Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 146 posts

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#91

Post by chrismsnz »

cheald wrote: post #80
old-gregg wrote: post #20

Nexus One. I'm surprised you're even asking. Fully Linux-friendly, hackable, powerful and doesn't have any crapware from carriers or hardware manufacturers. Buy it at full price and sign up for a $59/mo month-to-month plan from T-Mobile. Enjoy built-in tethering and guaranteed upgrade to the latest version of Android. I own N1 and iPhone 4 and I believe that N1 is a superior phone. It doesn't need to be plugged to a…

I'll second the Nexus One. It's a hell of a phone. I love it, and have recommended it to any of my friends that'll listen. I'll touch on the things I don't like about it, though, for the sake of comparison. - Not much internal memory. 512mb gets eaten up quickly by the OS and apps. That's alleviated somewhat by 2.2 allowing apps to be partially installed to SD card, but it's optional to the developer. It's not a huge…

I agree with most of those, but I've never had any problems playing 3D games with my Nexus One.

From Homerun Battle to Backbreaker football to that cool racing game I can't quite remember the name of - all run smooth.

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#92

Post by lzw »

ergo98 wrote: post #65
victorbstan wrote: post #15

I wonder what people think about the non-screened applications for Android, and that many applications have (retro-actively) been pulled because they send private information to douchebags? I'm imagining with Androids popularity, it's going to end up being a world similar to the PC world, where you have Windows cheezoid OS with some antivirus/antiphishig app having to overlook all your applications and make sure they…

>Personally I still think the Apple way of pre screening is healthier That's because you're stunningly ignorant, not only about Android's security model, but also about Apple's inability to catch anything but the superficial.

Shame on anyone who upmods a comment like yours which consists of nothing but calling someone a name and then telling two lies.

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#93

Post by omrisiri »

I was in the exact situation about four month ago and i decided to go with the N900, my considerations were:

1. I wanted a phone that is not Completely closed

2. I don't care about the eye candy

3. I run Linux - Anything that is not 100% compatible is out of the question

4. I Wanted a real keyboard - i just can't get used to those on-screen keyboards

5. I wanted Skype support out of the box

6. REAL multitasking

So I obviously ruled the IPhone out first. Other than eye-candy and hype i couldn't find any good reason to actually want to own one. I have to say - it is a beautiful phone, but I'm the kinda guy that want something practical.

My two real contenders were the N1 (the best android phone at the time) and the N900. The N900 won eventually since:

1. the keyboard is one of the best i had used.

2. It is a Nokia which in my opinion means a better build than HTC.

3. It's almost a Full Linux box - I could take almost any application i have on my box and recompile it with minimal effort for the N900 (it can use either GTK or QT)

4. For some odd reason i really like resistive screens (once you get used to pushing a little ,it feels a lot more accurate than capacitives)

With all that said, for anyone thats not a total Linux geek like me - an android phone will be the phone i recommend to anyone who asks. its obviously the place to go now.

The community behind android is growing rapidly, which means it will progress faster and become more polished with every release.

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#94

Post by awolf »

ergo98 wrote: post #84
awolf wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having used both in real life and for development my OPINION is that iPhone if far and away the best device on the market. A lot of people I associate with who own Android phones agree with me yet they tell me they refuse support Apple's policies and are voting with their dollar. And I completely understand their view point. Do you?

>Having used both in real life and for development my OPINION is that iPhone if far and away the best device on the market. And, having used both devices in real life and for development, the Nexus One is the best device on the market (if the Galaxy S Pro had 2.2, I'd easily choose it as the market leader). In fact after using an Android device for a while, and trying to go back to an iPhone 4 for a while, the comple…

Come on, this is a discussion not a flamewar.

Let's share our opinions and keep it constructive.

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#95

Post by scotty79 »

Samsung Galaxy i9000 currently best smartphone on the market. 4 inch super amoled display. 16 GB of built in storage. Supports up to 32GB micro SD.

Also runs on android so you are safe from Steve craziness and Steve tax (unlocked costs half of iPhone 4 16GB).

Most powerful GPU. Runs Quake 3 like a charm: http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-features/50507-galaxy-s-thra...

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#96

Post by orangecat »

lzw wrote: post #89
orangecat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java isn't ideal, but I much prefer it to ObjC. You can also "in theory" use any language that compiles to the JVM, like Scala: http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/scala-ide/Developing_for_A... Thanks for the Python APK link, last time I checked you couldn't deploy standalone Python apps but now I can play with it.

I submit that if you take the time to learn Objective-C you'll feel quite differently. I've learned many languages in my years, while neither Java nor Objective-C is my favorite language right now (erlang is, though I haven't used it for awhile) they both were at different points in my life. I hated Objective-C for the first week or two, then came to understand it, and saw how it was so much better than Java. Of cour…

I submit that if you take the time to learn Objective-C you'll feel quite differently.

I've used ObjC for many years and released several Cocoa apps. The syntax isn't the problem; I actually rather like the brackets.

Objective-C has every advantage Java does, but the converse is not the case.

No garbage collection (on iOS at least), inherently unsafe, primitive types requiring silly [NSNumber numberWithInt:x] contortions, header files, no namespaces...

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#97

Post by borism »

StavrosK wrote: post #58
cesare wrote: post #55

I have an HTC Desire and I'm really happy with it. Recently, the Google Maps Navigation has been activated here in Italy (with voice search, which I thought was available exclusively on the Nexus One). Last week HTC released an OTA update with android 2.2, which also added an app for tethering over wifi (tethering via USB was already available) and 720p video recording.

I've been drooling over the Desire for a long time, but now, with rumours of the HD Desire coming out soon, I might wait for that...

what would HD Desire do more than SD Desire? They already do 720p recording (and theoretically playback) since Froyo OTA update.

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#98

Post by borism »

topbanana wrote: post #86
Maakuth wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with you on this. It's basically the Nexus One hardware, with some quite minor differences and some HTC-specific Android customizations. It was already pretty darn good, but with last week's OTA-upgrade to Froyo, i'd say it's an excellent smartphone.

The main hardware differnce is that the Desire has real buttons (back, home, menu etc) wheres the Nexus One has soft buttons without the same level of touch feedback.

can't Desire do haptic feedback like EVO 4G? (if you're looking for a feedback)

for me the problem is rather with soft buttons being inadvertently activated when using the device in landscape mode, not the feedback.

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#99

Post by cma »

jsz0 wrote: post #81

There's no one-size-fits-all solution. Since both Android and iOS have parity for basic functionality either would be a good choice. For third party apps most of the interesting stuff is still happening on the iPhone. There may be equivalent Android apps (ports or clones) but in my opinion it's still a second class platform. Especially when you get into multimedia apps, creative apps, games, etc. On the hardware side…

Just pointing out that the N1 is HTC.

Re: Ask HN: What smartphone to get right now?

#100

Post by seanx »

lzw wrote: post #89
orangecat wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Java isn't ideal, but I much prefer it to ObjC. You can also "in theory" use any language that compiles to the JVM, like Scala: http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/scala-ide/Developing_for_A... Thanks for the Python APK link, last time I checked you couldn't deploy standalone Python apps but now I can play with it.

I submit that if you take the time to learn Objective-C you'll feel quite differently. I've learned many languages in my years, while neither Java nor Objective-C is my favorite language right now (erlang is, though I haven't used it for awhile) they both were at different points in my life. I hated Objective-C for the first week or two, then came to understand it, and saw how it was so much better than Java. Of cour…

Better than java is a pretty low bar but I am not sure that OC makes it even then. I learnt enough to know who much I hated it and then did most of my iphone coding in c++.
Post reply on HN