The Phones Show 99

[psprules138]

is the imate ultimate 8502 any good because it does have good specs but is it actualy any good at any of its features?

[zokna]

I aslow would like a litle help. I donw know witch phone to buy. I use it mainly for:

*Calls, SMS, 3G-surfing, A-GPS

I have the Nokia E52 and i will sell it. Its like the E72 poor build quality.

So what do i choose, E71? I dont whant an iphone.

I would basicly like a fast device thats supports what i need @ *

Any sugesstions? I'm desperate :)

Regards!

[stevelitchfield]

Get the N97 mini.

[badopinion]

Alright Steve, time for some help. I've had my iPhone 3G for 14 months now and recently bought an E63 for the wife. After playing with it for a bit I've noticed how freakin' slow iPhone is! I know the 3Gs is faster but it's $750. I primarily communicate, use MP3 and navigate. I'm thinking an E72. Your thoughts? What would I miss coming from an iPhone? Thanks in advance.

[stevelitchfield]

That would work very well, with the fast processor and your use case. The only downside to the E72 is the lack of Podcasting, but, as we've mentioned before, Escarpod (link in show notes) will do the same job with a few minutes of setup. Go for it.

[zokna]

And, the build quality of the E72 is a litle poor :)

It should be better...

[kevininstereo]

False. Tech Enthusiast goes to n900. You can crack wi-fi networks install nmap, run python, terminal built-in, root access. It's more of an open platform than android.

[stevelitchfield]

Nah, that's the 'Tech Uber Geek' category. Mere 'enthusiasts' just want to fiddle, they don't want to hack into the Pentagon!!

[tissot233]

Great work as always.

[badopinion]

Nice work Steve. Very thorough research. It sure is hard finding the "perfect" device. Keep it up. O, and how about some newer reviews like; 5530 xpressmusic, some newer HTC's, and maybe a blackberry or two?

[Goto187]

Hi Steve!

Best phone show ever (since I watch ;-) ) I love the rankings of the different smartphone types!

But what's about the Palm Pre (and soon Plus)? I think it would fit great in the Communication Junkie Category (maybe at the fifth place instead of the G1 or something like that?) Did you forget it or don't you like it? Or do you really think the G1 better than the Pre? I don't know, I never had a G1 in my hands but i can't belive this... ;-) I think the Palm is very underestimated...

[stevelitchfield]

You're probably right that it's underestimated. But it has sold incredibly badly, is quite small with very fiddly keyboard, is plasticky and a fingerprint magnet. Web OS is crying out for nicer hardware. Put it in some Nokia hardware? 8-)

[giggig0]

Nokia hardware?common Steve,Nokia Symbian phones need hardware upgrade them self pretty badly,Symbian s60 5th edition needs Cortex A8 with 256 RAM at par with industry standards like SE Satio,and S60 3rd edition(except E series) needs upgrade to ARM 11, 600Mhz with 256 RAM to reduce lags and limitations of memory ,i will not ask Cortex for S60 v3,i know Nokia,they never break shackles.

Nokia 210Mhz 220Mhs,235Mhz,332Mhz,369Mhz,43­4Mhz,all are under power as compare to others in there time.

Agree?

[stevelitchfield]

Oh, depends on device. E71 is a great example of a blisteringly quick device with a slow processor.

[xMichaelSFx]

steve, thank you very much for having me on the phone show :) was fun doing my little user story - GO N82!

[stevelitchfield]

Anyone else fancy a moment of fame?

[giggig0]

I fancy a moment of fame plus i like you as a great phone analyst because you are least biased, you make sense and show the actual picture instead of just specifications and hype, i liked your show about myths a lot, i have the very same thoughts and you just backed them up with logic which is helpful for the consumer, i wish to be a part of your show soon, may be first one from Pakistan and i'l share my story about 20 or so Symbians, my liking and disliking about them in a minute or two.

[arjunmenon]

Good review. Was shocked Not to see HTC HD2 win in at least 2 of the 7... Maybe a HD3 with WinMo 7.5 in 2011.

[stevelitchfield]

Heh. That's because the HD2 is an awesome piece of hardware with a dogs dinner software load-out...

[djm104]

Thanks for the video Steve, excellent, less-biased-than-most round up of devices! Nice to see the E90 mentioned, but who would have guessed what would happen to the market since it was released - it works, but feels archaic now. It wasn't the psion replacement I was looking for, so I'm looking to the N900, although I'd like more hardware keys - can you persuade Nokia to do an E900 for me?!

[ceterafan123]

Are you going to do anything special for phone show 100?

[stevelitchfield]

Well, I WAS, but then the snow intervened. Watch this space.

[urbanfireblade]

This was a really good show Steve, having the 7 catagories should help a few people with their choice of phone to suit them. I have an N82,i use wireless internet alot(youtube,facebook,yahoo,bl­oggs,review sites etc) and the screen is just too small. So i'm a category 1 or 2 user, erring more to the 2, ie wireless internet use more often than taking pics/vids. I was torn between the N97 and the mini but seems you've placed the mini above the standard size one for Comms Junkie.

Again, great show!

[JackDuran]

Hi, Steve. Thanks for the great show!

I think that in a few months you'll have to place the N900 into the 'Communications junkie' category, because it is the first phone to seamlessly integrate IMs and Skype calls into the general UI. There's no starting separate applications here. However, as I know you're aware, ATM all of these features are in testing and not officially stable enough to be in public distribution through the repository. :)

Keep up the good work! :)

[shohid1234]

Cooms junki winner n97 mini has been suspended by orange "Orange, has suspended its sales of the Nokia N97 mini. According to unofficial sources, the reason behind the decision is none other but the great number of returned units and customer complaints about various problems" from phonearena, im sorry steve but it appears the n97mini has got a big thumbs down from the consumer.

[stevelitchfield]

You mean a device with bastardised Orange addons has been pulled? I don't trust anything Orange do/say, I'm afraid.

[shohid1234]

fair dos steves, most carriers bastardise their phones, and nowadays with smart/superphones, firmaware updates are needed to iron out bugs, but in the most recent past, sony erickson and to a lesser extent nokia have been relasing unstable/very buggy software.

[stevelitchfield]

Disagree. Orange are by far the worst. And I always recommend people buying SIM-free anyway. AND the N97 mini had very stable launch firmware - admittedly unusually, for Nokia!

[urbanfireblade]

@stevelitchfield So buyers like me who are considering buying the N97 mini, the advice is go for a sim free one? I'm on o2 PAYG(use wireless internet) By going for a sim free phone i can be safe in the knowledge that i will be purchasing a phone that it, is to a large extent, stable and bug free.

[bob91011]

Genuine point. Too easy to focus reviews on 'should do' i.e. phone features, whereas upshot is 'can do' i.e. is it up to the job - 9/10 smartphones do not live up to their hype in practice. In all fairness Steve does say a lemon is a lemon.

[TheAltershadow]

Enjoyed the categories - 3 of them suit my taste.

[BlazeMan2010]

Android gets no love :(

[stevelitchfield]

But the Hero won a category! And Android devices were mentioned in several others.

[Leonis1989]

s there any news or rumours from Samsung in making a love child of the Omnia HD?

I've got 18 months so I can wait.

[adtrea]

I must admit I'm currently loving the N900 mainly because of its browser, but also because of the fact that I can play any video I want on it, it has good music playback capabilities, a great screen, is very quick, also has a better keyboard than the N97 and it's screen is resistive which is perfect for -7 degrees :P.

I will admit though that the podcasting, social network and gaming duties are taken care of by my iPod Touch, I would have bought an iPhone but it was just too expensive unlocked.

[GSD4U]

great vid steve!!! i have a htc hero and it was nice to see it was mentioned lol

[mkr10001]

hi steve, ive got a suggestion for you. use the annotations feature of the youtube player to put actual links to click when a URL comes up on screen.

[stevelitchfield]

Good idea. But 85% of viewers aren't watching via YouTube anyway, they grab the MP4s via iTunes or a podcatcher... 8-)

[mkr10001]

fair do's :)

[wevenhuis]

Nice to hear the HD2 fits in some categories.

[urlovekrish]

When it comes to communication BB Bold9700 is clear winner with full 35 key backlit QWERTY keyboard,candybar,one handed operation and upto 10 RealTime Push email notifications for almost any email services. All social Facebook,Myspace,Flickr,Gtalk,­AIM,Yahoo,MSN inbuilt client by RIM itself and plenty of Twitter client. Its the best all in 1 device for communication.

[stevelitchfield]

Well, I did shortlist it. But I'm sorry, the keyboard's small, the OS is generally old, so I couldn't quite make it 'win' the category. Still a 'recommended' device though, I'd say. And plenty of people to speak up for it!

[holyclap]

Great video! It would be helpful for me if you included phones that will be released soon, not just phones that are currently available.

That way if the phone I want isn't out yet, I'll just wait a month or two for the right one!

[stevelitchfield]

Maybe. Though I'm loath to recommend anything I've not tried.

[PoetryRocksGadgets]

Steve do you have any anticipation for a Nokia E90 successor?

[stevelitchfield]

Tempted to say N97 mini! Maybe an Eseries variant on that?

[djm104]

How about an E900? Maemo 5 with a 5-row keyboard, large touch screen and open office...?? If only....!

[Salokinos]

Didn't you use the Innovate to create this show? Just a thought for the media creator. I did find it strange that you used size and price as considerations in some categories, but failed to mention them in other categories.

And what does too much eye candy mean? I almost laughed out loud at that one, when you talked about the HTC touch pro as the communications junkie runner up. To be honest I think that the N 900 deserved the spotlight in the tech enthusiast spot, clearly the winner.

[stevelitchfield]

By eye candy, I mean all those stupid little HTC front end utility panes that stand between you and the data/WinMob apps....

[MrAvatarkiller]

Great episode as always Steve. Although i don't think the iphone should have been classed as a media creator, since it only has a 3.2 megapixal camera, and no flash.

[stevelitchfield]

Yes, but the iPhone 3GS has great video encoding hardware - in the right hands it can be a great little tool here.

[marksapollo]

iPhone 3GS for me, the games are awesome, it does car Sat Nav pretty well with CoPilot and it's modern and simple to use. Just wish O2 had better 3G coverage grrrr, I was in Bath on Tuesday and could not get any 3G in the road in the middle of the shops, my old Orange phone could!

[stm123678]

Great show Steve, but the BlackBerry OS more clunky than Symbian? No, no, no...

[stevelitchfield]

But parts of BB's OS date back to 2000 or so.... Some of those menus and dialogs.....

[urlovekrish]

@stevelitchfield With the new 5.0 OS its compete with any other os out there when it comes to communications.Even media files or documents sending to emails or instant posting to any social network/blogging site/email/IM service just like child's play. I'm back on BB Bold9700 after tried almost every smartphone,just because love the communications on this device and os.

[stevier123]

Great show Steve, thanks for your efforts!

[ilovemaryam08]

N900 wins in the tech enthusiast category. thats the winner for me.

[Englishneo2k]

The Samsung I8910 wins by a big margin if your watching your fav downloaded TV show just copying any avi (divX) file to the phone.

I had the Samsung for a week efore i sold it and my GF has the iphone 3G.

Copy the avi onto a MicroSD Memory card or plug your phone into ANY PC and drag over the video. With the iphone you have to use iTunes on the 1 laptop/PC you've got it sync'd with...

Streaming Youtube though isn't as good as the iphone nor the iPlayer as clear (unless an update fixed this).

[emkwan]

Another great show steven. It's funny I actually feel really weird if I haven't watched a phones show in a while. ... Now must get round to forwarding some of the paypal change I have. In my account. Lol

[tehkseven]

A great episode as always Steve :D.

Can't wait for the big 100!

[e61agem]

Come on Steve, the iPhone hands down is the best media device, gaming device, and web device. Where's the love.

[stevelitchfield]

Well, it won one category, almost won another and was mentioned in most of the rest. Not bad.... 8-)

[clapthehammers]

A LOT of media formats don't play on the iPhone unless you jailbrake it.

That's one reason I can think of. On a Nokia (and probably on that Samsung too) you can install an app and it plays any format you want.

Besides adding media to the phone's storage is super easy on other phones, no need for iTunes. Also the iPhone doesn't have direct TV out like the N-series, or an FM transmitter... ok, now I'm nitpicking. :)

[stevelitchfield]

.... and what he said 8-)

[ichi1082]

Good show... but i think the iphone and n900 deserve the tech enthusiast spot more.

Haha, I loughed when I saw the N82 as a top Media Creator phone. I consider myself to be one and I'm still using it to this day =) Very good phone indeed.

[CollisionCat]

I do not like Symbian's new advertising art style! Sure it's stylish, but I really dislike the atmosphere it gives off. =P

[urlovekrish]

After seeing N82, E75, E72, N95 all the devices together, I wish someone went back in the past and erase the touch screen smartphone innovation for all these devices goodness. They are still the best in 2010.

[Nini246]

I love u steve ;) just so u know.

Once that i have a paypall ill show u my love to.

[trevsweb]

cant wait for the next ep 100 :D :O

[Anphase]

Brilliant show as always!

[urlovekrish]

Hurray..the mighty wait is over and here the Great Phone show as usual...Thanks Steve..for such a straight forward and useful reviews...

[smellati]

I think, for the communicator junkie, the blackberry bold should have won hands down. Much better push notification than any nokia phone, monoblock design for faster typing, and a much better keyboard. plus, its facebook, myspace, twitter, and any other social networks app are much better integrated with the blackberry os. The best twitter client for symbian is 10 buck and it still isnt as good as the free alternatives on blackberry.

[shohid1234]

Would have thought communications junkie would have the htc hero mentioned if not the winner, with its tight facebook, twitter, flicker, exchange etc intergration done in a very user friendly and intuitive way. Oh also it has the best on screen keyboard IMHO.Apart from that, cant argue with the rest.

Steve, your in danger on losing your nokia fanboy status (",).

[hord]

ah nice your a partner now? can you place ads on these videos then? :)

[stevelitchfield]

Have always been. But I use some copyrighted PR photos, so no ads 8-(