Singapore Expats

S2469A, to try and answer your question: I own a Nokia E65 right now. It is basically OK... works all over, including Japan and South Korea... something of use to me.

It has wifi, a must. It has Bluetooth, both for headset and sync with my PC. Has a radio... good for a morning walk... BBC, you know.

Downsides: Tiny screen is major PITA for email and web. Symbian OS gets sooooo slooooowwww. Would like more than T9 for text/email messages. Want bigger screen.

Not married to a touch screen at all. Do want a qwerty keyboard. Want some real estate on screen size. Email push not needed... will collect when I want. want music capabilities. GPS, too. Can't hardly type on a BB, don't think E71 would be much better.

Had a brick in the N80? was it... you could whack an attacker in the head with it and split their skull... so max screen, max functionality with minimum size and weight.

sierra2469alpha is spot on about the "is it fit for purpose". if you dont need an iPhone, then there are a lot of alternatives. the iPod and iPhone never fit my purpose, so i never had any. but other apple products that fit my pupose were their first digital camera, first pda, first sub notebook, etc.

head over here for some serious reviews...

nokia 5800
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_5800_xpre ... ew-308.php

sony ericsson idou
http://www.gsmarena.com/loads_of_sony_e ... ws-838.php

nokia n97
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n97-2615.php

e75 video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjvgPb93ZwI
n97 video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-6YcXoRDG0

The n97 looks good .. qwerty+touch screen .

Yeh SE - try gsmarena - that's a good site (well done durain - forgot about that site). I have the HTC Touch Pro and happy to meet you somewhere so you can have a look at it. Also, Ms. C has the BB Bold, so I could bring that too if it's a weekend.

One little word - I'm actually growing increasingly frustrated with Windows Mobile - it's slow, even on a fast box like my HTC. Not sure how other people feel about it, of course!

Cheers, P

sierra2469alpha wrote:Yeh SE - try gsmarena - that's a good site (well done durain - forgot about that site). I have the HTC Touch Pro and happy to meet you somewhere so you can have a look at it. Also, Ms. C has the BB Bold, so I could bring that too if it's a weekend.

One little word - I'm actually growing increasingly frustrated with Windows Mobile - it's slow, even on a fast box like my HTC. Not sure how other people feel about it, of course!

Cheers, P

I am rapidly learning a lot... there is no perfect solution. WinMo has plenty of criticism about speed (and the fact that it won't support capacitive touch screens).

But, Symbian is also beat over the head as slow and there are a number of comments that the touch screen interface is clunky because it has just been smeared onto rather than integrated with apps.

Capacitive touch screen seems better than resistive in terms of accuracy but then again, you must use a finger.

Apple clearly wins hands down in beauty and friendliness but no Bluetooth, radio, or video... and no multi-tasking of applications in the background.

hence there is still no "ultimate" one fone that fits all. the apple OS is a dream to use, but built-in battery and "not so good" camera is a sore point. windows mobile is resource hungry and symbian OS is still not up to scratch. but i think the symbian OS will improve especially now that nokia has a bigger shares in the company.

Yeh durain and SE - right again - i think it ALMOST got there with iPhone 3G and the HTC offerings, but as noted, neither is perfect.

Which is a real pity given the cost of these devices!

Anyway SE let me know if you want to have a play with the Touch Pro and/or the BB Bold. We'll possibly lunch down by the river on SUN if you're floating around that area.

Cheers, P

durain wrote:hence there is still no "ultimate" one fone that fits all. the apple OS is a dream to use, but built-in battery and "not so good" camera is a sore point. windows mobile is resource hungry and symbian OS is still not up to scratch. but i think the symbian OS will improve especially now that nokia has a bigger shares in the company.

I find Nokia 5800 to be okay only - nothing great. Software-wise, especially the variety/number of them, S60 is still a long way from the apple's one. Some people complain about the virtual keyboard, but as far as it goes, iPhone's imho is still much better than the 5800. Caveat is that I've used iPhone for 8 months and probably I already got used to it. I just found 5800 touch screen not as responsive as iPhone's, plus the screen itself is not nearly as large as iPhone's.
Battery of iPhone has never been good, and I was appaled when I first bought it and found it barely got me through the day. But now, I can get approximately 1-1.5 days. Inconvenient but I'm the kind who plugs my phone every night, so as long as there's enough juice to get me to the following evening, then it's fine for me.

If you ever buy iPhone from Singtel, do NOT take any of those crap iFlexi plans. Take separate voice plan (whatever you need) plus a separate Broadband Mobile plan. I took my i3+ and Broadband mobile 2Mbps plan 50GB - much better value than iFlexi premium.

Compared to BB? Well BB is much easier to use, in terms of typing but that's because of their hardware keyboard. Software's getting better but again iPhone's range is much much better. As it is now I'm forced to use BB as well (so my pants bulge on one side where BB rest) because darn Domino server doesn't go with my iPhone.

If you're not into iPhone's virtual keyboard, I think you will never like virtual keyboard anyway - so in that case take BB, or if you're really a Nokia head take E71 instead. I'm rather disappointed with 5800 as it's bulky and not very responsive. I'm sure they'll launch N-series touchscreen soon and hope it'd be much better than the lackey 5800.

have you guys considered buying from NZ (vodafone), the price is cheaper than the HK unlocked ones.

Since Itouch won't do pushmail and doesn't have a GPS built in, I think the crackberry 8800 will still remain the business travelers tool of choice.

I'm keeping my phone as is and buying a 32g Itouch. Played with one last week and was really impressed with the ease of use and the wide variety of things I can do with it right out of the box. A big plus for us is that we can drop it in a dock and have all of our music available at home in surround sound. Streaming video and easy access to webmail, instant messaging, social networking and YouTube provided you're in a wifi area.

If it wasn't for the mail and contact sync issues I would have purchased the Iphone even though it is a little more fragile than the crackberry.

Saved 80 USD by ordering online.

just to confuse you further, the LG Arena has been label as the nearest thing to the apple iPhone.

Android OS is another up and coming mobile OS with the HTC Dream and more to come.

I am appreciating all the comments... learning a lot.

pakjohn wrote:Since Itouch won't do pushmail and doesn't have a GPS built in, I think the crackberry 8800 will still remain the business travelers tool of choice.

I'm keeping my phone as is and buying a 32g Itouch. Played with one last week and was really impressed with the ease of use and the wide variety of things I can do with it right out of the box. A big plus for us is that we can drop it in a dock and have all of our music available at home in surround sound. Streaming video and easy access to webmail, instant messaging, social networking and YouTube provided you're in a wifi area.

If it wasn't for the mail and contact sync issues I would have purchased the Iphone even though it is a little more fragile than the crackberry.

Saved 80 USD by ordering online.

Just wanted to check abt the streaming speed on your Ipod touch.
Got a 32G after dumping my old 30 G ipod.
On day one the youtube videos was faster to load but since then it takes 5 mins to load a video.

Cheers.

I don't have it in hand yet, but as soon as I do I'll post a report.

Strong Eagle wrote:

orientalgirl wrote:But if you are looking for iphone, currently Singtel should be the only provider now.

So I have discovered. If I go with M1 or Starhub (which seem to have much better data pricing) I'll have to buy the phone for full freight.

Any suggestions from anyone as to the best place to buy an IPhone outside of Singapore? (Although it looks like just doing the Singtel thing will be the most economical).

Maybe it's too late, but...

Do they still sell unlocked phones at Lucky Plaza now that there are official channels? That's where mine came from, it was a gift I'm ashamed of how much I love it, but I am not a heavy user.

What about ebay?

My son's iPhone was free at Christmas with a 2 year Singtel account, it was perfect for us -- but understand it's not ideal for everyone. It's hard to wade through all the options, if you really want an iphone, the options get easier.

Iphones have their issues to be sure, but it 's perfect for me, has never let me down. I like the screen, I have a Mac, I have iTunes, I'm an artist! I hope I never have to get anything else.