I need a new phone. Suggestions?

I know nothing about phones, except for maybe the iphone, which I almost got because it was the only one I knew anything about. But it's expensive and I thought maybe something cheaper and just as good/better might be out there. It's well past time I traded in my old phone for something better but I don't know what. Any help?

Also I'm on verizon if that matters.

Dont get a Moterola Droid X because that shit sucks. but my mom and dad have a Samsung Fascinate and they both like it.

Tried the new Razer at Best Buy yesterday, that seemed pretty cool. I have a 3GS, and it's still running decently on iOS5. You can get one on the cheap now, that is, if they're still being sold.

Tbh, your question is vague as anything. Do you want a super controlled environment (iPhone), to do everything you'd ever want (Android), or a user friendly UI (WP7.5). Once we know that then I can help recommend certain phones for you.

Also would you want a physical keyboard? If so Blackberry style, or Nokia N97 style?

@AlexW00d: The problem is I have no idea what you are talking about because I know nothing about phones. I can't even tell you the exact phone I currently own because I don't know what it is other than it's a motorola. Although figuring out what you are talking about will help me figure out some idea about what I want.

Tested has a lot of phone reviews/quicklooks.

Get the iPhone 4S 16 GB

I would look into Android if I were you. I have a Motorola Defy that does everything I need very well, but find what suits your budget/needs.

@pyromagnestir: I don't know what is hard to understand about what I wrote but I'll try and simplify it.

There are four main mobile operating systems right now; iOS (iPhones), Android, Blackberry OS, and Windows Phone. I could never ever recommend a Blackberry to anyone so I'm getting rid of that straight away. That leaves three.

In terms of customisation, Android is by and far the most robust, letting you customise pretty much everything. Now, of course, with this being your first modern phone this might be too much for you.

Windows Phone has the friendliest user interface of the lot, and such will be the easiest to adapt to.

All three haves apps for everything you'll really need. Twitter, Facebook, email, cloud storage, music streaming, video streaming etc.

Might as well get the iPhone since so many things are compatible with it and it works great as an iPod.

Only downside I can think of is that over time the AppStore has a lot fewer free apps and a large majority of apps coming out these days all cost money regardless of how ridiculous they are.

Verizon

Oh, Verizon, Why do you torment us? Why? Everyone (us included) was expecting the Samsung Galaxy Nexus to arrive in November on Big Red. Well, that didn’t happen, but we did see two very interesting devices launch instead. We would bet a pile of Nexuses that Verizon held the Nexus back to give the Droid Razr and HTC Rezound some breathing room. So what’s a Verizon subscriber to do?

The Droid Razr is an interesting phone. It has a 4.3-inch qHD (960x540) AMOLED screen, 1.2GHz OMAP 4430 dual-core SoC, 1GB of RAM, an 8MP rear shooter, and solid 2MP front camera. The battery is sealed in the slim 7.1mm thick chassis, and much of the device is coated with some off-the-wall sealant that makes the device water resistant. All this and it still has LTE 4G data.

As for the software, Motorola is still pushing the software formerly known as Blur, and we’re not fans. There are too many Motorola apps and unneeded animations when using modern Motorola phones. it’s not slow, but there is more hesitation than there should be at times. We will say that the Smart Actions automation system is cool, though. The Android version underlying all that is 2.3, but an Android 4.0 upgrade has been promised. This device is $299 on-contract.

The HTC Rezound is the other big new phone on Verizon. This device lacks the svelte looks of the Razr, but makes up for it in other areas. The screen is the same size as the Razr, 4.3-inches. However, it’s packing a resolution of 1280x720. It’s also LCD, meaning that it’s got a regular RGB pixel arrangement for the sharpest picture. By all accounts, this phone has one of the best screens you can get on a phone.

On the inside, we’re looking at a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S3, 1GB of RAM, customary 8MP/2MP back and front cameras, and an LTE radio. Unlike the Razr, the Rezound has a removable battery, but the phone is 13.7mm thick. That’s almost twice the thickness of the Droid Razr. If you’re the musical type, this is also the first phone with Beats Audio in the US.

The Rezound runs Android 2.3 with HTC’s Sense user interface. We’ve talked about Sense quite a bit in recent months, but HTC isn’t listening to us. Who’d have thought? Sense feels overwrought and tacky these days. This is largely an aesthetic judgement, and you may disagree. HTC has promised an update for this device, but there is no time frame and we don’t know what the company will do to ICS. The Rezound will cost you $299 on-contract.

So what device is the one to get? Both have strong points; the Rezound has that screen and removable battery, while the Razr is slim and has marginally better software. The Razr also feels oddly proportioned in the hand, probably due to the wide bezel. Despite its size, the Rezound seems to "fit" better in our experience. We’re going to have to give it to the Rezound by a tiny, tiny margin. We might not dig Sense, but you could be fine, and there’s always LauncherPro.

If you’re as indecisive as us when looking at these phones, just wait for the Nexus to come out. It’s going to be a great device, and addresses most of the issues we have with the Razr and Rezound. No release date has been outed, but it can’t be far off, we hope.

Just get an iPhone 4S and roll with it. Android is only good when you want a cheap phone or a phone you play around with. For me personally, I can't be fucked messing with a bunch of stuff to just make it work when it's just a phone, and so iOS fits me perfectly. I'll mess with that crap on Windows, but still, I'm now going to be turning my PC into a Hackintosh. Shit just working is what I want now. Also, shit looking nice and clean.

Get an iPhone 4s.

When I made this post, I'd forgotten all about Tested. Now I remember why that is. First, trying to figure out what to search for as ignorant as I am about all this is proving frustrating. There are so many fucking phones, it's seems there's a new one every five minutes. Is what I'm looking at recent? Does it work with Verizon? How do I actually buy it? I'm a moron. This is on me. I know this.

And when I actually find an article I know is recent and relevant and am reading through those articles, they are just too bogged down in shit like 1.5ghz vs 1.2 or something only having 960x540 resolution vs 1280x720, Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich, written by a guy named Wesley, who I don't know of. Who the fuck is Wesley? I'm sure he knows what he's talking about but the shit he is talking about has no practical application for me. The quick looks and such are nice since I can see what they are talking about but they are fewer than I'd hoped, and the phones Wesley recommends have none that I can find so grrr...

Again I'm a moron. I know this.

@pyromagnestir: click this and mess about with it. It's the Windows Phone UI in your browser (it's meant for use on a touch screen phone, but it works with a mouse). If you like it then go for a windows phone. If you don't, try a friends phone or go into a shop and try one.

how does gaming differ between ios and android? am i right in thinking the majority of the great mobile games are ios exclusive?

If you like

• Big screens, Tmobile has the Samsung Galaxy S2 running Android 2.3. If you're on AT$T, The Atrix is a solid phone with an Android skin, meaning it isn't pure android, the carrier and phone maker decided to muck up the User interface a bit, if you don't care, its a great phone.
• Fast performance, Do not look at android phones if you want a clean fast phone that is also a smartphone. As far as I am concerned the iPhone and any Windows phone are only worthy ones of a sleek interface. Don't get me wrong, android is great, but the amount of polish of the iPhone and Windows phone, namely the iPhone 4 or 4s and the HTC Titan are the only players here.
• Ecosystem, Apps, music marketplace, good bookstore or magazine selection, the ONLY player here is the iPhone, no doubt, and since you're on this site, gaming is best on the iPhone as you may know by now. Although, Windows phone 7 and 7.5 feature XBOX Live support, but they support far fewer games the Apple's Game center app.
• Music, The iPhone is a great choice for listening to music, but my personal favorite music app is still the native Zune music and video app on the windows phone. The interface is by far the slickest and quickest.
• Video, so far, any phone you can choose has Netflix support by now, and the codecs are being expanded on WP7, IOS and Android, any phone is fine for video
• Games, as mentioned above, iPhone all the way, unless you like Xbox live, then Windows phone is the winner.
• Customization, obviously android here, you have to be a tinkerer, and from the title of the post, I don't think this is up your alley. I could be wrong.
• And finally, social, this is tricky, because all have their own unique spin on sticking together, but so far the most thought out OS for social is Windows phone, all of your contacts can be accessed in it's own people's hub, much like a feature phone's 'contact' list.

Whoops, sort of compared OS's rather than phones. Here's the quick answer: Gaming, speed, music and apps are your thing, The iPhone 4s wins. If a small library of surprisingly good games, meaning you don't game much on your phone, but like quality games, HTC Titan and HTC Radar 4g takes it, along with a great music player, and a solid social aspect and speedy software along with it. If you like being able to tinker with your OS, and like a bunch of cheap, maybe lower quality games, Samsung galaxy S2 or the Google Galaxy Nexus is the safe bet.

@AlexW00d: From what I've gathered, UI is not really an important issue for me for these phones. I'm familiar with UI's, from computers and consoles and whatnot so I could figure it out to the extent I need to in order to make it do what I want. Although that windows phone seems to be my least favorite and that I'd maybe, just maybe, want to go another direction if that was the only factor. And also I haven't heard how the Android can do anything you'd ever want, as you say, and what that means iOS or Windows Phone can't do. But whatever that means is probably not something I'd care about or need, as it is probably way further down the rabbit hole with these things than I'm willing to go.

From what I've gathered here is what I want. I want to make calls. Duh. I know. I want to replace my old 4gb ipod mini at the same time. I want to have internet access, and apps, just cause why not. These things are not unique from what I understand, which still isn't much. Good battery life, sure I'd like that. That might be the difference maker for me even. Basically that's it.

It seems what I need to do is see the phone in action, however I'm hesitant to go to a store and have a salesman there who's trying to make money off me show me these things. Because I'm crazy like that.

@pyromagnestir: Seeming by your needs, any smartphone meets them, because they aren't very specific. So it's pretty much up to your preference. Windows phone is an aquired taste, I know people that hate the cut off words on the top for some reason. Iphone gets boring fast for me, and android is very standard, it's up to you. Plus, Verizon only has one windows phone, and it's kind of not good.

Are you Siri?

It's expensive yes but I love my iPhone 4S and I recommend it

Use it constantly, as for the carrier I can't say, I live in Sweden and for me it's Telenor, not that you guys would know what I'm talking about but still

@pyromagnestir said:

It seems what I need to do is see the phone in action, however I'm hesitant to go to a store and have a salesman there who's trying to make money off me show me these things. Because I'm crazy like that.

You're crazy. D:

Just try it for yourself! don't have a salesman show it to you.

@pyromagnestir: No, no, I am with you on that last bit. I hate salesmen, especially as they either don't know what they talk about, or they lie to get a sale. See if any of your friends have phones you can try?

But yeah, it seems like you want 'a' smart phone. They all do those things. Except have a good battery, no smart phone has a good battery.

And what I meant about Android is you can modify it as much as you want. You can install custom roms and stuff. But as you say it is probably too far down the rabbit hole. I know it would be for me.

Since all the major carriers have each of the big smartphones and OS's, the lines of exclusivity have blurred in the best ways, I would spend (seriously) a couple of hours in your local store playing with all of the phones. When I bought my Droid Pro I had spent enough time there that the staff knew me, and I one of them even let me use his Pro while in the store to get a feel for the device without a tether on it. Spending time around the phone and using it is the best way to find out if it's right for you. Do you have a friend who seems to really enjoy their smartphone, ask them why they choose that one.

Yes, there is are a ton of phones on the market, but there is one out there that will fit your needs. To be frank, you don't have to know a damn thing about any of the phones to pick one out - you have already come here asking which phone to get, so how about helping use help you. What do YOU want from your phone? Forgot about clock speeds, screen size, OS's etc - in your day to day use what are you looking to have the phone do for you?

Come up with a list and I am sure someone around here or tested.com, even a Verizon Rep (although most times I have been around them selling the "new hot phone" is in their best intrests), would be able to give a recommendation based on what your looking for in a phone. It would give a better place to start anyway.

A short list of how I see the phones based on my experience with them:

iOS (iPhone 4S) - Simple, easy to use, sync's with your iTunes, tons of small games to play, fairly nice camera, easy to have face-to-face conversations with friends, if your already an Apple person this is a given. Also, if you have current gen iPod Touch then you pretty much know what your getting yourself into, since the iPod is merely an iPod Touch without a the phone part.

WebOS (Palm Pre) - I haven't used this one, but it looks slick and I guess if you were using any of the Palm stuff before it melds well with that. I don't know enough about it to recommend it myself.

Windows Phone 7 (HTC Trophy) - Haven't played with this one either, but it seems to be focused on connecting you to all the windows services + facebook.

Android OS (Pro, Droid2, X2, Razor) - This is were it gets the most confusing, since Android seems to have a shotgun like approach to getting phones out there. Know this, the further away from the spread you get the the less happy you will be with your phone. In other words, the cheaper the phone the worse time your going to have with the Android OS. Also both of the manufactures are going to offer a different Android OS experience, HTC and Motorola. If you want a phone that is a jack of all trades, master of non then go for Android. The web browser is great, the camera's do well in all but night, SD card support is great for movies/large music library's, most have large good looking screens, and if you use google stuff this is the best phone to do that on. Oh, and turn-by-turn good navigation on all devices. I would say that Android is more for someone who doesn't mind a crash or reboot somewhat often.

Blackberry (Bold 9930) - The ultimate messaging phone, working tirelessly to catch up and almost be a multimedia phone. Great for texting, email, light music playing, and (I think still?) the best battery life. The web browser is catching up, and what I can remember if you want a phone that really good and messaging then your good here.

GL with the phone hunting!

@pyromagnestir said:

@AlexW00d: From what I've gathered, UI is not really an important issue for me for these phones. I'm familiar with UI's, from computers and consoles and whatnot so I could figure it out to the extent I need to in order to make it do what I want. Although that windows phone seems to be my least favorite and that I'd maybe, just maybe, want to go another direction if that was the only factor. And also I haven't heard how the Android can do anything you'd ever want, as you say, and what that means iOS or Windows Phone can't do. But whatever that means is probably not something I'd care about or need, as it is probably way further down the rabbit hole with these things than I'm willing to go.

From what I've gathered here is what I want. I want to make calls. Duh. I know. I want to replace my old 4gb ipod mini at the same time. I want to have internet access, and apps, just cause why not. These things are not unique from what I understand, which still isn't much. Good battery life, sure I'd like that. That might be the difference maker for me even. Basically that's it.

It seems what I need to do is see the phone in action, however I'm hesitant to go to a store and have a salesman there who's trying to make money off me show me these things. Because I'm crazy like that.

Based on this, the iPhone. Any of the phones can replace an old music player (your old 4gb mini), but an iPhone would do it the best.

As for going into the store my experience has always been just let them know that your here to look and a V rep's tend to hang back and just be there if you have a question.

Again, GL!

@rynbeed said:

Come up with a list and I am sure someone around here or tested.com, even a Verizon Rep (although most times I have been around them selling the "new hot phone" is in their best intrests), would be able to give a recommendation based on what your looking for in a phone. It would give a better place to start anyway.

Precisely why I don't like salesmen.

This has been very helpful so far. Thanks. I feel like slightly less a moron. Cars and phones are two things I know nothing about. And really between those two cars is what I would've wanted to learn more about. Fuck phones.

@pyromagnestir: It's a tough time to be up to date with phones right now. It's equivilant to the early eighties with the first real consumer PC's era, so fast of advancement, seeing companies die left and right, and it's just now starting to clarify who's going to dominate the mobile computer business soon. Android will be the Linux of PC's, iOS will be the Microsoft of PC's, and Windows phone will be the Mac of PC's.

iPhone, I used to switch phones about every 6 months (unlocked phones) before the original iPhone came out. After that I switch once a year and it's to the new iPhone. Best phone available period. Anyone who says otherwise is on that haterade.

Get an iPhone and then trade it for an n64 like this idiot.

If you just don't give a shit, get an iphone. Simple to use, the best music player on any phone ( it is an iPod after all) and has a bunch of dumb games and crap too. It is incredibly useful as a mini computer in your pocket, really.

It is only as gimmicky and flashy as you make it yourself. You don't have to play games on it, but many people do.

I think I'm gonna go with the iphone. I'll check out the windows phone for verizon, since there is only the one right? And I'll mess around with a few droids to see if there's a cheaper option than an iphone that catches my eye, but that has burned me when PC shopping in the past where I took the cheap option and have been unsatisfied by it. Droid just has too many options of variable quality. Although I guess I would be curious to check out the Nexus, were that a possibility. Last time I bought the laptop I wanted price be damned, and it has been great. I think I'll do that with my phone this time too.

My suggestion is a question. Do you totally, utterly, truly, really need a new phone...?

@GunnBjorn: Yes. Mine is falling apart from a couple of drops, and I didn't like it much when it was fine as the buttons are positioned in places where I hold it, which causes annoyance. Also its well past my allowed upgrade, as I've had it for years. And as I said I have a 4gb ipod mini that I got 7 or 8 years ago at least that I also want to replace as well so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone.

If you consider anything Android, I'd highly recommend you throw out any Samsung devices. Their proprietary UI I've found to be the most confusing out of any of them. For Android, go HTC or Motorola and don't look back.

Windows Phone 7.5 is really hard to recommend, still.

I pathologically (and sometimes irrationally) hate iPhone and iOS, so I can't recommend that at all. I hear that it is easy to use.

@pyromagnestir said:

When I made this post, I'd forgotten all about Tested. Now I remember why that is. First, trying to figure out what to search for as ignorant as I am about all this is proving frustrating. There are so many fucking phones, it's seems there's a new one every five minutes. Is what I'm looking at recent? Does it work with Verizon? How do I actually buy it? I'm a moron. This is on me. I know this.

And when I actually find an article I know is recent and relevant and am reading through those articles, they are just too bogged down in shit like 1.5ghz vs 1.2 or something only having 960x540 resolution vs 1280x720, Gingerbread or Ice Cream Sandwich, written by a guy named Wesley, who I don't know of. Who the fuck is Wesley? I'm sure he knows what he's talking about but the shit he is talking about has no practical application for me. The quick looks and such are nice since I can see what they are talking about but they are fewer than I'd hoped, and the phones Wesley recommends have none that I can find so grrr...

Again I'm a moron. I know this.

No off-contract phones will work with Verizon. Why? They're hardware-registered, unlike AT&T/TMobile's card-based activation. Easiest way to get an understanding of the phones: just walk into a Verizon store and use them.

Basically, don't think you can EBay a Verizon phone and get it working with relative ease. It's not easy, IIRC.

@killacam said:

how does gaming differ between ios and android? am i right in thinking the majority of the great mobile games are ios exclusive?

Not at all. Pretty much anything good nowadays is dual-platform between Android and iOS.

@Aus_azn said:

Not at all. Pretty much anything good nowadays is dual-platform between Android and iOS.

Ya right. That's what android users to make themselves feel better because they know they made the shittier choice. Apple has got that shit on lock.

@yoshimitz707 said:

Get an iPhone 4s.