Smart Phones

[ZX9RCAM]

I was hot & heavy to get a Droid when they first came out, but the slide our keypad was too small & I don't like using the touchscreen to text.
I kept my 3 yr. old LG Envy & it works for me.....still waiting for the perfect one to come out....I am with Verizon as well.

 

[Texas1911]

It also has ballistic software available which I will pickl up next week.

Haven't found that yet ... what's the name of it? I got the mil converter.

 

[SC-Texas]

shooter by Sean Kennedy

 

[jbcalhoun]

How’s the battery life on the Torch? My old BB 8330 lasts 2 or 3 days without needing to go on the charger. When I had my Windows mobile phone, I had to take to off the charger in the morning and it had to go back on the charger when I got home. I’ve never had to do that with any of my BB’s and that’s one of the reasons I’ve never gone back to a smart phone. I’m due for a new BB at work, and was thinking about the Torch when it gets ported to Verizon.

I really like the Torch. I was afraid I would miss not having a windows based smart phone, but I can do everything I was previously doing.

The battery life compares with what my Palm would do. I can go 3 days without a re-charge if need be. I usually charge every other night, just to top it off.

I rely heavily on my smart phone for email and downloading pdf files when in the field. The torch is perfect and I love the large screen for my "aging" eyes!

Brad

 

[MR Redneck]

Does anyone have an iPhone, or other brand of smart phone? I need to get with the times, and I've avoided texting long enough that's it's becoming problematic with people trying to contact me throughout the day.

What do you think of your current phone / provider?

I had a smart phone. It wasnt smart enought to keep from pissing me off either. It got the stomp treatment. Now I have a blackberry and its pushing its luck too!

 

[ZX9RCAM]

My phone generally runs about a week between charges......I don't talk or text that much, lol......

 

[Texas1911]

shooter by Sean Kennedy

Upgraded my phone again, gave my old phone to my mother.

Now I have a 4G Evo ... and I've already got my 10/22 plugged into Shooter, that I already bought. Dope on demand ... this is scary, not a single hobo is safe on the streets of Austin.

 

[Clockwork]

I currently have a Blackberry Tour GSM Worldphone. I can use it here in the middle east but it costs like $4.00/minute to talk on the phone, so really I just use it as a camera, MP3 player, and alarm clock. Not to mention that I only get a signal here while I'm outdoors and even then only if I'm lucky. I could do the whole Iraqi SIM card thing, I tried it, but that works the way that cellular plans in most countries work where you have to buy time cards (similar to a phone card) to recharge your account and it just becomes a pain. Not to mention that the Iraqi SIM card is a lot harder to get out of my phone than my carrier's SIM card so I have concern that I'm gonna break the damn thing every time I try to swap SIM cards.

Protip: If you're heading across the pond to work in the land of the sand and the sun bring a laptop and use Skype instead of a cell phone. It's a lot cheaper and more reliable, especially if you set up a VPN like I did so I have an encrypted trunk back to the States so no hadjis can listen in on my calls.

 

[Vance]

My nephew has just made the trip over to Afghanistan, Spin Boldak FOB. I'll have to check to see if he has a laptop, and if so may have to try that Skype thing.

 

[AmirFazadh]

I've had a BB8830 for two years now, work phone, and the damn thing just won't die! It's just about bulletproof, as phones go, and it is great for email and text, but it absolutely sucks for surfing with the stock browser. I put Opera Mini on it, and it's better, but still very slow. I also carry a Droid as my personal phone, it's pretty quick. One thing about the Droids, you have to go in and turn off GPS and kill the apps or your battery won't get through the day. Now that I've done that, it is performance-tuned, and I can go a day and a half, maybe two, without it dying. I also set my email to only check every hour, rather than the stock every 5-10 minutes, and that helped a LOT. In my Gmail, my "Priority Inbox" will push emails that fit the criteria regardless of the setting, so if it's important, I still get it.
Phone-wise, the audio is slightly better on the Crackberry. I have done tweaks on the audio of the Droid, and it is better, but at the expense of battery. I love that the Droid is open-source, so you are able to do mean things to it with a fork- if something doesn't suit your needs, you can change it at the OS level. I'm a computer geek, and an early adopter of all things gadget and tech, so I love the Droid, and tolerate the Crackberry. Also, the fact that I get 250-300 emails a day on the Berry (work), plus another 100 or so on my personal, I spend an inordinate amount of time on both.