iphone alternatives?

I know this is a apple forum and everyone here are apple fans, but I've been reading into the iPhone a lot (looking to get one or an alternative) and I found a lot of cons (and pros). Sure it has a beautiful interface, but in terms of functionality, it lacks in certain places. This thread is purely for informational purposes and straight facts, so if you're a nutso apple fan that has nothing *constructive* to say other than "iphone rules bc it's awesome!!!", don't bother posting.

These are the downsides to the iphone that I personally do not like. There were others, but they did not particularly bug me.

- Battery is not customer replaceable and costs $79.95 + $6.95 shipping to get it replaced -- very pricey and crappy that the user cannot replace it him/herself. On top of that, I've heard that the lifespan is not as long as it could be. (possibly a rumour)

- lacks certain major features such as GPS receiver

- lack of third party software support (legally, that is)

- price... $399 USD is pricey esp. with the above points. On top of that, it is not yet available in Canada (which is where I reside) and when it will be available here, I've heard it will be considerably more expensive.


On the plus side...

- it's amazingly sleek and thin/small

- i love the interface

- it has an accelerometer.

Aside from those few pluses, I don't really see an advantage over competing pda phones/touch phones. I've looked into a few (such as HTC) and aside from lacking a sexy interface and accelerometer, most beat the iphone. The one thing that I noticed though is most of the competing phones only support 2gb or 4gb of expandable memory, where the iPhone supports 8gb (although it's not expandable).

I haven't used an iPhone personally, but I've used an iPod Touch, so I know what the interface and navigation is like. Don't get me wrong, IMO no phone can beat the iPhone/iPod Touch's sexy interface, but I'm just wondering if it will be worth shelling out $400 USD to get one.

If you have something constructive to add or contradict, please post.

EDIT: I just wanted to add a few things to the pro list for the iPhone. To add to it's intuitiveness, I think the photo browsing/scaling, music browsing and internet browsing is quite amazing. i don't know if any other devices have matched this functionality, so hopefully ppl can help me out in that respect too.

atomicrabbit said:

- Battery is not customer replaceable and costs $79.95 + $6.95 shipping to get it replaced -- very pricey and crappy that the user cannot replace it him/herself. On top of that, I've heard that the lifespan is not as long as it could be. (possibly a rumour)

Click to expand...

Yes, it is pricey. Though I typically haven't ever replaced cellphone batteries in the past because of their expense versus just replacing the phone. This isn't a cheap enough phone to be considered disposable like my past ones, though.

atomicrabbit said:

- lack of third party software support (legally, that is)

Click to expand...

For now, but Apple says it's ready to release its SDK in Feb08 so I would expect 3rd party development after that point.

atomicrabbit said:

- price... $399 USD is pricey esp. with the above points. On top of that, it is not yet available in Canada (which is where I reside) and when it will be available here, I've heard it will be considerably more expensive.

Click to expand...

It is pricey, but I looked at it as a revolutionary iPod with a phone built in, not vice-versa, and it doesn't seem as expensive then.

I've owned a couple of smartphones previously, and although they had more features overall, I didn't like them nearly as much. Although the interface is key to the enjoyment of the device, it wasn't the only reason. Web browsing on a smartphone is painful with the small screen and poor software. It is actually quite nice on the iPhone. Sure, not as fast as a desktop, but for a small device with an all touch interface, it's amazing how useful it is. Watching movies and video on the iPhone is much nicer also. The music interface, ipod sound quality, and itunes integration make music listening much more enjoyable, too. So, for what I use this phone for aside from phone calls: watching video, listening to music, surfing the web, looking at email, the iPhone is much better at and thus makes using it more enjoyable.

Aside from a few key missing features, it's a very capable device. The features I'm referring to are document synching/file transfer, voice dialing, and better messaging (MMS/SMS to multiple recipients). Those aren't dealbreakers for me, though. If they were, I wouldn't have purchased one. And it's quite possible some of those could be implemented in a firmware update or 3rd party software.

Good luck on your decision.

LG Voyager for Verizon

http://www.engadget.com/2007/10/03/verizons-lg-voyager-heads-up-newly-official-fall-lineup/

with a 2-yr contract it is $350 (or $300 = $350-$50 discount if you order it from VZW's web site).

Pretty much the iClone in terms of GUI and features. Personally, I think I prefer the interaction of the iPhone and Mac OS. On the flip side, the LG has a "real" keyboard (the touchscreen keyboard on the iPhone has been apparently not as accurate as expected based on a story or 2 I read at slashdot).

Poo Pants said:

Yes, it is pricey. Though I typically haven't ever replaced cellphone batteries in the past because of their expense versus just replacing the phone. This isn't a cheap enough phone to be considered disposable like my past ones, though.

For now, but Apple says it's ready to release its SDK in Feb08 so I would expect 3rd party development after that point.

It is pricey, but I looked at it as a revolutionary iPod with a phone built in, not vice-versa, and it doesn't seem as expensive then.

I've owned a couple of smartphones previously, and although they had more features overall, I didn't like them nearly as much. Although the interface is key to the enjoyment of the device, it wasn't the only reason. Web browsing on a smartphone is painful with the small screen and poor software. It is actually quite nice on the iPhone. Sure, not as fast as a desktop, but for a small device with an all touch interface, it's amazing how useful it is. Watching movies and video on the iPhone is much nicer also. The music interface, ipod sound quality, and itunes integration make music listening much more enjoyable, too. So, for what I use this phone for aside from phone calls: watching video, listening to music, surfing the web, looking at email, the iPhone is much better at and thus makes using it more enjoyable.

Aside from a few key missing features, it's a very capable device. The features I'm referring to are document synching/file transfer, voice dialing, and better messaging (MMS/SMS to multiple recipients). Those aren't dealbreakers for me, though. If they were, I wouldn't have purchased one. And it's quite possible some of those could be implemented in a firmware update or 3rd party software.

Good luck on your decision.

Click to expand...

I must say I've been looking at some alternatives and they just cannot compete with the iPhone ... I've look into the following:

- HTC Touch
- HTC TyTN II
- LG Voyager
- CECT P168 (iPhone clone)
- CECT 599 (iPhone clone)
- AT&T Tilt
- Google Phone (although can't really compare it since it's not out and no one knows what it looks like)
- LG KU 990 VIEWTY
- Meizu M8 (not out yet)

but none can compete with the iPhone's multitouch interface and functionality. I'm not the type of person to jump on the bandwagon or follow the trend, but I really don't think this is a trend. With the older iPods (anything before the iPod Touch/iPhone), there were/are a lot of better functioning devices out there -- and cheaper. But the iPod Touch/iPhone really is superior to anything out there right now -- hands down. It has it's downsides as I've mentioned before (lack of GPS and data transfer just to name a couple), but the rest of it's amazing features make up for that.

I'm really looking for someone to disagree with me and offer me an actual competitor to the iPhone bc I can't find one. Most of them have Windows Mobile installed on them, which I've used before, and are very usable, but do not compare to apples software.

I've heard the phone functionality on the iPhone is not very good (i.e. making calls), along with the lack of sms forwarding and multiple sms recipients. Can anyone comment on this?

atomicrabbit said:

I'm really looking for someone to disagree with me and offer me an actual competitor to the iPhone bc I can't find one. Most of them have Windows Mobile installed on them, which I've used before, and are very usable, but do not compare to apples software.

I've heard the phone functionality on the iPhone is not very good (i.e. making calls), along with the lack of sms forwarding and multiple sms recipients. Can anyone comment on this?

Click to expand...

There should be plenty who disagree but what they prefer may not interest you. I guess everyone values things differently.

As for the phone functionality, I can't really see how it's not good. You tap in a phone number like with any other cellphone, or tap a contact to call them. It sounds on par with other cellphones I've used. In fact, the interface makes it easy to use other functions of the phone while on a call. The key feature I feel is missing is voice dialing.

SMS, on the other hand, does lack a couple of features. I personally only use SMS sparingly (maybe 20-30 messages a month). It's setup more like a chat program. The messages are organized into discussion threads by contact (like iChat), which is nice, but is pretty much kept there. You can't forward a message from one person to another (though I've never had the need to do this). In addition, you can't send a message to multiple contacts at once (which I have done a couple of times in the past).

Hope this helps.

I was a Treo 700P owner before the iPhone and I loved it. I could do so much more with the Treo then I can with the iPhone. I love the iPhone it is such a cool phone I will never go back. So there are other options its all up to you.

The more I look around the more I become aware that some of these "other" phones are as expensive as, if not more so, then the iPhone. I think I am going to wait out my contract expiring and then just switch over to the iPhone.

I was just talking to a friend of mine who said he *had* an iPhone for about a month and a half. He told me: as a phone, it's garbage, but as a media player, it's great and he loves the interface. These are the issues he had with it:

- signal was "garbage". Calls kept cutting out and he would frequently lose signals

- keyboard was crap. With all his past phones that had a physical keyboard, he was able to type something out in the car without even looking at the phone, but with the iPhone, he had to constantly pay attention to the what he was typing because of the touch keyboard.

- the battery life decreases too quickly. He said he went from charging the phone once every 2 days, to once every day, to keeping it plugged in constantly throughout the day because he was worried it would die soon. All of that within a 3 week period.

mainly he said it was the phones signal and reception that was utterly horrible. He got rid of it as soon as possible.

atomicrabbit said:

I was just talking to a friend of mine who said he *had* an iPhone for about a month and a half. He told me: as a phone, it's garbage, but as a media player, it's great and he loves the interface. These are the issues he had with it:

- signal was "garbage". Calls kept cutting out and he would frequently lose signals

- keyboard was crap. With all his past phones that had a physical keyboard, he was able to type something out in the car without even looking at the phone, but with the iPhone, he had to constantly pay attention to the what he was typing because of the touch keyboard.

- the battery life decreases too quickly. He said he went from charging the phone once every 2 days, to once every day, to keeping it plugged in constantly throughout the day because he was worried it would die soon. All of that within a 3 week period.

mainly he said it was the phones signal and reception that was utterly horrible. He got rid of it as soon as possible.

Click to expand...

Interesting.

Signal and reception are dependent on more than just the phone itself. However, if this friend lives near you, you may have the same issues. Personally, I rarely experience signal problems with the iPhone, but perhaps AT&T is more reliable in my area.

As for the keyboard, well, I don't want to insult your friend, but I will say this. If you honestly think you'll be able to blindly type on a touchscreen keyboard that small, you're crazy. I could never even do that on the smartphones I've used with physical keyboards because of the small size of the buttons.

Battery is pretty on par with the smartphones I've owned in terms of talk time. The fact that I use it much more because of the media capabilities would probably make the battery life shorter than it otherwise would be.

I guess you just have to try it out to see if it works for you or not.

Treos have been around for a while, so they're probably a good option because they've been developed for some time and have a lot of the features you're looking for.

Nobody has mentioned the Nokia N95. I don't know much about it myself, but a lot of people are raving about it, so you may want to check that out as well.

Well as someone who has used a few smart phones in the past and was always a Sony ericsson user the iPhone really does beat all of them. That is an impartial and objective opinion. I'm not a bandwagon jumper either, I'll choose my devices according to how good they are not because of the name they have. I love my Archos player for videos for instance, its the best for that.

I had the Sony Ericsson p990i which cost almost as much as the iPhone and was awful. Attrocious software and dreadful little keyboard. I looked at both last night used both for a while and the difference is almost shocking. The phone quality I find is excellent on the iPhone, I've just been all over Europe, just back from Dubai and it didn't miss a trick. I'm off to japan on Saturday an although mobile phones don't work on he system I'll still be able to use the iPhone because of the wireless functionality and I'll be able to call people via the skype add on!

The phone has genuinely moved the bar on and is just a great all round device.