if you mean to hit m and hit n(hit in the middle), the z10 keyboard will map the keyboard to tailor to your stroke pattern. Not sure if swiftkey does that.

I also like the predictive words above each key you type.

As far as maps go, as long as Nokia's are turn by turn, I'm golden. I like the lumia the more I see and play with it.

 

[Stuntman06]

I like swiftkey and swype, but the z10 is a little different. It adapts to your typing style, so if you mean to hit m and hit n(hit in the middle), the z10 keyboard will map the keyboard to tailor to your stroke pattern. Not sure if swiftkey does that.

SwiftKey does have a heat map and can show where your thumbs land on the keyboard. I make a lot of typing errors due to the lack of tactile feedback on touchscreen keyboards. I often look at what I actually typed and what SwiftKey predicted I typed. I get the impression that SwiftKey is able to make very accurate predictions on what I want to type. The end result is when using SwiftKey, I make very few errors. SwiftKey also studies how you type and will adjust its prediction based on your typing style. It can also analyse your typing on email, Facebook and Twitter to learn your typing style. That includes abbreviations that you use as well as capitalisation. I find that when I type a new word or abbreviation that is not in the dictionary, the second time I type it, SwiftKey knows that is what I want to type. For instance, I use WoW for World of Warcraft. When I type, "Wow", SwiftKey knows I mean "WoW" (note the capitalisation).

I also like the predictive words above each key you type.

Different keyboards present the predictive words in different locations on the keyboard. The Z10 keyboard is the first one that I have seen predicted words appearing on the keys. I haven't used it myself, so I cannot comment on how effective word prediction is in this manner.

On SwiftKey, the text and word prediction appear above the top row of the keyboard. SwiftKey only predicts 3 different words. The most likely word that Swiftkey thinks you want is always in the centre. The left and right are words that you may want as well. Almost all of the time, the centre word ends up being the correct word even if I make typing errors. I would have to majorly screw up the typing before SwiftKey gets it wrong. Even if I miss adding a space, SwiftKey is able to figure out that I meant to type two words instead of one long word.

On Swype, the predicted list of words is also above the keyboard with the most likely word on the left. Swype provides a longer list of predicted words. The list of predicted words may span longer than the width of the keyboard. You can swipe the list of words left to see more predicted words.

Personally, I like having the predicted word always in the centre. I configure SwiftKey to have auto-correct off. When I finish typing the word, I look at the centre predicted word and press it to select it (which is correct 99% of the time). I actually select the predicted word instead of pressing the space bar. This way, I can type fast and always verify the word is in fact what I want to type. If it is not the correct word, then I look at the other two or have to backspace and correct my typing.

I primarily type in landscape mode. SwiftKey has a variety of keyboard layouts to choose from. I choose a split layout because my phone is big (4.8"). That way, my thumbs don't have to reach really far to hit keys in the centre of the keyboard.

As far as maps go, as long as Nokia's are turn by turn, I'm golden. I like the lumia the more I see and play with it.

You're golden.

 

[b166er]

Of those three the 920 is my choice. I've been using one daily for a few months and it's a nice phone. Terrific camera if that means anything to you. WP8 does have some annoyances, for me they mostly involve the notifications. The app store is starting to get up to par, you notice it more and more every week. It's no where near iOS/Play but there is obvious progress being made.

HTC and I don't play nice, and we never will.

BB- man I used to love my BB... but these days they are way too far behind the rest for me.

Pretty sure I'm going to keep my 920 as a backup and pick up a S4 in early May.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I was talking to a rep in the apple store while my girlfriend was picking out a mac, and he was saying (of the non-iOS phones) the One X was the nicest, although I'm partial to WP8 and would suggest the 920.

TCFKAR never came up.

 

[ajumbaje]

also looking at galaxy s4, that and I added a poll. I am on at&t btw