Cell phone: Samsung A900 or Motorola Razr?

[imageWIS]

I'm currently with Sprint and have had no problems with their service, but my cell phone which is 4 years old (I take care of things) is dying; or to be more precise, the battery is dying. And I want to change my phone. The only phone that Sprint offers that I like is the Samsung A900 "˜Blade'.

However, I am unsure if I want to stay with Sprint, since they don't use SIM cards (thus I can't use my phone in another country without paying insane roaming / long distance charges) and to get $150 off the phone I would have to sign yet another 2 year contract. Also, to get about the same service I have now with the new phone would cost me $55 a month (not including taxes and 911, etc... fees) vs. $40 a month I pay now; I never go over my minutes.

The other option I have is to switch companies and get a Motorola Razr V3m / V3c...

Any thoughts? Anyone have experience with either or both phones?

Jon.

 

[drizzt3117]

I kinda like the SLVR a bit more than the RAZR, and it's probably about the same price. If you want a phone with a SIM card, you'll have to go with Verizon, AT&T, T-mobile, etc, and those service providers typically have somewhat worse reception than Sprint/Verizon IME. I'm currently using T-mobile and it sucks indoors.

 

[skalogre]

I would definitely recommend going GSM. However, the Razr would not be my first choice under any circumstances (I am a fan of Symbian-OS based devices, as you recall). In the end though, it will depend on what you will expect from the phone. If it will be primarily a phone, occassional media player and for the odd J2ME game here and there, the Razr/Slvr may work out ok.

If you will need the phone to replace, say, your PDA/organiser also, the Motos will be woefully underpowered.

 

[Matt]

the longer I have my SLVR the more I hate it. The SMS drives me insane.

Great looking phone sure, but I SMS a lot and I want to fling it against a wall half the time.

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by m@T

the longer I have my SLVR the more I hate it. The SMS drives me insane.

Great looking phone sure, but I SMS a lot and I want to fling it against a wall half the time.

WHy? THe key layout or the predictive text?

 

[Matt]

Originally Posted by skalogre

WHy? THe key layout or the predictive text?
both. Very small buttons are key to the sexy design, but they mean you are always bumping keys and making typos, and also a very annoying predictive text quirk.

It remembers things I wish it wouldnt (most notably, punctuation), which messes it up severely. Say if I type "What are you doing?" in one message, come back 10 mins later and write "Im doing nothing", when I start typing 'doing' it predicts that I want the question mark again, and so I cant just accept the word, have to type the whole thing with a space after it to get what i want. And, to make matters worse, it wont remember spaces, so the next message after this, will STILL want to put in the question mark.

It also seems to remember the longest word I have ever used with these letters - so lets say I want to type (....scanning text above now for random example......) "question" - it will always remember and suggest "questioning" from the one time i used that word, although I would probably use 'question' more often. No way to scroll through and change it either.

Very annoying.

 

[drizzt3117]

Originally Posted by m@T

both. Very small buttons are key to the sexy design, but they mean you are always bumping keys and making typos, and also a very annoying predictive text quirk.

It remembers things I wish it wouldnt (most notably, punctuation), which messes it up severely. Say if I type "What are you doing?" in one message, come back 10 mins later and write "Im doing nothing", when I start typing 'doing' it predicts that I want the question mark again, and so I cant just accept the word, have to type the whole thing with a space after it to get what i want. And, to make matters worse, it wont remember spaces, so the next message after this, will STILL want to put in the question mark.

It also seems to remember the longest word I have ever used with these letters - so lets say I want to type (....scanning text above now for random example......) "question" - it will always remember and suggest "questioning" from the one time i used that word, although I would probably use 'question' more often. No way to scroll through and change it either.

Very annoying.


Yeah one nice thing about the Samsung D800 is it gives you the option to easily switch between predictive and nonpredictive and you can also scroll inside the predictive text.

 

[shoreman1782]

I recently got a RAZR from Verizon, and I'm not terribly happy with it. It's much "nicer" than my old phone (which was maybe 3 years old), but the battery life is oddly worse, and Verizon cripples the bluetooth feature so you can't transfer mp3s as ringtones (hence, you buy theirs). That's not a dealbreaker in itself (and you can get around it), but it's the kind of thing that makes me subtly hate Verizon. I have no experience with other new phones, but that's one man's opinion.

 

[skalogre]

It slows me down but I never use predictive text. Drives me plain potty.

 

[GQgeek]

Originally Posted by shoreman1782

I recently got a RAZR from Verizon, and I'm not terribly happy with it. It's much "nicer" than my old phone (which was maybe 3 years old), but the battery life is oddly worse, and Verizon cripples the bluetooth feature so you can't transfer mp3s as ringtones (hence, you buy theirs). That's not a dealbreaker in itself (and you can get around it), but it's the kind of thing that makes me subtly hate Verizon. I have no experience with other new phones, but that's one man's opinion.

You can buy longer life batteries for it.

 

[shoreman1782]

I am not enough of a "power user" to replace batteries on my phone. Up the price $20 and give me a better one.

 

[Matt]

Originally Posted by m@T

both. Very small buttons are key to the sexy design, but they mean you are always bumping keys and making typos, and also a very annoying predictive text quirk.

It remembers things I wish it wouldnt (most notably, punctuation), which messes it up severely. Say if I type "What are you doing?" in one message, come back 10 mins later and write "Im doing nothing", when I start typing 'doing' it predicts that I want the question mark again, and so I cant just accept the word, have to type the whole thing with a space after it to get what i want. And, to make matters worse, it wont remember spaces, so the next message after this, will STILL want to put in the question mark.

It also seems to remember the longest word I have ever used with these letters - so lets say I want to type (....scanning text above now for random example......) "question" - it will always remember and suggest "questioning" from the one time i used that word, although I would probably use 'question' more often. No way to scroll through and change it either.

Very annoying.
oh and another thing (I love quoting myself)

Lets say I make a small typo trying to type the word...uhhh....batch.

so ive hit 228 (bat) and the screen is displaying 'cat' (which is fine as it is just part of the processing process)

So then next I need to hit 2 agains (C), but say I accidentally hit a little low and press 5 instead - curse damn small keys and delete the last letter. The phone remembers it as though I have accepted CAT as correct.

This is really annoying, as then I have to delete everything and start over.

 

[DNW]

I have the Razr, it was a bit annoying in the beginning because the volume from the factory is set very low. But, the nice thing about it is there is a pretty big modding community for the Razr. Being a know-it-all that I am, I downloaded some programs and hacked into it. Now, it's unlocked and tweaked to just the way I like it, down to removing the T-Mobile logo on the screen.

The SMS thing takes a while to get used to. I've gotten a hang of it now and, even though I can't type very fast, it's manageable.

All and all, it's a nicely designed phone with some user interface problems. Once you've tweaked the user interface, it becomes a decent phone. I was a 10 year Nokia owner up until that point and I switched because Nokia has been coming out with ****** designs as of late. I still love their user interface, best in the market IMO.

BTW, you can get it free from several carriers on Amazon. Right now, I'm paying 40 bucks a month for 600 anytime, anywhere minutes, and unlimited nights and weekends.

 

[rdawson808]

I'm glad I ran across this thread. I'm about to upgrade my phone and never know what to pick. It sounds like the RAZR isn't terribly popular. Maybe someone can give their advice. For reference, I currently have an LG and have been happy with it.

My needs: a phone, occassional text-messaging, speaker phone, flip-phone (prefered) or keypad lock.
Not needs but I may find it fun: camera
Don't need: pda capabilities, international use, etc.

I like to get the most expensive one I can for free and my best choice seems to be the Samsung SCH-a930. Does anyone have any thoughts on this phone? Or experience with it?


bob

 

[LabelKing]

Doesn't text messaging have a fee?