'Smart' phones

[SaabScott]

I've been using BlackBerry's now for years and just recently upgraded to the Bold 9900. The combination touch screen and BB keyboard are amazing! The interface (OS 7.1) is fantastic, very intuative, very fast, tons of memory (768MB operating memory, 8GB internal storage, and I have added a Class 10 16GB MicroSD card). The screen is large enough to see everything I need to and high enough resolution that everything is clear.

[Brewmaster]

BlackBerry devices are great productivity tools. They've come a good way in the past few years, but a massively poor selection of developers and "apps" have them falling behind. Again.

I've owned and worked on more BlackBerry devices than I care to admit. They have some great build quality and can stand up to a good amount of stress. Their mobile productivity software - applications that can deal with Office documents, schedulers, mail applications, etc - are nearly unbeatable. However unless your work supports BB devices with a BES server, you may miss out on some of the productivity that BB devices offer. They are definitely not media and social centric devices like Android and iPhone devices are. But, like you said,

I wouldn't bother using a phone for GPS (map book is quicker and I have a good memory) or social networking (too old to care) so emails and the very occasional out-and-about internet search would be about it. Oh yeah and some groovy apps -- guitar tuner, umm..some others

A BlackBerry may suit your needs. Just keep in mind that there are not nearly as many available apps for BB devices as there are for Android and iPhone. I would suggest checking out the app stores of each make beforehand to see what apps are available.

BlackBerry App World - Free BlackBerry Apps - Official Store
https://market.android.com/?hl=en

[SpecialTool]

Well, pulled the pin on a smartphone earlier than expected. Was in Singapore last week and bought a local sim card, only to find my old Nokia was still locked to Vodafone. Come on, said the wife, here's an excuse to upgrade. So I went with a Samsung Galaxy Mini -- cheap, light and does the job.

[SpecialTool]

Oh yeah I noticed that many of the groovy young women in Singapore had oversized smartphones, clearly aimed at ladies because they would never fit in a pocket.

[SpecialTool]

Well, pulled the pin on a smartphone earlier than expected. Was in Singapore last week and bought a local sim card, only to find my old Nokia was still locked to Vodafone. Come on, said the wife, here's an excuse to upgrade. So I went with a Samsung Galaxy Mini -- cheap, light and does the job.

Or does it? It seems my new phone has a well-known issue connecting to secure wireless networks such as the typical home network. Ironic that I should buy a faulty device in impulse; as my family will tell you, I generally research and analyse purchases almost to the point of obsession.
But I was stuck needing a phone in a hurry ... shit happens I guess. It's surprising when a huge multinational like Samsung puts its name to a lemon. Then again I've cursed the bloodymindedness of iTunes and its pointless, endless, buggy updates many a time so Samsung is not alone.
Another thing I hate about smartphones is the need to "swipe" with your finger when answering a call. Much prefer a nice simple button thanks.

[SpecialTool]

So with wireless not working I decided to try hooking the phone up to a PC via USB, downloading some apps on the PC and dragging them into the phone. Astoundingly the Android market, now renamed Google Play, explicitly says this basic, useful functionality is not possible:

Note that for any download attempts from Google Play on the web, you must have strong connectivity on your phone or tablet at the time you push the download from play.google.com - connecting your device to the computer via USB cable is not sufficient. It’s not possible to download the app first to your computer and then transfer the app later to your phone or tablet.

[colombo]

Yes, very smart with a phone you need to charge up daily... My 6 year old Nokia is on it's 2nd battery and needs a charge once a week or so.

[SpecialTool]

Yes, very smart with a phone you need to charge up daily... My 6 year old Nokia is on it's 2nd battery and needs a charge once a week or so.

My wife is very unimpressed with the iPhone battery -- she too is used to charges once a week or so. Mine is not as bad. I figured out a way to get wireless working on mine and got my first Android app, a guitar tuner. Pretty neat. Making/answering calls still hassle after the simplicity of the old Nokia though, so the jury is still out.

[Brewmaster]

Glad you were able to get it working! But you see the fun part about Android phones is that they rarely work like you want them to out of the box. This is where XDA developers come in. Check out their forums and see what kind of "updates" they may have available for your model.

In just a few short hours I turned my MyTouch 4G from a battery-hogging, bloatware-infested, laggy piece of eye candy into a functional powerhouse. I had the processor smart throttled - locked in low speed when the phone was locked, and up to 1.7 GHz when needed. Couple that with a blazing kernel and stripped down OS the thing would just scream! Wouldn't need to charge it but every two or three days, even with generous use.

[THEOLDMAN]

I'm a confessed cell phone Luddite...until about 9 months ago the last cell phone I had was my analog model.