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Inspired by the following exchange of texts with my brother:

my brother wrote:OK, gphone over iPhone. Convince me.

(I work in an area with no reception, so I didn't get this text until after work.)

my brother wrote:SENT FROM MY IPHONE

me wrote:SORRY WHO AM I SPEAKING WITH YOU COULDN'T BE MY BROTHER BECAUSE HE DIED A FEW HOURS AGO

my brother wrote:I WANT THIS PHONE IN, ON, AND AROUND MY BODY

me wrote:>:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[ >:[

Merits of each (for those phones that have merits, anyway; feel free to make shit up for iPhones so they don't feel left out of that part of the conversation), experiences with any, etc.
If you don't have any pie, leave the thread.
Otherwise, go.


I use an HTC Dream, a.k.a. T-Mobile G1, a.k.a. the g-phone, a.k.a. the Google Phone, and it's the single best monetary investment I have ever made in my entire life. It's open source, Linux-based, supports concurrent installation of fucking Debian, lacking in fascist corporate bullshit about battery replacements, etc., besides going the typical smartphone route of syncing contacts and calendars, superior web browsing, wireless, GPS, still and video camera, etc., etc. It has both an on-screen keyboard and a slide-out keyboard, as you prefer, has expandable memory up to 32 GB SDHC micro cards, has real-time email push from Google, glorious integration with Google Maps, and you're only one FREE market app away from deploying chaingun drones to protect you in your sleep (cuz most of the market apps are free, as well as free from overbearing fascist oversight like the Apple application market).
After minimal interest in the market, I found stable and powerful SSH clients, FTP clients and servers, and VNC viewers (yeah, you read that shit right) and servers, all for free. I can and have done my job from my cell phone, since it has full support for terminal emulation, down to shortcuts for fucking screen (so you know a pro made the app) and implementing ncurses.
I can play DOOM on my cell phone. Fucking DOOM. It's actually quite playable (instead of being proof-of-concept, such as DOOM on your iPod), and runs smoothly.
In areas without wireless networks, I can tether it to my laptop via Bluetooth and get internet connectivity anywhere I have cell reception, again, for fucking FREE (the tethering tool is free; I naturally have an unlimited data plan).
Here's some other shit I can do effortlessly: I can (completely hypothetically) walk into GameStop, use the camera to scan a barcode on a game, and have my phone find the torrent for it across multiple torrent sites that has the highest seed count, and tell my computer to start downloading it immediately. I (hypothetically) do this shit all day for shit I'm interested in, just holding a chai latte in one hand and casually scanning barcodes in the other. I've saved hundreds of dollars on textbooks in school via a similar process with an app that lets me find the book, gets the lowest price, even looks for coupons and shit, and lets me order anything that has a barcode to my house in mere seconds.
Enhanced reality is getting more popular, too. I can point my phone in various directions and it'll tell me what's over there, and I can filter by categories like cultural shit, fooderies, alcoholories, and rental housing.
Also, there's this cool zombie game where you watch a real-time map of where you're going with dots that represent zombies that chase you. It makes jogging and/or walking between classes more interesting.

...and it's cheaper than an iPhone.

HTC owns face. I challenge anyone to present me something superior for around the same price.
(But mostly cuz I don't really know much about the other phones. :p)


EDIT:
One other thing I forgot: The Android OS can be run via LiveCD on your computer, and can be installed concurrently with many Linux distributions. Canonical took pains to make Ubuntu do this, specifically.

HTC
Blackberry
Microsoft

THAT ORDER

Edit: Just to make it clear why I dislike the iPhone: The cheapest phone plan on AT&T is $30, but if you plan on getting an iPhone, you need the /iPhone/ data plan (I don't see how it's different than any other data plan, but whatever). That's an addition $30 a month. Oh, the cheapest iPhone is $200 with a two year contract, granted the other smartphones are also expensive, but just felt I should say this as well.

Still, $60 a month just is too much for me in one month. I'd rather get a better smart phone with a cheaper unlimited data plan and get an iPod Touch. :P

I have an HTC Kaiser. It runs Windows Mobile, which, frankly, is a little kludgy. I've never had a chance to use Android, though everything I've heard about it makes it sound excellent.

The thing is, I don't know that ncurses and screen are what I'm looking for on a phone. Sure, they were implemented years ago on Symbian as Maddox demonstrates. But I honestly don't think I want my phone to do "computery" things as much as I'd like to see it do a few completely new things. The biggest feature I'm looking at? A 3.5 mm headphone jack. Of course, the optoma pico and nVidia tegra seem like a winning combination.

I voted Nokia for having the best build quality. The next thing I buy will probably be a Nokia.

iPhone. I love that thing.

Used the HTC dream. Is amazing.

I love the Palm Pre and my father just bought a Samsung i780.

The Palm Pre WebOS looks amazing (I've really never touched one, it arrives later, here) with it's superior multitasking capabilities, deck of cards.


The Samsung i780 is a highly affordable phone with overall good characteristics for its price (my father got it for 200€). The kinda bad of it is the screen. Aaand the task manager of 6.1 is awful ;_; THEY GOTTA CHANGE ITTTTT.

iPhone? Ah, it's cute, fast and responsive.

iPhone. Fantastic piece of equipment, except for the provider. But Jesus Christ, Tsukatu, do you hate everything I stand for? Do you hate Pixar, and waffles, and young domestic mammals, and milk?

Wight wrote:iPhone. Fantastic piece of equipment, except for the provider. But Jesus Christ, Tsukatu, do you hate everything I stand for? Do you hate Pixar, and waffles, and young domestic mammals, and milk?

You are so contrarion.

Donfuy wrote:The Samsung i780 is a highly affordable phone with overall good characteristics for its price (my father got it for 200€). The kinda bad of it is the screen. Aaand the task manager of 6.1 is awful ;_; THEY GOTTA CHANGE ITTTTT.

Seconded. You could buy iPhone with some more money (not much, some) you spend on Samsung i780. Though, it's more economical and iPhone is better. While writing this down I use electricity, I'm killing the nature. How ironic!

Wight wrote:iPhone. Fantastic piece of equipment, except for the provider. But Jesus Christ, Tsukatu, do you hate everything I stand for? Do you hate Pixar, and waffles, and young domestic mammals, and milk?

Pixar blows. If I want to watch ugly 3d rendered animation with bad jokes and a so-stupid-it's-not-even-funny plotline, I can just watch Jimmy Neutron.

Also, nobody here gives reasons for things.

scythe33 wrote:

Wight wrote:iPhone. Fantastic piece of equipment, except for the provider. But Jesus Christ, Tsukatu, do you hate everything I stand for? Do you hate Pixar, and waffles, and young domestic mammals, and milk?

Pixar blows. If I want to watch ugly 3d rendered animation with bad jokes and a so-stupid-it's-not-even-funny plotline, I can just watch Jimmy Neutron.

Also, nobody here gives reasons for things.

My original post was actually directed at you, too, but I forgot to mention that.

Wight wrote:Do you hate Pixar, and waffles, and young domestic mammals, and milk?

Actually, I'm quite a fan of all of those things.
Well, except that I usually prefer beef over young domestic animals, but I've been known to enjoy both.

Not a fan of smartphones... I find them to have slow GUIs and quirky keyboards... I had a Motorola Q and I hated it... I've used someone's Blackberry Storm and typing on it is a disaster. But thats just me.

I love iPhones. It's just something about apple. They are good at making you want their stuff. It's always the same. There are alternatives out there that do everything that iPhones do and sometimes more that are usually cheaper, but it's still not an iPhone.
Damn things are expensive though. I am looking to buy a smartphone at the moment actually. Been trying to look at some cheaper alternatives to an iPhone but the others aren't really that much cheaper.

wedgie wrote:I love iPhones. It's just something about apple. They are good at making you want their stuff. It's always the same. There are alternatives out there that do everything that iPhones do and sometimes more that are usually cheaper, but it's still not an iPhone.
Damn things are expensive though. I am looking to buy a smartphone at the moment actually. Been trying to look at some cheaper alternatives to an iPhone but the others aren't really that much cheaper.

Other alternatives? Really? If you prefer money over quality, well. :/

Tunco123 wrote:

wedgie wrote:I love iPhones. It's just something about apple. They are good at making you want their stuff. It's always the same. There are alternatives out there that do everything that iPhones do and sometimes more that are usually cheaper, but it's still not an iPhone.
Damn things are expensive though. I am looking to buy a smartphone at the moment actually. Been trying to look at some cheaper alternatives to an iPhone but the others aren't really that much cheaper.

Other alternatives? Really? If you prefer money over quality, well. :/

Sony XPERIA 2 IS THE SHIIIIT.

Tsukatu wrote:

Wight wrote:Do you hate Pixar, and waffles, and young domestic mammals, and milk?

Actually, I'm quite a fan of all of those things.

Oh. Well. Alright.

scythe wrote:If I want to watch ugly 3d rendered animation

Ugly animation? What, are you from the year 2500 come back in time to critique our primitive technology? Pixar animation is the best in the world. Currently.

Wight wrote:

Tsukatu wrote:

Wight wrote:Do you hate Pixar, and waffles, and young domestic mammals, and milk?

Actually, I'm quite a fan of all of those things.

Oh. Well. Alright.

scythe wrote:If I want to watch ugly 3d rendered animation

Ugly animation? What, are you from the year 2500 come back in time to critique our primitive technology? Pixar animation is the best in the world. Currently.

Bull. fucking. shit. Computer generated animation is just the cheapest fastest type of animation.

SlappyMcGee wrote:

Wight wrote:

scythe wrote:If I want to watch ugly 3d rendered animation

Ugly animation? What, are you from the year 2500 come back in time to critique our primitive technology? Pixar animation is the best in the world. Currently.

Bull. fucking. shit. Computer generated animation is just the cheapest fastest type of animation.

Quoted for emphasis!
I cannot fathom why people like the animation in recent Pixar movies. I hope real animation makes a comeback sometime soon.

Suki: how do you feel about the n900?

SlappyMcGee wrote:

Wight wrote:

scythe wrote:If I want to watch ugly 3d rendered animation

Ugly animation? What, are you from the year 2500 come back in time to critique our primitive technology? Pixar animation is the best in the world. Currently.

Bull. fucking. shit. Computer generated animation is just the cheapest fastest type of animation.

Yeah. My uncle has 27,000$ program which they use to create speacial effects on Hollywood movies and animations. Though, he downloaded it from a website, for free. P.S. He is a hacker.

Think again, fuckers. Who thinks pixar animation is the best.

scythe33 wrote:I cannot fathom why people like the animation in recent Pixar movies. I hope real animation makes a comeback sometime soon.

>_>
Cuz it looks pretty?

scythe33 wrote:Suki: how do you feel about the n900?

'fraid I don't feel about the n900, since you having said it just now is the first time I've ever heard of it.

SlappyMcGee wrote:Bull. fucking. shit. Computer generated animation is just the cheapest fastest type of animation.

Being easy and cheap to do doesn't make it necessarily bad. It looks great.

Tsukatu wrote:

scythe33 wrote:Suki: how do you feel about the n900?

'fraid I don't feel about the n900, since you having said it just now is the first time I've ever heard of it.

http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
It's in serious need of a "look at this fucking phone" extreme advertising picture.

scythe33 wrote:

Tsukatu wrote:

scythe33 wrote:Suki: how do you feel about the n900?

'fraid I don't feel about the n900, since you having said it just now is the first time I've ever heard of it.

http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
It's in serious need of a "look at this fucking phone" extreme advertising picture.

Upon closer inspection... holy shit. It's Debian-based, but gives you root if you want it (major fucking bonus points over Google), and it comes with shiny things that HTC is still having issues with, namely Flash support and a high-quality camera. Little things like the external audio jack (something HTC mysteriously decided you need an attachment for) are a definite plus, to boot. I'd have to see what their app market is like, but honestly, I'm considering something in this line for my next phone unless Google surprises me.

But why does nobody ever include support for OGG or FLAC playback? It's really not that hard, people. They're open-fuggin-source. If you're willing to jump through the necessary hoops for mp3, mp4, and wma playback, ogg and flac would be a breath of fresh air.


EDIT:
*spits out coffee*
Six-hundred-fifty fucking dollars!?
Fuck that. My HTC Dream is more than good enough for the price.

I have a sony ericsson. And i love it.

If i didnt, i would vote iphone, since i have an ipod touch. Which is basically an iphone but lighter and for 1/8th the price.