Smart phone for dummies ..help!

[jacksmomtobe]

Ok my contract it up with Verizon so I have the ability to choose a new phone and a new provider if necessary. First off what I am looking to do with the phone is access email (gmail acct), surf web on occaision, use a calendar function. So I have many questions...please excuse me if some are silly as I've been away from technology for a while so I am not as savvy as I used to be:

*First off how do I find the best plan for me? What should I be looking for in choosing a plan? What do I want to make sure I have on my plan? What is not necessary?

*Which provider? I am not tied to Verizon but have not had problems with service. DH has AT&T so their may be a benefit of trying to tag us together. He currently has an incredible amount of minutes in his plan (that rollover but are expiring). Up until recently he used his phone for work and got reimbursed. Not sure if his new job will reimburse. And if they do they we would need the billing to separate out charges by phone.

*Which phone to choose? Iphone? Blackberry? Motorola Droid?

*We use a PC at home...can I use an iphone? Am I still able to take advantage of all it's features?

*For checking gmail...I'm used to reading it through Outlook and don't particularly enjoy reading it the way it is formatted on the internet ie like conversations. I guess I could get used to that if necessary but it has driven me a bit batty.

*Any features you don't use on your smartphone that you thought you would but don't? Any featues that you use that you didn't realize you would?

Thanks for reading this long post!!! As you can see I need help!
Kim

[BillK]

*First off how do I find the best plan for me? What should I be looking for in choosing a plan? What do I want to make sure I have on my plan? What is not necessary? That's your call. How many minutes do you need? Do you need texting? If you want a smartphone - you'll have to pony up for a data plan regardless but they don't come with texting. iPhone plan on ATT is a flat $30/extra per month added to whatever plan you select.

*Which provider? I am not tied to Verizon but have not had problems with service. DH has AT&T so their may be a benefit of trying to tag us together. He currently has an incredible amount of minutes in his plan (that rollover but are expiring). Up until recently he used his phone for work and got reimbursed. Not sure if his new job will reimburse. And if they do they we would need the billing to separate out charges by phone. I switched from VZW to ATT and had no problems (near Pittsburgh) - my wife and I both have iPhones with ATT and it's worked great.

*Which phone to choose? Iphone? Blackberry? Motorola Droid? Obviously I'm partial to the iPhone (since I switched from VZW/BB Curve for it). If you stay with VZW - I'd probably lean toward a Droid vs a BB.

*We use a PC at home...can I use an iphone? Am I still able to take advantage of all it's features? Yes - iTunes is what you need for an iPhone and there's a Windows version and you can sync your contacts/emails etc with Outlook (and other things). I'm sure the Mac to iPhone interface is more elegant and has more features - but there's nothing I've noticed with Windows and iTunes/iPhone that's limiting.

*For checking gmail...I'm used to reading it through Outlook and don't particularly enjoy reading it the way it is formatted on the internet ie like conversations. I guess I could get used to that if necessary but it has driven me a bit batty. iPhone email is it's own creature (unless you access email via Safari which is the Apple equivalent to Internet Explorer).

*Any features you don't use on your smartphone that you thought you would but don't? Any featues that you use that you didn't realize you would? No - we use tons of great things with our iPhones - like Facebook, Twitter, Stanza, Lose It!. One our favorite things is being able to sync our iPhones to Google Calendar and being able to keep each other updated on appointments and such - works great.


Hope this helps. We LOVE our iPhones but I know some folks have bad ATT coverage where they are - thankfully for us - our ATT coverage is very similar to VZW's and we've not had any issues. My wife is totally not a techno-person and her iPhone is pretty much like an extra appendage now. If she can make use of it - I'm pretty sure darn near anyone could. :)

[karstmama]

my main thought is make sure that the places you might routinely go (your mother's, his mother's, your sister's, whatever) will support the new service. i'm saying this because since i live in the sticks, us cellular is the *only* service that works here. if i move to the dc area (which is planned), i'm not sure i'll switch even when i can, because this is where my parents live & i'd hate not to have a phone on long visits.

yeah, another instance where being rural sucks. then again, you can get collards out of the field & pay the farmer later when you see him at the post office.

[shishamo]

We went from Verizon to At&T in order to get iPhone. I am SO happy I did that. I honestly do not know how I managed to do without my iphone, I love it.

Our coverage for AT&T is worse than Verizon (I am in Oregon, not in a big city but not rural) but still it is worth it for us.

I sync mine with my mac, my dh syncs with his phone with his pc laptop and it works fine.
I use yahoo mail and the interface is really similar to my laptop. Like Billk, I sync my calendar with my husband's.

We do bundle our account through his work (he need his phone) and we pay for my part out of our pocket.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

I'm sure you'll be happy with iPhone or Droid. I have a Droid, so I have to chime in. :)

The email interface for gmail on Droid is not in conversations. I get my gmail, our joint gmail and my yahoo all with notification.

I sync to my Outlook calendar (through my gmail calendar). DH & I also have a joint google calendar that is synced as well.

Web surfing is great.

I think the only benefit to switching to iPhone would be if you are fully immerssed in iTunes and want to stick with that format.

Otherwise, I don't really think there's any big advantage. They do all the same things and I would argue that the screen on the Droid gives a better web surfing experience. Oh, and Droid can run multiple non-native aps, so if you want to listen to Pandora and surf the web, you can.

However, Verizon doesn't let you talk and use 3G. AT&T does, but it depends on the 3G coverage.

I think the step up with this kind of phone is so great that you will love it no matter what. I know I love my Droid!

[Karenn]

The advice I got was to choose a service provider and then choose a phone. It worked well for us to do it that way. I did most of my research at cnet.com. It was really helpful in helping me get my head around all of the smart phone details. The phones I looked at most closely were the iphone, the Droid and the Palm Pre. I ended up with a motorola droid.

Things I love:
It works seamlessly with Google calendar making it easy for me & dh to share calanders with one another- we don't even have to remember to "sync" it. This is totally my favorite thing about it.

I love the way it works with all of google's different components in general. I use a lot of google stuff and my phone is able to work with it.

I like that for any cool app for the iphone that I see, I can almost always find comparable an android app. (Except for the kindle, see below.)

I like the slide out keyboard. Onscreen keyboards make me crazy

I like that my phone actually works at my house. (Verizon is the only provider that works well here.)

Love the navigation feature. We never had a navigation system in our car. Now we don't need one. I can say "Navigate to Barnes and Noble" and it figures out where I am, where the closes B&N is and then tells me the quickest way to get there, including verbal turn by turn directions.

Things I'm not as fond of:
It crashes a lot, usually when I'm trying to show someone how cool it is, LOL. I got it in November. It's crashed 6 times since then, either requiring a restart or my taking out the battery and putting it back in. Annoying.

I haven't found a good reader app like Kindle which will let you purchase/download current books. (It does have an app that will let you download and read a lot of the classics.)

It's awkward to get my itunes onto my phone. Apparently there's going to be a new app for that in a couple of months, but for now it's a lot more cumbersome than it would be with an iphone.

[Zansu]

I have the Pre from Verizon. I have great service and great coverage with Verizon, so I had no intention of changing providers. I've use a Palm phone since they became available, but the Pre uses a new OS, so experience with OS was not a big factor.

The Pre has a beautiful touchscreen interface that is IMO far better than iPhone (I have a touch) and nicer than the Droids I've played with. You can have multiple applications open (iPhone only lets you do one thing at a time). So I can talk, look up a contact, surf the web, whatever, all at once.

It automatically loads all of your contact and calendar info from Palm Desktop and Outlook the first time you use it, then syncs with Google seamlessly and automatically from there. My biggest adjustment is leaving my beloved Palm Desktop (although I may buy 3rd party software that will allow me to continue syncing).

It handles AOL and Gmail, as well as Yahoo (and others I can't remember). It will also import all of your Facebook/Twitter/etc contacts if you want. For Facebook, you can use the app, or use the web browser.

It's an extra $30 for the required data plan, above my voice plan, but I think that's the case with almost all smartphones.

There are lots of apps available, it supports iTunes for your music, and it's really a pretty phone.

[hellokitty]

I have the Pre from Verizon. I have great service and great coverage with Verizon, so I had no intention of changing providers. I've use a Palm phone since they became available, but the Pre uses a new OS, so experience with OS was not a big factor.

The Pre has a beautiful touchscreen interface that is IMO far better than iPhone (I have a touch) and nicer than the Droids I've played with. You can have multiple applications open (iPhone only lets you do one thing at a time). So I can talk, look up a contact, surf the web, whatever, all at once.

It automatically loads all of your contact and calendar info from Palm Desktop and Outlook the first time you use it, then syncs with Google seamlessly and automatically from there. My biggest adjustment is leaving my beloved Palm Desktop (although I may buy 3rd party software that will allow me to continue syncing).

It handles AOL and Gmail, as well as Yahoo (and others I can't remember). It will also import all of your Facebook/Twitter/etc contacts if you want. For Facebook, you can use the app, or use the web browser.

It's an extra $30 for the required data plan, above my voice plan, but I think that's the case with almost all smartphones.

There are lots of apps available, it supports iTunes for your music, and it's really a pretty phone.

:yeahthat: Except my palm pre is with sprint. We love the phone, it is much more compact than the iphone or droid, which seem very clunky to DH and I. We sync our calendars together through google calendars and it is on our phones. I went from a bare bones, dinosaur virgin mobile phone to the palm pre and was dreading the transition. However, it's been very easy to use and as much as I poo poo'd the idea of falling in love with a phone, I do :heartbeat: my palm pre. It's pretty awesome and I'm still surprised that most ppl overlook the palm pre as a choice when they are considering phones like the iphone and droid.

[egoldber]

I have an iPhone and get mail from my Yahoo and Gmail accounts. The Gmail is just like my Yahoo mail, it is not threaded.

[jacksmomtobe]

Thanks for everyone's input. It has been so helpful. I figured this was the best place to get my decision process started.

THANK YOU!!

[ShanaMama]

:popc1: Thanks for this thread, Jacksmomtobe. I am also in the market for a smartphone so I'm avidly following along. I'm glad to see some good reviews for the Pre. It looked good in the ads, but I never hear of anyone who has it so it's hard to know if it's any good. I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE my iTouch & would give my eye teeth for an iPhone, but DH is an avowed Verizon customer for years & we have a family plan with siblings and all. So, I'll be watching for any more reviews.

[hellokitty]

:popc1: Thanks for this thread, Jacksmomtobe. I am also in the market for a smartphone so I'm avidly following along. I'm glad to see some good reviews for the Pre. It looked good in the ads, but I never hear of anyone who has it so it's hard to know if it's any good. I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE my iTouch & would give my eye teeth for an iPhone, but DH is an avowed Verizon customer for years & we have a family plan with siblings and all. So, I'll be watching for any more reviews.

We have an itouch too and since getting our palm pre's, we no longer use our itouch. DH has even thought about selling it, b/c we basically just use our phones now. It amazes me that such a tiny gizmo (yeah, I sound old, huh?) can do so much. The pre is so much smaller than our itouch too, I never thought it would be that big of a difference, but it is a pretty big difference and it is much more comfortable to hold in my hand than the itouch b/c of it's size and shape (more rounded than the itouch). We didn't know anyone with palm pre's before we took the leap. DH was lusting over the iphone, but AT&T has a horrible signal here, so it wasn't even an option. As soon as he saw the palm pre (he's such a geek about this kind of stuff), he lost interest in the iphone and wanted the pre instead. I don't understand all the nitty gritty details, but he said something about how it has better software or something, basically for the iphones, everything has to be ok'd through apple and he doesn't like that, so the pre is more open ended.