Possibly iPhone competition

[Chidoro]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/21097041

It's good to see verizon get competitive in this market. Since service is not as much of an issue, it should fend off ship jumpers.


The Voyager, most directcorrelation to the iPhone


The Venus. Two screens. The bottom small one is a touch screen.


The Juke. The inexpensive one.

They all look pretty decent to me but I'd have to see it in action first. My service agreement doesn't come up until july of next year but people don't seem to mind paying the contract breaking fee I guess

[noel]

Clearly the opinions of someone that's never owned an LG phone.

[Chidoro]

both me and my wife's current phone since july of last year is an lg 8300. Our prior phones were an lg 6800 (i think) and we had those for 2 1/2 years. I'm not a huge cell phone user and don't delve into multi-use features, but i've never had any complaints.

I actually looked to purchase a lg last year and unless i go the blackberry route, I'll probably do it again next july when I will be eligible for a discount again.

[noel]

The Blackberries are FAR better than the LGs. I hate the LGs... poor ergonomics, shitty user interfaces. Seriously, if you're using an LG do yourself a favor and use a phone from ANY other manufacturer.


The iPhone is a great phone. It's funny that all of these manufacturers are hustling to put out an iPhone killer, and stating that their new product will compete with the iPhone. Most of these companies have been in the cellular phone business for years, and they're working their asses off to compete with a product that's been out for a few months. Way to innovate. Half of them don't even know what competing with the iPhone means luckily for them, neither do the bulk of consumers that haven't had any exposure to the iPhone, or have some weird Apple aversion. I don't own an iPhone... not crazy about the size, but I've used one extensively, and there's no question that it's the best thing to happen to cell phones in years.

[Funkmasterr]

The Blackberries are FAR better than the LGs. I hate the LGs... poor ergonomics, shitty user interfaces. Seriously, if you're using an LG do yourself a favor and use a phone from ANY other manufacturer.


The iPhone is a great phone. It's funny that all of these manufacturers are hustling to put out an iPhone killer, and stating that their new product will compete with the iPhone. Most of these companies have been in the cellular phone business for years, and they're working their asses off to compete with a product that's been out for a few months. Way to innovate. Half of them don't even know what competing with the iPhone means luckily for them, neither do the bulk of consumers that haven't had any exposure to the iPhone, or have some weird Apple aversion. I don't own an iPhone... not crazy about the size, but I've used one extensively, and there's no question that it's the best thing to happen to cell phones in years.

For someone who is so quick to attack me when I make unfounded comments about technology you sure did just make yourself look like a fucking retard.

I will say that I think the fact that we don't get the features and phones that Japan does is ridiculous. I honestly don't care if it bankrupts the cell phone companies to upgrade the towers to do things like video phone, amongst dozens of other features they have that we don't - I want the features, I want them now, and I want to pay a much cheaper price for my service, like Japan.

The few new features we do get are implemented in a way that you have to use some shitty, overpriced service from your provider to use it. For example, verizon added their new phone which has the screen that flips sideways and you can watch TV on it, but you have to pay for some shitty verizon service (don't know how much, but too much I'm sure). My cousins japanese phone has had this capability for years, and it just has a tv tuner in it so he can pick up the channels that are broadcast locally, or use it in conjunction with his cable plan... No proprietary service from his cellular provider..

But as far as the Iphone goes Noel, what exactly is so innovative about it that some Japanese/European phone hasn't had for several years or more? Nothing, and if you really want - you can post me every feature you think is innovative and I will find you another phone that has that/those feature/s. The only thing that I can see is really any different is the way the touch screen works, which from the little bit I've messed with is nothing special and wouldn't even remotely come close to making me want one.

Add to that, they made the mistake of going exclusively with cingular, who has by far the worst service in MN..

Just because this is new shit to the US market, doesn't mean it's new, innovative, or anything else. I think the Nokia E90 ( I am not positive that is the model, I'll have to look) does every single thing the Iphone does besides the touch screen, and that phone is like 2 years old...

[noel]

You're a tool.

The reason why I didn't bring up cell phones in Japan vs. the US is because THAT'S NOT THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD.

The reason I didn't compare the various cellular providers and their service offerings is because THAT TOO IS NOT THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD.

Fact: Whether or not YOU or anyone likes the iPhone, everyone releasing a smart phone is now comparing themselves to it.

Opinion: It's the best combination of MP3 player, portable video player, web browser, and Cellular phone on the market BECAUSE of it's UI, screen, interface, etc.
Just the picture browser and the interface for it is better than every phone on the market.

That shitty Nokia doesn't have the screen resolution, touch screen interface, or BUILT IN IPOD that the iPhone has.

[Funkmasterr]

You're a tool.

The reason why I didn't bring up cell phones in Japan vs. the US is because THAT'S NOT THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD.

The reason I didn't compare the various cellular providers and their service offerings is because THAT TOO IS NOT THE TOPIC OF THIS THREAD.

Fact: Whether or not YOU or anyone likes the iPhone, everyone releasing a smart phone is now comparing themselves to it.

Opinion: It's the best combination of MP3 player, portable video player, web browser, and Cellular phone on the market BECAUSE of it's UI, screen, interface, etc.
Just the picture browser and the interface for it is better than every phone on the market.

That shitty Nokia doesn't have the screen resolution, touch screen interface, or BUILT IN IPOD that the iPhone has.

The thread was about a new phone that is going to kill the Iphone (supposedly) not about why the Iphone is superior, there is a whole different circle jerk thread floating around here somewhere about that. This thread didn't need your post just like the PS3 thread didn't need any of winnow's posts, so what I said is just as relevant.

The point is you are saying that everyone in the (United States) market is trying to copy the oh-so-innovative Iphone when in fact 99.8% of the features the Iphone has were done by other japanese/euro cell phone companies a fucking decade ago.

To clarify, you think that the Iphone is the best combo of those things on the market PERIOD, or the U.S. market. If you are saying overall I am going to have a blast posting a handful of softbank/vodafones that put it to shame.

EDIT: Just for clarification, one of your points is that the nokia doesn't have a proprietary apple product built into it? Right..Gotcha.

[noel]

The thread was about a new phone that is going to kill the Iphone (supposedly) not about why the Iphone is superior, there is a whole different circle jerk thread floating around here somewhere about that. This thread didn't need your post just like the PS3 thread didn't need any of winnow's posts, so what I said is just as relevant.

The point is you are saying that everyone in the (United States) market is trying to copy the oh-so-innovative Iphone when in fact 99.8% of the features the Iphone has were done by other japanese/euro cell phone companies a fucking decade ago.

To clarify, you think that the Iphone is the best combo of those things on the market PERIOD, or the U.S. market. If you are saying overall I am going to have a blast posting a handful of softbank/vodafones that put it to shame.

EDIT: Just for clarification, one of your points is that the nokia doesn't have a proprietary apple product built into it? Right..Gotcha.

You really don't understand why the iPhone is special. It has nothing to do with the set of features (which as you said have been done before in various capacities on various devices), and everything to do with the interface/OS that ties them together.

[Funkmasterr]

The thread was about a new phone that is going to kill the Iphone (supposedly) not about why the Iphone is superior, there is a whole different circle jerk thread floating around here somewhere about that. This thread didn't need your post just like the PS3 thread didn't need any of winnow's posts, so what I said is just as relevant.

The point is you are saying that everyone in the (United States) market is trying to copy the oh-so-innovative Iphone when in fact 99.8% of the features the Iphone has were done by other japanese/euro cell phone companies a fucking decade ago.

To clarify, you think that the Iphone is the best combo of those things on the market PERIOD, or the U.S. market. If you are saying overall I am going to have a blast posting a handful of softbank/vodafones that put it to shame.

EDIT: Just for clarification, one of your points is that the nokia doesn't have a proprietary apple product built into it? Right..Gotcha.

You really don't understand why the iPhone is special. It has nothing to do with the set of features (which as you said have been done before in various capacities on various devices), and everything to do with the interface/OS that ties them together.

I totally understand what you are implying. However, what you don't seem to understand is that I'm saying I can list off phones that do everything the Iphone does all in one phone. No, they don't have any apple software, but IMO the software they use is just as good/better and does the same thing.

[noel]

That's your opinion.

Clearly there's hype around the iPhone for some reason. Clearly it's selling very well even with the stupid AT&T exclusivity deal. Clearly the other cell manufacturers see the iPhone as a threat for some reason, and are in a rush to bring to market a truly competing product. All of those things indicate to me that the iPhone is a success.

As far as the Nokia goes, if you know anything about marketing, you'll know that they totally failed on the E90 if the only time anyone heard about it was after the iPhone had been released.

[Leonaerd]

I had the old standard LG for two years. It did me really well. Contract expired and I picked up a White Chocolate... worst phone that ever existed. Broke for the last time after about five months of use. Now I'm using the LG Razr... I'm not sure the model but it's heavy and it's steel and it's fucking built to last. Fucking chocolate.

[Sueven]

1. Noel, the fact that the iPhone is a success does not demonstrate that it's innovative/superior to other phones. This doesn't mean you're wrong, but pointing to the success of the product shows nothing about its quality. Welcome back btw!

2. Funk, care to post info about some of these phones? For anyone who finds this debate somewhat interesting but doesn't know shit about Euro/Japanese phones, that might be useful.

[noel]

I agree. I was however more trying to point to the fact that every other manufacturer is releasing a phone they're publically calling an 'iPhone killer' as evidence that though many have the features, few have the combination, and the main difference between them all is the interface/OS/UI.

[Winnow]

The iPhone touch interface was used on another phone before the iPhone.

Apple has a good marketing department but they weren't the first.

[Chidoro]

for the record, i referred to these phones as "possible iPhone competition". They seem nice and they use verizon which provides excellent service in my area.

I take nothing away from the iPhone. It is sexy technology if there is such a thing.

[Funkmasterr]

That's your opinion.

Clearly there's hype around the iPhone for some reason. Clearly it's selling very well even with the stupid AT&T exclusivity deal. Clearly the other cell manufacturers see the iPhone as a threat for some reason, and are in a rush to bring to market a truly competing product. All of those things indicate to me that the iPhone is a success.

As far as the Nokia goes, if you know anything about marketing, you'll know that they totally failed on the E90 if the only time anyone heard about it was after the iPhone had been released.

I'm not disagreeing that the Iphone didn't bend the U.S. market market over and give it to everyone else up the ass with no lube, that is obvious. The Iphone is a small step in the direction of the U.S. having at least some of the features the rest of the world has had for ages.

I'm also not disagreeing that nokia has horrendous marketing. Hell, if I was any one of these companies that makes Euro phones (50%+ of Japanese phones cannot work in the U.S. even if they are unlocked, so some of the very best you plain old can't get) and the only thing people had to do was unlock the phone for it to work in the U.S. I would be advertising the hell out of it.

Even if only Nokia started to market these phones towards this market, it would give the other U.S. companies a push to stop being lazy and start bringing out some new features. I can't think of a good reason why they haven't brought these features here besides needing to update the towers, I can't imagine the FCC would have any issues with things like video phone..

Sueven - sometime this weekend I will post a few examples of good euro/japanese phones. If anyone is interested in a good site that lists out damn near every phone you can get in other markets and the features of each, GSM Arena is a good informational site.

[Ashur]

I had the old standard LG for two years. It did me really well. Contract expired and I picked up a White Chocolate... worst phone that ever existed. Broke for the last time after about five months of use. Now I'm using the LG Razr... I'm not sure the model but it's heavy and it's steel and it's fucking built to last. Fucking chocolate.

Amen, I have a Chocolate now and the damn thing will dial the last person I called at random moments, like opening the slide case or just because it wants to. It's too damn twitchy. I hate it.

I got it free from my folks when they wanted to gift me and my wife with cell phones on thier family share plan. I asked for a Razor when offered the choice, but Verizon ran out.

What I really want is a phone that can synch with this shit-ass Lotus Notes client we have to use for calendaring. My old Nokia used to do that until we patched to XP SP2, then it just said there was a computer that wanted to send me files over my IR receiver and it never worked again.

Phone numbers I can manage, keeping my calendar at my fingers is a pain.

Yeah, I've listened to all of 10 songs on my phone. If I want music I'm either in my car (have a radio/CD player) or at my PC (I have mp3 software).

Fucking chocolate INDEED.

[noel]

A few quick points:

For Sueven: Visual voicemail. Truly innovative on a cell phone though pretty straighforward for anyone that's listened to an audio file on their PC in the last 15 years.

Funk: Interesting thing about the Japanese cell providers. They use a system that doesn't work with most other countries. I have a quadband Crackberry, and when I was in JPN, I had to get a separate phone for cellular access because the Japanese carriers use something that's relatively unique. I never did take the time to find out what it was. I didn't have that problem when I was in Europe. My Crackberry worked just fine there.

The other thing was that though a huge percentage of the japanese people I saw were texting like it was the coolest thing since sliced bread, there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the phones. Most were flipphones that looked pretty mundane.

I haven't been in Japan since 06/06 so maybe things have changed. Interesting wiki (OMG WIKI IS TRENDY) on Japanese Phone Culture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_m ... ne_culture

For my money, the best phone out at the moment is the Blackberry Curve with Wifi.

Edit: Ash, does the Blackberry Enterprise Server synch with Notes? (sorry I'm a network engineer not a sys engineer) I can't imagine it wouldn't... getting your corp. to spring for it might be a pain in the ass though.

[sarlen]

Edit: Ash, does the Blackberry Enterprise Server synch with Notes? (sorry I'm a network engineer not a sys engineer) I can't imagine it wouldn't... getting your corp. to spring for it might be a pain in the ass though.

We use Crackberrys with Lotus, it is a big pain in the ass but it does work.

[Ashur]

Thanks Noel.

I know we have Blackberry synch stuff that there's an internal chargeback for and everyone below an IT Director gets yelled at if they sign up for.

I just want something that handles synching the Lotus Notes calendar well, that said unless this phone dies, I'm stuck with it for quite a while as I'm too broke to buy a new one when I have one that works. I suppose I'll address this topic in another year or more when this one is due for a tech replacement.

[noel]

That's the main reason I won't move over to an iPhone. It just won't do the calendar and email synching in the manner my crackberry does. It's really nice to not be tied to an office/VPN connection for email/work phone access.

Understood about cost though. I really wanna upgrade to the new 8820 (newest Blackberry, supports wifi, no camera-- can't have a camera in my line of work) but work won't spring for it, and the wife won't let me just go buy one. If I were to buy one, I could just move over my SIM card and synch with the BES and all would be well.

Sarlen, just for my own curiosity... pain in the ass for the users or the administrators?

[Funkmasterr]

Funk: Interesting thing about the Japanese cell providers. They use a system that doesn't work with most other countries. I have a quadband Crackberry, and when I was in JPN, I had to get a separate phone for cellular access because the Japanese carriers use something that's relatively unique. I never did take the time to find out what it was. I didn't have that problem when I was in Europe. My Crackberry worked just fine there.

The other thing was that though a huge percentage of the japanese people I saw were texting like it was the coolest thing since sliced bread, there wasn't anything particularly remarkable about the phones. Most were flipphones that looked pretty mundane.

I haven't been in Japan since 06/06 so maybe things have changed. Interesting wiki (OMG WIKI IS TRENDY) on Japanese Phone Culture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_m ... ne_culture

Yeah you are right about the texting thing. From what I have been told by my cousin, and other people I know that live/visit Japan, they do little to no calling, just text, text and more text.

The cool thing is how texting works on the phones I have personally used. The text a lot of times will be written out like you are watching someone type it, and if they say something that has an emoticon (lol for example) it will show the text, which will then turn into the emoticon, not a big deal but just kinda cool I think.

One thing they don't do is try to make phones smaller (something I don't really understand about american phones either) they will make them as big as they have to be to make all the features work the best, and their flip phones in particular are usually larger in size than the flip phones available here. The phone my cousin brought home with him last month (he goes through phones like toilet paper, which also seems to be a trend there)- I think he is with softbank now, didn't look too flashy, it looked like a normal flip phone.

However, it did all of the stuff mentioned in that wiki article. It can be used to pay for train tickets/bus tickets/vending machines all by just waving it in front of it like a proximity card, and it just adds those things to his phone bill. It also has a camera far superior to anything I have ever seen in another cell phone (not a huge deal for most people I know, but it was like 3.8 megapixel)
It had the TV feature I mentioned, which he was even able to use here while he was in the states (interestingly enough, that phone worked here, granted he had to pay international roaming fees I'm sure, but our phones won't work there. Side note also, Korea/Korean phones use the same type of network as Japanese.)
Another large improvement I noticed was the sound quality from the speaker (much better than anything I've heard.) Security features, like mentioned in the article where it can do fingerprint recognition, and of course video phone are a few other features.


One thing I don't get about the phones companies there is how they treat SIM cards like a rare commodity. I got a phone from him (I would be using it if it worked w/ the my faves plans at t mobile) and he had to give them the sim card back because they were going to charge like 500 dollars if he didn't.

Edit: It's actually funny too, cause if you talk to a japanese person about cell phones, they will more often than not laugh at you for using a phone as a ... phone.

Nobody in Japan types on a mobile phone keyboard with two hands, like Americans do on their Blackberries.
If you did that, you would be laughed at; it's considered common sense and the norm to be able to type into your mobile phone with one hand.
Plus, why would the Japanese want to put a big bulky PDA like Blackberry item just to phone?
Most Japanese utilise e-mail a little more than phone calling on their mobile anyways.
Even though I understand that the US is a big country, why are companies even mentioning "coverage" as a major factor?
It's 2006, you know.
In Japan, if you don't know much about phone e-mail and whatnot, you can take off the e-mail and Internet service from the phone and use it like an ordinary phone; my 67 year old grandmother in Japan does that.

I believe the network used in Japan/Korea and I think Australia is WCDMA, but I also believe that very recently they rolled out GSM support there, so GSM phones from the U.S. should work there in theory.

[sarlen]

Sarlen, just for my own curiosity... pain in the ass for the users or the administrators?

Both really. The users have to put up with database irregularities like contacts duplicating them selfs and all the read marks turning to unread (that can suck if you get 100+ mails a day and rely on the mark to know if you worked it yet). From the admin side the database corruption is a weekly issue. Not a single day goes by someone doesn't call and say none of my mails will open or the device refuses to sync. Over all I wouldn’t recommend using a BB devise with Lotus if you can help it. Our few Outlook users do not have any of these issues, as a matter of fact its well know here that if a BB user has Outlook we will not hear back from them after the initial setup.

Ash, the Blackberry desktop manager will sync with Lotus. I use it and it works fine for me on XP. If you need a copy of it let me know I'm sure I can dig it up around here somewhere.

[Ashur]

Ash, the Blackberry desktop manager will sync with Lotus. I use it and it works fine for me on XP. If you need a copy of it let me know I'm sure I can dig it up around here somewhere.

Asuming that works with an LG Chocolate, hook a man up

[sarlen]

Ash, the Blackberry desktop manager will sync with Lotus. I use it and it works fine for me on XP. If you need a copy of it let me know I'm sure I can dig it up around here somewhere.

Asuming that works with an LG Chocolate, hook a man up

hmm..ill try it and let you know, pretty sure we have one of those pieces as crap laying around here.

[sarlen]

It didn't work. Although I had limited time to play with the phone (guy 2 offices down has one) I tried a few different sync packages we use for strange devices with no luck. Ill try again on Monday when he has more time.

[Ashur]

Much appreciated Sarlen!