What smartphone is on your upgrade horizon?

Is scaling really an issue? The ppi doubled from iPhone 3 to 4, i knew nothing about phones then, was that an issue?

It was fine because it doubled.  Just like the iPad 2 -> 'New iPad' doubled its ppi.  But going 37% bigger for instance makes life harder for the App developers.  Sticking to whole number multiples is ok.  The key to a thriving smartphone is Apps, and the key to loads of Apps is to make the developers life easier (and make sure they get paid).

Ah got ya, makes sense. I don't know if a lower ppi on a larger screen is the way Apple will go though, not when all others are going in the opposite direction, that'd be risky.

I think Nokia changed OS too many times and lost their way, the new Lumia 800 is very nice though, they're heading in the right direction again, after er "Meego" 

I'm actually quite underwhelmed by most of the phones today.

iPhone is very good. Superb phone & stable software. Strongest after sales support. But after a while, it gets boring. You can't customise as much.

Android software is very good, but is let down by a majority of phone manufacturers. Motorola screens freeze frequently. Samsung & HTC are racing towards making super computers for our pockets, conveniently forgetting the basics; call quality. They often hang or lose their signal (although admittedly, my HtC Desire did not face these problems). Their after sales support is terrible, amongst the worst in the industry. When I sent my HTC phone for repairs, they sent me a replacement which was all scratched. I could tell by looking at the phone, that they have no respect for the devices & don't look after them properly. This is the sole reason I won't be buying an HTC again.

I checked Nokia Lumia 800 last Sunday. It actually has the best touch screen amongst all the smartphones today. Even the build quality is outstanding. Windows is surprisingly good, & Office is the killer app. But I'm sure even Windows will get boring, faster than iOS.

I want to go back to basics. My next phone will be from either Sony or Nokia. They're the manufacturers who can offer the best call quality in my opinion. They both have decent after sales support, although not as good as Apple's.

I checked out the lumina 800 too. Really nice build and and interface thats smoother and slicker than the iPhone 4gs imo, despite hardware specs. The lumina 900 looks like it'll be good, too.

No idea whats going to be best though. There is just not enough solid information on any of the phones (except one x) to make that decision.

I'm up for renewal next month, but I may wait to see what the s3 is like. The photos, if real, are really nice; wall to wall screen and a little thicker than a credit card

Some good points there BB.

Back to basics is high on the agenda for me too. I don't really care if IOS / Android has 100 million apps available. I would rather have just a few well built apps like office (excel looks really nice on the phone).

Thank you! I was considering the HTC one X but that convinces me not too. Thinking about it, it took my father in law 6 months before HTC agreed to fix the motherboard in his Desire.

The Xperia S may be of interest! Although I must admit, I have had problems with Sony's aftercare too...not as bad as HTC's by the sound of it.

Yes, some good points there BB. I think Android is great, i like many of the larger screened phones that help show it of so well too, but i sometimes find myself tinkering with it too much, moving widgets here and there, resizing them, etc. This isn't a problem with Android of course, but with me, i never seem to leave it as is and just use it, iOS suits me better, every once in a while i'll change the wallpaper, and i'm happy 

Only a few things are important to me, quality of call and the camera on the phone. Having used an Arc as a work phone i'm leaning towards getting the Xperia S or P. The only other phone i've comtemplates is the Lumina series, i've had a chance to play around with one and was pleasantly supprised at the quality feel and smoothness of use, but i'm still not convinced by the Metro interface.

Won't own another HTC, had my Desire a while and i find too many faults with it to consider another HTC, and samsung just don'thave the right quality feel for me having used a friends S2.

As for iPhone, i can see it's a quality product, but i just don't get on with the restrictive nature of it.

HTC One maybe (probably the 4.3 inch . I find 4.3 inches on my Desire HD to be around the ideal size. I squint at the iPhone screen. The Lumia 800 is nice, but has some similar restrictive aspects like iOS, and the screen is still a bit small.

If I'm spending that amount of money I WANT to faff around with it. If all I wanted was a phone, I'd get an old Nokia with a week long battery life, but then of course many people buy phones as status symbols these days.

These things are small hand-held computers. When I shop for software on a computer I want a choice of where I can buy it, and to be able to make my own mind up IF I want to buy it. Yes, that opens me up to more vulnerabilities, but then I'm an adult and should be able to make up my own mind, not some guy in Apple/Microsoft/etc HQ censoring me at source.

I appreciate not everyone wants to "faff" and are happy to be spoon-fed "what's best for them (sic)", and for them, the iOS and Winphone devices are perfect. 

Saying all that, I'm going buy a tablet soon, and that will enable me not to worry so much about the phone. So I may end up with a a non-android phone after all!

Ah, good to see your usual, patronising comments  

Yes, apologies for that, I didn't mean it to be patronising as such, but after reading back it does come across that way... oops. And I may very well end up being "spoon-fed" myself if I get this tablet I'm after.

Having both an iPhone 4s and a Galaxy S II at the moment, I'm more likely to stick with the Galaxy brand. Although I will keep an eye on the Windows Phones - having played with the OS it really is quite refreshing.

The single biggest problem with the Galaxy is it's battery can die quite quickly, but when I took it snowboarding recently I found the phone lasted a couple of days - I guess me not prodding it all the time was a bigger cause of battery loss than I'd realised.

I suppose my view may change when we get ICS. My biggest worry there is more of a future worry - the hardware buttons going awol. Even Apple eventually relented with its mouse and added some buttons. I suspect most of us on these forums find hardware buttons useful on various bits of AV tech - they are just quite useful. But, there's cost, which comes into play.

I don't really see the advantage in having a heavy phone. I carry four things with me when I go out, and I'd rather have as light a phone as possible. If it borrows high tech from the plastics industry that's fine with me.

I don't really like the way Apple operates (in my mind it smacks a bit of the News Corp. way of doing things), so that's part of it, but the UI is not as consistent as I thought it would be. It's also not in any way intuitive (nor, really, is the Android OS) - of course there's my existing experience doing me a disservice as much as acting in my favour here.

R

It's symbian, which is a shame, but the camera is said to be quite something.

More than a little bit sceptical of this, but happy to be proven wrong.  Relying on that level of pixel binning seems odd to me.  I get the lossless digital zoom concept, but I have always thought pixel size was king.  Shall wait and see for real world sample photos.