Help me choose a smartphone!

[cardgame]

POOL THREAD CLOSED

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Hey all, going away to college in a month or so and looking to upgrade to a smartphone to help me out. The choices are restricted to U.S. Cellular\'s lineup, so if you want to suggest something, there\'s your list.

I\'ve narrowed it down to two Android phones (without looking at Blackberry; feel free to convince me of my erroneous ways): the HTC One V and the Galaxy Samsung S-II.

They are both $130, but with a bit of a difference of technical specs.

The SII boasts the following impressive hardware:

AndroidTM 2.3 (Gingerbread)

4.52' Super AMOLED Plus Touchscreen (480 x 800)

1.2 GHz Dual Core Processor

8 MP Camera with LED Flash

Wi-Fi Capable

3G Capable

2 MP Front-facing Camera

Full HTML Browser with Adobe Flash support

16GB of Internal Memory

but lacks the modern OS of the HTC One V:

AndroidTM 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with HTC SenseTM

3.7' WVGA Super LCD2

Touchscreen (480 x 800)

1 GHz QualcommTM Snapdragon S2 Processor

5 MP Camera with Back-illuminated Sensor and f/2.0 Aperture 28mm Lens

Camera also features advanced low light capture, continuous shooting functionality, panorama mode and High Dynamic Range (HDR)

Full HTML Browser with Adobe Flash support

Wi-Fi Capable

4 GB, 512 RAM, microSDTM expandable to 32 GB and 25GB Dropbox* - free for 2 years

Additional considerations: the HTC One also features Beats Audio; along with the free Dropbox storage, they\'re enticing features. (Does that work through the sound card or the speakers? If the latter, not as enticing - pretty much all phone speakers suck in my experience, regardless of how advanced it may be. If I can still experience it through headphones, definitely a plus.)

I don\'t plan on playing many games or surfing too much - ideal data plan for my budget is 2GB. Therefore the extra hardware of the S-II isn\'t that big of a deal to me - I\'m mostly interested in the advanced 8MP camera and 1080p video recording. Battery life is a major concern - the SII has a pretty bad rep for that, while the HTC One has had reviews claiming quite long battery life, lasts all day, etc.

Convince me one way or the other, or dazzle another phone in my eyes!

[Seanoog]

Samsung Galazy S2, from your choice.

My brother has it, love\'s it! However he regularily complains of it only lasting 24 hours at most.

Is the Galazy Note, available?

I bought one, from very popular retailer (Famous River), German department!

5.3' SUPER AMOLED (1280x800)

1.4GHz Dual Core

2500MAh Battery (Regularily 48+ Hours Heavy usage) Spares are £10 each.

16GB Flash + UPTO 64GB MicroSD

Android 2.3 an newer 4.0.4 is now available!

Stylus, will help with Note taking an Course work. (GAMES)

Outstanding phone, if you can get it an dont mind a 6' Device in your pocket, the amount of friends who now have bought one, only after giving me a hard time with the MASSIVE Screen.

Dare is say, iPhone 4S?

[Guest butt head]

you should try the DynaTAC8000X its is a lot better than it looks. it is one of the smallest phones out there to

[LukeTim]

I\'d get the S2 and see if I could get Cyanogen Mod 9 on it.

I personally wouldn\'t go for the HTC because as much as I dislike the ugly skin Samsung puts on Android it\'s not half as horrible as HTC Sense.

[UmbralRaptor]

Not really thrilled with either of them, but the Galaxy SII supports 64 Gig SDXC cards and more importantly, Cyanogenmod. If you don\'t want to do the CM thing, I note that US Cellular also sells the Galaxy SIII.

edit: If you\'re using a 2 GiB data plan, the dropbox account is sort of silly unless you have plenty of wifi access. If you\'re interested in photos, a cheap point and shoot camera (especially one that supports CHDK) will blow the cell phone away. (For starters, phone cameras still don\'t have proper IR filters...) No smartphone has good battery life. Get an extended battery or two if you\'re concerned. Also, Cyanogenmod comes with a decent music player and you can always download more.

[Nooblet68]

you should try the DynaTAC8000X its is a lot better than it looks. it is one of the smallest phones out there to

-snip-

I want.

[honolululu]

I love my Galaxy SII. Beautiful screen, great battery life (lasts all day plus with around 2 hours of screen time), dual core cpu...

[Ryn]

You\'ll be able to upgrade to 4.0.3 ICS as soon as you fire the GS2 up.... But if you\'ve the money id go for the GS3, Why make yourself lag a generation when you can just get the latest ?

That said I LOVE my galaxy S 2 and dislike my Bosses HTC one the sound quality is horrid compared to the GS2

[LukeTim]

You\'ll be able to upgrade to 4.0.3 ICS as soon as you fire the GS2 up.... But if you\'ve the money id go for the GS3, Why make yourself lag a generation when you can just get the latest ?

That said I LOVE my galaxy S 2 and dislike my Bosses HTC one the sound quality is horrid compared to the GS2

He shouldn\'t get the GS3 because it is ugly as sin... (no offence intended to GS3 owners, but it is).

And it\'s all Apple\'s fault for that ridiculous lawsuit.

[cardgame]

All right, to my extreme surprise my mother brought it up all on her own and suggested I go for the S3 since it\'s only $70 more than the S2. I\'m paying the extra out of pocket, but oh well, it\'s worth it since I\'ll be in for a 2-year agreement.

I\'m also getting 3 spare batteries and a wall charger ($17), and a 3 oz protective case that also gives it real aesthetics ($7) to take care of the few issues it does have.

tl;dr buying Galaxy SIII end of thread

For anyone in a similar boat, the HTC One V is quite underpowered; the SII scores approximately twice as high in every single benchmark, and actually has a lesser battery (by 150mAh) than the SII. 2 Spare batteries + charger for the SII cost like $15 and then you can always keep it in full charge without having the battery warm all the time from use. Along with tweaking your settings such as brightness, this prety much eliminates the constant complaint about battery life.

[Ryn]

He shouldn\'t get the GS3 because it is ugly as sin... (no offence intended to GS3 owners, but it is).

And it\'s all Apple\'s fault for that ridiculous lawsuit.

Yes, Yes it is ugly... but its also a powerhouse, Hah

[LukeTim]

Yes, Yes it is ugly... but its also a powerhouse, Hah

This is true... But heck, I\'m rocking a ZTE Skate/Orange Monte Carlo with an ARM11 overclocked to 900MHz... what do I know about power?

I do know something about retro style, though.