Phones to get if you’re too smart to get an iPhone
Am I the only one who isn’t sick of the iPhone buzz? It’s every-frickin-where – to the point where every media outlet is blowing up the slightest iPhone rumour to the proportions of a coming apocalypse.
Newsflash: the world isn’t going to end if you don’t get an iPhone. You could, however, get a better phone. Something that has a keypad, perhaps, and that won’t make you look like a lame poseur.
In a just and fair world, everyone would have access to better phones. Blame your telcos, Americans. Because AT&T, T-Mobile and the rest don’t want phone makers to make good phones. They want them to make phones that won’t be too expensive to subsidize. Over in Asia, unlocked phones are everywhere and you won’t need to buy them on eBay or hack them yourself.
Only in North America, the iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry rules. Everywhere else, Nokia sells phone by the bucketload and Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG and the rest compete to make smarter, sexier phones.
Take Sony Ericsson’s upcoming eXperia. The Sony Ericsson Xperia will have the coolest acronym ever – S-E-X. It’s got a touchscreen to kill for, a 3.2 megapixel camera, HSDPA, WiFi and an arc slider design which features one heck of sexy keyboard.
If you want a killer multimedia phone, try Nokia’s N82 for size. With a Xenon flash and a 5 megapixel camera, you’ll want to leave your point-and-shoot models at home. There’s also the 30fps video recording and the thumbs-up from noted blogger and vblogger, Robert Scoble. Reuters took Nokia phones to send footage from Davos with – if it’s good enough for a leading news agency, then I doubt us common folk can nitpick.
Newest of the bunch is the HTC Diamond. Like the Xperia, it attempts to make Windows Mobile sexy. And so far, it’s not doing a bad job. It may only have 4GB of internal memory but it’s super, super thin and less likely to make you look like a dork with it in your pocket. Want more memory and a slide-out keyboard as well? Then go for the HTC Touch Pro. Not as thin but faster and looks just as good in black.
There’s no question that the iPhone’s software is hard to beat. But not everyone wants to make a call or SMS by swiping their thumb over a screen. Everyone else still does multimedia better than the iPhone whether it be picture-taking, video or even MP3 playback.
And if you wanted your phone to just work as a phone – would you really want to be using an iPhone to make a quick 911 call or last text to a loved one? In the end, a phone has to get the basic essentials like calling and texting right before it can boast about everything else. So go ahead, drink the Apple-Aid and believe the hype. Or go past the Apple store and get yourself a real phone.
Related Posts:
June 7th, 2008
Don’t you mean:
“Am I the only one who IS sick of the iPhone buzz?”
They way you write it makes it seem like you can’t get enough of the iphone news which completely contradicts the rest of the blog. BTW some people prefer not to have thick bricks in their pockets :)
June 8th, 2008
Better phones? Where? I can’t wait to get rid of my Nokia, fiddling around with tiny keypads, scolling through a boring ui. SMS is dark age stuff, bring on email. Having used a current Iphone I feel dirty using my nokia.
June 8th, 2008
Oh please! I’ve been using a KJam for 2 years and my wife has an HTC Tytn II and both leave the IPhone for dead. My brother bought an IPhone and loved the wank-value for a month, then sold it because the fact is, it’s dated. Let’s see: Can’t change the batteries (which are dodgy to say the least), no expandable memory, no keypad, VERY limited software options, the list goes on. And On. And on. One more thing, the I-Phone is a brick compared to the new Sony Ericson AND the HTC.
June 11th, 2008
Windows mobile? No thank you. The only one worth buying is the Nokia, but the price tag drags anyone with a brain away.