[Q] Andoid without a carrier? - General Questions and Answers

I haven't found any discussion about using Android devices without a phone carrier at all, is this possible or must the device be activaed on a carrier before it does anything at all? What I'm thinking of is basically the Android equivalent of the iPod Touch. It's still a smart device, still does wifi, still runs all those apps, but there's no phone service at all. More than blocking data plan that I have seen discussed, I want no voice plan either.
I know that some people think it's stupid enough to want a smartphone with no data plan on a carrier, you guys will probably think I'm retarded to want to leave out voice service as well. Well, I'd use it as a phone if I didn't have to pay for data plans and stick to wifi, as those other discussions want to do, but now that the monthly fee is absolutely mandatory on my carrier, well, I'm just not willing to pay that much. I've thought about buying an iPod Touch to compliment my dumb phone, but I'd rather have the Android equivalent so I'm not limited to apps approved by Apple.
I suppose some might say the Phillips GoGear Connect is what I should get, but I'll be annoying and say I want a front facing camera so maybe Evo 4G with no carrier service is even better so I can video skype with it. Would the Evo 4G work for me, or is it a useless zombie util it's activated on a cell carrier? What about other smartphone devices, do they all work or all not work?

Well you can buy uncontracted devices like I have and there are also plenty of tablet android devices that dont come with a plan. as for actual phone devices most of them come with a plan because its presumed that you will use it to make calls. Thats where tablets come in, usually contract free (Galaxy Tab exception) and allow for full use of the device using WiFi or another connection source.

Captainkrtek said:
Well you can buy uncontracted devices like I have and there are also plenty of tablet android devices that dont come with a plan. as for actual phone devices most of them come with a plan because its presumed that you will use it to make calls. Thats where tablets come in, usually contract free (Galaxy Tab exception) and allow for full use of the device using WiFi or another connection source.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My only problem with tablets is they are too big. I want something phone sized or iPod Touch sized. (which is about the size of a phone)

As long as the device is running 2.0+ (I think) , you won't need it tied to a carrier to use it. You can do it with older FW too but it would need a data plan so you can sign in and get to the home screen and use it. Newer FW, you can activate wifi during setup so you can log in to your gmail account.
Once logged in, you can use it like a iPod touch, download from the market, etc.
I have a Captivate, Incredible, and a Fascinate that I've been able to use while not hooked up to a carrier. I've even had a G1 without a carrier. Just had to borrow a friends SIM to log in to my gmail for activation but then works after that without it.

Did this with my HD2 running Android
So I'm an adventurous 19 year old guy living on Maui in Hawaii. I'm also a sponsored almost professional scooter rider. So I look up behind me and what do I see? a 10,023 foot tall volcano called Haleakala. So I was looking around for something to do and saw my scooter. The nearest skatepark is too damn far so I hiked 13 miles up this volcano all the way to the summit at 10,023 feet and took pictures then bombed down the perfectly smooth paved rode 28 miles to the bottom at about 45 miles an hour on my kick scooter.
Blah blah blah, anyways...
I jumped over a nice dip in the rode and my HD2 which was just bought the day before flew out of my pocket at about 25 miles an hour and hite the ground once on the corner then flew off in to the grass. I found the battery, cover and phone itself after about 30 minutes of looking. The screen was good besides a few deep scratches and a nice sized dent in the battery cover. The plastic of the phone was pretty scratched as well.
Mad? Nahh not at all. I was looking for a reason to get a new phone already after 24 hours and this gave me a good reason to go get that sexy looking G2 I saw...
So Now I am happy with my G2 and also use my HD2 as my mobile computer with the Ubuntu and android OS on it. Ubuntu is for word processing since I am a writer. Android is for my camera and music and games. It works out amazing and I love the look of peoples faces when im messing around with two phones on the bus...
Go for it. You wont be dissappointed and it beats the IPOD touch hands down. Sorry I capitalized ipod, it didnt deserve it...

Now that's a story! You better take care of your G2, did you sell your HD2?

Related

Tilt or iPhone?

I am in the market for a new phone(we are switching from Sprint to AT&T) mainly because of dropped calls and no service in many areas with Sprint. I have decided I am either getting the AT&T Tilt or the Apple iPhone. I will explain my usage habits and hopefully you readers can help me decide which one would be best for me.
I am a commuting college student who works part time. The degree I'm working on is in Computer Science. I get wi-fi access at work, school, and home. I still live with my parents and have two jobs. I am contributing 30% of one of my jobs' paychecks to a 401k and am about to make a large one-time investment into a Roth IRA for retirement. I have a good bit of time imbetween classes and it would be nice to have something to do either for fun or productivity. I will be getting $5/mo phone insurance with whichever phone I get. Another plus would be an easy-to-use calendar so I can get rid of my paper calendar. Using the T9 texting method to enter things into my current phone for the calendar function is just too tedious, so I don't even use it.
Apple iPhone:
-Nice touch screen interface
-Very intuitive and easy-to-use
-Good battery life
-Internet access should be easier to use than with tilt due to interface
-App store makes finding new applications much easier
-Can use one-handed
-Multi-touch technology
-Ambient light and proximity sensors
-It would be nice to have something in my life that "just works" without hours of tweaking
-Required to pay $30/mo for a data plan
-Phone Cost $200, Data plan $30/mo*2 yrs=$720, Final cost 2 yrs $920
AT&T Tilt:
-External keyboard
-Could take notes in class with Microsoft Office and an external bluetooth keyboard(wouldn't have to lug around my laptop or as many spiral notebooks)
-Okay battery life
-Could use wifi and not have to pay $30/mo for internet access
-Can take videos
-Many complain it's more of a two-handed phone
-Sucks at playing videos or gps navigation due to driver issue htc will not fix
-Takes time to learn to use
-If purchased, I would not get a data plan, although it would be nice to have internet anywhere, it's not necessary
-Phone cost $150(refurb) $300(new), Final cost 2 yrs $150, if there's a problem because it's refurbished after 3 months, $125 extra(insurance deductible)
Both have:
-Phone
-Music device
-Accelerometer
-Slide to unlock(could be downloaded for Tilt)
Other points:
-I know it may be going out on a limb saying this, but the iPhone is going to cost me $645-$770 more in the 2 years that I'd have a contract for it. Internet access anywhere would be nice, though(especially on vacation, long drives, and waiting).
-The refurbished tilt is currently "temorarily out of stock." I think it'll probably come back in though. If not, it'd cost me $300, making the iPhone $495-$620 more over the 2 years I'd have it under contract.
I know all of my information is a bit strown about, but which phone do you guys suggest I purchase and why?
Tilt. Because.
i don't think the tilt has an accelorometer... never had or played with a tilt, but i'm pretty sure it doesn't
I have been contemplating getting an I-phone because the newer version is very nice and since you only pay $30 for internet, I would interchange the sims and use the internet on my tilt. The tilt does ahve video but it usually sucks along with the camera unless you have the ideal lighting... The I-phone is limited in what is does such as taking pictures and sendign it to friends. Your friends have to log online just to see your photos. It's pretty sad... However even though the I-phone is limited, what it does do; it does very well. The MS office suite is very nice and has helped me out numerous times during college as well as the WiFi. So my bottom line answer is this. If you want to use it for work, business, college then I would go with the Tilt or even a newer version such as the diamond and use a different Rom. For fun I would go with the I-Phone. The downside is that you cannot change roms though. It is almost like getting a new phone everytime you put a new rom onto your Tilt which is still not utalizing all the drivers at this time. Thanks to the hard working people in in these forums, that is close to being changed. I hope this helped.
tilt...
only cause its the balls!
With the iPhone, what you see is what you get. It works very well, but everything comes from Apple.
The Tilt can do virtually anything. It may get buggy sometimes, but pretty much, if you can think it, you can do it.
honestly?
iphone.
tilt's old.
now if you ask "diamond or iphone", you know my answer.
Thanks for the insight guys. I decided to go ahead and get the iPhone simply because it'd be nice to have something that "just works," not to mention I don't have the time to mod it the way I want it. After running several linux servers and desktops, some of you may see where I come from(where nothing ever works like it should!). I ordered the iPhone from the AT&T store(business account, can't use apple store) and they said they'll email me when it arrives in 7-10 days.
It would have been nice to be able to get a wireless keyboard and type notes on my phone like I could have with the Tilt, but I think for a phone the iPhone fits my needs better. If I had the time, though, I'd get the Tilt in an instant. I'll probably be buying an Asus EEE for note typing so I don't have to carry my 15" laptop or a bunch of notebooks around all day.
This reply might be a bit late ... but ... what about the Touch Pro?
never heard of the touch pro until you just said something about it.. too expensive anyway though since it won't be subsidized by the cell carrier for a service contract

tp vs iphone 3g trade question

my friend wants to trade his iphone 3g 16gb for my tp. both of ours have been used within the week... should i? and even if i do, are the prices equal? i dont know much about the iphone prices :/ can anyone help please? thanks.
auriken said:
my friend wants to trade his iphone 3g 16gb for my tp. both of ours have been used within the week... should i? and even if i do, are the prices equal? i dont know much about the iphone prices :/ can anyone help please? thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
In my opinion with HTC releasing the Touch HD just around the corner, the TP will be outdated and the prices will take a hit. As for the 3g iPhone, it is still the phone to beat especially with all the apps that are being released for it lately plus I dont see a price drop coming within the near future on the blackmarket for these devices since the only other way to get one is thru ATT and a ridiculous plan and 2 year contract.
My $0.02
Cheers!
and the fact that the iphone is overhyped.
meaning, even the stores had plenty of them in storage but they where only to be sold a few on a day (creating a hype).
if you write a problems over the iphone, most of the time you get sabered down by iphone lovers.
iphone is not sold for tweakers.
ppc is tweakable, and you can write down youre problem if you find any.
not that i am trying to put the iphone in corner.
i don`t own one.
and i like the looks, and how fast it works (tried it in the store).
i guess you have to find out yourself.
maybe try to swap with youre friend for a week for testing.
ooh and did i mentioned that i like it that wm isent the only phone OS on the market.
i welcome the idea of google`s android operating system.
thank you guys for your input. anyone else?
The the iPhone 3G is approx $6-700, the TP is about $900.
But over a 2 year contract, the iPhone will probably retain its value better than the TP (namely because Apple releases only one phone a year, while HTC is continually making better and better products).
Of course it also depends on if both are unlocked; if you're forced to use AT&T (or if you really need US 3G) then there's no clear winner since you'll end up paying a lot more for the plan itself.
Otherwise I would say the biggest consideration is what kind of smartphone user you think you are. If you have no problems with using iTunes and Apple's walled garden called the App Store, then the iPhone is a fair choice. But if you're a DIYer and have no problems copying files and making some registry edits, you'll find WinMo much more empowering.
Of course you should definitely also consider your warranty, insurance and replacement options. What will you have to do to get the 3G replaced versus the TP? Etc.
If you want a no-nonsense opinion, I'd say stick with the TP. We're only getting started here at XDA, and the TP has nowhere to go but up in terms of its software. The bulk of what the iPhone has to offer is already on the table, and will probably slow down once developers jump ship to Android. But that's only my opinion
i own both, what do u basically use your phone for? for a normal phone, iphone is great, top of everything, and for multimedia, it's still the phone to beat. and like said, it's fast, and very fast, Apple doesn't need to tell how it works, but watching movie is very pleasant compared to TP, despite the latter has more resolution to the screen.
anyway, if you really need a WM device, stay with TP, and like said before, it's tweakable, whereas the most you can do with iphone is jailbreaking to let other cracked 3rd party applications and games to be applicable on your iphone. not a straight through way to install anything you want.
I hate IPhone, apart from a massive screen & some eye-catching animation it has nothing else to offer and cummon, if u talk about speed, I have tried both IPhone & TP over 16mg Wifi and they both load a page almost within in same time.
How can you even call IPhone a smart phone??? It doesn't even have the basic functionality that a mediocre s60 has...

Why ‘o’ why will they not learn

After owning HTC phones now for over 3 years, when will HTC start listening to people on forums like this one and htcpedia.com, then start making phones with the features that we are asking & waiting for. And just as important when will they start making accessories for these phones. Now owning a Touch HD for over a year I was looking at getting the new HD2, but it appears the mini usb port still does not support music or porting video through it (this is also true on the Touch HD yes I was disappointed when I found out). I would also like to have a built in FM transmitter. I think HTC are missing out on a great future for their phones.
Jez
P.S come on HTC sit up and take notice.
Contact HTC, if there are enough requests, they'll perhaps listen to you. Better than crying here .
Livven said:
Contact HTC, if there are enough requests, they'll perhaps listen to you. Better than crying here .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hello Livven
Not crying just disappointed with HTC and thinking maybe it’s time to change, to a phone producer that is listening ,it appears that’s exactly what apple are doing. Been in touch with HTC direct about a month after I got the Touch HD asking them to include certain things on the next model and a year later the HD2 was launched which appears to be a big screen HD with no more capabilities.
Cheers jez
I got tired of HTC's short-sightedness and bought an iPhone. It's a nice phone but it doesn't have nearly the feature set of a WinMo phone and Apple is a total pain in the ass. I'm still not thrilled about HTC so I just bought the LG Expo and, as I write this, I'm boxing it up to return it to AT&T. The hardware specs look pretty good but there are just too many things wrong with this phone that can't be overlooked. To start with, the UI is just awful. The bland, painful Microsoft stock UI is actually easier to deal with, in my opinion. It takes a dozen taps to do almost anything and you really need a stylus to get anything done. Which leads to problem #2...the stylus. It's like a little tube of lipstick which also means it's not attached to the phone. I wonder how many days would take before it got lost? You can attach it via a little string but it's beyond stupid that this got past QA. Then there's the GPS. It comes with AT&T's GPS app but I have my own that I've used for quite some over on a variety of phones without a problem. It will not recognize the GPS in the Expo, however, and therefore won't work. Strike three, you're outta here. So as I mentioned, I'm boxing it up and taking it back either for a refund or, if they'll do it, a trade for the Tilt 2 or something from...sigh....HTC. Despite some of the dumb things they do on occasion, HTC is still the best WinMo phone manufacturer I know of.
Hello markgamber
I know where you are coming from I had the Samsung Omnia last year for a month and sent it back because it was crap, it had the same idea for the stylus as well, a piece of string to attach it to the phone. Maybe Iphone is not the way to go then. It’s I’m getting politely frustrated with spending a small fortune on phones that do only half of what I want it to do. That’s the thing, these manufactures forget these phones aren’t cheap to us, it just seems to me they are thick and they think they know what we want . I know what I want on my phone
1. winmo
2. gps for satnav
3. fm transmitter
4. tv out.
5. usb port to play music through using a docking station
6. 3.5mm headphone socket
7. a 5+ meg pixel camera that actually works
8. gprs thats is quicker than the old 56k dial up
And so the storey goes on. Hopefully someone from HTC will read our thoughts and do something about it for the next model. If they do read these comments email me HTC and I will let you know what we want from our £500 phones. Bloody hell more money for a phone than a high spec laptop
markgamber said:
I got tired of HTC's short-sightedness and bought an iPhone. It's a nice phone but it doesn't have nearly the feature set of a WinMo phone and Apple is a total pain in the ass. I'm still not thrilled about HTC so I just bought the LG Expo and, as I write this, I'm boxing it up to return it to AT&T. The hardware specs look pretty good but there are just too many things wrong with this phone that can't be overlooked. To start with, the UI is just awful. The bland, painful Microsoft stock UI is actually easier to deal with, in my opinion. It takes a dozen taps to do almost anything and you really need a stylus to get anything done. Which leads to problem #2...the stylus. It's like a little tube of lipstick which also means it's not attached to the phone. I wonder how many days would take before it got lost? You can attach it via a little string but it's beyond stupid that this got past QA. Then there's the GPS. It comes with AT&T's GPS app but I have my own that I've used for quite some over on a variety of phones without a problem. It will not recognize the GPS in the Expo, however, and therefore won't work. Strike three, you're outta here. So as I mentioned, I'm boxing it up and taking it back either for a refund or, if they'll do it, a trade for the Tilt 2 or something from...sigh....HTC. Despite some of the dumb things they do on occasion, HTC is still the best WinMo phone manufacturer I know of.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
hi Mark
I hear your frustration about the eXpo....I bought a IQ from Telus (the Canadian version of the eXpo) and really didn't like the UI AT FIRST. But the phone has really grown on me. Maybe you should consider keeping it for a couple of weeks, and then giving it back if you still want to.
1) I now find I am figuring out the UI and I am starting to like it. Using Throttle Launcher(free) or Spd Shell($) are both options that are very similar to the TF3D or Sence UI if you really find you want to abandon the S Class UI but I would say try it for a week or two and you may like it...there are things you can do faster than TF3D as well as slower.
2) The stylus situation really sucks. No argument. I have found that after I set my phone up, I can get by without one especially when you figure out how to use the optical mouse functions.
3) GPS I am on Telus, so maybe AT&T has screwed you, but my Garmin Mobile XT software works just fine on my Telus phone. I did have to play a bit though. I installed the Garmin software, and it couldn't find the GPS. I then went into the windows settings, and set up the phone to use COM port 4, and then went into the Garmin setup and selected COM4. STILL no joy. But I then changed the Windows setting back to controlled by windows, and the Garmin software found a "GPS Intermediate Driver". Works great! Locks FAST, and no lag like when I used the Garmin Mobile XT on my Touch Pro.
I have installed Opera Beta 2U, and it with the HSPDA data and the snapdragon it is simply is the best mobile internet experience I have ever used or seen.
Good luck with you Phone hunting,
Hi jez.stix
I have a similar list to you...I got a Telus IQ (Its a Canadian eXpo)
How the IQ compares to your list:
1. winmo
YUP 6.5 (21868)
2. gps for satnav YUP - but check into this (See above ATT may have locked to there software)
3. fm transmitter YUP....sorry! Read this as receiver, Has a FM receiver but no transmitter to go to your car stereo..
4. tv out. YUP
5. usb port to play music through using a docking station ...not sure what you mean here..if you mean like all the docking stuff they sell at Walmart for IPhones..NOPE..of course it has a USB connection.
6. 3.5mm headphone socket NOPE
7. a 5+ meg pixel camera that actually works YUP..works quite well with flash
8. gprs thats is quicker than the old 56k dial up YUP OH YAH BIG TIME
The real down side is that it is not a HTC unit so XDA won't support it the way they do a HTC product. I decided I could live with that but that was the hardest pill to swallow. The build quallity is heads and shoulders above my old HTC Touch Pro
good luck in finding your dream phone.
jez.stix said:
Hello markgamber
I know where you are coming from I had the Samsung Omnia last year for a month and sent it back because it was crap, it had the same idea for the stylus as well, a piece of string to attach it to the phone. Maybe Iphone is not the way to go then. It’s I’m getting politely frustrated with spending a small fortune on phones that do only half of what I want it to do. That’s the thing, these manufactures forget these phones aren’t cheap to us, it just seems to me they are thick and they think they know what we want . I know what I want on my phone
1. winmo
2. gps for satnav
3. fm transmitter
4. tv out.
5. usb port to play music through using a docking station
6. 3.5mm headphone socket
7. a 5+ meg pixel camera that actually works
8. gprs thats is quicker than the old 56k dial up
And so the storey goes on. Hopefully someone from HTC will read our thoughts and do something about it for the next model. If they do read these comments email me HTC and I will let you know what we want from our £500 phones. Bloody hell more money for a phone than a high spec laptop
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The iPhone is actually pretty nice, I just had a couple technical problems with it and, being a dev, I grew really tired of Apple dictating what I can and can't do with my phone and my apps. The most notable thing about the iPhone is that it's fast. When you start a program, it's up and running in short order and stays fast unless it has to do something really intensive or relies on a slow network connection. This being opposed to WinMo where it can sometimes take forever to do anything. This is, of course, because the iPhone doesn't do much real multitasking but if that's not an issue, then the iPhone probably warrants a look. Another problem I had was that most of the world uses WMV/WMA for streaming audio and video and the iPhone not only doesn't support it, Apple has stated that it won't approve anything that does support it. Sometimes you can get around that using Orb but not always and that leads to the third big problem I had with the iPhone, Apple's little tinpot dictator attitude. I've been using Slingplayer for years on WinMo phones and yes, AT&T says you can't use it but the practical side is that as long as you're not an a-hole about it, they don't really care. The bottom line is that I can make the choice about whether or not I want to use it. iPhone's Slingplayer simply doesn't have the option to work over 3G. In fact, the only app of that kind which did was Orb and, as I hear it, Orb Networks just removed it on orders from AT&T and Apple. Technically yes, you can jailbreak the iPhone, install a hack that fools programs into thinking 3G is wifi and those various programs work, but it's a hack and not something you can count on working with the next system update since Apple is working hard to prevent those kinds of hacks from working. Plus they're starting to be exploited by hackers of a less than friendly nature. The iPhone also didn't support what I considered some basic functionality such as cut/copy/paste, MMS and bluetooth audio, for quite some time. When Apple finally decided to include that functionality, they acted as though they invented it. That continues today with the lack of quite a bit of multimedia types, refusal to allow Flash or any browser other than Safari, any kind of advanced bluetooth functionality, multitasking and so on. Again, if you don't care about any of the above, you should probably take a look at the iPhone if only for comparison. It's also *VERY* finger friendly, much moreso than WinMo, and you don't like having to wield a stylus at all, I'd definitely take a look at the iPhone.
I don't know why these WinMo companies are so slow to adopt things that seem like basic functionality to many users but they do improve their products, albiet slowly at times, and they're still a magnitude better than the competition, in my opinion. The HTC Titan sold by Sprint was, without a doubt, the worse piece of garbage I ever owned. HTC actually had the balls to put a measly 128mb of ram in there, put WinMo 6 on it and then let Sprint add all it's worthless slop to it. The bottom line was that it took half a day to boot and when it was finally done, it left somewhere between 8 and 12mb free...not even enough to run Slingplayer. Sprint charged $600 for that chunk of s*it and when I raised hell about it, Sprint not only refused to take it back, they wouldn't even cut me a break on what I had to buy to replace it. That's why I'm now with AT&T. So HTC (and other companies) do improve their products. One valuable thing about the Titan was that I learned to buy a phone for what it can do, not what it's capable of doing.
That's my main problem with the Expo and why I returned it. On paper it's a nice phone and there's a lot of potential in the hardware that is either unrealized or lost in the mess LG slapped together. Hopefully LG improves the system over time but right now it's pretty awful, in my opinion, and no update will ever help that poorly implemented stylus and, most likely, the poor battery life.
htc response
thanks for your email. You are correct, The HD and HD2 do not have TV out. Only the Touch PR line of devices has TV out for using with presentations and the like. The TV Out function was not highly requested in the market research that we did, so we concentrated on what the request were mostly for...larger screen, multitouch, standard 3.5mm jack etc. TV out was very far down on the list of wanted features. As for the music abilities, the only thing i know of that was removed on the HD2 was the remote control. This has returned on the HD2 as we needed to develop one that worked with the standard 3.5 jack that the majority of our customers wanted. This was the only thing removed from the HD. We think we must be doing something right as we are selling more handsets than ever, and winning lots of awards for our handsets as well. However, obviously you cannot please everyone, and if we have failed to meet your needs then i apologise, and hope that whatever device you choose, whether it be one of ours or not, i hope that you will be happy with it and it is everything you want. Best regards, Pete W HTC
I once contacted HTC about their lack of attention to this site.
The response i got made a lot of sense sadly.
Because of all the ROMs made on here and all the software that we reverse engineer from them and others, they cannot associate themselves with us at all due to illegality.
But still, this being the case, I think they could still use this site as a good place to do market research upon. Just because xda-devs is the largest collection of winmo users in one place that I know of, it seems to be the perfect place for them to go to see what their end users want.
I am a designer myself and it seems stupid to ignore the biggest resource of research and ideas.

Why cant they just make us a phone with all of the feachers we want?

is it that hard to give us a stable OS? a fast cpu and ram and more ram? good touch screen (i like the way the iphone screen worked). an accelerometer w/ g-sensor (that is unlocked to apps (again iphone got this right, whats wrong lg?? come on!!) wifi, gps, a normal usb (mini or micro), & at least 1gig internal mem and a micro st slot, and let me multitask all of my apps at the same time, i dont want to quit a game so i can look up something on the internet or take a call, that why we have task managers, to manage tasks.
and make it affordable!!
and don't limit the apps like apple (thank god for cydia)
and come on at&t quit filling up the memory with things i will never use, let me do that.
oh yeah, and dont forget to allow me to view flash web pages, and not just youtube. i use wixi.com, but the mobile version sucks. and Orb Live. i want to access all of my media form home for free (w/data plan)
sorry about the rant, but maybe with a lot of luck someone with some pull will stumble across this and will create a great phone.
by the way windows sucks, sorry to say it but anyone who expected windows to make a good mobile OS must have been high, when is the last time windows got it right?? never they have been playing catch up to apple forever. They should call there next os "Windows Crash" and "WMCrash" because thats all my computer and phone do is "crash"
would it be against copyright laws to take an iphone 3gs setup, add a full QWERTY keyboard (slide out or flip) change the OS to Android, slightly change the look and button layout and market it as a new phone?
Make us a great phone and put it on At&t!!
jw_mahoney81 said:
is it that hard to give us a stable OS? a fast cpu and ram and more ram? good touch screen (i like the way the iphone screen worked). an accelerometer w/ g-sensor (that is unlocked to apps (again iphone got this right, whats wrong lg?? come on!!) wifi, gps, a normal usb (mini or micro), & at least 1gig internal mem and a micro st slot, and let me multitask all of my apps at the same time, i dont want to quit a game so i can look up something on the internet or take a call, that why we have task managers, to manage tasks.
and make it affordable!!
and don't limit the apps like apple (thank god for cydia)
and come on at&t quit filling up the memory with things i will never use, let me do that.
oh yeah, and dont forget to allow me to view flash web pages, and not just youtube. i use wixi.com, but the mobile version sucks. and Orb Live. i want to access all of my media form home for free (w/data plan)
sorry about the rant, but maybe with a lot of luck someone with some pull will stumble across this and will create a great phone.
by the way windows sucks, sorry to say it but anyone who expected windows to make a good mobile OS must have been high, when is the last time windows got it right?? never they have been playing catch up to apple forever. They should call there next os "Windows Crash" and "WMCrash" because thats all my computer and phone do is "crash"
would it be against copyright laws to take an iphone 3gs setup, add a full QWERTY keyboard (slide out or flip) change the OS to Android, slightly change the look and button layout and market it as a new phone?
Make us a great phone and put it on At&t!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why not put your questions to htc direct?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=683957
Who is we ? " We " all need different things from our phone. And " we " all don't want to pay $1000 for a phone with super everything.
" ...and make it affordable ?......" That is like saying ..." hey car companies, why can't you make a car that goes 200 mph, runs on electricity, gets a thousand hours per charge, made from all titanium , works totally on voice commands , oh yeah and it has to be affordable, about 15K. "
Why doesn't HTC make a phone like that ? It would be obnoxiously expensive to put all that technology into one phone, unless they put a super new battery in it, the current batteries will never run all those features. And no one wants to pay for what it would cost to sell a phone like that.
Like cars, you pick out the features you want, find a phone that has most of those features at a price you can afford, and then spend the next year whining about all the things your phone can't do.
ATT will never get anything good in fear it would compete with the iPhone. To make a phone with all those features, would cost a fortune and some stuff isn't for everyone. That's why we have "affordable" smartphones like the Smart, Wildfire, Tattoo, etc and more extravagant phones like the HD2, Nexus, Desire, etc.
because if this does happen, companies can't make more cell phones sell because the one cellphone has everything YOU need.... and everyone's needs are different, like how I don't like the HTC HD2's large screen...
denco7: I would never pay $1000 for a phone. I wont even pay $150 for a phone with a 2 year contract. even if it had every thing. yes i understand that a lot of work goes in to making these phone but its not like the people making the phone get the big bucks. they get there regular pay check. and with technology today parts are cheap. like to replace the screen on my old iphone it cost me $20 on ebay, so that means it probable cost less than $5 to make if not less. it probable cost less than $25 in parts to make an iphone, plus the $8 per hour it cost to employ someone to watch the computer do all of the work.
and i expect a smart phone to do everything i want it to do hardware wise, now i understand that i might have to buy apps to use all the fetchers, but i dont want to be limited especially if the phone has the hardware but its locked so that you cant use it for other functions. like the lg expo. why put a g-sensor in a phone and not allow it to be used to the fullest extent? all its good for is rotating the screen, now thats dumb.
why should i have to pick a lesser phone and choose what options are more impotent than others when picking a phone?? just give them all to me and if i dont want to use them then i dont use them.
I used every feather on my iphone 3g. I use the sh!t out of my phones, and i expect them to run fast. the biggest thing i didnt like about the stock os on the iphone was it didnt multi-task but i found a fix to that (backgrounder & multifl0w)
most of the problems with phones is that they limit the hardware with the OS. and thats just dumb.
I find it funny how everyone says this would be too "expensive." Everything OP named is what "smartphones" SHOULD be at right now.
1gb ram is MAYBE 20 dollars... for buyers! (I agree, cell phone RAM would probably be more expensive.)
1gb internal storage? Again, they have cheap mp3 players the size of a nickel with this for 5 dollars. That would be NOTHING.
iPhone (well, i use iPod touch) does have an actually nice touchscreen - again which is actually already on the market. However, I'll limit Apple to my iPod touch. iPhone isn't touching ANY Android phone. =]
A hardware keyboard should be a "duh." I have a myTouch, and love it. However, I feel buyers remorse often because I just didn't get a keyboard. However, it doesn't add 400 dollars just for a hard keyboard.
Flash is on its way - which has nothing to do with the hardware.
I have to say, OP is right. Smartphones are really lacking what they're actually capable of. And, with a service plan, price might be like 300 dollars (if the manufacturer wasn't money hungry). I'd pay 300 dollars for a phone like that with a service plan. I'd pay 800 to a grand for one with no service plan. Why? Have any of you looked at the price of that p.o.s. iPad? I could go buy a laptop 2x better than the iPad WITH TOUCHSCREEN for the amount of a 64 gb (which is NOTHING) iPad. Probably 5 times better for one without touchscreen.
Of course, this is just my opinion. Also, I have to admit, they are advancing faster and faster. Even with the possibility that they could exist now... I see them actually existing VERY soon.
Edit: As PurpleLlamaLover said, though, I dount AT&T will ever get a phone better than the iPhone because A. It's not like it would even be noticed and B. What he said, they don't want to compete with it. Especially if its cheaper. Which it probably would be.
Actual cost of an iPhone
http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/i...ufacturing-Cost-iSuppli-Teardown-Reveals.aspx
Actual cost of Steve Jobs' G5........$45 to $70 million
http://www.gulfstream.com/products/g550/
while there is room for growth on the smartphones, there are great things to be said about alot of the same phones. every user has different needs and wants and i would find it difficult to try and predict what would satisfy every consumer. the list of desirables outlined by jw_mahoney81 pretty much describe my tp2 and hd2. i still dont understand why windows devices crash. i have however heard that technology is only as good as the user.
LOL you did not just spell features like teachers with an f!
Anyway, implausible.

How far is too far?

So I have just spent the last 24 hours taking my HTC One M8 from Windows 8 Mobile all the way to the current release of Windows 10 Mobile (10.0.15254.582), and I learned a lot of cool things.
https://ibb.co/cF3P0pd
https://ibb.co/x1v4ygc
First: Windows mobile was doomed from the start, lack of developer support is clearly evident across the different releases and I can see why it never took off, this could have been great but even facebook tells me to use the mobile website how am i supposed to get my alerts from my random groups?
Second: This was a pain to do, Regedits out the wazoo, having to take all the knowledge everyone has posted and then applying it, literally just copy and pasted numbers of legitimate Nokia Lumia 950 to make it think it was a legit phone then taking the updates slowly so i dont break the damn thing since windows has an issue everything someone deletes the sys32 folder.
Third: HTC, Yall make a damn good phone if it can go all they way to the latest release and not break a sweat, then someone clearly did something right to allow this phone to last this long. (against its will)
Fourth: Profit? (probably not this took way too long and i am not writing a guide on how to do this)
I mean this device is still a pile of crap but I have discord (limited functions but eh) crunchyroll all sorts of other 3rd party out of necessity apps that cover from Facebook to YouTube, this platform could have been sooooo much more but since nobody developed for it and it died.
So my question is who else has shoved their m8 to the limit of what this OS has before Microsoft kills it?
I cant be the only one to have thought wouldn't it be great if maybe it was more use than a door stop?
Also can someone give me a functioning .apx for Opera Mini, (and possibly a walk-through) Fricking Edge is a POS.
Short story long, this weekend was supposed to be me taking the Android M8 and making it my backup phone by replacing the rom with one from linage i already had looked at and read how to, but the amazon seller I purchased it from sent me a windows version, but i already bought one to play with or turn into a overgrown hotspot since my lte ipad mini (gen 1) is a pile of crap (i have a 2018 ipad that is wifi only and i like my manga on a screen bigger than 5 inches), I am a semi driver and im gone 5 weeks then come home for 1 week, he screwed the pooch and now i have 2 windows phones so i needed a backup phone if my nice Pixel 3 was to get damaged and be NFG, so i went through all this to just get a phone that will work and have some entertainment value and well i think it could be a contender for my backup phone. So now i bought a M8 thats android but it hasnt arrived yet to my only choice was to work with the turd i have and make it shine a bit brighter. Anyway i have my m8 reg modded to allow tethering i have my ipad data only plan working flawlessly on the m8 even the website says its an m8 but isnt making me change plans, a spare sim so i can call in to get my number put on it since the store is a no go in 18 wheels of steel, it works and it works good for something it was never meant to do.
If anyone has questions i probably am the worst person to ask but hey maybe i can help (probably not but eh).

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