Tuesday 7 July 2009

N97 or iPhone (or G1)

I've had my N95 for over 2 years now. That's at least 6 months longer than the minimum 18 month contract I had when I got the N95.

When the N95 was announced I couldn't wait to get it. A phone with GPS - it seemed brilliant! When I got it I was actually pretty pissed off. The GPS barely worked and it was only when I hacked the phone and installed new firmware that it would actually get a GPS signal in any reasonable amount of time.

That made me pissed off at Nokia, for releasing a phone that I don't think worked properly out of the box, and at Orange for being so damn slow with their firmware updates that I had to hack the phone to get a decent firmware update. Oh, and of course Orange removed the Voip software from the phone because, "it would confuse customers" or something like that. Yeah, not because they were scared of nobody ever paying for a call again, eh?

However, since getting that firmware update I've been pretty happy with the N95. It's a pretty decent music player, the GPS works ok especially with Google Maps (what is the point in Nokia Maps unless you are in a no signal area?).

Now I would like a new phone but I don't know which one to get. iPhone 3G S, Nokia N97 or the Google G1 phone. It's difficult to find objective, comparative reviews. People who are fans of one, seem to be haters of the others. Lots of the reviews, are actually just comparisons of the specifications. I want to know what they are like to live with.

iPhone I would like because the UI and apps look great. But I don't want to feel like I'm jumping on a crowded bandwagon.

Nokia - well I've had Nokias for years now, but they never seem quite perfect. I don't understand how they manage that, being the biggest phone company in the world. I kind of like it that it is European. I've always thought it was cool that a kinda random country like Finland ended up spawning the world's biggest phone company.

G1 - well I don't know much about it.

Hopefully some really objective phone reviewer will happen along this post and make a recommendation.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've no idea when they're heading to these shores, but have you considered the Pre?

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2009/06/ars-reviews-the-palm-pre-part-1-the-blackberry-killer.ars

1st gen iPhone user myself, but although very young I'd rate the Pre above anything N97 or G1. The iPhone remains the undisputed king, for now.

j
x

moko said...

naa iphone all the way i own an iphone and so far so good u can even customize it too look just as u want u can also jail break it and do heella more stuff with it

www.ktvalga.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

If you decide to go the G1/G2 route make sure you don't want any of the feature stripped out by the UK mobile providers- e.g. voice dialing, and the MS Exchange client. Anon for this!

Major_Grooves said...

Well, I've gone for the new iPhone 3GS in the end.