Team-BHP - The Mobile Phone Thread - Queries, decisions, discussions all here

I wish to buy a smartphone within the budget range 7000-10000. My requirements: 3G, wi-fi and GPS. On the higher end of the range there is LG Optimus Net and on the lower end is Samsung Galaxy Y with Android 2.3 OS. The Galaxy has a poor 240x320 screen. But there is the Wave Y S5380 which ticks all boxes except the Bada OS. If the gurus out here can enlighten me how to use Google maps with the Bada OS (for free) then I'll go for the Wave.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tortoiseNhare (Post 2684128)

If you want free Navigation on GPS, Nokia is your only option.

If not, take a look at Dell XCD35 (or Idea Blade - it's the same phone). It has decent specs with an amazing screen - 3.5 inch at 480x800 resolution. It's serving me well for past 4 months.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TortoiseNHare

If the gurus out here can enlighten me how to use Google maps with the Bada OS (for free) then I'll go for the Wave.

Nokia seems to be a winner with their maps (or "ovi" maps as they have rebranded them). I have maps for India, UK and Singapore on my N82, all cached, all for free.

This is probably the only Nokia thing I am going to miss when I go Android soon (will buy Defy+ as mentioned).

Excuse me if I am mentioning something posted recently here (I can't remember where I saw it) but it seems it is possible to cache areas of Google Maps. So, we can do this at home when our wifi is available.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom (Post 2684308)

Excuse me if I am mentioning something posted recently here (I can't remember where I saw it) but it seems it is possible to cache areas of Google Maps. So, we can do this at home when our wifi is available.

Yes, that's a feature on Google Maps to cache map tiles before you start the trip, so that you get it even when you don't have a working data connection. However, there is no navigation for India :Frustrati.

Thanks bought it.

Using it as my official phone along with Nexus S as the personal one. So enjoying both wonderful OS.

As you rightly said its a lovely phone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by phamilyman (Post 2685169)

It is a lovely phone that has a great screen and front camera. Of course, Samsung has been a bit behind in updates for WP, but if u can keep that aside, its abslutely unbeatable value at that price.

710 is Nokia - only gripe is slightly less screen (AMOLED vs sAMOLED) and no front camera.

Galaxy Note is quite good bought it for my wife few days ago. The biggest feature is the s-pen input it grows on you to use a more natural input method for everything from entering URL to sending email(s) and is recommened for heavy email users. Battery life is quite good, a bit big but fits in the jeans front pocket comfirtably.

It comes with Polaris office preinstalled also once you set up exchange email ,VPN , business card reader app , Doc scanner and PDF annotination apps ( from Samsung App store) it becomes complete work phone. The need to open laptop for small tasks is minimized but still if access to PC is required then I have installed RDP client as the native resolution is high , Remote desktop access to PC / Laptop works fine from this phone compared to other phones with lesser resolution.

If you are a manager who works from home trust me after above config your need to keep the laptop on will reduce significantly.

For those who are comparing 1.4 Ghz dual core with overclocked Galaxy S2 actually performance will still differ because of Mali GPU.

Not sure if I am posting this in the right thread. Mods- kindly move this thread to the appropriate thread if required.

I have a question for all vodafone 3G users. Currently I have 2G activated on my phone which is good only for whatsapp. Opening websites in the browser is a pretty long and frustrating task. I have heard that 3G speeds are very good. But the prices seemed a little steep to me. I am getting 1Gb for Rs375 asa a part of a corporate plan. I wanted to know whether 1GB is sufficient for normal use. Note that I will be on office wifi most of the times so will be using 3G only during weekends and at home during weekdays. I will be using whatsapp all the time and occassionaly I might open websites once or twice every day. However I will be using apps like facebook,gmail and livescore. I think 1GB should be sufficient but still wanted to confirm. Any vodafone user can throw light on this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Saanil (Post 2687726)

Hi,

Though i am currently on Airtel, I was using Vodafone 3g and tell you frankly, once you get it there is no stopping. Biggest issue is if you cross the limit then per KB downloaded would be charged high. I know one of my junior in office opted for this and had got a bill of 15k for the 1st month. If you are going for such a plan then install a software which monitors your usage and once you are reaching your monthly limit, it informs you. I am using 3g Watchdog. There are many such apps to monitor your data plan usage.

I was using a Idea pre-paid number from last 3-4 years, It was a very good looking number 999*9*99*9 (if it can be called so). A year back I also got myself a post paid number of Idea as it was very similar looking, 999*9*9**9, to my pre paid number.

After getting the post paid connection my major usage was shifted to my post paid number as the hassle of getting the it recharge frequently was not associated with it. Though I keep getting incoming calls and messages as it was update almost everywhere, be it friends, bank records, credit cards, gas agency etc. I was not getting it recharge as the most of the out going traffic was handled by my postpaid number, but the number was active as I got it recharged with some special plan which provides a year validity.

Everything was fine till last week of January, when I noticed that my prepaid number is not working. I tried basic trouble shooting by putting it in different handsets, wiping it up etc but nothing worked. The prompt I was getting that Sim registration failed. On contacting the Idea customer care I was updated the number is still active and I need to visit one of the nearest idea customer care outlet to get this sorted out. I was ready with defunct SIM, required documents but failed to visit any due to my schedule.

Yesterday I got shocker that my number is active and somebody else is using that number. There should be some time gap between deactivation of a number and it's fresh issuance, in my case which seems to be only 20 days, which is very low. When I told one of my colleague about this, he told me that it's a common practice among the cellular companies to issue such numbers to by randomly deactivate number and issue it to someone else at premium.

I tried calling up the customer care but according to them they can't do anything and I was given some Nodal officer's number but as expected even after repeated attempt I am not able to get through. I have sent a complaint mail to customer care id but no revert from there either.

I am not sure what should I do know, I would highly appreciate if any of you can guide me on what to do to get my number back?

Here's how it generally happens : most pre-paid connections have an inherent rule that the number becomes out-of-service if a minimum recharge is not done periodically. Each operator has a different period cycle for that. Eg. Rs. 100/6 months etc.

So, if you don't recharge for that amount (which may vary operator-operator), you're number is taken out of service.

And within 6 months of it being out of service, the number is given to someone else.

You mentioned that a year ago, you stopped recharging your old number. So, probably that's how it was transferred to someone else. Although the SIM says lifetime validity or validity till Dec '25; you still need to recharge every once a while.

There's no point fighting it out - it's general practice.