Smartphones. Who here has 'em?

[Pehu]

There's been quite a few new (...and some old) smart phones released in Barcelona this week. Lots of people kind of waited for Samsung Galaxy S III, but of course that phone wasn't yet introduced. I kind of like the new HTC products and the new Nokia designs. Interesting to see if WP has a chance, both players are putting WP phones out, HTC putting emphasis on specs and Nokia on design. If you're a camera geek the Nokia 808 Pureview might be your cup of tea, kind of a crazy, bulky design with a totally ridiculous camera.

[Keven]

Verizon has a leap day sale today, $100 off a lot of phones and tablets. I bought the Xyboard 10.1 for $420 with contract.

[Fronty5]

I talk on the phone all day at work, I hate to hear the phone ring at home. I ditched my cell phone a couple of years ago. Sometimes it is nice to be unreachable.

[Brandito]

I talk on the phone all day at work, I hate to hear the phone ring at home. I ditched my cell phone a couple of years ago. Sometimes it is nice to be unreachable.

My smartphone makes very few calls.

[Big B-man]

I think we'll probably do Virgin Mobile next year. $35/line for 300 minutes + text and data (we've used 179 minutes this month combined), so the 700 minutes with Verizon is nice, but we have over 900 texts, so a huge minute plan just doesn't mean much.

Kinda like the Motorola Triumph, but I'll have to see what happens by the early part of 2013.

[Keven]

I had to RMA my 10-inch Motorola Xyboard.

[Brandito]

I might be picking up a Galaxy Nexus on sprint by the end of the month, the new evo 4g lte sounds good on paper, but it's ugly and I'm done with sense. It's out lived its usefulness, stock ICS is too good.

I'd wait for the GS3 but I don't want touchwiz and who knows how long that might be. Besides my evo 4g is killing me. It runs out of storage without even downloading any new apps, and I haven't been able to install any new apps because of it.

Also planning to get a transformer pad 300, 32gb if they turn out to exist. If not then probably a transformer prime. Basically the same thing but the 300 is 100 dollars cheaper.

[Activate: AMD]

I'm tired of the BS these US carriers are pulling. First, subsidized phones with 2 year contracts are getting out of hand. $300 up front on a 700$ device is highway robbery on a plan that costs 100+$/mo. Now they have the gall to start charging $30+ for the privilege of upgrading your phone! Is this the only industry where they literally charge you money to stay with them? What sort of ass-backwards nonsense is going on here? Oh, and on top of that, they strong-arm all the phone manufacturers into creating one-off models and weird versions of their phones, then brand them with retardedly confusing naming. I can't buy a galaxy SII... no, I have to buy the SKYROCKET! Or Verizon... we'll make a crappier version of the HTC OneX, but we'll call it the Incredible 4G! Why can't these two just offer us what the rest of the world gets? I blame VZ for their lame decision to go CDMA all those years ago while everyone else did the GSM thing.

i'm about to move to Europe for the damn phones

[Brandito]

I don't get the cdma vs gsm argument, neither is totally better than the other. Other than using your phone on different networks is it really that big a deal?

I have sprint though, seems like att and vz customers have had enough, perhaps it's time to try yellow?

Sprint at least isn't strong arming google wallet out of their gnex.

[Activate: AMD]

I don't get the cdma vs gsm argument, neither is totally better than the other. Other than using your phone on different networks is it really that big a deal?

I have sprint though, seems like att and vz customers have had enough, perhaps it's time to try yellow?

Sprint at least isn't strong arming google wallet out of their gnex.

the point is not a CDMA vs GSM argument based on the nitty-gritty technical crap, but the fact that everyone else uses GSM (aside from a few regional players and Sprint). That means that phones that launch as global models, like the galaxy phones (nexus included) have to jump through hoops to become vzw models. In the case of the Galaxy Nexus VZW used this process to push through their own hardware changes, like the removal of NFC. It also delays the release of software updates. It would be nice to be able to take phones back and forth across networks, or more readily swap in a foreign SIM if you wind up traveling, but thats almost secondary to the fact that putting a CDMA modem into the phones is a more significant hardware change. And the last point is that GSM 3G has been updated to be a lot faster than the CDMA 3G standard verizon is still using, so there is at least some technical advantage to GSM at this point.

[Keven]

the point is not a CDMA vs GSM argument based on the nitty-gritty technical crap, but the fact that everyone else uses GSM (aside from a few regional players and Sprint). That means that phones that launch as global models, like the galaxy phones (nexus included) have to jump through hoops to become vzw models. In the case of the Galaxy Nexus VZW used this process to push through their own hardware changes, like the removal of NFC. It also delays the release of software updates. It would be nice to be able to take phones back and forth across networks, or more readily swap in a foreign SIM if you wind up traveling, but thats almost secondary to the fact that putting a CDMA modem into the phones is a more significant hardware change. And the last point is that GSM 3G has been updated to be a lot faster than the CDMA 3G standard verizon is still using, so there is at least some technical advantage to GSM at this point.

There are differences between GSM and CDMA, technically. CDMA towers can cover more area, and handle more concurrent bandwidth to different users. CDMA is also better at handling the hand-off between towers, meaning less dropped calls (though I have heard some RF engineers from T-Mobile dispute this claim, they told me CDMA handles worse in hilly terrain). When I used to review phones regularly, I used phones from all carriers around the midwest and at Las Vegas and AT&T/T-Mobile were regularly faster than Verizon/Sprint, but had more dropped calls on GSM. HSPA+ (3.5G GSM) is really really fast. In Las Vegas for CES one year, I had a Clear (Sprint) WiMAX 4G USB card, the other guy was using a T-Mobile HSPA+ MiFi hotspot, and he was getting faster speeds than me on Tmo's phony 4G network (HSPA+ really is 3.5G, but T-Mobile markets it as 4G as you guys know. Don't get me started on that horseshit. And T-Mobile knows how I feel about this. At least some of their guys)

I think if I had to pick between the two, CDMA is probably the better technically, but GSM is probably the better for consumers. As I recall, Qualcomm developed CDMA in around the mid-1990s or so as an American response to GSM (which was developed by the Euro telecom regulatory agency). Technically, it's better, but it also leaves total control in the hands of the carriers, as you can't move phones or plans around without their say so.

I agree regarding the price of phones. I don't think the price of phone subsidized is a good thing for the market. Like American health care ("take it to TLR!") where insurance paid most of the costs for everybody while everything got expensive, most Americans think their new smartphone cost $200 and they're completely ignorant to the other $500 that the carrier is paying. And they're also completely happy to lock themselves into a two-year contract. It is deluding the value of the hardware and setting up a dangerous roadmap where we're buying $1000 phones from carriers for $200 and locking ourselves into three-year contracts like they have in Canada.

The thing about Android is that while we like it because it's so customizable and open-source, the carriers like it for the same thing - it's customizable to them. When Apple first shopped the iPhone, Verizon rejected it first because Apple had very specific demands on the carrier (no long cert times for OS updates, no carrier bloatware apps installed on the phone when its new). Verizon passed and AT&T accepted, and the rest is history. But, carriers like Android because it is open, they can put all their crap demo apps on there like VZ Navigator (don't use free Google Maps Navigator, spend $9/month for Verizon Navigator, wtf year is this?).

So, it's the two edged-sword of openness. It's open for the carriers, too. If Google dropped the hammer on all this crap, carriers might not be so quick to offer Android. This is why the Nexus phones are a beautiful thing. Google tried selling the first one on their website, the Nexus One, without a contract. I thought that was kind of a cool set-up, but they only sold like 100,000 of them. So, they have to work with the carriers for the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus and that means more conceits, like disabling NFC or whatever.

[Activate: AMD]

There are differences between GSM and CDMA, technically. CDMA towers can cover more area, and handle more concurrent bandwidth to different users. CDMA is also better at handling the hand-off between towers, meaning less dropped calls (though I have heard some RF engineers from T-Mobile dispute this claim, they told me CDMA handles worse in hilly terrain). When I used to review phones regularly, I used phones from all carriers around the midwest and at Las Vegas and AT&T/T-Mobile were regularly faster than Verizon/Sprint, but had more dropped calls on GSM. HSPA+ (3.5G GSM) is really really fast. In Las Vegas for CES one year, I had a Clear (Sprint) WiMAX 4G USB card, the other guy was using a T-Mobile HSPA+ MiFi hotspot, and he was getting faster speeds than me on Tmo's phony 4G network (HSPA+ really is 3.5G, but T-Mobile markets it as 4G as you guys know. Don't get me started on that horseshit. And T-Mobile knows how I feel about this. At least some of their guys)

I think if I had to pick between the two, CDMA is probably the better technically, but GSM is probably the better for consumers. As I recall, Qualcomm developed CDMA in around the mid-1990s or so as an American response to GSM (which was developed by the Euro telecom regulatory agency). Technically, it's better, but it also leaves total control in the hands of the carriers, as you can't move phones or plans around without their say so.

Yea, I'm at least superficially familiar with the origins of CDMA in the US market, and its clear that once they went CDMA there was no going back. LTE is a GSM standard, but until the build-out is complete nation wide and VZW does VoLTE, we're stuck with CDMA. With the amount of existing infrastructure and the costs associated, that process could easily take a decade and I'm under no illusions otherwise. I'm not all that interested in the original reasons they went CDMA, just pointing out the fact that we're now suffering as a result of that decision. Of course, VZW is widely regarding as having the most robust national network and CDMA could be the reason for that, so its a mixed bag.

I agree regarding the price of phones. I don't think the price of phone subsidized is a good thing for the market. Like American health care ("take it to TLR!") where insurance paid most of the costs for everybody while everything got expensive, most Americans think their new smartphone cost $200 and they're completely ignorant to the other $500 that the carrier is paying. And they're also completely happy to lock themselves into a two-year contract. It is deluding the value of the hardware and setting up a dangerous roadmap where we're buying $1000 phones from carriers for $200 and locking ourselves into three-year contracts like they have in Canada.

Yea, I wholeheartedly agree. The two year contract is the reason that the major carriers can get away with all the crap they pull on consumers. Company A (insert ATT or VZW here) of them introduces a new nickel-and-dime fee, like this new $30 "upgrade fee". Because their customers are locked into 2 year deals with ETFs, they can't immediately react to the stupid fee without incurring an even bigger one, so they stay with their current carrier. Company B notices that A introduced a new revenue stream and showed only a tiny amount of subscriber turnover.. now they think "great! If they can get away with it, so can we!" so they introduce the same thing within months. Its not back-room collusion in the traditional sense, but it might as well be. The same exact thing happened with SMS per-message rates. One bumped it to 15c, so they all bumped to 15c, even though the costs associated with SMS messages are on the order of 1c or less. Its just unfathomable that a major industry is basically charging their customers for loyalty, but its a byproduct of subsidized handsets. Its also frustrating that you have to pay the same monthly rates whether you buy a phone outright or not, and then on top of that, you can't jump ship between major carriers because they use competing, incompatible standards! So you have to buy a brand new unsubsidized phone just to switch if they try to bump up your plan rates. Of course, its easy to rail against stuff like this, but I have to admit that I will ultimately probably be hypocritical because I simply can't afford to pay the $700 a phone I want commands. It would be a completely different matter if the monthly rates were lower, since it would eventually pay you back, but of course, it pays the carriers back too so theres absolutely zero incentive for them to do that. Its a catch 22 and its frustrating as all hell

The thing about Android is that while we like it because it's so customizable and open-source, the carriers like it for the same thing - it's customizable to them. When Apple first shopped the iPhone, Verizon rejected it first because Apple had very specific demands on the carrier (no long cert times for OS updates, no carrier bloatware apps installed on the phone when its new). Verizon passed and AT&T accepted, and the rest is history. But, carriers like Android because it is open, they can put all their crap demo apps on there like VZ Navigator (don't use free Google Maps Navigator, spend $9/month for Verizon Navigator, wtf year is this?).

So, it's the two edged-sword of openness. It's open for the carriers, too. If Google dropped the hammer on all this crap, carriers might not be so quick to offer Android. This is why the Nexus phones are a beautiful thing. Google tried selling the first one on their website, the Nexus One, without a contract. I thought that was kind of a cool set-up, but they only sold like 100,000 of them. So, they have to work with the carriers for the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus and that means more conceits, like disabling NFC or whatever.

Yea, as much as I love android, it would basically be worthless to me if it weren't for its open source nature. At least there are ways around the bloat and the stupidly long carrier cert times. My DINC would still be running Froyo with a ton of unfixed bugs if there weren't open-source ROMs available. I don't like apple at all, but that is at least one scenario where keeping draconian control over the OS is actually beneficial to consumers. Overall though, I find the hardware change BS that the carriers pull to be much much more abhorrent than the bloat they insist on putting on their phones. Like I said, the bloat can be removed, features added, open-source ROMs loaded, but gimped processors, crappy screens, removed or downgraded cameras are stuck there forever.

[Keven]

One bumped it to 15c, so they all bumped to 15c, even though the costs associated with SMS messages are on the order of 1c or less.

Way less, I think. I think I read on FierceWireless (good website for the inside baseball of the mobile industry) that like 85% of the bandwidth on the big four US carriers is spent on data, and voice/text makes up the other 15%. We should totally be paying like $9.99 for unlimited voice/text and then paying their crazy fees for data.

Of course, its easy to rail against stuff like this, but I have to admit that I will ultimately probably be hypocritical because I simply can't afford to pay the $700 a phone I want commands. It would be a completely different matter if the monthly rates were lower, since it would eventually pay you back, but of course, it pays the carriers back too so theres absolutely zero incentive for them to do that. Its a catch 22 and its frustrating as all hell

Yeah, it's totally the subsidies that set up the market the way it was though. If carriers didn't subsidize the phone, you would have Samsung, HTC and Motorola competing on price, rather than the off-contract price all being $699.99. When the carriers are picking up everything past the first $200, who cares what the phone cost!

Take for example my RMA'ed Motorola Xyboard. I got it on-sale/on-contract for $420. Off contract, Verizon wants $699.99 for the 16GB 10-inch Xyboard with 4G. Heck, the new iPad with 16GB and 4G costs $629.99. Somehow, the "Apple tax" that we bitched about for years with laptops and desktops has infected the entire cell phone/tablet market. Android manufacturers have all accepted Apple's pricing as a baseline because the consumer is ignorant of what everything really costs and that's a bad thing.

[kbohip]

There are differences between GSM and CDMA, technically. CDMA towers can cover more area, and handle more concurrent bandwidth to different users. CDMA is also better at handling the hand-off between towers, meaning less dropped calls (though I have heard some RF engineers from T-Mobile dispute this claim, they told me CDMA handles worse in hilly terrain). When I used to review phones regularly, I used phones from all carriers around the midwest and at Las Vegas and AT&T/T-Mobile were regularly faster than Verizon/Sprint, but had more dropped calls on GSM. HSPA+ (3.5G GSM) is really really fast. In Las Vegas for CES one year, I had a Clear (Sprint) WiMAX 4G USB card, the other guy was using a T-Mobile HSPA+ MiFi hotspot, and he was getting faster speeds than me on Tmo's phony 4G network (HSPA+ really is 3.5G, but T-Mobile markets it as 4G as you guys know. Don't get me started on that horseshit. And T-Mobile knows how I feel about this. At least some of their guys)

I think if I had to pick between the two, CDMA is probably the better technically, but GSM is probably the better for consumers. As I recall, Qualcomm developed CDMA in around the mid-1990s or so as an American response to GSM (which was developed by the Euro telecom regulatory agency). Technically, it's better, but it also leaves total control in the hands of the carriers, as you can't move phones or plans around without their say so.

I agree regarding the price of phones. I don't think the price of phone subsidized is a good thing for the market. Like American health care ("take it to TLR!") where insurance paid most of the costs for everybody while everything got expensive, most Americans think their new smartphone cost $200 and they're completely ignorant to the other $500 that the carrier is paying. And they're also completely happy to lock themselves into a two-year contract. It is deluding the value of the hardware and setting up a dangerous roadmap where we're buying $1000 phones from carriers for $200 and locking ourselves into three-year contracts like they have in Canada.

The thing about Android is that while we like it because it's so customizable and open-source, the carriers like it for the same thing - it's customizable to them. When Apple first shopped the iPhone, Verizon rejected it first because Apple had very specific demands on the carrier (no long cert times for OS updates, no carrier bloatware apps installed on the phone when its new). Verizon passed and AT&T accepted, and the rest is history. But, carriers like Android because it is open, they can put all their crap demo apps on there like VZ Navigator (don't use free Google Maps Navigator, spend $9/month for Verizon Navigator, wtf year is this?).

So, it's the two edged-sword of openness. It's open for the carriers, too. If Google dropped the hammer on all this crap, carriers might not be so quick to offer Android. This is why the Nexus phones are a beautiful thing. Google tried selling the first one on their website, the Nexus One, without a contract. I thought that was kind of a cool set-up, but they only sold like 100,000 of them. So, they have to work with the carriers for the Nexus S and Galaxy Nexus and that means more conceits, like disabling NFC or whatever.

This is another reason why I like Android. Right now I'm running ICS (Euphoria) on my almost 2 year old Samsung Vibrant (T-Mobile Galaxy S) and loving it. God Bless those intelligent chaps over at XDA! I never liked Touchwiz or any of the bloatware that came with my phone originally so having an insanely customizable clean install of ICS is really nice. Apple may do a better job of keeping all of their new and older iphones up to date, but I love the ability to customize the way I want with Android.

[Keven]

Apple may do a better job of keeping all of their new and older iphones up to date

I don't think they do, they just have the ability to push the latest version of iOS out to all the phones they want instantly. For example, you have basically a first gen Samsung Galaxy S on Tmo. The guy with the same phone on Verizon may get an Android update 6 months after you. The guy on AT&T may never get it. Even though you all basically have the same phone.

But as far as the age of phones go, iOS has as much fragmentation there as Android does. Ask somebody with an iPhone 3GS or first iPad how many of the latest apps in the iTunes App Store they can buy.

So, the writers at Gizmodo or whatever tech blog can moan about fragmentation in Android, but older Apple hardware is orphaned just as often as Android stuff. Plus, the homebrew stuff is harder on Apple stuff. Somebody got Android 4.0 running on the T-Mobile G1 (first Android phone). Trust me, no developer is getting iOS 5.1 running on the first (2007) iPhone.