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Phone choice help

S

sandeep108

Member
New to Android and need help with phone choice in mid-range budget.

LG Optimus 1 P500 or Dell XCD 35 (rebadged ZTE Blade or Orange SF)?

LG: For: Better battery and Froyo 2.2. Cheaper by about $50.
Against: Several issues reported - SD card, Wi-fi, contacts name not recognised, a little unresponsive touch screen. Though probably some updates are reported to fix some of these issues.

Dell: For: Bigger 3.5" high res. screen.
Against: Weak battery, 2.1 (no news of any update).

Have ruled out HTC Wildfire (slower CPU, low res. screen, 2.1 - no idea about 2.2) + $50 more than LG, Motorola Quench XT5 (2.1 with stated no updates and their website/support is terrible)

Any other ideas in this price range? I did not really like any of the Samsung screens in this price range.

Does the Android market have any Call/SMS rejection apps?

TIA
 
Thanks. Yes, need it for wifey for Christmas. She would just use it out of the box. Other than an SMS app, I doubt I would really do anything much with it actually. So the OOB Froyo would certainly help her with her gmail, etc.

I also would switch to Android, probably waiting for a few more decent phones to make my choice, for a more higher end phone, hopefully by February 2011.
 
Get the LG. Dell makes crappy Android phones and have very poor support to boot.

I loved my LG Optimus S while I used it.

Also kind of dumb to wait for CES. Phones may be announced at CES but they'll still take months after that to come out. I went to CES a couple of years ago and was very underwhelmed.
 
Thanks. I did get the LG and quite like it. They had a OS/Firmware update and their PC Suite did all the needful without any hiccups.

So far liking the Android OS, but moving from S40/Symbian of Nokia, I do have a few questions and would appreciate some help.

Cannot find profiles (timed or otherwise) and call reminder anywhere in the system OS, which even the dumbest Nokias had years ago and Symbian got it a couple of years ago. In fact some Symbian apps went further and integrated timed profiles with the calendar so that if you had a meeting (or other keyword set), it would switch to that profile for the duration of the event and switch back automatically after.

1. Call reminder. This worked very well - if I had to call say Paul at 10:30 AM tomorrow, I would simply select call reminder, set the date time and it would ask me to choose who I wanted to call with an option from the contacts. I selected Paul and at the date/time set, it would flash Paul's number with option to call / snooze / dismiss. Can I get such functionality in Android?

2. Profiles - there do seem to be some apps who can do this alongwith timed or not timed. Which would be a decent free one? On Nokia there were like 5-6 built in profiles and I could customise 'meeting' or 'outdoor' profile as I please and easily switch. On Android it seems like there is only a silent mode on/off switch.

3. Logs - Anyway to sort out the logs? Into dialled/missed/received? Or have custom icons based on phone type in contacts? The log entry does not seem to have an icon for mobile/home/office etc. so sometimes it is difficult to decide where to call the person back depending on the time.

4. Contact photo - On doing some research, I find that I need to set up the photos in the gmail a/c and then it syncs and loads the photo in the contacts. But there seems to be no way to add the photo from the SD card to the contacts and then let it sync the other way around. I am unable to add any photo to a new contact which is based on PC Sync either from the SD card. Are the photos supposed to be in main memory? Or on some special folder on the SD Card? This was so simple on any Nokia.

4a. Allied to this is a custom ringtone from SD Card. I think I have to create some special folders on the card for this.

5. How do I use WAP access? On my 5800 it would ask which connection to use and I could select it. The WAP one worked flawlessly for most stuff. On the LG, it simply defaults to the internet data connection (which is more expensive) and no matter what I try to do from the APNs, it does not allow me to edit or set the WAP one to be used. Both the APNs are set to default. Otherwise, usually the home / work wi-fi will be used.

6. Agenda/Tasks I found some free apps (Smooth Calendar and Gtasks) so that seems sorted out.

7. Is there any way to change the size / font of icons on an overall basis? Like in BB?

8. Favourites - why is the OS putting almost every call/message into the favourites? If I actually go the contact it is not marked as favourite. Or is it some whole 'auto' thing? If so, I guess it could be useful since the people most often communicated with will automatically come out on top.

On the whole the LG screen is pretty decent (even at 30% brightness) with usable 7 screens (maybe not in the league of HTC Sense) and good battery life. Lots of apps (some free and some paid) also are included. The voice quality and loudness, call quality, etc. are also very good. LG have said they will upgrade it to 2.3 so as compared to the Dell which is about $80-90 more expensive and poorer battery life, with probably no upgrade to even 2.2 likely (or maybe 6 months down the road) so I think it is a very decent phone for the price and would recommend it as well.

I do like the overall Android UI and apps possibilities and in many ways it is ahead of Symbian, except for some of the basic stuff, which I sort of did not expect from a smartphone. My wife has found it very easy to use.

I hope you guys bear with me - I am not by any means a Nokia fanboy (I am never again going to buy a Nokia) and I also like Android so far.

I guess over the next weekend I will have a lot of research to do to install various usefull apps/games.

My next phone in a few months after the 5800 is going to be a higher end Android one. Hopefully by then Google will have cracked the offline maps / navigation directions business (which is really one of the greatest app on my 5800).
 
After doing some more research, I find the following:

1, 2, 3, & 7. There are several apps for these issues, I would appreciate recommendations. I need simple stuff.

4. I don't know how, but now this seems to work beautifully. I don't know whether it was because I restarted the phone or connected / disconnected in mass storage mode. When I tried it again, it gave a brief message about preparing SD Card and allowed me to choose the photo for the contact. It even defaults the face selection. Very nice.

4a. I understand I need to create appropriate folders for the ringtones, etc. Will try it out.

Any help regarding #5?
 
Just to bump things up a little. #5 I have been unable to solve.

After some more searching I found a few apps that I like, which does most of the stuff symbian was doing.

Gemini Calendar seems very promising - has links to log and phone book, plus lots more features than the stock calendar.

Phone silencer also seems to give me basic timed silencing, which atm seems ok for me.

One or two things I am yet missing - anybody got any ideas for these:

1. Icons for phone type - mobile, work, home, etc.? Becomes easy to select which to dial depending on the time/situation.

2. Data / sms log - how do I know, especially with many of us outside the US on limited data / text plans, how much data has been used / sms been sent? There are a couple of apps, but in very preliminary stages. Any recommendations?

TIA
 
you don't need profiles for where you are because it's so easy to change things anyway.

Data logs are out there and easy to use. I used to use them, but soon realised that I never go over about 400MB of usage and my contract is 500MB so I was fine with that and stopped bothering
 
adi19956 said:
you don't need profiles for where you are because it's so easy to change things anyway.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your reply. I do need some sort of timed profiles - very useful during meetings, movies, etc. As I said, there appear to be several decent apps (free/paid) some simple, some complicated which do the job.

adi19956 said:
Data logs are out there and easy to use. I used to use them, but soon realised that I never go over about 400MB of usage and my contract is 500MB so I was fine with that and stopped bothering
Click to expand...
Can you send me any links to the data log program? I searched for data logs, but did not get much. There are some for sms counting, but nothing similar to symbian logs.

Another issue is the default numbers when there are multiple numbers for contacts. If I long press a contact, I get several options - call, sms, etc. with option to choose the number and then a check box 'remember this choice'. However I am not able to choose different numbers for call and sms. I may not always want to call a contact on their mobile, but obviously MUST sms the mobile. In fact only a number defined as a mobile number ought to have the sms icon next to it or automatically default to it.

So how do I get around this? I also cannot find a way when once I have selected 'remember this choice' to 'unremember' it, whether for call, sms, email, etc.

Then if I have set a default number for text message, when I send a message from the sms app and select a contact again it asks me to choose a number? It seems to 'remember' the default only from the contact app or its shortcut, but not from the respective apps.

This default business was so easy on symbian. Am I doing things a wrong way here?
 
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