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Apple's iPhone4S vs. LG Esteem

A

AppleUser

Android Enthusiast
I've been an Apple fan for 20 years. My girlfriend gave me an LG Esteem for my birthday, and will pay 60 dollars a month for unlimited talk and data on MetroPCS's 4G LTE network.

My Apple friends said I should reject her gift, and get an iPhone 4S on Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T. Verizon for the fewest dropped calls, Sprint for unlimited data, and AT&T if you want your iPhone to surf and talk simultaneously.

Problem: I tried a demo of each phone for 15 minutes, and cannot decide what to do. Help !

So far the following seems true:

iPhone is more expensive than Esteem (Esteem is $250) and the iPhone has a mandatory two year contract for at least $100/month. Metro's Esteem has no contract and is 60 dollars month-to-month for unlimited talk and data on 4G LTE in the Bay Area. iPhone is only 3G, not 4G. iPhone has a much longer battery life and is a little smaller and lighter. Esteem has a larger screen and surfs faster on the web. iPhone will back up everything to your computer, whereas only parts of the data can be backed up with the Esteem, but I have no idea how to back up the Esteem. iPhone's battery is built in, whereas the Esteem has a replaceable 1500 mAH and 3000 mAH battery. I forgot to try "Siri" on the ipHone, but the Esteem's talk to text seemed good, but failed on capitalizations and punctuations. iPhone had a better camera, but the Esteem pictures on the screen looked better. Apple's iPhone has up to 64GB of built in internal memory, whereas Esteem has less even if you add a card.

Apple users say Android is not good, and Android users love their Android phones. Can't find anyone who has used both often.

So which should I chose, the Esteem or iPhone4S, and why ?
 
Honestly depends on what u want but i sold my iphone to buy an esteem. I have a macbook, ipad, ipod ,and iphone. i was just seeing to much damn apple lmao. Everything felt like the same , especially upgrading to os x lion i felt like i was on my phone. plus i felt like i didn't want all my accounts together. also i had jailbroken my iphone 4 and it wasn't enough customization for me. it was still some restrictions. Then again their are some cool stuff on the new iphone like siri but i have iris on my lg esteem and its pretty good. Anyway its all up to you. I love my esteem :) plus i cant deal with those surprise bills lol at least a 100 dollars a month!!! that can go to other things
 
TechSmartBri said:
Honestly depends on what u want but i sold my iphone to buy an esteem. I have a macbook, ipad, ipod ,and iphone. i was just seeing to much damn apple lmao. Everything felt like the same , especially upgrading to os x lion i felt like i was on my phone. plus i felt like i didn't want all my accounts together. also i had jailbroken my iphone 4 and it wasn't enough customization for me. it was still some restrictions. Then again their are some cool stuff on the new iphone like siri but i have iris on my lg esteem and its pretty good. Anyway its all up to you. I love my esteem :) plus i cant deal with those surprise bills lol at least a 100 dollars a month!!! that can go to other things
Click to expand...


Thank you. What do you NOT like about the Esteem ? Battery life ? size ? Weight ?
 
I could settle it even faster AppleUser:

Both are great phones. What it boils down are three areas. 1-The end user 2-plan prices and 3-cell phone price. Also i could say that if you sell the iphone once you are done you could make your money back. The Esteem will only pay half of what you pay for.
 
Eddy120876 said:
I could settle it even faster AppleUser:

Both are great phones. What it boils down are three areas. 1-The end user 2-plan prices and 3-cell phone price. Also i could say that if you sell the iphone once you are done you could make your money back. The Esteem will only pay half of what you pay for.
Click to expand...

Still on the fence. The Esteem is $250, so getting back half is fine. Price plan for the Esteem is less than half the iPhone, and has faster data speed and is unlimited. As for this "end user", don't know which phone I will like the better.

Can one back up the Esteem completely to a computer ? I don't care about The Cloud.
 
AppleUser said:
Still on the fence. The Esteem is $250, so getting back half is fine. Price plan for the Esteem is less than half the iPhone, and has faster data speed and is unlimited. As for this "end user", don't know which phone I will like the better.

Can one back up the Esteem completely to a computer ? I don't care about The Cloud.
Click to expand...

Thats correct the only issue with the iphone is the plans that kill it. Trust me if Metro take the iphone once the iphone becomes LTE they would surely make a killing since those with contract phones will move to an all you can eat data. The Speed depends where you live, i seen and read that in some places metros data kicks the big 3's butt and in other that is laughable speeds. so check your coverage and see what others are saying in your town. Now thats a good question. since i haven't done a pc back up the Esteem but had done a total back up for my girlfriends iphone 4.
 
Eddy120876 said:
Thats correct the only issue with the iphone is the plans that kill it. Trust me if Metro take the iphone once the iphone becomes LTE they would surely make a killing since those with contract phones will move to an all you can eat data. The Speed depends where you live, i seen and read that in some places metros data kicks the big 3's butt and in other that is laughable speeds. so check your coverage and see what others are saying in your town. Now thats a good question. since i haven't done a pc back up the Esteem but had done a total back up for my girlfriends iphone 4.
Click to expand...


I am in the 4G area, and can test the phone for a week and still return it. I'm concerned mostly about battery life, voice quality, speakerphone quality, and volume.
 
actually phone to phone the iphone4s wins hands down. The Esteem is a nice phone dont get me wrong, but not in the same class as the iphone 4s. But its good enough with the lower monthly cost for me to pick it over any iphone lol. But like said it all depends on what you want from your phone. If you like to be able to customize your phone as you wish, then its Android all the way. Dont listen to fanboi's on either side esp the apple elitist ;)
 
PlayfulGod said:
actually phone to phone the iphone4s wins hands down. The Esteem is a nice phone dont get me wrong, but not in the same class as the iphone 4s. But its good enough with the lower monthly cost for me to pick it over any iphone lol. But like said it all depends on what you want from your phone. If you like to be able to customize your phone as you wish, then its Android all the way. Dont listen to fanboi's on either side esp the apple elitist ;)
Click to expand...


Okay. Thanks. Never replied to a God before !

How best to back up the Esteem phone ? Does anyone have the answer ?

This looks good: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rerware.android.MyBackupPro

How is the iPhone better ?
 
PlayfulGod said:
actually phone to phone the iphone4s wins hands down. The Esteem is a nice phone dont get me wrong, but not in the same class as the iphone 4s. But its good enough with the lower monthly cost for me to pick it over any iphone lol. But like said it all depends on what you want from your phone. If you like to be able to customize your phone as you wish, then its Android all the way. Dont listen to fanboi's on either side esp the apple elitist ;)
Click to expand...

Playful i can't disagree with your post not even a bit. Both are great Phones and O's .
 
AppleUser said:
I am in the 4G area, and can test the phone for a week and still return it. I'm concerned mostly about battery life, voice quality, speakerphone quality, and volume.
Click to expand...

The Esteem since is a LTE the standard battery sucks, so you will need an extended battery if you want to maximize your using time. Voice quality so far has been good. Speaker is loud enough not sure how it compares to the iphone. Need to test this once i see my GF since she owns and iphone.
 
The iPhone 4s has better specs and is faster then the esteem. I used to have the 3gs which the esteem is better than. It depends all on you, I feel as if you get more control over your phone with android. Flash websites are a plus as well. Not to mention the 4.3 in screen. I don't know about the 4s but I do know the iPhone 4 has horrible call reception since I am trying to sell my aunts iPhone 4 on eBay. She now has a 19$ phone that has better call quality. My esteem has perfect call quality and the data speed is good enough for me. It all comes down to personal preferance. If you are a gammer get the iPhone if your anything else go with the esteem. Yes you can make a complete backup of the esteem especially when a custom recovery comes out. Not to mention your phone numbers and calender are automatically backed up to your gmail account so if you drop your phone off a 100km cliff you don't have to worry about loosing the hot girls phone number that you just added 10 minutes prior.

Metros signal has come a long way. My first cell phone was with metro back when I was a freshman in highschool. Metro was just starting and they only offered 1 phone. It was a Kyocera with a blue backlight. Signal was horrible. Now I have not lost a call and the only times I had a crappy call it was when I was talking to someone using the iPhone 4. If you do decide to go with the 4s you should find out if they fixed the signal issue in the new phone.
 
AppleUser said:
I've been an Apple fan for 20 years. My girlfriend gave me an LG Esteem for my birthday, and will pay 60 dollars a month for unlimited talk and data on MetroPCS's 4G LTE network.

My Apple friends said I should reject her gift, and get an iPhone 4S on Sprint, Verizon, or AT&T. Verizon for the fewest dropped calls, Sprint for unlimited data, and AT&T if you want your iPhone to surf and talk simultaneously.
Click to expand...

When Metro goes to VoLTE, on the LG Esteem you will be able to surf and talk simultaneously.

And you've always been able to surf and talk at the same time while on Wi-Fi.

AppleUser said:
Can one back up the Esteem completely to a computer ? I don't care about The Cloud.
Click to expand...

yeah, with 3rd party apps like Titanium Backup. It can back up your apps + data to your SD card or automatically to a free dropbox account. If you then install Dropbox on your computer, then your phone files are also available on your computer (same as being backed up to your computer). :)

Do this... Go with the Esteem for now. Then next summer/next fall when the real iPhone 5 comes out, you will be free to buy it as you won't be locked into a contract. In the meanwhile you will have saved a bunch of money on monthly charges. (But at that point, Metro may have an even better LTE Android that you might like.) ;)

==========

By the way, do your Apple friends acknowledge that the recent iOS5 is just catching up to Android? :p Apple is not always the leader in everything. In fact many times they are the laggard, but Steve Jobs just could snow everyone into thinking it was "new".

In fact, Siri was an app for iPhones available in the app market, and versions for Android and Blackberries were imminent (announced by the developers) -- but Apple bought the company and rolled it into iOS5. Apple of course pulled the app from the app store and cancelled the Android version. That's OK, but it's not new. Apple won't even allow Siri on older iPhones when before it worked fine for ALL iPhones. But developers are working on copycats that will replace Siri, so be patient.

Here's other things that are not "new":


iOS5′s Top Ten “New” Features That My Android Has Had FOREVER.
https://crazysignguy.wordpress.com/...-that-my-android-has-had-forever-tech-review/

Apple copies a bunch of features from Android, calls it iOS5
Apple copies a bunch of features from Android, calls it iOS5 (Updated) | ZDNet
 
I have two rules:

*Don't but anything that has a fruit on it
*Don't pay more just because now they put a "S" sticker next to the 4

Other than that I'm a very open minded guy
 
AppleUser said:
Still on the fence. The Esteem is $250, so getting back half is fine. Price plan for the Esteem is less than half the iPhone, and has faster data speed and is unlimited. As for this "end user", don't know which phone I will like the better.
Click to expand...

The Esteem also has a larger screen.
 
AppleUser said:
I am in the 4G area, and can test the phone for a week and still return it. I'm concerned mostly about battery life, voice quality, speakerphone quality, and volume.
Click to expand...

Install Juice Defender from the Market and you will not have to worry about battery life.
 
ChazzMatt said:
In fact, Siri was an app for iPhones available in the app market, and versions for Android and Blackberries were imminent (announced by the developers) -- but Apple bought the company and rolled it into iOS5. Apple of course pulled the app from the app store and cancelled the Android version. That's OK, but it's not new. Apple won't even allow Siri on older iPhones when before it worked fine for ALL iPhones. But developers are working on copycats that will replace Siri, so be patient.
Click to expand...

Hold down the search button on your phone and you can do most of what Siri does. Android has had this functionality for over a year. It amazes me how easily people are blinded by Apple's reality distortion field. Every product that they have made except for the original Apple Computer has been a copy of another invention, they do not innovate.

http://www.google.com/mobile/voice-actions/

"Good artists copy, great artist steal" - Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs: Good artists copy great artists steal - YouTube

Voice Actions for Android
 
Battery life isn't that bad if you manage it properly... you can turn off data when you know you're not going to need it... and to piggy pack on ChazzMatt's idea of staying with the Esteem for now and decide on the iPhone5 when it comes out, you can put your $40/mth savings in a bank and use that money to get the iPhone if you aren't happy with the service... think of it as trying metro for a year and them buying you an iphone if you ain't happy haha...
 
im an exiphone user myself the best thing i did was get the hell out of att and go with metro for me im not missing the iphone at all and i used to swear by that sumofabich
 
eljefe0000 said:
im an exiphone user myself the best thing i did was get the hell out of att and go with metro for me im not missing the iphone at all and i used to swear by that sumofabich
Click to expand...

The iphone is one hell of a phone if you could land it In an all you can eat carrier like Metro. in Europe the Iphone gets all the data it needs real cheap you can even take it to a prepaid carrier. Besides like you guys are saying..save your money for the iphone 5 if you are not happy with the Esteem and if you are you still get to keep your money. I call that a sound advice.
 
just a random question...since verizon has the iphone now (cdma) wouldn't people be able to flash it to metro just like they do to other phones?
 
papichulo916 said:
just a random question...since verizon has the iphone now (cdma) wouldn't people be able to flash it to metro just like they do to other phones?
Click to expand...

If I'm not mistaken, all the iPhone 4s' have the same Qualcomm Gobi 2000 cellular chipset in them. They should work on just about any carrier, and they all have a micro-SIM card slot. It is a "world phone" after all.
 
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