My very first smartphone

I am looking to by my first smartphone (ever). I am between
-Thunderbolt
-Droid 2
-iPhone 4

My mind is mostly on the Droid 2, because of the keyboard, so I would like to here users experience on these three choices.

What are your desires? What are you looking for in your phone? Battery life? Camera? Healthy amount of applications? Freedom? Qwerty keyboard?

Anything but an iPhone, unless you want to be a tool factory.

I would go with the Droid. It's an open platform, and therefore a lot more fun for nerds. It also has multitasking, (IIRC) unlike the iPhone.

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Originally Posted by Elysia

What are your desires? What are you looking for in your phone? Battery life? Camera? Healthy amount of applications? Freedom? Qwerty keyboard?

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I guess two are the big factors:
-Browsing
-Custom-made applications

That describes every smart phone ever. Pick a few and roll a die.

The iPhone 5 should be coming out this summer. If you can wait that long, you should be able to get a killer deal on an iPhone 4 then. You can get an iPhone 3GS for about $50 right now if you sign a contract. And yes, it has multitasking, etc.

However, if you want Custom-made applications you'll be stuck with Apple's development solution which is very stringent. You can only create apps for the iPhone in Objective-C and (unsupported, but mostly functional) C# using Mono.

Oh, also, iPhone doesn't support Flash, so that might make your decision easier (or harder) regarding web browsing.

Some time ago, due to battery problems on my mobile, I had to go fetch for temporary use my old Nokia 6310i from my odds and ends drawer. Some 9 years old, battered and scratched. Still works. THAT's a smart phone.

Well, I cannot say I am a huge fun of smartphones, but ironically it will save me money (probably) so it is a win-win situation. My general opinion is that having dedicated devices is much better rather all-in-one. My ideal combination would be
Desktop+Small Notebook+Cell phone+Kindle.

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That describes every smart phone ever. Pick a few and roll a die.

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I believe all smartphones more or less offer the same thing anyway. I was looking more on actual user experience.

My ideal combination is just a smartphone. Why carry a phone, an e-book reader, an MP3 player, a GPS, a game console, a calculator, and a digital camera when you can just carry a smartphone? (yes, I actually do use all of the above functions all the time)

I have a Nexus One (Android) and I'm pretty happy with it. But then I'm a bit of a Linux fanboy, so I wouldn't believe me if I were you :D. I like it because there's nothing I don't like about it.

Android definitely. More free apps, open source, endless personalization, nicer desktops, full of widgets, unlike iPhone and so on.

Don't do it, they're all pieces of ........

Nice to see such a nice opinion. However, it is just that - an opinion, with no constructive facts to back your opinion.

Some additional meat:
Rotten apple: Locked system. No flash. You are at the mercy of the rotten apple's whim.
Android: Great many applications. Pretty. Extremely fragmented. Upgrades not guaranteed. Average battery life.
Symbian: Excellent battery life. Cool prototype applications. Updates guaranteed. In the case of N8, best camera on the market.

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