Smartphone fever

Bet you had this at some point in your life. 

Coz I am having one, and it takes a whole lot of time to research and study the smartphone I wish to get. 

At the point of posting this entry, I am already using a Blackberry Bold 9900 for almost 2 years. Most of the silver lining along the keypads have disappeared accompanied with dozens of scratches due to numerous drops. 

While its still working, getting another phone seems like a good option. Losing contacts and data can be a disaster, especially if your phone is not backed up regularly. 

As a hardcore phone user and gadget junkie, considering these facts can be quite cumbersome on top of time consuming. Along the way, I have used several phones in which I still struggle to find the perfect gadget. 

Actually, there is no such thing as a perfect gadget. I remember when we used to think that Nokia 3310 was THE BEST phone ever. Period. It can really take impacts and survive - provided most of the parts are in tact. Generally, it was the milestone of hand held devices. 

The choices that are currently battling in my mind :-

Iphone 5
HTC Butterfly
Samsung Galaxy note 2

I will share with you why Samsung Galaxy S3 or HTC OneX Plus is not in this list.

Bearing in mind with the new Maxis One Club promo, advanced payment is waived. I have yet to find the fine print of this deal, but ultimately this deal is awesome. With Digi, you need to fork out money for the advanced payment and additional RM500 (someone correct me if this still applies). 

If I were to compare with Maxis, the rates for phone + data plans are way cheaper. I am currently spending RM150 on my Maxis BIS package with 3GB data plan. I never exceeded the 3GB quota. Whats worse, is that I feel that with the calls that I make and data that I ACTUALLY use, I should get a RM88 Digi data plan. 

But, knowing the coverage which could be inconsistent and limited to town areas, Digi never became my preferred telco even after resigning. It has alwasy been Maxis, followed by Celcom and U Mobile. 

Phone wise, Samsung has always been known to produce light weight phones. But at the expense of fragility and plastic casings. In the case of S3 and Note 2, they are packed with super clarity displays. The OS is quite stable and with re-introduction of the stylus, Galaxy Note 2 has become very popular. I have to admit that this phone is cool because my sister and younger brother is using it. 

In short, Samsung lacks in the external or physical sense of the product, but gains extra points for the S-stylus as it comes hand in hand with a few cool applications (can be found in Android Market) and also much stable OS compared to HTC. 

HTC has been known to produce good hardware. Externally and internally. HTC butterfly has better resolution than the Note 2, slimmer yet slightly lower specs. The full comparison can be found here :-

http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=5152&idPhone2=5118

However, HTC has one small problem. A problem that an average user might not encounter, but for techies like myself would be a great deal of disappointment. 

HTC sense 4.0 - the newly improved version is said to fix most of the bugs in the previous versions. As much as they try to fix the past bugs, it seems to have new issues in the 4.0. So, expect the phone to reboot by itself, or freeze occasionally. 

The fix? Obviously not out yet. For now, I can safely say the best way is to remove the HTC sense by rooting the phone. For you who are not aware of "rooting" an Android phone, its pretty much similar to removing the Android features by the vendor (Samsung/HTC/Sony/Motorola) and adding your own preferred features. 

Sounds troublesome? Yes it is! Of course I'm just speaking the initial stages of rooting an Android phone. Once you have it all installed on your phone, it can become a simple click on an icon. But to get to that level or point, a lot of troubleshooting will be required. Trial and errors to get the perfect combination of your preferred Android. 

Basically, HTC aims to provide a good external build packed with awesome hardware specs. Unfortunately their HTC sense just needs more testing before it can be paired with any form of processor, be it dual or quad core. 

Which brings me to my last option, which is the I Phone. As it was first introduced as a fool-proof phone, more and more people have opted to owning an I Phone because it has so much to offer - be it in apps or OS stability. The only setback in owning one is jail-breaking it. Since the jailbreaks are often produced by a 3rd party, waiting for the right or stable one could take time. Some of the jail breaks will continue to have certain bugs until its finally stable, or bug-free. 

So much for Maxis One Club offer. The only thing that can help me decide is by holding the phone in my hand and meddling around with it. 

Until next time.


-my 2 cents-