Best Smartphone Out....For Me

[nottinmatterz]

Hi, I'm in the market for a new smartphone, the main features I want are:

4G data of course
sim card slot

Best video recording in 1080p, IMAGE STABILIZATION is what I need [MOST IMPORTANT]
large screen and/or full keyboard [Pretty important]
Good browsing experience though I bet almost all are, probably good FLASH playing for youtube is what i mean
Good battery life [Slightly important]

almost forgot, HDMI output port I like as well

I was interested in the LG Thrill which has 3D but NO image stabilization which is more important that the "cool" factor that 3D attracted me with

Samsung Wave 2 has image stabilization but no 3D and browsing doens't support Flash player!

[Admins I won't be offended in the least if my topic is moved to a more appropriate area]

[Ian Brantford]

What is your location and choice of service providers? The phones that you can use will vary based on compatibility with provider. Are you limited to subsidised, carrier-supplied phones, or are you entertaining the purchase of an unlocked phone to bring to your service?

By "4G", do you mean the fake 4G that is really enhanced 3G, or do you mean LTE?

By requiring a full keyboard, you are hugely narrowing down your choices. Check out the upcoming Droid 4: http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US...MOTOROLA-US-EN

[nottinmatterz]

What is your location and choice of service providers? The phones that you can use will vary based on compatibility with provider. Are you limited to subsidised, carrier-supplied phones, or are you entertaining the purchase of an unlocked phone to bring to your service?

By "4G", do you mean the fake 4G that is really enhanced 3G, or do you mean LTE?

By requiring a full keyboard, you are hugely narrowing down your choices. Check out the upcoming Droid 4: http://www.motorola.com/Consumers/US...MOTOROLA-US-EN

How fast is enchanced 3G compared to 4G LTE?
I mean the real 4G

The only provider in the 95482 area code with 4G service is AT&T which I currently have.
I buy unlocked phones
I noticed the Galaxy Nexus always comes unlocked.

i'll take a large touchscreen at least 4" with touchscreen keyboard

I'll checkout the Droid 4 thank you

[Ian Brantford]

How fast is enchanced 3G compared to 4G LTE?

I have only seen a couple of head-to-head comparisons posted, but this one is a fairly detailed report on how well HSPA+ compares to LTE in non-congested areas:
http://www.howardforums.com/showthre...ence-on-Rogers
Rather than paying too much attention to raw transmission speed in megabits per second via benchmarks, it is more important to pay attention to the actual user experience. The most frustrating aspect of a slow network is typically experienced when browsing complex Web pages with lots of small images and frames. For these, it's latency (round-trip delay time) that matters. LTE is much better in this real-world usage, as far as posts here are concerned.

I mean the real 4G

That's LTE. Due to marketing zealousness, anything that's labelled "4G" by itself is just enhanced 3G, and is completely INcapable of LTE. If it doesn't say LTE, it's not the new and shiny 4G network.

The only provider in the 95482 area code with 4G service is AT&T which I currently have.

It's not LTE. I checked the coverage maps, and neither Verizon nor AT&T are there yet with LTE. The best that you can do is to get a handset that supports LTE so that you can use that network when coverage becomes available. I don't know much about reasonable expectations to help you make a guess about LTE network expansion.

I buy unlocked phones
I noticed the Galaxy Nexus always comes unlocked.

Right now, only the Verizon (CDMA) version supports LTE. Also note that Google just dropped direct support for CDMA Android handsets: http://news.techeye.net/mobile/google-abandons-cdma, so you'll be at the mercy of the carrier to get firmware updates, just like with other non-Nexus handsets. There is no variation of the Galaxy Nexus that has a hardware keyboard for you.

i'll take a large touchscreen at least 4" with touchscreen keyboard

Dropping the hardware keyboard requirement will open up your choices quite a bit. Unfortunately, that doesn't open up much choice for LTE handsets on AT&T. They are coming. Verizon already has several.

I'll checkout the Droid 4 thank you

To solve the LTE requirement and blow you away with a big screen, check out the upcoming LTE version of the Galaxy Note on AT&T.

To be honest, I advise people to wait another couple of months, until there are more LTE handsets available. For example, my short-listed handsets include the Galaxy Nexus and the Motorola RAZR, but again they are only in the fake-4G category. LTE variants will hopefully appear soon.

Best wishes with the shopping!

[dragon2knight]

As your on AT&T already,and you want a large screen,and you want an unlocked phone,you might also consider the new BLU Studio 5.3. The only requirement it dosent meet for you is 4G support...but its speed on 3G is 7.2mbps,which isnt too shabby. Not having a dedicated hardware keyboard wont be a problem with the huge 5.3" screen,and its performance is really great. I concidered the Note first off, and by chance stumbled across the Studio looking for a cheaper alternative...glad I did that! Just my two cents

[nottinmatterz]

,I haven't read the responses yet but my current decision is to wait until Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD comes out

[nottinmatterz]

Just went through the whole post, thank you a lot Ian Brantford

Darn AT&T doesn't even show LTE on their coverage map just "4G" HSPA+ called enhanced 4g backhaul?

one guy testing got 2.5mbps down and 1mpbs up, if its at least double my 3G that would be great
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvfkgYKeOeY

i just did mobilespeedtest.com i got .2 down (200Kbps). 25KB/s down is slow for webpages

question, do the other providors, Verizion & T-Mobile list their high speed 3G as just 3G on data coverage maps?

[Ian Brantford]

Those "down and up" benchmarks provide a very vague indicator of speed. Latency (which tends to be big and thus bad on HSPA) is more important. If the tester doesn't report latency or "ping time", it's not a useful test. For example, some Web pages could load faster on 2G EDGE, which also can have lower latency, than on a high-latency 3G network. Plus, the benchmark pages may be on an overloaded path and not a good indicator of average results. What really matters is the total time to load a complex, uncached Web page, for a subscriber in YOUR area. That's the user experience versus an oversimplified benchmark.

As for the coverage maps it's great if they indicate where backhaul has been upgraded (so that a site can talk to the outside world faster, with lots of simultaneous subscribers). However, the 3G or 4G label is now meaningless. If it doesn't say LTE specifically, assume that it's 3G.

[gamesforgame]

,I haven't read the responses yet but my current decision is to wait until Galaxy S II Skyrocket HD comes out

I've never tried a samsug s2 with a 4g connection, but a s2 is a very good smartphone.

[gladysmarie]

iphone 4s

[aimery]

samsug s2 is good choice

[Baldilocks]

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