Smartphone that is easy to setup and maintain

[Slideways]

Hi everyone - I have read lots of "what phone" threads, but I wanted to ask yet another. I found lots of ideas for a new phone, but I wanted to run this by the experts first. This is for my wife, she is on the $12 plan and needs a new phone as an upgrade from the Palm Pixi.

What I need is a smartphone that is very easy to setup out of the box. I have never rooted a phone but would be willing to learn. The easier the better though as far as working straight away. What the phone needs is easy access to email (Yahoo and a GoDaddy pop mail acct) and a strong signal first. After that a decent camera would be nice. I assume texting, including SMS works just fine. WiFi is also a must. The Pixi does well with her work and personal email acct and it was very easy to setup and easy to turn data off when not needed. The screen is just small as is the keyboard. Plus she would love more than a dozen apps to chose from! Virtual keyboards are fine.

Price around $150 or under for a refurb or excellent used model:

Phones I have looked at based off threads here:
Samsung Fascinate
Droid Incredible
Droid X
Droid 2

With those phones (or any others you can recommend) - are they easy to get out of the box and up and running? What about email setup? Data management and tracking? If they Must be rooted to have things working well, how easy is that to do on those phones or the others?

[vey9]

They are all easy to set up and operate provided that you don't want to do much with them. Out of the box, they all surf the web, they all have Wi-Fi, they all do email and and SMS. On Page Plus, you will want to turn off the phone data, which is easy, and only turn it on if you are lost and want the map, or receive an urgent email or something.

As far as I can tell, none of the smart phones have as good signal reception as a good flip phone. Setup is pretty easy on an android phone, although you will need a gmail account as well as the others -- doesn't mean you have to use it, just that you have it.

The complexities begin when you want to do more with it.

[Descalzo]

Try the Droid 3. I have heard good things about them on PP.

If you don't want extreme amounts of setup, avoid the 4G phones.

[Slideways]

Droid 3 seemed out of my price range, but I will look again.

How hard is it to turn data off on these phones? The Pixi was very easy, she just needed to remember to turn it back on when she wanted to check email or send/receive photos.

[Descalzo]

I just checked Cowboom and the Droid 3 is more expensive than i thought. They have the Incredible 2 for like $120.

[Extraordinary]

X2 is nice. Used ones can be found around $100-150, snipe one on eBay or search craigslist. Friend picked up one that was in MINT condition for $130. Even new they are on eBay for about 200-250.

[Boz1]

I just checked Cowboom and the Droid 3 is more expensive than i thought. They have the Incredible 2 for like $120.

The Incredible 2 has always been $169.99 any time I have checked Cowboom, which has been once or twice a week for 3 or 4 months. Do you have a link to a different Inc2 listing than what comes up when using Cowboom's search?

[Marty913]

Try these as an alternative to Ebay

http://swappa.com/buy/motorola-droid-2-verizon

[file014]

The Incredible 2 has always been $169.99 any time I have checked Cowboom, which has been once or twice a week for 3 or 4 months. Do you have a link to a different Inc2 listing than what comes up when using Cowboom's search?

If Inc2 was $120 at cowboom id probably get one. I also only see them about $170, which is 3x the cost of an Inc1. Droid 2 is $68 plus tax when cowboom has them in stock. They havent recently or I would get one. Inc1 and Droid X also good 3G phones for well under $100. If battery life is important, I would avoid the incredible 1 unless you dont mind using a fat battery.

[JSH1]

I've purchased 4 Motorola Droid X's in the past 3 months and set them up on Page Plus. Three were for family and purchased for ~$100 on Ebay. I got the 4th from a co-worker in perfect shape with a bunch of accessories for $50. I wanted an X2 or Droid RAZR but I couldn't pass up a $50 Droid X.

They are a snap to set up on Page Plus and will do everything you are looking for.

[Slideways]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I ended up getting a Droid Incredible off of Amazon for $75. It was from their Warehouse Deals and it looks brand new. There wasnt a mark on the phone and it was wrapped in cling plastic. Just had a generic charger and battery with it, but it is holding a decent charge. I was surprised how small it was compared to by friends Thunderbolt. I may have to get one for myself, it is perfectly pocket-able and is pretty fast in use. Definitely an upgrade over her Pixi!

BTW - I changed the ESN in about 2 minutes over PPC chat. Powered up the phone, let it program itself off of the main menu and made my test call. After setting up the wifi it did a quick update and her email is up and running smoothly. Very painless and quick! I think I may need to root it after all, I Hate all the bloatware that is on the phone! Even if I just root it for that I think it may be worth it!

[raderator]

You can easily root according to the first half of this (assuming phone has been updated, if not then just use Unrevoked, you don't need S off):

http://forum.xda-developers.com/show....php?t=1306400

Cyanogenmod 7.2 is out
Incredikernel for ICS works great (much smoother)
Smartassv2 controller
Convert2Ext4 data error fix
Get the MIUI camera (has pre-focus and touch to focus)
OC to the max and undervolt a notch
Love Go Laucher EX

ICS roms are too buggy. You can't tell the diff with Go Launcher anyway.

[vey9]

Going back to the original post title, it like I said, "The complexities begin when you want to do more with it."

I rooted my phone and I use the stock ROM. To get rid of stuff I never use, I use Titanium Backup. Simple.