help me choosing an android phone

shekvaL

Hello,
After a great geeky experience with my Nokia n900 phone i think it's time to upgrade.
since my budget is 360$ and there is many phones on the market and I’m really confused
what about Samsung galaxy s , or does anyone have a better suggestion, i would be grateful.

thank you :)

AvoK95

The Samsung Galaxy S costs in 400$
Your choices are:
-Samsung Galaxy Ace
-Huawei Ideos X3
-HTC Wildfire S
-LG Optimus Chic (E720)
-Sony Ericsson Xperia X8
Always get warrenty no matter how much the difference in price is.(I learned that the hard way)

Joe

Personal experience: Highly recommends Samsung gear (I own the Galaxy S2).
My friend's experience: Avoid Xperia.

But hey, this is only my (and my friend's) experience. That's as far as I can help you.

thegodfatherdany

Get a Nexus S. About 300$.Great Phone.

AvoK95

The SII costs 450$ without warranty and 550 with 1 year warranty from CTC (The Samsung dealer of Lebanon)
I have used the Galaxy Ace and I was very happy with it. But you should know that it is very hard to find people who can repair Android Samsung phones, I bricked mine myself and I have yet to find anyone who can unbrick it, so I suggest you don't skimp on warranty.
The HTC Wildfire seems to have good reviews, but the Samsung has better looks and is slimmer and smaller , they are practically the same hardware wise.

yasamoka

shekvaL wroteHello,
After a great geeky experience with my Nokia n900 phone i think it's time to upgrade.
since my budget is 360$ and there is many phones on the market and I’m really confused
what about Samsung galaxy s , or does anyone have a better suggestion, i would be grateful.

thank you :)

Do you want to sell the N900? If so, then please contact me by PM.

m0ei

Samsung FTW.

Nexus S is a great phone but if you are able to pay a bit more, get a Galaxy S2.

Joe

On another side, it would be great to hear about your n900 experience. How's Maemo?

Dope14

thank god for this topic i was about to start one, im lost between galaxy s2 , Motorola RAZR mainly and maybe the htc sensation i dont know , im just looking for the best out there .

scorz

I still use nokia n900 and I can write a little review about it.

Hardware side:
Pros: - Hard Keyboard.
- 32GB internal memory.
- Stereo speaker (and loud speakers).
- Nice video quality (@25fps).

Cons: - Very poor battery life (less than 48hours on standby).
- The front camera's image quality is poor.
- GPS is not that good.

Software side:
Pros: - Easy to root it (sudo gainroot, et voila).
- Application manager (powered by apt-get).
- Four workspaces.
- Very good mobile browsing.
- Network tools run smoothly (wireshark, ettercap, nmap...).

Cons: - No Video call support (It need an OS update).
- I had to install a lot of additional packages to run some software. (java, tcl/tk, perl...)
I think they should be pre-installed.

m-sabra

AvoK95 wroteI have used the Galaxy Ace and I was very happy with it. But you should know that it is very hard to find people who can repair Android Samsung phones, I bricked mine myself and I have yet to find anyone who can unbrick it, so I suggest you don't skimp on warranty.

if you rooted the phone then the warranty is void,so even if you did have warranty it will be void since you rooted your phone and you will have to pay for repair.

i recommend Samsung from my personal experience,specially a Nexus S (i own one) it's pretty close to the galaxy s,but if you like pure android go for the Nexus this is why i got the Nexus s and probably my next phone will be the Galaxy Nexus.

AvoK95

If I had warranty I would have faked the problem and they would have given me a new one (Most people do it)

shekvaL

yasamoka wrote
shekvaL wroteHello,
After a great geeky experience with my Nokia n900 phone i think it's time to upgrade.
since my budget is 360$ and there is many phones on the market and I’m really confused
what about Samsung galaxy s , or does anyone have a better suggestion, i would be grateful.

thank you :)
Do you want to sell the N900? If so, then please contact me by PM.

Sorry i sell it couple days ago.

rahmu wroteOn another side, it would be great to hear about your n900 experience. How's Maemo?

well n900 is a great smart phone, A small computer in your pocket, well reviews already said by Scorz, but n900 in brief is a great phone for Linux users, since it have a terminal with the usual commands you use on your PC, i had a great experience with it especially when i installed easy Debian on it, you will have the Debian OS with LXDE Desktop Environment, I’ll let some pictures i found online speak itself ( it is easy debian OS not the official OS it comes with n900 )

and for the Android phone, im going to buy samsung galaxy s plus , from dubai.
The SGSII is to big for me i can't imagine it fitting on my pocket

thanks all for your feedbacks , when i get it after a week i will give my review in my first android phone :)

Edit:Rahmu you asked also about Maemo OS , well the maemo community is awesome , so helpful and full of developers, on my n900 i was working on developers repository, yes i was risking of reflashing my phone on each update but it was worthy, and we could also play WebOS games on n900 in a simple way,
Conclusion n900 is a great phone, maemo community is working hard and people are dual booting meego or nitdroid with maemo, if i didn't want the whatsApp, i wouldn’t change my phone.

Joe

if i didn't want the whatsApp, i wouldn’t change my phone

That's awful! Why isn't whatsapp ported to maemo?! Does the n900 provides alternatives for VoIP? Can you maybe install Skype or Ekiga?

Quite frankly, I wish Android was a bit more like you described. I'm a linux poweruser, and there's very little I get to do on my SGSII.

shekvaL

whatsapp isn't open source and they decided not to program a version for maemo a .deb application, since nokia dropped the meego project when they made a contract with microsoft.
yes sure you can install ekiga from devel repositories, and skype from non-free ones.

AvoK95

You should have installed Android on your N900, you'd have a different opinion about it.

yasamoka

Ohhh yeah, tried it with my cousin's N900, it was awesome. And comes with a stylus, I love stylus (hate new touch screens, my fingers are big). But the problem is that voice calls are not supported yet on NitDROID :P You can make a call I think, and receive, but you cannot talk :P

AvoK95

yasamoka wrote
AvoK95 wroteYou should have installed Android on your N900, you'd have a different opinion about it.
Ohhh yeah, tried it with my cousin's N900, it was awesome. And comes with a stylus, I love stylus (hate new touch screens, my fingers are big). But the problem is that voice calls are not supported yet on NitDROID :P You can make a call I think, and receive, but you cannot talk :P

So , if I talk the other person can't hear me ?

yasamoka

Yes

omarmasri

rahmu wroteMy friend's experience: Avoid Xperia.

Why is that? I want an android phone to replace my HTC Desire and I am really considering the Xperia Arc S can you please explain your friend's opinion?