I see the Blackberry Bold 9900 and 9930 have been officially announced. What are your thoughts on their latest offerings?

Same as any other Blackberry Wheelio.



Andriod the way forward.

Not when you lack opposable thumbs it isn't.

My wife is due an upgrade and she loves my iphone. Unfortunately for her she's with virgin and only needs between 50 and 100 minutes per month. As an alternative she's got the choice between a Blackberry Curve 8520, Samsung Wave 723 and an HTC Wildfire. What are peoples thoughts on these?

Completely forgot. My bad.

1st 24hrs

On opening the box, the phone was aesthetically pleasing, it has a good feel to it, heavy enough to feel solid but not uncomfortable hold.It is slightly smaller than the IPhone but has a larger screen. I gave it a first charge of about 5-6 hours.

After inserting sim and switching on, the set up was easy and was looking at my yahoo e-mails within minutes. For some reason, when i first used the desire HD, that transferred all contacts, sms, calendar from the nokia 97 (still working by the way after the lager incident, but with a reduced battery life and the white strip inside is now pink) with no fuss, but after selecting all the available makes of HTC phone in the transfer application, the HTC desire S will only transfer contacts from the HTC HD, very strange and frustrating, but after using 3rd party software i've been able to move SMS messages across (but not MMS).

After constant heavy usage last night, i've got about 18-20 hrs usage. Now recharging.

Internet is quick to connect, and pages load instantly. The touch screen is very responsive.

The power saving settings on the phone (same as the HD) are handy when the battery is running low.

The only noticeable difference's i've come across on the gingerbread operating system is the apps screen flicks through page by page unlike the HD that scrolls, and the bookmarks now have a thumbnail instead of text, although i'm sure there will be more tweaks to find as i use it.

It also has a front facing camera, unlike the HD, for video calls (or just taking picks of yourself

).

Ring tones seem loud enough but this has yet to be tested in a pub environment..



So, so far, quite pleased with it.

PS, the Desire HD looks like an IPad next to it.

You probably know this, but make sure you charge fully before using and then ALWAYS fully deplete the battery for the first few weeks before charging again. As in, use until the phone goes dead.



Battery life actually improves over time if you stick to this. I wasn't impressed with my Desire's battery life at first but it got better and better and is now very good.



That goes for any phone, by the way.

My contract is up next month and I cant decide between a HTC Desire HD or a Samsung Galaxy S2.

Has anyone idea which is the best?

Thanks

I assume you mean the Galaxy S2 in which case go for that of the two as the S2 has a dual-core processor. If not I'd ask in a store for a working version of each handset that you can test out there in-shop as the two OS's are not to everyone's tastes.



Actually, if it is the S2 you would be better off comparing it against the HTC Sensation which is due for launch next month and is a better like for like comparison with a dual core of its own, the latest version of android preloaded and an updated version of HTC's 'Sense' UI. Don't be mislead by online spec comparisons alone though.

My contract is up at the and of the month and I really don't know what to go for?



I'm currently on an IPhone 3gs and although I've had some major issues with the iPhone it would be a hell of a lot more simple to just upgrade to the iPhone 4. That way I dont have to bother with moving contacts, pictures, messages or music.



But I really wanna try out one of the HTC phones.



Does anyone know how easy it is to get all the above mentioned from your iPhone to a HTC phone?

I did

what network are you on?

O2 but I can move to any now.

If I remember rightly O2 has a service available through the website that allows you to back such things up, not the music obviously but I assume you have to run all of that through itunes anyway.



If it's still available i think its called bluebook or something?

Thanks.



I'll take a look into it.

If chasing specs and being able to claim you have a dual core phone is important to you get an Android device. You might be able to save some money as well.



If you want the best overall experience get iPhone 4. Broader content, applications, games, accessories, compatibility. Generally a smoother experience.

I have a Desire HD. Really good phone. Not had any of the battery issues that people seemed to have been affected by. Screen is very responsive, the array of apps is superb now and the amount you can customize the Android devices is superb.



To the fella above, isn't it Apple who claim to be constantly at the forefront with the Iphone 4? What with the screen and all that jazz. If your chasing specs and are all about the brand surely you will stump the extra to get the Iphone 4?

No one has ever brought an Apple product for specs alone. Apple's competitions nearly always look better on a spec sheet. The N96 was better than a iPhone on paper.



Apple does place more emphasis about overall experience, of course specs can enhance that experience (like the display, which is hugely important). Apple will for example talk about battery life, but they will never really talk about the RAM in their phones, as one example. Whereas in the Android community and vendors commonly like to talk about RAM, clockspeed, overclocking etc.



HTC try and sell the experience with their HTC Sense features. I would say part of that is why HTC are one of the most successful Android vendors. But it is harder for them because they aren't fully in control of their own platform.



And many, many people far smarter than me know just like the desktop era of computing it always was and always will be all about software. Good software can sing on mediocre bad hardware. Bad software can slow good hardware to a crawl.



So software is where all the interesting stuff will happen and where all the advances will take place.



My advice to anyone would be when making a decision is to value real word performance and usability over a list of specs. And of course that will be a personal decision. After all these are far more personal, intimate devices than any other general purpose computing device which has gone before.

That's not right at all. Apple isn't about the user experience, it's just about marketing. They've successfully established a fan base and somehow made everyone believe the iphone was and still is the best phone in the world. In reality it probably never was and it is now more than showing it's age. I mean the icons as the only option for the home screen? They are the phone equivalent of the Wii, successful because of it's marketing and not it's performance IMO. Look at their recent adverts, which are bordering on criminal. "Without an iphone you've not got the ibook store". No, perhaps not, but with another phone you'd have Kindle which is far, far better. "Without an iphone you don't have an ipod in your phone" No, but you have a better quality media player with a different name. "Without an iphone you don't have an iphone" Well, quite. Making it a must have for the sheep is their main strength.



Apple's computers are the same. Very 'cool' but as a consumer purchase they are a choice of paying £350 more than you should be doing just for the perception that it's 'cool' and 'amazing' and 'better'.

Anyone having HTC Desire problems? For some time now I've had problems with it just re booting at will. It's been back to HTC once already and it's still doing it. So it's being picked up again tomorrow to go back to them.



If they don't sort it is there anything I can do? I registered the initial complaint before the 1 year warranty period was up. The fault wasn't rectified. Where do I stand on getting the fault sorted?



It's that bad It's putting me off getting another HTC again.

it is called bluebook, but watch out if you're doing anything you shouldn't, it keeps a track of your text messages (sent and recieved) unless you change the settings, a friend of mine got (deservedy) caught out when his other half found his history!

You had a bad experience with Apple then?



For me that post's just a load of sh*** mate. You're saying Apple's dominance in the market is just down to marketing? really? I can't see that at all mainly because after all these years of making computers, macbooks and now phones people simply wouldn't buy the products if they were unrealiable and not worth while. My experience of Apple is that they are a really great brand and deserve their place at the top of the market. I haven't got an iphone or a Mac but I wish I had both, when I upgraded my phone I got a HTC but my brother got an Iphone and I've regretted it since. In terms of texting and ringing people that's no different but for me the extras like the app market, quality of videos and itunes is so much better than HTC or the Android market IMO. I used Mac throughout my degree and for me they're streets ahead of a other makes and models for me. Even down to visiting their shop was spot on. Marketing helps and having a good marketing team can, of course, count for sales and it's a great tool for any company but technological companies rely more on people's opinion of their products to encourage additional sales not just marketing.

No, no really bad experience. Apple's products are all high quality don't get me wrong. I just think after using a few of them that they are always overpriced and don't do anything you can't get on other platforms for much less, yet they market them so well that most believe they are futuristic wonders of the world. An awful lot of iphone owners will come out with statements like "Why didn't you get an iphone, they are the best phone ever?" You ask why and they can't give you a proper answer. Which HTC did you get out of interest as I would have the top end HTC's above the iphone in pretty much every category. The software on the iphone is showing it's age, you can't customise it, you can't install stuff Apple don't want you to, it's social network integration is very poor, you can't use widgets to present key information on the home screen and even it's media capabilities are nothing special on it now as all the Android phones have media players that are at least as good. The app store and itunes are also rapidly being caught up with by the android equivalents and the vast majority of apps and games are now made for all the big app stores.



I'm working with a mobile phone retailer at the moment and they hate the iphone. Expensive to start with and they give them more problems and customer complaints than any other due to their lack of suitability as a business device. Yet they are pretty much the only phone being requested these days, as all the staff have the same preconceptions about how much 'better' iphones are.

I ended up getting the Wildfire so I know I'm the 'lower' end of the HTC phones and I'm still very happy with it and it was only financial reasons which led me to that and not the Iphone tbh. A mate of mine has the Desire and he loves it, I've used that occasionally to test run it and I'm not overly impressed really, maybe that's because I'm not using it regular. I'm just speaking from experience the Apple products I've used I think they're streets ahead, I used Macs in Uni, almost everyday, for three years and in comparison to a PC they're much better I think and having used the HTC and Android market I still the IPhone and App markets are much much better. They are catching up but even apps that are available in both forms are still inferior on Android, I've got the Racing Post app on both my Ipod and phone and it runs much better and is a much better app for the Ipod than the Android one, it's getting better and it's not a million miles away but from my own experience I prefer the Iphone and the App store than Android.

The Android 2.3 gingerbread update for the HD is now available, i've just done ours so we'll see how it goes.