Pitching my smartphone recommendations

[slitchfield]

No, not a blatant Phones Show plug (though Phones Show Chat 18 is out), but a serious attempt to provoke thought and discussion. Ahead of a video feature on smartphone recommendations, I've opened up my thought processes to you below, in some detail, breaking down the market into a whopping seven stereotypes(!) Maybe you'd like to chip in with comments, recommendations and disqualifications of your own?

Read on in the full article.

Wow gr8 work steve..

Also iphone 3GS stands out to be a winner in all dept.. Thats amazing!

I have an Iphone 3GS and had many Nokia's before (E90, N95 8GB, N82, E85, all communicators).
But the media creation is not that great (only 3MP Camera, no flash). How can you put this on top of the the media creation devices.
I'm currently looking into buying an Samsung i8910. With the new firmware and availability of custom firmwares this looks very promising..
Steve, what's your idea here?

The Nokia N79 Active, if you manage to find one :-)

[slitchfield]

@wiltjer: Can't believe I'm being the iPhone advocate here(!), but the 3GS's cam and (especially) video is actually very good. I've got video samples from James Burland from the 3GS which rival the Nokia N86. And its mike is also excellent.

Ah, um, slitch, that is only when it's in 100% optimal conditions. I have free access to the 3GS (or rather, I bully my friends into lending me use their phones quite often) and I NEVER ever bother using the camera for still or video when it's a sunny day and I'm outdoors. Otherwise the captured image becomes very noisy, to the extent that I will just delete the file on the spot.

A sort of proof (but the files aren't with me, however) : My friend and I took a picture from the same spot (well, side by side, actually) and I used my old 5700XM, and him his 3GS (we were taking pictures for a project, then I thought about comparison WHILE doing the project, hence this 'showdown'.) It was indoors and the lighting was average, and oddly, even though the 3GS has more detail due to the 3.2MP camera, the amount of noise was worse. :S

[xXxJackxXx]

Very good job! EVERY SINGLE TIME I use your grid I either get my current smartphone or the one I want(if I'm in the market for one).
Sometimes I wonder why the operators don't have something like this in their shops.
As for the web-a-holic section.... I didn't know the HD2 had support for flash(I would immediately disqualify any device from this category if it didn't support flash)
Cheers and happy holidays from Romania!

hi Steve:
Just tried your Grid... result: winner Samsung i8910 HD, runner up: Nokia N97 mini
Again your grid gives me an almost perfect answer

Thanks for being the smartphone hero

I am afraid, very afraid that the category road warrior is headed for demise. Sadly, since I have lived, breathed and slept with these things since my first Series 3A. The E90 has stopped without a successor, the HTC doesn't have a real OS, the N97 hardly qualifies. I am dreading the day my E90 will die on me.

I just cannot imagine there is no market for a properly keyboarded, large screened communicator anymore. People happily tote a whole laptop all over the world, but would not want to be seen with a slightly larger phone? If someone shovelled a decent phone and some netbook-like capability into the form factor of a Psion 5MX or Revo I think you would have a killer. At least for a more than attractive niche market. I would go for it like a rocket.

Maybe the N97 shows the way- why not go the other direction and make a larger version, optimised for office use? The marginal development costs I am sure must be very small. This market would not consist of design freaks so any successor could use the same outer hardware with just a few adjustments to keep it updated.

I could even imagine a third party doing this- buying or licensing the innards of a phone and fitting it to a custom exterior. If you can separately buy coloured exteriors for phones, why not the keyboard and screen?

[joness9]

Troll alert:

"Also iphone 3GS stands out to be a winner in all dept.. Thats amazing!"

Always amazes me how many Apple sycophants turn up on this site.

[Williamoni]

Steve - granted Apple have made great strides with the iPhone's camera/video capabilities but with no flash for the camera surely this makes its inclusion as one of the top media creating smartphones questionable. I would find the absence of a flash to be annoying since it restricts the occasions when the camera is available.

[sapporobaby]

While I may not have always agreed with Steve in the past, I have to say that he is spot on in recommendations.

To clarify a few points first. Yes, in low light situations, the iPhone's camera and vid functions are not up to par with a camera with either a single or dual LED, however, in equally lit situations, i.e. sunny day, normal day with backlighting by the sun, the camera responds very well, and vid quality is not bad. The point being, the iPhone is sold as a media, jack of all trades device. It does some things much better than others. Second, point and most crucial in my opinion is that any time an Apple or iPhone enthusiast drops by, the typical myopic troll baiters show up to throw an insult here or there. The fact is, currently the iPhone is smoking just about anything Nokia can throw at the wall in many of the most important user categories. Steve's article simply drives home the point. The iPhone offers a better user experience to the average user out of the box that no phone maker can "currently" come close to. You can hate iPhone users, call them posers, say the phone is a fashion statement, etc... but the fact remains that it is the best and easiest phone to use for MOST people and this is where the money is. As an N86/iPhone user, I find that I reach for the iPhone 8 out of 10 times when I want to do something, be it call, watch a video, listen to music, whatever as the iPhone provides a better experience.Third point. The integration between iTunes, The App Store, and Mobile Me is completely seamless and something that NO ONE has to offer. Ovi services are simply lacking when compared to the Eco-system that Apple has put together in support of their device. They did this in the space of 2 and a half years while Nokia has been floundering with Ovi for what seems like forever.

Again: Kudos on the article Steve.

[Williamoni]

Nice categorisation Steve, but, overall I preferred your earlier broad categories since they nicely tied things up in a way which is easier to remember.

Having recently purchased an iPod Touch I can appreciate why you chose the iPhone as the media consumer king for example. This probably still wins in this category. In fact it's almost a walkover of Kauto Star proportions.

In your messaging broad category I don't see how the iPhone will ever win. It's too much of a pain entering information using the touch screen. I'd take a keyboard/keypad any day of the week. I'd choose a Nokia here and the specific model is tricky to nominate.

The media creating category would also be a Nokia, and your previous choice of the N82 is probably right up there still, amazingly. The lack of camera flash causes me to rule out the iPhone here.

How can anyone even think of putting an iPhone in the media creation category. Sure it's video/picture capabilities are not bad in sunny condition, but who on this planet that doesn't live in miami or the sahara has sunny condition every day? And even in those places the sun sets at some point. And I haven't even mentioned indoors...
So is the iPhone an excellent phone? Hell yeah! But is the iPhone my first choice when it comes to media creation? Absolutely not, not even my 5th choice...

Media Creator:
N82

Comms Junkie:
N97, E75

Media Consumer:
iphone

Work addict:
E90

Tech Enthusiast:
N900

Web-a-holic
N900