T-Mobile Pulse -> Next Phone?

[Guest le_lutin]

ok guys, cancelled my IPhone order yesterday as I got a better deal with Vodafone on the HTC Desire. Will cost approx. £430 less than getting an IPhone for the same 18 month period and well the phone will be well supported and I know my way round Android OS.... Although probably get the phone next week as it's out of stock with Vodafone directly.

Good choice dude. Got a HTC Desire just last weekend - you won't be disappointed.

A few things to watch out for though (just so you won't be too disappointed when you discover them):

- The loudspeaker is actually worse than the Pulse.

- You can't take out the sd card without removing the battery (i used to do that quite a bit with the Pulse).

- The battery actually seems worse than the Pulse! That said, i've only had it for 4 days, so it might get better.

Apart from that it's terrific.

Edited June 29, 2010 by le_lutin

[Guest twe]

Cool, loudspeaker I hardly used for music, just when someones calling me or when I get a text.

I never took the SD card out so thats fine.

Yeh read about that, meant to be a 1200mah battery in it? There are a few 1600mah batteries on ebay which meant to give it some more juice but I got a charger at work for Pulse and used to charge that everyday when 3G was switched on. 1-2 days with it off.

Was reading up on the pinkish tint with the AMOLED screen which was a bit concerning?

Mine has been dispatched and should be with me tomorrow!

[Guest Azurren]

Was reading up on the pinkish tint with the AMOLED screen which was a bit concerning?

Mine has been dispatched and should be with me tomorrow!

I seriously doubt that you will notice the pink-ish tint. This was found by nit-pickers looking for something wrong with the device :lol:

Battery life (even with a smaller battery) isn't bad (Helped by amoled) and should still last you through the day

If you don't like I know someone who would :D

Edited June 29, 2010 by Azurren

[Guest le_lutin]

Cool, loudspeaker I hardly used for music, just when someones calling me or when I get a text.

I never took the SD card out so thats fine.

Yeh read about that, meant to be a 1200mah battery in it? There are a few 1600mah batteries on ebay which meant to give it some more juice but I got a charger at work for Pulse and used to charge that everyday when 3G was switched on. 1-2 days with it off.

Was reading up on the pinkish tint with the AMOLED screen which was a bit concerning?

Mine has been dispatched and should be with me tomorrow!

Dude, you're gonna love it. There is absolutely no pinkish tint on mine at all.

Battery is actually 1400mah compared to (i think) Pulse's 1500mah

[Guest twe]

Yeh I didn't notice any pinkish tint on friday when I was playing around with it.

Some people on xda devs were going on about a smaller battery, unless they changed it for different markets or something? Anyway 1400mah is fine as long as it lasts a full 24 hours for me with my normal usage.

Shame about the Pulse just dropping in price! Might not get as much for it when I stick it on ebay now.

[Guest le_lutin]

Shame about the Pulse just dropping in price! Might not get as much for it when I stick it on ebay now.

You can say that again. I'm hoping to sell mine too!

[Guest twe]

any tips on the actual phone will be helpful.

For example did you replace the ROM and with which one off xda devs or from the forums here? How stable has it been for you? Want to get rid of any branding straight away really.

Phone meant to arrive today but nobody at home so hopefully there is a card waiting for me to go and pick it up from the depot tomorrow on the way to work. Annoying but only option was to deliver to my billing address.

[Guest jmmL]

Thought this would be a good place to mention that I've gone for the deal detailed here: http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/713467/sams...-min-unltd-text?

Although that tariff doesn't include data (!), I will add a bolt-on for £7.50/month(or it might be £5, not sure). Excited about the Galaxy S - I hope I don't regret this decision when HTC inevitably brings out a beast of a phone towards then end of the year.

[Guest twe]

Not a bad deal if you are mainly after the phone, but I use more than 100 minutes a month, however I might be sending my phone back and going with t-mobile, think they are giving 3GB data and same price as what I am paying now with same minutes and texts [or 500 texts which is still enough for me].... Going to call t-mobile tonight hopefully and then vodafone to see.

There is a slight pinkish tint on the phone but only if I reduce the brightness below 50%, its not a big deal at all as I never need to, screen is better than the Pulse after all!

Am loving the phone so far though, battery life is better than expected from some of the reviews, although maybe its due to me getting used to have a task manager and closing stuff running in the background?

I have kept it on the original Vodafone ROM, not going to change it until 2.2 comes out officially then will look at my options with custom roms etc. Vodafone haven't seemed to have done anything to the phone besides adding their own apn info [not sure if the phone is locked just yet though]. Camera is also in another league compared to the Pulse! Am glad I got this phone :)

[Guest Stevos]

Samsungs mods for the galexy s are actually quite useful. Not the usual bloatware that's for sure.

The galaxy s runs android and is pretty much the fastest phone around at the moment. When it gets the 2.2 update it will wipe the floor with the others in processor and graphics terms. The nexus is a nice phone which generally gets updates first, but might be coming towards the end of its useful upgrade life and may be superceded by a new googles developer phone sooner rather than later. The multitouch problem is a fundamental hardware issue but may have been improved with updates.

The iPhone is nice hardware running a feature phone "os". its not designed to be comparable to the rest. If you want something that runs as an appliance rather than a general purpose computing platform then consider it - if you can live with jobs controlling and censoring your digital life. (After spending so much money on such a restricted platform, stockholm syndrome will set in and you will learn to live your oppressors, so you won't suffer too much)

[Guest Stevos]

Never had any corrupt memory cards before so I wouldn't worry about that myself if it doesn't mess up under warranty.

Can't see any good Galaxy S, Nexus One or Desire offers at the moment? Any one else?

When I was in London the other day, I saw a Galaxy S in one of the high street stores for £400 on pay as you go (sorry I can't remember which store, but it was one of the ones on Oxford street - possibly carphone warehouse - maybe on O2.

Depending on your use over a 24 month period it could work out quite cheap to put it on a PAYG type plan with topups.

If I were to unlock it for a few quids, then use it on a rolling £10 topup per month via tmobile (which gives "unlimited internet", unlimited texts, as a bonus without actually using the £10 credit (which I don't use really, but could be used for calls), it would end up costing £400 over two years, plus £240 in mostly unused topup credit.

I guess the unused topup credit might be able to be used toward an upgrade at some stage, but I'm not sure. Either way, £640 over 2 years for a top tier phone can't be too bad.

Obviously different tarrifs work out better for different people, but if you don't call much it looks quite cheap. Other networks might provide better tarrifs based on the same idea if I checked into it.

[Guest de_shepherd]

Depending on your use over a 24 month period it could work out quite cheap to put it on a PAYG type plan with topups.

If I were to unlock it for a few quids, then use it on a rolling £10 topup per month via tmobile (which gives "unlimited internet", unlimited texts, as a bonus without actually using the £10 credit (which I don't use really, but could be used for calls), it would end up costing £400 over two years, plus £240 in mostly unused topup credit.

Alternatively if you time you top-ups and boosters correct you could get 2 months free internet via 2 £10 top ups then use the £20 for a 6 month web booster ... do this 3 times and you have 2 years internet for £60.

[Guest Stevos]

Alternatively if you time you top-ups and boosters correct you could get 2 months free internet via 2 £10 top ups then use the £20 for a 6 month web booster ... do this 3 times and you have 2 years internet for £60.

Yes it seems that there are various ways of doing this, with the internet connection working out very cheap. I also use a lot of texts which complicates things slightly, but the principle is similar.

For someone who only uses internet - as you point out, they could get it at £60 for 2 years if they time it right via PAYG, which then makes it almost a no-brainer to outright buy a high end phone rather than pay via an ongoing contract (assuming you have all the cash up front).

The months when you pay the £10 topups you also get free texts for the next month.

Total cost for a Galaxy S with "unlimited internet" for 2 years: £460 (+ whatever unlocking fee is required to get it onto the network)

Play with the top up timings more and you can probably get full-time unlimited texts fairly cheaply too via boosters, and I imagine that there's some cost effective way of getting some voice calls on that with a bit of tweaking.

The other networks may have similar tariffs, but the t-mobile bonuses when you top-up (without actually spending the topup credit) are ripe for being used to create great cheap deals. Maybe they think we can't figure these things out :)

[Guest Willz]

The Samsung Galaxy S looks gorgeous. I've been watching some videos and it looks so fast, and smooth. I'm very tempted to get that next.

[Guest Stevos]

The Samsung Galaxy S looks gorgeous. I've been watching some videos and it looks so fast, and smooth. I'm very tempted to get that next.

The spec on that thing is great. The only problems I see with it:

1) It physically looks very much like an iPhone 3, and I can imagine getting lots of comments about it being a fake iPhone.

2) It doesn't run stock android but a modified interface, and I HATE to PAY for companies to cripple my stuff with custom interfaces and bloat. Leave it alone damnit!

3) With reference to the above, how reliable are Samsung going to be getting updates pushed out, and how hackable is it? It looks like rooting and custom ROMs should be available, but not sure.

4) No camera flash.

The processor and graphics chip really are state of the art though, and seem to compare well the iPhone4 and iPad. It makes the snapdragon based stuff look slow (for high end processing and gaming graphics).

http://gizmodo.com/5502737/android-phone-s...than-snapdragon

Stick Froyo (which it will officially get at some stage) on it and it will clean up. The spec means it should easily support Gingerbread assuming the leaked figures are right.

[Guest alkysteve]

3) With reference to the above, how reliable are Samsung going to be getting updates pushed out, and how hackable is it? It looks like rooting and custom ROMs should be available, but not sure.

Paul has one - and I wouldn't be getting one if he couldn't work his magic on it :)

[Guest Azurren]

The spec on that thing is great. The only problems I see with it:

1) It physically looks very much like an iPhone 3, and I can imagine getting lots of comments about it being a fake iPhone.

Tbh I get that all the time with my pulse. For a lot of people big smartphone = iPhone :)

[Guest twe]

Same, some people thought my Pulse was an IPhone....

Anyway loving the HTC Desire am glad I saved £400+ in not getting the IPhone 4, going to spend it on my car as I need new brake pads/discs and a service!

[Guest Stevos]

Tbh I get that all the time with my pulse. For a lot of people big smartphone = iPhone :)

Yeah one of my friend's friends refers to me as "the guy with the fake iPhone :D" - but with the Galaxy S, that would be a more reasonable claim - it does look like one.

I assume we're not going to get the new motorola droid x/2/milestone 2/whatever in the UK in the forseeable future?

That looks like the only other announced phone comparable to the Galaxy S (aside from the lack of front camera). Droids are usually pretty hackable I think.

Either one would be suitable for my purposes. It seems that clock for clock, the qualcomm based stuff doesn't compete well with TI and samsung at the moment. From the rumours going around the dual core qualcomms will pull that back somewhat, but only on win phone 7 to start with.

Edited July 7, 2010 by Stevos