Severe Geek Envy

[Lemur]

So I finagled a nice Android phone for free, just paying my friend for a bit of his family plan. It works. It's not elegant, but it works.

Then my fiancee came home with a spanking-new iPhone 4s. No biggie, thinks the lemur, I've got my Android doing what I need it to do. How much more polished could the iPhone possibly be?

Then I played with it for a bit. Ouch. Double-ouch. Triple-ouch with a rug burn and a sprained ankle.

As much as I dislike Apple as a corporate entity, dang it, they make a superior phone/handheld computer. The attention to detail, the smoothness of the interface, the little touches that improve the experience ... dang it all to heck.

Experiencing chronic, possibly fatal geek envy.

I'll be needing this. And this.

[rory_20_uk]

Which phone are you initially referring to? I'd rather a nice 4.3 inch Samsung S2 / Xperia Arc S etc over an Apple, and I am rather hopeful about the Samsung Tab 2. My current phone is a desire, and yes it is showing its age, but since it was £8 a month for 2 years I can live with it.

Apple probably has more polish... But I don't need that, and certainly not for the exorbitant increase in cost one has to pay for it. HTC phones are as easy to use and Samsung's ones have better hardware and screens. For me, it's a no-brainer.

[Furunculus]

apple gear is nice, but i'll take my nokia N9 any day of the week.

android might become more tempting when they stop using tegra2 and move to ice-cream-sandwich.

[Tellos Athenaios]

i'll take my nokia N9 any day of the week.

Seconded.

[Lemur]

Which phone are you initially referring to?:

I'm using an HTC EVO 3D, not because I wanted it but because it was free.

As far as cost goes, I couldn't care less about the handset price. With the cost of data plans, the hardware is the least of my worries. So my fiancee paid $170 for her iPhone 4s, so what? The monthly bill will eclipse that in three months. It ain't the hardware that kills you, it's the plan.

[Tellos Athenaios]

So $170/3 ~ $60,- a month?

Then why not buy your own, and get yourself whatever plan you actually want (or closest the telco's will offer) ?
I mean £450,- gets you an N9 @64GB; so say $450 for the 16GB variant. Then get the same data plan at $20,- or $30,- ?

[Furunculus]

quite, my plan is £10/month and comes with 300 minutes, 300 texts, and 500MB of data.

oh, and an LG Optimus Black P970 that i unlocked and sold for £150.

[Vladimir]

quite, my plan is £10/month and comes with 300 minutes, 300 texts, and 500MB of data.

oh, and an LG Optimus Black P970 that i unlocked and sold for £150.

Do you ever go over on any of those?

[TinCow]

So $170/3 ~ $60,- a month?

Then why not buy your own, and get yourself whatever plan you actually want (or closest the telco's will offer) ?
I mean £450,- gets you an N9 @64GB; so say $450 for the 16GB variant. Then get the same data plan at $20,- or $30,- ?

quite, my plan is £10/month and comes with 300 minutes, 300 texts, and 500MB of data.

oh, and an LG Optimus Black P970 that i unlocked and sold for £150.

European data plans are much cheaper than US plans. It is pretty much impossible to find any plan in the US with a decent data limit for under $70 per phone. I would guess I could probably find one for $50 if I really searched, but the coverage would be very poor.

[Furunculus]

Do you ever go over on any of those?

nah, i don't really text or talk to anyone much. :D

sometimes go over the data plan when i'm away with work for an extended period.

@ Tincow - :(