Iphones are not actually dominant, I belive Android has taken the no 1 spot.
In tougher economic times, people what a good deal :)

I used to have symbian phones...some of the flagships from Nokia and i must say that android devices are way better.
Currently i own Samsung and in terms of smoothness and functionality it beats Nokia in every possible way.

Symbian was great in 2005, today its bloody awful, unless you just want a phone thats a phone.
Oh and on an unrelated note, I really dont miss cycling though 3-4 letters of the alphabet on one button.

Well AVG that's why I have an iphone, it's still the best phone for music playback-and I would not want to carry two devices-although if I still had my feature phone I would get an ipod. Same logic that I like games and prefer an all in one device. Or you could get an ipod touch and have games, some internet connection when on wifi and music. YMMV.


Oh come on JU, yes it's silly to upgrade every year or possibly every two years yes. I would disagree that the iphone 5 is an insignificant upgrade. Maybe from a 4s but a huge difference speed wise with my 4 or your 3gs. Plus a much nicer screen (not just size), a much better camera and LTE if you want that. for me, the memory uograde to 64 GB would be worth it-games like WOTA and the Infinity Blade series need tons of space.

Anyhow here is a fair review of the 5 (even if on an Apple site):

http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/rev...6gb-32gb-64gb/

You said it yourself gaming is one of the iphone's big advantages-as we know from our beloved subsims you more or less have to upgrade to play the latest games. I lasted 8 years (!) on my previous computer before upgrading in 2010, believe me my SH3-GWX and il2-1946 were suffering at the end. The line ups are a bit silly though.

As for other platforms, if I had to choose it would be windows phone. Seriously except for the relative lack of apps a very nice phone and the Nokia hardware is also very nice.

I actually am disliking Android more and more, partly because of the reasons mentioned above such as lack of comprehensive updates etc. I also have a distrust of Google, I know Apple have taken a lot of deserved flak lately, but except for gmail and google earth I have been trying to get away from google. I use Duck Duck Go for search and actually would like to see some viable alternatives for google maps (yes Apple ain't there yet but there are plenty of alternatives). I just don't like one company getting hold of so much info and see Android as just another conduit to info gathering. The main thing are the fans though, I don't see these mythical Apple fanatics online or in real life anymore but the Andorid fans are extremely aggresive, they've become the new Apple fans. :O: Even here every time there is a post about a new game for ios (like WOTA or Pacfic Fleet) you cna be sure to get someone posting "nice game but too bad Apple sux", I find it amusing really. :D

Apple fanatics do indeed still exist, they camp out side Apple stores just so they can be the first to get iphone5, - that is really stupid, Im sorry. :)

Agreed on that-camping out for anything is stupid-except maybe for concert tickets. Depending on the festival or group. :up:

Regarding Symbian, I really feel that it is sad, really.

There used to be a time when Symbian was the best. (pre iPhone, when everyone had the Razr or Blackberry, or Treo) The n95 blew my mind when I first saw it. I mean, compared to everything at the time, it had everything. GPS, Camera, WiFi, EVERYTHING!

But than the iPhone came out and changed everything. Suddenly touchscreens were all the rage. Nokia made some HORRIBLE decisions at the time, resulting in the DISASTER that was the n97. It has a pathetic CPU, with a reactive touchscreen, and charged you an arm and a leg. Around the time, the best Symbian device was actually the Samsung Omnia HD. But because Nokia ran Symbian, the Omnia HD was screwed from the start. Nokia even refused to license the app store to Samsung.

Than, Nokia finally got their crap together(on the hardware front), and released the Symbian ^3 generation. Nobody can deny that the N8, E7, C6-01, and C7 were impressive hardware wise, and at the core, the software was pretty good too. But Nokia ruined it again by releasing it with a ton of bugs, and the UI was crap.

Finally, Nokia kicked out their CEO, hired Elop from Microsoft. Elop saw that Symbian was doomed, for the period from 2008 - 2011, every Symbian device was crap, or at least highly flawed. The Symbian name was unsalvageable.

Thus Symbian was renamed Nokia Belle (Belle was originally the codename, like Vista or Ice cream sandwich). Symbian was pretty much also put on life support, Nokia promised support until at least 2016, with at most one new device a year.

However, Nokia Belle is actually pretty damned good!

and most of all, Symbian at its core has several core advantages against Android or iOS.

Symbian does not require much specs to run smoothly. My dad's Atrix (with a duel core NVidia Tegra II, and 1gb ram) barely runs smooth. Yet Symbian devices with 1ghz CPU and 512 RAM can run buttery smooth.

Symbian supports USB On the Go. This was one of the most amazing features I ever saw, and I truly wished that other phones can do it too. What it is, is that you can simply plug in your USB stick onto your phone (with a USB to Micro-usb adapter), and your phone can recognize it and interact with it.

Finally, Symbian's kernel model is different compared to Android or Windows or iOS. It is special, in that it supports hardware interrupts at the kernel level. So for the user, you see that Symbian phones are the only phones that support Xeon flash. Aka, the pro level flash that are used on real cameras, not simply a lightbulb.


Thus what I am saying is, if you are willing to look past the "Symbian" name (not really even named Symbian anymore), the latest Symbian flagship is a pretty good choice. The Nokia Pureview 808 is a stunning device.
http://st2.gsmarena.com/vv/bigpic/no...8-pureview.jpg

review: http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_808_pu...review-776.php

The camera is the number one cellphone camera, no debate there, its 41 megapixels! Plus it has USB OTG, FM transmitter, NFC, and everything you can want. Plus, the Belle UI is pretty damned good too!


PS, if anyone here is a phone connoisseur like me, here are some devices that you might want to try just to experience them:

The Palm Pre 2, HP veer, or the HP pre 3 is something you have to experience. WebOS is an AMAZING OS, just constrained by the horrible hardware on the original pre.

The Nokia N9 is also something to look out for, the Device itself is stunning, and the OS is Meego (not Symbian). Meego is dead, Elop killed it, but it is a pretty damned good OS, at least worth a try.

Yeah...belle was good upgrade.
I also like nokia phones in terms of design looks and durability.
Lets hope win8 will catch on as mobile os.It should solve the functionality issue.

^ Very informative post there, The_Tyrant, thanks :up:

soop, what's your device and carrier, I gots to know.

I'm currently using an LG 900G, but only because I got it for $40. It does more than I'll ever want, and I wouldn't have paid that much except I wanted the qwerty keypad. If not for that I would have paid $20 for another bottom-of-the-line Nokia. I liked having a phone that didn't do anything but make calls.

I pay $15 per month for 200 minutes through Net10, but that only works if you hardly ever talk to anyone.

I'm not really cheap, just really poor.

Qwerty keyboard is a good idea to start with...you can also try to think of your phone as sort of pocket PC or pocket Swiss knife that you can take everywhere.

I am at least happy, that there is some competition for apple. Too bad it is not driving prices down. The I phone 6 will need a bank loan to buy.

I like my android, I watch movies on break at work with my buddy. You tube app, ESPN score updates for my sports teams.

And half the price per month, and 1/6 the price for a decent phone. (I only got a 3g phone) Plus I can tell them to buzz off at any time.

But it don't got the Apple logo on the back so everyone knows how hip I am.

My wife says the other day "Thats it?". And she was refferring to her Iphone 5 Not my genitalia...

(or was she:timeout:)

You gonna share what phone and carrier?

A glass of diet dr pepper says it's "tracfone".:haha:

Uhhh, no. But close.


Lg Optimus Elite. And carrier is virgin mobile. Go figure, not a sprint verizon or AT&T in there. It isn't a Samsung Galaxy, but it is more than adequate.

I really don't get the iPhones are expensive talk. Seriously

iPhones are prices competatively with the flagship devices of the other major platforms.

After all, on a 2 year contract the iPhone 5 starts at 199, just like the Samsung Galaxy S3, Motorola Droid Razr, and the Blackberry Bold 9900.

199$ is the on contract price for most flagship devices. The iPhone is priced competatively, and is not overpriced compared to other flagship devices.

Off contract, these flagships are all 500-800$. Again, the iPhone is not overprices compared to comparable devices within its class.

PS: Ok, if you are going to buy a phone on contract, don't get the "0$ on contract" devices. Get the premium top of the line device. Why?
Well over the course of 2-3 years, the phone bill adds up to thousands of dollars. The extra 100-200$ doesn't seem like much at all.

Plus, since you will be living with the device for the next 2-3 years of your life (arguably more important than your wife), I sincearly recommend that you get a flagship device, and not a bargin bucket cheapo device. The level of support and the experiance is just so much better.

Sounds good, I am going to check on that tomorrow.
http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/LG...-Review_id3028
What would you are the phone's shortcoming? All I need is a phone that has decent volume and a camera, thanks! :rock:

Yes, the iPhone 5 rocks from its specs compared to its predecessors.
The GPU of the iPad 1 and iPhone/iPod touch 4 is too slow for the number of pixels on the screen. It's the same GPU that the 3GS uses. During the last two years this was always a problem for me (developing games).
When I started with the new Seehund midget submarine version of WOTA I've made a completely new water for the game. Now WOTA is really CPU bound on the 3GS, on the iPad 1 it still suffers from pixel fill rate problems due to the underpowered GPU. When it comes to gaming iPad 2 and 4S are great devices WOTA runs at 60fps with additional eyecandy on them.

Because of the CPU problems on the 3GS I've compared CPU benchmarks of all iOS devices to find out what extras will be possible on which device (I just can't afford to buy them all and the low end devices are most important for testing anyway)

The iPhone 5 is extremely fast! It's a HUGE difference and this difference is huge compared to the 4S, actually when it comes to CPU and memory performance the difference between the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S is larger than the difference between the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 3GS! Calling the iPhone 5 an insignificant upgrade is just wrong - the iPhone 4 was an insignificant upgrade:

iPhone 5 compared to iPhone 4S:
integer performance: 2.26 times faster
floating point performance: 2.83 times faster
memory performance: 2.49 times faster
memory stream performance: 3.17 times faster

iPhone 4S compared to iPhone 3GS:
integer performance: 2.47 times faster
floating point performance: 2.64 times faster
memory performance: 1.68 times faster
memory stream performance: 1.33 times faster

iPhone 4S compared to iPhone 4:
integer performance: 1.92 times faster
floating point performance: 2.03 times faster
memory performance: 1.26 times faster
memory stream performance: 1.05 times faster

iPhone 4 compared to iPhone 3GS:
integer performance: 1.29 times faster
floating point performance: 1.29 times faster
memory performance: 1.68 times faster
memory stream performance: 1.33 times faster

Also the 3 core GPU is a good upgrade compared to the 4S.

My two cents {

You get the iPhone 5 starting at 1,- EUR with a contract (in germany).

Currently the iPhone 5 is the fastest smartphone on the market, as usual this will change within the year. The pricing of the comparable android high end smartphones is almost identical. It might be a bad buy next summer but currently it is not… except that 600 EUR for a phone (without contract) might be a bit crazy anyway.

But compared to android you will have some advantages:

1. free unexpected adventures due to the new map app :haha:
2. almost no risk to install malware apps
3. more apps and games
4. This is the SUBSIM forum - well... WOTA: Wolves of the Atlantic: :oops:

http://www.hessburg.com/pictures/ZZ20345ECA.jpg


http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=163753


I see this android vs iOS thing from a developers point of view:

There are more android phones (68%) out there than iOS phones (17%) but the statistics show that 63.48% of the mobile internet accesses comes from iOS devices (android = 22.1% - I'll guess the iPod touch is included in the statistics) - so it seems that iOS devices are more in use than android devices. Maybe a lot of people who don't really need a smartphone just take one for $1,- with their contract but never use it except for phoning?

Same for sales numbers of Apps. Most developers sell 10 times more per app on the iOS app store than on all android markets combined. And the pirated to sale ratio on iOS is already pretty high at about 95:1 - unless you are in the top 1000 you will sell exactly: nothing, ZERO - yes more than 649,000 apps have 0 sales a day - to make any money that will at least pay your time of development you will have to reach the top 300 of games in the USA and stay there for a long time - a highly competitive market with dumping prices, rude customer reviews and on android it is even worse because sales are lower.

It's terrible to try to support all the different android devices, GPUs, screen sizes, Systems etc. - you will end up with ten times the hassle and bad reviews for 1/10 of the generated income.

That's why WOTA for android will come out after a Mac & PC release. and why I would always recommend iOS. ;-) But it's a biased view and someone who just needs a phone with mobile browser, email app, maps etc. might be as happy as an iPhone customer. But I doubt those kind of people would ever seriously debate about android vs iOS. It's almost the same old boring war like Mac vs PC.

}

If you are looking for a new Android phone, I suggest you consider the Galaxy Nexus: https://play.google.com/store/device...orpus_selector

Of all the Androids, the Nexus line is the only line that is created by Google itself, and is guaranteed updates. No carrier bloatware, no junk at all. Whereas my dad is still waiting for a 4.0 update (probably not getting it), the Galaxy Nexus is already on 4.1

It currently goes for 300 something unlocked direct from google, I personally recommend it, it is the best Android device out there.