Need a new phone for ATT

N

nitrobass24

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - December 2009
Joined
Apr 7, 2006
Messages
10,465
My Blackberry Bold 9700 just isnt cutting it anymore.

I love the blackberry, but unfortunately there are no good phones worth buying (i dont like the way the Torch 9800 feels in my hand) and there is no RIM devices on the horizon.

I have never owned anything other than a blackberry (as far as smartphones go), so i guess the question is do i want an iphone/android/winmo7 device?

It seems that android is just blowing up and taking tons of market share which can only be good for the consumer, and has third-party roms (XDA-dev) which i think would allow me to unlock features like wifi-hotspot right?

I am also tired of paying an extra 15/mo for BES service to connect my outlook. the iOS outlook integration is pretty good, how does android handle Exchange/Outlook email boxes?

I live in Dallas and mainly travel to other large cities (san fran, ATL, NYC, LA)

Basically I am a lost soul in need of direction for a new phone!
 
Android works great for Exchange, i have my HD2 running 2.3.3 connected to see mys chool's internet (need exchange) and have no issues.

I would suggest an Android one, heard the Atrix is good.....if you want the all in one, no tweaking experience go iOS, its solid and will jus twork.....android will pretty much work, you will see quirks here and there, but you can tailor it to you more....(see low volt kernals....though i don tthink the Atrix has these yet)
 
Yea the most important things to me in order are

Exchange suppport, wifi hotspot, battery life, everything else.
 
in which case

Exchange - as far as I know both Android and iOS are great at this

Hotspot - Both Android and iOS are good at this (only ever messed with it on a mytouch 4g)

Battery life- Android can be better, but this si very handset specific as well as kernal specific
 
I went from about 6 years of Blackberry to a Moto Atrix and I love it. No word on exchange support as I switched jobs and do not have external access.

Battery life is better than my BB ever was. So I would vote for the Atrix.
 
Hmm yeah i was reading about the Atrix, but it appears that Moto put some sort of bootloader encryption on it so that limits the rom hacking.

Might go with the HTC Inspire instead. Uses Standard USB, Can unlock 4g. Any reason i should not get the Inspire?
 
Like with all HTC phones, it is absolute bottom barrel for battery life. Smallest battery capacity at stock plus a general power hog. No amount of tweaking and ROMing is going to put its battery life even remotely close to the atrix.

Also it is basically last year's hardware. Doesn't even have a ffc. It's like an htc incredible 1.1.

What you do get though is one of the most accomplished dev communities on the android scene plus htc's excellent track record for update.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
whats an ffc?

Yea i have been reading reviews and think that a 1230mha battery just aint gonna cut it.

Captivate is too old. Guess Atrix is looking pretty good.

Can you do wifi hotspot tether with an Atrix?
 
Sounds like the HTC Inspire is the perfect phone for you.
Dont listen to people saying HTC is bad about anything. Our demo Inspire holds a damn good charge for the abuse and run around it gets every day.
There is no smartphone stock that will last more than a day or so anyway.
 
kinda in the same boat. On thing to note is with the Inspire you can root it and do tethering without paying the stupid extra $$ to AT&T. Not sure whether or not that is possible with the looked bootloader on the Atrix?
Also like others say you can install custom roms on the Inspire, which you definitely can't on the Atrix. But battery life seems to be better with the Atrix. Just need to determine what's most important to you..

Personally I haven't found any smartphone appealing enough quite yet. Sticking with my $60 dumbphone for now. Telling myself since I don't use twitter do I I really need one..? :D
 
nitrobass24 said:
Hmm yeah i was reading about the Atrix, but it appears that Moto put some sort of bootloader encryption on it so that limits the rom hacking.

Might go with the HTC Inspire instead. Uses Standard USB, Can unlock 4g. Any reason i should not get the Inspire?
Click to expand...

You can tether and remove bloatware with the Atrix. Custom kernals are not possible because of the locked bootloader, but if battery life is important to you then dont get the Inspire.
 
Harry1969 said:
You can tether and remove bloatware with the Atrix. Custom kernals are not possible because of the locked bootloader, but if battery life is important to you then dont get the Inspire.
Click to expand...

Interesting. So it's possible to get some sort of root access on the Atrix? I would like that to at least tether, remove crapware and unlock the phone, is that possible? But I assume I'd still be stuck with the motoblur junk? The battery life on the Atrix looks pretty good in the Anandtech bench and that is very appealing.
 
BB 9900 is going to be released fairly soon.

So far it looks awesome... for a BB. Still the old shitty OS.
 
Evosunny said:
Sounds like the HTC Inspire is the perfect phone for you.
Dont listen to people saying HTC is bad about anything. Our demo Inspire holds a damn good charge for the abuse and run around it gets every day.
There is no smartphone stock that will last more than a day or so anyway.
Click to expand...

Rose-colored glasses.

It is a fact that HTC phones in general will not last as long. I don't care how you try to spin it. Other phones simply have better battery life.

Also, saying no smartphone will last more than a day is hilarious. If you had a device that lasted for 30 minutes and another for 23 hours, they'd both be equally good according to your metric.

Go to any review, any test, it will show that time and time again, HTC falls behind its competitors in battery life, and many times not by an insignificant amount.

There is no such thing as a perfect smartphone, and creating your very own HTC-branded reality distortion field isn't going to change that. HTC does a lot of things right. Battery life just is not one of them. You think you get great battery life on whatever HTC phone you're using? Great. Guess what? You can get even better battery life using another phone with your exact usage habits. It's just a fact. To many people, that difference can be what keeps a phone running from the moment a person wakes up to when he or she goes to sleep vs. a phone that needs to be charged midday.


nitrobass24 said:
whats an ffc?

Yea i have been reading reviews and think that a 1230mha battery just aint gonna cut it.

Captivate is too old. Guess Atrix is looking pretty good.

Can you do wifi hotspot tether with an Atrix?
Click to expand...

Front-facing camera.
 
Last edited:
Inspire is a good phone, in fact I'm using one right now over Atrix 4g.

I'm always on WIFI and it usually lasts good 30 hours before needing a good charge.

Inspire feels like a solid phone and is fast. Sure, Atrix 4G or Samsungs are good, but they feel like plastic toys...
 
Inspire is awesome. Yeah, the Atrix will get better battery life, but after using both I went with the Inspire. Tons of awesome ROMs for it and definitely doesn't feel slower than the Atrix despite the older hardware. Cheaper too.
 
so... Now there is also the Nexus S for AT&T bands. Even comes in white, if you're that kind of guy..
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/07/white-nexus-s-with-atandt-bands-hands-on-video/

Stock Android, 2.3. And will probably get all the next updates right away; very tempting! Sounds like it'll be $500 though. But with no contract obligation, unsoiled android, and ability to put in my "overseas" SIM without rooting might be worth it. Hell, with the ~$3000 you spend on a 2 year contract what does an extra couple hundred matter up front..:)
 
@Neurofreeze
What kind of phone do you have and what kind of batter life do you get?
No need to bash, you just sound like a dick...
 
Well, At&t is Android hell since they like to cripple the phones. Anyways, you got to "hack" either the iPhone or Android to get free tether. I would say wait for the Nexus S. The Inspire has a small battery and I've read on xda that the Atrix is laggy becuase of the customized Blur rom that Motorola loves.

If you have to get a phone now, I would recommend the Captivate if they are still selling that. Very easy to root and a bunch of roms available.
 
I just grabbed an inspire and it's a great phone. Rooting it took about an hour (including downloading 500mb files). The only thing I had to do to get wireless tether to work was use the Market Enabler tool to find the program I normally use since it wasn't in the default AT&T market (switched it to Verizon and got it). Other than that, I'm just using the stock ROM for now (rooted, S-off). Still trying to decide which ROM I want to try.

You can get 1600mah batteries on ebay for it. Search for Desire HD battery since it's essentially the same phone.
 
I dont remember the last time I bought a phone from the ATT site....every 2 years I go to claim my free phone upgrade but I hate all the bloatware that comes up. I used to have symbian for around 4 years but now I'm an Android person
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top