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Over the past few weeks I've been debating on getting a new phone. I've also been thinking about jumping-ship from Virgin Mobile to another provider - another smaller cellphone company.
Currently, I have a no-contract 200-anytime-minutes plan for $20 for Virgin Mobile with 20c per text. It's also a KRZR, a phone which was cool back in the day, but even when I bought it, smartphones were the next best thing. So now, it's been about 3 years and I'm thinking that I'd like to upgrade. Since this is going to be My First Smartphone and my plans are to try to keep in touch more, I want to use it for communication - calling, texting people, checking social networks, and updating/reading Twitter. (I have not been able to read Twitter for any length of time recently since I no longer sit in front of a computer for my work, and while I love my work, I fear that I've lost touch with people because of it. I have been meeting up with people for breakfasts and coffees recently just to touch-base.) I realized that I don't need to buy the Next Big Smartphone and spend $300 extra for a Dual-Core processor (I have my computers at home for the big number-crunchings), but I don't want something handicapped either.
I've been looking at WINDMobile since they have a $29 plan for unlimited talk/text/data (which is actually 5 or 10GB of data, but then it's just throttled, not over-billed), with $5 for Voicemail. Admittedly, $35 is more than I would like to spend, but my other options start at $40 on Virgin and increase to up to $60+ on the Big Three.
Being ever the thifty tech guy, I was thinking about purchasing a Samsung Vibrant from Virgin Mobile since I have a little extra money in my Virgin account from their $5/month "Kickback" plan, and then bring that phone over to WIND. However, after doing a lot of research on the topic (consulting a few friends, both online and in meatspace - see breakfasts and coffees, above) I've discovered that the Samsung Vibrant is not compatible with WINDMobile as they use a different frequency band than Bell/Virgin (yes, Bell owns Virgin, which is another reason for me to skip out), so that idea is gone. I also got word from a co-worker that, for some odd reason, a lot of the applications in the Android Marketplace have notes that they don't work on the Samsung Galaxy brand of phones. I don't know why, exactly, I didn't do the research there...
Every day, WIND looks more and more appealing, and discovering that the "unlimited" internet is still unlimited (I thought they would charge extra), it's sounding more like my ideal company. Something else that I noted was the Tab plan, which I talked about recently. Virgin doesn't seem to have a cap on how long you pay your Tab for. WIND, on the other hand, tells you that once you have the phone for three years, no matter how much you owe on it, the Tab is waived.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kinnonyee did mention that they may charge $5 if I use the phone in a non-WIND zone (since it uses Rogers' network at that time), but I don't travel outside of the city that often (like, once a year!), but I can disable that function altogether - Virgin just didn't work at my parents' cottage, and I just used their landline anyways. I should also see if I can try out the signal and know just how good it works...
I use a lot of the Google apps already so it's not much of a stretch for me to move to an Android. I'm fine with using Google's Cloud. WIND has a Google Nexus S available for free with their Tab (and no contracts, even with their $29/month plan). I've been very interested in an Android phone, and heck, this one is branded with Google themselves, so I would hope it would be as trustworthy as Google is (YMMV depending on how much you trust Google). I was thinking that I was going to end up with an inferior phone, but what I just discovered this morning thanks to this video is that the Google Nexus S and Samsung Vibrant are both pretty much the same hardware-wise, with a few minor adjustments (Nexus S has no MicroSD card slot, but has a forward-facing camera). I can live with that. I don't need a MicroSD card right now, and 16GB should be good for pretty much everything, as long as I don't overload it with photos and apps!
Heck, I'm looking at the Pay Your Way plan, too... I'm not that much of a power user (-- yet, but I feel that will change quickly), but the costs of using data at the rate of 20c for 6 minutes or 20c a minute of talk, the prices seem astronomically cheap! I guess I could always monitor my usage and see just how much of everything I use, and see if it's worth it... is it really worth it to research this deeply into this, though? The amount of time I'm putting into the math seems to outweigh the cost difference. ^^;
I'm always still curious to know what people think. Again, I'm feeling like I've fallen out of touch with a lot of you, so feel free to chat :D
Currently, I have a no-contract 200-anytime-minutes plan for $20 for Virgin Mobile with 20c per text. It's also a KRZR, a phone which was cool back in the day, but even when I bought it, smartphones were the next best thing. So now, it's been about 3 years and I'm thinking that I'd like to upgrade. Since this is going to be My First Smartphone and my plans are to try to keep in touch more, I want to use it for communication - calling, texting people, checking social networks, and updating/reading Twitter. (I have not been able to read Twitter for any length of time recently since I no longer sit in front of a computer for my work, and while I love my work, I fear that I've lost touch with people because of it. I have been meeting up with people for breakfasts and coffees recently just to touch-base.) I realized that I don't need to buy the Next Big Smartphone and spend $300 extra for a Dual-Core processor (I have my computers at home for the big number-crunchings), but I don't want something handicapped either.
I've been looking at WINDMobile since they have a $29 plan for unlimited talk/text/data (which is actually 5 or 10GB of data, but then it's just throttled, not over-billed), with $5 for Voicemail. Admittedly, $35 is more than I would like to spend, but my other options start at $40 on Virgin and increase to up to $60+ on the Big Three.
Being ever the thifty tech guy, I was thinking about purchasing a Samsung Vibrant from Virgin Mobile since I have a little extra money in my Virgin account from their $5/month "Kickback" plan, and then bring that phone over to WIND. However, after doing a lot of research on the topic (consulting a few friends, both online and in meatspace - see breakfasts and coffees, above) I've discovered that the Samsung Vibrant is not compatible with WINDMobile as they use a different frequency band than Bell/Virgin (yes, Bell owns Virgin, which is another reason for me to skip out), so that idea is gone. I also got word from a co-worker that, for some odd reason, a lot of the applications in the Android Marketplace have notes that they don't work on the Samsung Galaxy brand of phones. I don't know why, exactly, I didn't do the research there...
Every day, WIND looks more and more appealing, and discovering that the "unlimited" internet is still unlimited (I thought they would charge extra), it's sounding more like my ideal company. Something else that I noted was the Tab plan, which I talked about recently. Virgin doesn't seem to have a cap on how long you pay your Tab for. WIND, on the other hand, tells you that once you have the phone for three years, no matter how much you owe on it, the Tab is waived.
kinnonyee did mention that they may charge $5 if I use the phone in a non-WIND zone (since it uses Rogers' network at that time), but I don't travel outside of the city that often (like, once a year!), but I can disable that function altogether - Virgin just didn't work at my parents' cottage, and I just used their landline anyways. I should also see if I can try out the signal and know just how good it works...I use a lot of the Google apps already so it's not much of a stretch for me to move to an Android. I'm fine with using Google's Cloud. WIND has a Google Nexus S available for free with their Tab (and no contracts, even with their $29/month plan). I've been very interested in an Android phone, and heck, this one is branded with Google themselves, so I would hope it would be as trustworthy as Google is (YMMV depending on how much you trust Google). I was thinking that I was going to end up with an inferior phone, but what I just discovered this morning thanks to this video is that the Google Nexus S and Samsung Vibrant are both pretty much the same hardware-wise, with a few minor adjustments (Nexus S has no MicroSD card slot, but has a forward-facing camera). I can live with that. I don't need a MicroSD card right now, and 16GB should be good for pretty much everything, as long as I don't overload it with photos and apps!
Heck, I'm looking at the Pay Your Way plan, too... I'm not that much of a power user (-- yet, but I feel that will change quickly), but the costs of using data at the rate of 20c for 6 minutes or 20c a minute of talk, the prices seem astronomically cheap! I guess I could always monitor my usage and see just how much of everything I use, and see if it's worth it... is it really worth it to research this deeply into this, though? The amount of time I'm putting into the math seems to outweigh the cost difference. ^^;
I'm always still curious to know what people think. Again, I'm feeling like I've fallen out of touch with a lot of you, so feel free to chat :D
Don't Discount WP7!
If you can hold out until the new year, HTC, Samsung, and Nokia will be bringing their flagship (and possibly even newer) Windows Phones to Canada.
Check out Engadget or CNET or any of the reputable sites for reviews.
I'm really sore on Android... and this is coming from a guy who does tech support for them ALL day. They're SO inconsistent. Not only in the different handsets, but even handset to handset. They're so out in the wild for developers that it's ridiculously how varied the OS versions are that pop up. That said, I did get my hands on an HTC EVO 3D for a few minutes the other day, and it seemed nice.
All I'm saying is, look into Windows Phone... it sounds like it's exactly what you're looking for with keeping in touch.
Re: Don't Discount WP7!
The other thing that's appealing to me right now is that WIND has that Unlimited plan for $29/month, and that offer expires at the end of the year. A quick glance over the WIND Phones doesn't seem to bring up any Windows 7 phones, and that's where I'm a little stumped.
Speaking of which, I'm guessing there's an App store for Windows Phones as well? I'm also assuming that Google Apps will work with Windows 7 phones, since they're designed to be cross-platform. I should maybe revisit a Third-Party store and see some Windows Phones first-hand. Thanks!
Re: Don't Discount WP7!
There are very few WP7 devices in Canada yet, but there is a massive marketing push in South America, US, Europe and Asia (to a lesser extent). That's why you haven't seen/heard about them. In addition, the salespeople in retail stores for some reason seem to dismiss the WP7 devices out-of-hand. I think most of them are still sore on Windows CE (which was terrible).
Anyways, have a look. I don't stand to gain, but it's definitely going to be my next mobile OS; especially with the long-term views on Windows 8 cross-platform stuff.
As for the app store, yes. I don't think Google Apps will work (as it's not android), but WP7 is full HTML5 support, so porting is easy for developers (and again, MS is pushing huge). There's also a lot of third-party apps for iOS and Android which are native to WP7 (like full twitter and FB integration, etc).