mobile phones

In particular, people who use those mobile walkie talkie phones immediately vault themselves into the upper echelons of annoyance, and deserve no mercy.

after 14 years of cheapskate PAYGing, i've decided i'd like to get a proper phone to write blogs and check email/ilx/facebook etc on. i've been on orange all this time, am i best off going to them - as in they'll cut me a better deal as i've been with them so long, plus all my family are with them?

also is it better to go into a physical shop, or go online? i hear carphone warehouse are real pushy so screw them. this is kinda new to me, so i'm wondering if there's anything i should know - like if i go into a shop, find the right deal for me should i then ring orange and try to blag them for a better deal? or look online for offers?

also i don't know about the actual *type* of phone to get. blackberry sounds the best bet, a mate of mine who has a blackbery gets 100mins, free texts and near-enough unlimited internet for £20 a month - sounds ideal to me, exactly what i need and how much i'd like to pay.

but can you write lengthy blogs on a blackberry? i have fat stubby farmer fingers so i'm worried the little fiddly buttons won't work so good. same reason kinda puts me off most touchscreen phones, though i'd like to have the option - and possibly the use of a stylus. also the blackberry just *looks* kinda crappy, i sortof want something snazzy, like a mini-laptop with a keyboard that comes out, something like that. does this exist, can anyone help here?!

im avoiding anything iphone-related as i pretty much hate apple's OS & business practices

After years of blackberry stanning, I gave up and got an iPhone. Antiquated web browser, poor apps but the real killer was 6 replacement blackberry's over the course of 6 months, one fault after another. One of the HTC android phones with a slidey keyboard would be a good option.

See also HP, née Palm, phones, even dare I say it, Windows 7 (same hardware as Android in many cases).

Just got Galaxy S for free on existing contract. Would like to try iPhone, but didn't want to pay £'s for the phone or be tied to a 24 month contract.
Maybe in a year i'll try when all the fuss and stupid price has died down.
http://www.clickindia.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/samsung-galaxy-s_1.jpg
Can't fault it, quick browsing, music sounds great, more app's than i'll ever know what to do with.
Can play HD movies on it too, not bad for now't.

hm touchscreen though, i reckon i *need* some kind of keyboard.

thanks ed, i'll read up on all this HTC/hp thing. planning to get this sorted tmrw, think my best bet is to go into the orange shop and let them run riot on me

Would I regret getting a Blackberry and contract with 100MB for £15.50/month rather than 500MB for £20.50/month?

Will mostly want to get emails, plus the occasional website (a map when I'm lost, that kind of thing).

dunno about the service but you might regret getting a Blackberry if RIM goes bankrupt in a year

RIM?

We've been given HTC 8Ss for work. I hate typing on the touch screen, however. Is there a way of attaching a decent keyboard for typing long emails (basically I want to be able to type long notes in cafes and email them to the office).

That's a "no", isn't it?

further to above, coming to the end of 3 years of blackberry use which was ...ok. crappy browser, bit slow, glitchy, etc. the whole dying-company hasn't helped either. planning to move onto an android or possibly an ipod, with related tablet for each. my #1 priority is a built-in or attachable physical keyboard (bberry style) for the phone as my main thing is typing in notes and i don't think i can get along with touchscreen. anyone out there got any advice/recommendations?

Finally making the move from pay-as-you-go flip phones to iphones. Are there better deals to be had before or after Christmas?

PRobably as good as it's gonna get right now

Also this is the appropriate thread obv say i wanted to get a smartphone, where would i go for the hot deals

thx, will check in there

Haha I don't think there's anything of use in there - just a goon joke

Think Walmart offers the biggest discounts on iphones w/ contracts

"When the priest celebrating Mass says, “Let us lift up our hearts,” he is not saying, “lift up our cellphones and take a picture. No. It’s an awful thing” to do, the Pope said on November 8 during his weekly general audience in St Peter’s Square.

“It makes me so sad when I celebrate (Mass) in the square or in the basilica and I see so many cellphones in the air. And not just by the lay faithful, some priests and bishops, too,” he said.

“Please, Mass is not a show. It is going to encounter the Passion, the resurrection of the Lord,” he said to applause.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2017/11/08/pope-francis-it-makes-me-sad-to-see-people-using-phones-at-mass/

charging port on my phone getting worse and worse, two of the three leads i have just stopped working.

it's a 5-year-old phone and isn't getting security updates any more but it seems a shame to ditch it because of a £5 part not working. conversely, you can probably get a better one for half what i paid, they aren't expensive.

but it has all my data on it, passwords and 2fa and stuff, and that's such a chore to change.

anyway, took it to the shop, they cleaned the port, and it works fine again. anti-climax.

the one thing i did notice was how empty the phone shops i went in today were, in terms of customers and displays. the lack of customers could be the fact it was only 10:30 and i guess 20-30 phones don't take up much space. but you could hold a dance in Vodafone's Westfield store.

had to clean my newish phone's port with a needle, so much caked on dust i couldn't even see.

I used a wireless charger which took a solid 12hrs to full charge for half a year before I decided to spend 60 seconds with a toothpick in the port to fix the problem. One of my lazier moments

i wonder if the "special tool" he mentioned in the shop was a toothpick.

It’ll be that or an unfolded paperclip

I work in a v dusty environment so have got used to clearing out the gunk every once in a while. It’s basically phone lint

I fold up a tiny piece of paper to clean mine. I think using the same charger I use for my messy vape mod was causing some problems. But now the only charging lead that still works on my phone is unreliable, if I sneeze it stops charging. Is this mainly a usb c problem? I can't remember it happening when I had an old dumb phone with a micro usb port.

fwiw the only phone I've had that had a dodgy USB socket was a micro-USB one

i think they've turned off the 3g around here forcing everybody onto 4g which was already saturated. phone now struggles with teams calls especially at certain times of the day (when the local schools let out?). no 5g here yet.

Finally got myself a new phone. Went for a Pixel 8 in the end. Seems decent enough and enjoying the camera. The one thing I didn't realise (and this is now standard on most new generation phones?): no SD card. Fuuuuck. Will have to work out another method for storing music. Or be more selective.