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Tell us your stories/reviews about your device

I think mobile computing got a kick in the ass witht he release of the Apple iPhone. Microsoft and Palm beat Apple to the punch but Apple made it a lot easier and more friendly to use. if you would like to comment on any funny, sad, or a review of your device, post them here.
i will get the ball rolling... I own a Windows Mobile 5.0 powered device that i purchased back in december 2007 as a christmas present to myself. i won my device at auction in spite of the condition it was in. the mic is broken so i have to use my bluetooth earpiece to make phone calls. the device itself was in ok shape (i added some more body damage to it. but nothing major). i was always skeptical about smartphones and such. i test drive the iphone and liked it but expensive. the phone i currently use was not expensive at all (again with its defects). i overlooked all those and saw the potential my phone had. it is an ETEN G500 in case any readers were wondering. Being in college, my phone made my life a lot easier and being connected everywhere made me rethink my position and now i am all about my phone. Since it is GPS enabled with one of the best chipsets out on the market (SirfStarIII), i can go anywhere i want. it blew me away after i got it to work with TomTom 6 software. i am late to the game with smartphones and such but i did my thorough research before i made an offer on ebay, where my phone came from. i am glad i never regretted purchasing it at all. having a device that can compete with todays devices made me take even more pride in my phone. i don't care if it is bulkier and heavier. for my phone being relatively old since it is an '05/'06 phone. it is far from being obsolete by my standards. once i get enough money together i will upgrade to a better one, but for now, my phone i konw will last me another few years at least.
one success story i would like to share. i was with a friend and he needed some books to help him with a paper for a class. we were in borders store and he bought the first book ($20) b/c of the amount of info it had. the second book he was gonna buy had some info (a lot nonetheless) that was missing from the first book he bought. So he took my phone and typed all the info he needed in Word Mobile. After he was done, i sent it to him through e-mail on the spot and he was able to retreive it and open the document with no problems at all. i saved him $30 (which what the price of the second book) and helped him get a good grade on his paper.
there you have it. i maybe just obsessive with my phone, but i feel like with situations like this, my phone came in handy. i am a technology fanboy, not a microsoft, and not an apple fanboy. But, having a pocket pc/phone powered by microsoft certainly helps a lot especially in a school setting.
Tell me about your stories!

I use my device as a flashlight almost everyday thanks to VJCandela. It also does everything I need and if it doesn't I just have to install some software and it will. It's highly customizable, allows for countless mods and not anyone has one.
With affordable data plans coming to Canada there will be even more features unlocked on my phone like instant Wikipedia access, on-the-go blogging...
Unlike the almost obsolete PalmOS, Windows Mobile is here to stay.

[Q] Is this normal?

I don't know what the heck is going on, but I don't this is is normal. People are buying an excellent device and far from enjoying it, they spend all the time trying to find a defect, whatever it may. It sounds to me like mass hysteria fueled by unrealistically high expectations and highly polarized opinions and advices from false experts.
Not only people complain about behavior that it's perfectly normal and within the acceptable parameters, but also show surprise to design issues that they should very well know way in advance before purchasing the device: no FM radio, no notification LED, no 4G bands, etc. Or about application failing under a new Version ofnthe OS.
It could be me, but it seems this is getting to a level of paroxysm that is not healthy. I don't usually agree with Steve Jobs but I have to admit he was right when he allegedly say: it's just a phone!
I risk sounding like an old man, but I'm going to go on a limb and say that XDA did not sound like that during the windows mobile days, and those devices were horrible by today's standards. What's happened?

I so agree with you I'm coming from an iphone now on the S n 4 was the shi but even that had to be tweaked so much to actually get it to its best ability n ppl still had complains, I think first of ppl who really dont know how to take a phone to its full potential or know how to find a work around for what they are missing or they are just miserable complain about the phone. I paid the full price but I did do my research n knew what I was buying. Since day one I have been happy with my S and after putting Modoca Rom n a few apps n other tweaks n widgets my phone is perfect for me. Ppl want perfect from an electronic device, contradicting to what I said but perfect isnt attainable but the S comes close. Return the phone if u want to complain about these lil issuse or do more research next time before you.
Sent from my Nexus S using XDA App

Probably something to do with the increased cost of devices and people expecting more for their money and rightly so IMO.
If I fork out premium money I expect a premium device and not one with defects.
It may well be just a phone to some but it's also many other things to many people. If I buy a sat nav I expect it to be fully functional with no defects, likewise if I buy a media player, a camera, a games machine, an internet tablet etc etc... should we not expect the same of a convergence device?

This thread has the potential to get ugly...
Short answer to your question is YES, IT'S NORMAL. Normal in that it's common across the internet, not just on the NS, but on anything (smartphones, cars, computers, etc).
Outside of the development sections of a forum like this, most people who are just happy and loving their device aren't going to come and post about it, so there's a natural negative skew on most forums dedicated to a product. People usually find the forum because they looked for someplace to talk about the problems or dissatisfaction with the device.
No opinion on whether it's healthy or not; for some it's cathartic to vent in public...

distortedloop said:
This thread has the potential to get ugly...
Short answer to your question is YES, IT'S NORMAL. Normal in that it's common across the internet, not just on the NS, but on anything (smartphones, cars, computers, etc).
Outside of the development sections of a forum like this, most people who are just happy and loving their device aren't going to come and post about it, so there's a natural negative skew on most forums dedicated to a product. People usually find the forum because they looked for someplace to talk about the problems or dissatisfaction with the device.
No opinion on whether it's healthy or not; for some it's cathartic to vent in public...
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Agreed. You have to be somewhat flexible when it comes to issues such as these. For some, spending $500 for a phone equates to months of saving, so yes, they want it to be perfect, or darn close to it. But stuff happens, and you just have to roll with the punches sometimes. If it's defective, exchange it for another one. I purchased an Asus G73 gaming Laptop (high end laptop) and had a ton pf problems with it. I exchanged it and had a problem with the replacement. I returned it and purchased an HP Envy 17 Beats Edition instead, and everything is right in the world again. It is what it is. I'm extremely happy with my Nexus S and my Hp Envy 17. Life is good.

[Q] What phone should I buy?(specific personal needs to factor in)

Hello, newb, I searched and skimmed the first couple of dozen results but didn't find what I need.
I'll try and keep the background to my request brief, you're not bothered about my life story, but a few bits of info are relevant to the question; I have a form of High Function Autism, one of the symptoms of which is that I have real trouble with "day to day" stuff - I can spend two days straight reading physics papers or writing short fiction, but keeping track of appointments, even remembering to do simple stuff like take a shower or put my clothes in the washing machine is a struggle. Until recently, my mum was around to remind me to do stuff and nag me when I didn't, alas she recently passed away.
So, in trying to find new coping strategies, it occurred to me that I might use an android smartphone as a personal organiser, set up in such a way as to give me daily reminders for basic things and also to manage appointments. The issue is I'm a bit lost as to what to actually buy. Are the sort of apps which would meet my needs hardware intensive? Do I have to shell out for an SGS2, or would something like an HTC Wildfire be enough?
Essentially, I'm looking for a handset which has a decent battery life, a decent screen size(I have ludicrously large hands), which can serve as a personal organiser, main phone(no point in having a landline as well), and occasional portable music player, and I don't want to overspend. I'm in the UK, and the handset would have to be available sim-free and unlocked, as I'll be going pay as you go and will likely use giffgaff.
Any recommendations or advice you can offer would be appreciated.
EDIT: Rats, I forgot to mention, being DLNA-compliant would be handy but not essential - I've no idea if that's a common feature on smartphones, as I've never actually owned one before.

Hi and welcome.
I'd recommend a large screen "making user input easier" but that doesn't mean needs to be SGSII, some great device's even though ageing are the Desire HD / Atrix / LGO2X and they can be found at a decent price.
Regarding keeping track and having formality then nearly every android device will do this with the many pieces of software available on the market, not intensive @ all either.
Device data base has allot of info regarding specification - link @ top page. "if anything is baffling feel free to PM"
Not sure DLNA has certified android phones.

[Q] Things that irritate about phones in general

Although the subject is rather troll like I hope I can do it in a non troll way.
There's a number of things that are really hacking me off about phones these days. I thought I'd have a major slam out to let off steam with the off-chance that someone might say "Ah but if you try X you can avoid that".
...some of the challenges in the mobile phone area these days...
1) Battery capacities aren't good enough as we all know. Getting through a single day is really the basics for me. Why not have hot swappable batteries? For me I expect to be able to go for 3-4 days. I don't know why... I just kind of expect that kind of efficiency.
2) Samsung Galaxy series... seems amazing but the batteries overheat, no?
3) So many people are ignorant of security to the point that most people are walking around with devices and apps that can just completely own you. Yeah there's sandboxing but it doesn't really work, it's been sidestepped. The iPhone just hides what's going on, rarely fixing the issues.
4) Licensing, all that stuff. Companies reinventing the wheel, fighting, all the rest. You can't buy a phone that does X and Y because company X won't license tech X to company Y
5) Trying to get everything perfect in one device... it's a bit of an ask but needed for portability. If things were separate we could have the better of most worlds, but that doesn't seem possible
6) Closed source. Just a bit irritating to see the inefficiency of it all in general. Bit of a hash moan but for those who can imagine better it seems like the dark ages in some areas still.
7) Closed source binary blobs. See Replicant on Samsung phones as the best we can do... the modem is arranged such messily and it's just not true a solution because of that. Kind of irritates me that there is no phone that can really guarantee it's not recording my phone numbers, conversations and credit cards because it's fully open source. Certainly an issue for companies. Companies in general are happy to rely on the word of Blackberry for thier integrity but for those of us who can imagine a solution that is secure by design it's not the best.
8) App whitelisting. Similar to the reactive rather than proactive security we tend to see as the trend in general. Manually checking all apps in the app store, trying to block and check them all.... doesn't seem the best. We've also had censorship. There are alternative stores, that's good.
9) Wakelocks. The Dalvik VM not managing or helping us track them down. Further, it's hard to tell if the app that you want to use is going to shaft your battery... once installed it's hard to tell if the app is ruining your battery too. It's messy.
10) IMEI security is a pain in the butt. It slows down the criminals but it also slows down everyone more so. In the case of Turkey it's another way to screw people with tax. Again, imperfect design.
11) As a man, if you have a phone at waist level that reduces your sperm count. Almost nobody notices or cares.
12) Just the usual society things... people looking at phones rather than each other. Can't really complain about that... the interface of looking at a screen is a bit basic. I've had speech recognition available to me... but I don't use it because there's always people around me and I'd rather be quiet... just one of those funny inventions
13) Screen don't work in bright sunlight still. We've got Motheye coming though which is great but we've had eink for ages and still no eink phone. Further, it can't be hacked onto an existing phone. Some of us aren't interested in games and movies and are focussed on getting stuff done. I feel Mirasol & PixelQi are being blocked or delayed as they try to slow things down until the point we've run out of ideas to make things better so only then does that tech get deployed.
14) Networks interfering with phones. I always go prepay because it's cheaper if you do the maths in many countries and also it allows for freer trade. Networks are always trying to get thier fingers into the mobile phone pies. Thank you Samsung for helping get against that, and also custom ROMs.
15) Apple are great but it's not clear what's going on behind the scenes.
16) eink displays would help battery life. A NookTouch can last for a month. How much would that help a phone on standby? Yet no eink display or anything like that.
17) Great to see the back of proprietary connectors but they still come back sometimes.
18) I hate the way things are made to break. Watch out for this. There's usually one thing on a phone that is designed to break. Sometimes it's a moveable part, like a ribbon cable in a slide phone. Sometimes its the USB connector. You can't buy port savers. When they fail you're screwed. Mitigate against this if you can. Try to figure out what the weak spot on your phone is.
19) Lock in software. I have an old backup phone... but I still have to keep the sync software... bit annoying. One day it probably won't work on Windows9 or whatever. People say throw it away but that's just it, throw away society. No, fix it, get it to work and be in control.
All of these things can be mitigated against. But you have to think about these things when you select your new phone.
If the commercialisation of the industry, cut throat tactics and so on aren't good enough as they are for me one thing you can do is buy a slightly older, but popular phone. In my case I never buy a new phone and instead go for something that I already know is popular with the hacking community. I know you guys can give me an insight into what I'm really looking for in life. As an example my last phone was a Galaxy S i9000. Way out of date in a sense. That's the way I find the best way to go. Go with something popular. That way you have some real support like a real man able to handle things yourself, not AppleCare and a 1 year limit. A philosophy for life. You can't have it all but with a bit of thought you can do a lot to get a bit closer to it all.

Here come tanless watches

When I was growing up my dad always wore a wrist watch. On the few occasions he ever took it off, it looked like he was still wearing something around his wrist due to the absense of the massive tan he got from working outside.
I think a wrist phone is a great idea, but wouldn't buy one unless it could actually function as a phone. I personally hate wrist watches, but would start to like them if I could remove the phone from my pocket, and I'm sure a lot of others would too.

Ha, I just got my Gear 2 and started wearing it when I take my daily walk. The first thing I thought of was that this was going to mess up my tan.

JimSmith94 said:
Ha, I just got my Gear 2 and started wearing it when I take my daily walk. The first thing I thought of was that this was going to mess up my tan.
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How shallow are you people...

They should hand these out at the park - save my eyes :laugh:

vulcanvillalta said:
As a Vulcan, I don't see the point of tanning, aside from fulfilling your human need for vitamin D. Tan lines are no indication of a man's character.
The usefulness of this watch clearly compromises the curiously vogue impression of the importance of attractiveness.
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The importance of attraction is different to people in this day and age, for some people, they feel a lot better mentally when they know they're looking good.

Don't Think It Is Possible
fuzzy7k said:
When I was growing up my dad always wore a wrist watch. On the few occasions he ever took it off, it looked like he was still wearing something around his wrist due to the absense of the massive tan he got from working outside.
I think a wrist phone is a great idea, but wouldn't buy one unless it could actually function as a phone. I personally hate wrist watches, but would start to like them if I could remove the phone from my pocket, and I'm sure a lot of others would too.
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I don't think this would be possible. With the moving parts and displays on the watch, it would be impossible for it to be tan through. But it is a great idea!

I too think that is a good idea.

JimSmith94 said:
Ha, I just got my Gear 2 and started wearing it when I take my daily walk. The first thing I thought of was that this was going to mess up my tan.
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Honestly I do not recommend you to use the smartwatch under the scorching sun for too long, I think that the screen may be affected

fuzzy7k said:
When I was growing up my dad always wore a wrist watch. On the few occasions he ever took it off, it looked like he was still wearing something around his wrist due to the absense of the massive tan he got from working outside.
I think a wrist phone is a great idea, but wouldn't buy one unless it could actually function as a phone. I personally hate wrist watches, but would start to like them if I could remove the phone from my pocket, and I'm sure a lot of others would too.
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I don't understand so many things about this. You're right that this would be popular; I've read a lot of people making the same comment, but why?
A. Full Android watches with SIMs and everything have existed for years. If that's what you want why don't you have one already?
B. The whole point is to be able to to have a personal area network with a single control unit managing the experience across all of your contacted devices, not a series of independent devices each vying for your attention in a disjointed way. Think of the watch as an extension of your existing phone that you can access without having to pull the phone out of your pocket, enter your pin, find your app, and finally do an action. This also allows the watch to offload the heavy processing tasks to the powerful device you already have in your pocket 99% of the time. What good is having your phone, and a second, less powerful processor in your watch both running 100% of the operations in parallel?

Rather look pasty white than have skin damage, in the worst case skin cancer is not very attractive.

Incognitum said:
I don't understand so many things about this. You're right that this would be popular; I've read a lot of people making the same comment, but why?
A. Full Android watches with SIMs and everything have existed for years. If that's what you want why don't you have one already?
B. The whole point is to be able to to have a personal area network with a single control unit managing the experience across all of your contacted devices, not a series of independent devices each vying for your attention in a disjointed way. Think of the watch as an extension of your existing phone that you can access without having to pull the phone out of your pocket, enter your pin, find your app, and finally do an action. This also allows the watch to offload the heavy processing tasks to the powerful device you already have in your pocket 99% of the time. What good is having your phone, and a second, less powerful processor in your watch both running 100% of the operations in parallel?
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The reason your logic isn't working is because you assume that people would still carry a second device. Not everybody wants a powerful device because not everybody plays games, or surfs the internet or other things that require a larger screen.
Another question similar to the one you are asking is, why would people buy a tablet when their phone can already do everything and more than it can do.
If there was a choice between a pocket phone with an optional wrist device, or a wrist phone with an optional reading device, a lot of people would go for the smaller, highly mobile wrist phone.
It wouldn't interfere with mobility and it would be readily available.
Something else that may be bogus, but would probably factor into some people's decisions is that it would distance the RF source from reproductive organs.

Ziago said:
Honestly I do not recommend you to use the smartwatch under the scorching sun for too long, I think that the screen may be affected
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will it really be affected? i mean all the gears are out there... and there are to be worn and designed most of the time and probably under scorching sun?

I also thought this seemed like a good idea, Android on your wrist. So I bought a cheap one to see.
I got one from Chinavasion(can't posts links yet obviously). The one I got was the "3G Android Watch Phone 'FineWatch' - MTK6577 Dual Core 1GHz CPU, 2 Inch IPS Screen, 4GB ROM, 8GB Additional Memory" because it seemed to have be biggest screen and the best hardware of the no-name ones.
But the android version is horrible on the device, and I kinda wanna install a new one. Watch can't log on to my google account, due to it not understanding the 2-step vertification procedure. And it has no Google play, browser doesn't show any images when browing play.google.com etc. All-in-all horrible, is there a way to fix this by installing a more normal version of Android? Like without bricking it or using the old version?
Can someone point me in the right direction to make this watch the best I ever wore?