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Hi all,
My old Verizon Motorola Q9m is starting to show its age and my wife is pestering me about upgrading her LG enV to an Iphone4 or something like that.
Also thinking it might be a good time to switch providers if the deal is good enough.
So first, between ATT and Verizon, which network is better. I have not had any problems with Verizon. I've read alot of negative things about ATT (everything from dropped calls, poor call quality, crappy customer service, and being sellouts to the NSA...) I'm trying to gauge how much of the negative press about ATT is truth vs. hype. Factors I am weighing is that I can get better pricing through my job at ATT vs verizon (especially when upgrading the 2nd phone to a data plan). The building I work in does not get any reception except ATT (my company utilizes ATT for work issued cellphones so I think they actually installed ATT repeaters or something). The downside to ATT is the negative perceptions I've read here and the fact that ATT does not offer unlimited data plans (not that I currently utilize more than 80MB a month but that may jump with a more capable phone plus I have no idea how much my wife will use). If I can talk Verizon into a price similar to the price I could get through ATT, I would probably stick with them.
Second, what phones? Like I said, my wife seems enamored with the Iphone4. I suspect she will use it for run of the mill browsing, accessing her yahoo mail, texting, pictures, etc. She is a mom and a homemaker so she doesn't really have to worry about corporate email, push server, etc.
For me the choice seems a bit more difficult. I think I am leaning toward an Android type phone BUT.... I am really used to the Q's keyboard. The other major thing is that I currently depend heavily on the ability to sync it with Outlook2003 on winXP. I use my phone to sync my calendar, contacts, and notes between my home PC, multiple work PCs and the phone. I currently do not use it for email since my corporate IT department will only allow push email with company issued (IT dept approved) phones.
I have read that Android based phones do not sync well with outlook without the use of 3rd party software. That may also present a problem if it requires software to be installed on the PC since our IT department has all our PCs pretty much locked down and does not allow users to install software with the exception of pre-approved software through their software delivery system. Currently the activeSync 4.5 that the Q uses is one of the pre-approved software packages so I doubt that even the newer windows7 phones would work unless they are backward compatible with that version of activeSync.
Can any of you droid experts give the cliff notes of syncing with winxp/outlook? What the phones can do natively vs what apps work vs the ones that don't. I use my home outlook client to manage several POP accounts so it would really be cool if there were a way to have my phone access my PC remotely (even if I have to open up some router and firewall ports) to connect to my outlook client and sync periodically. I've also read about some how pushing all your email through Gmail so that Gmail can push to the droid phones. That might be OK but I am a bit hesitant to have all my email on the google "cloud".
Lastly individual phone comparisons - is there a good site out there that racks and stacks all the phones from various providers and compares tech specs / features? Example, how does the HTC thunderbolt from verizon compare to ATT's Inspire or Motorala ATRIX or Incredible vs Aria... There's to many damn choices and should I let available phones influence my network choice?
thanks a bunch,
drc
My old Verizon Motorola Q9m is starting to show its age and my wife is pestering me about upgrading her LG enV to an Iphone4 or something like that.
Also thinking it might be a good time to switch providers if the deal is good enough.
So first, between ATT and Verizon, which network is better. I have not had any problems with Verizon. I've read alot of negative things about ATT (everything from dropped calls, poor call quality, crappy customer service, and being sellouts to the NSA...) I'm trying to gauge how much of the negative press about ATT is truth vs. hype. Factors I am weighing is that I can get better pricing through my job at ATT vs verizon (especially when upgrading the 2nd phone to a data plan). The building I work in does not get any reception except ATT (my company utilizes ATT for work issued cellphones so I think they actually installed ATT repeaters or something). The downside to ATT is the negative perceptions I've read here and the fact that ATT does not offer unlimited data plans (not that I currently utilize more than 80MB a month but that may jump with a more capable phone plus I have no idea how much my wife will use). If I can talk Verizon into a price similar to the price I could get through ATT, I would probably stick with them.
Second, what phones? Like I said, my wife seems enamored with the Iphone4. I suspect she will use it for run of the mill browsing, accessing her yahoo mail, texting, pictures, etc. She is a mom and a homemaker so she doesn't really have to worry about corporate email, push server, etc.
For me the choice seems a bit more difficult. I think I am leaning toward an Android type phone BUT.... I am really used to the Q's keyboard. The other major thing is that I currently depend heavily on the ability to sync it with Outlook2003 on winXP. I use my phone to sync my calendar, contacts, and notes between my home PC, multiple work PCs and the phone. I currently do not use it for email since my corporate IT department will only allow push email with company issued (IT dept approved) phones.
I have read that Android based phones do not sync well with outlook without the use of 3rd party software. That may also present a problem if it requires software to be installed on the PC since our IT department has all our PCs pretty much locked down and does not allow users to install software with the exception of pre-approved software through their software delivery system. Currently the activeSync 4.5 that the Q uses is one of the pre-approved software packages so I doubt that even the newer windows7 phones would work unless they are backward compatible with that version of activeSync.
Can any of you droid experts give the cliff notes of syncing with winxp/outlook? What the phones can do natively vs what apps work vs the ones that don't. I use my home outlook client to manage several POP accounts so it would really be cool if there were a way to have my phone access my PC remotely (even if I have to open up some router and firewall ports) to connect to my outlook client and sync periodically. I've also read about some how pushing all your email through Gmail so that Gmail can push to the droid phones. That might be OK but I am a bit hesitant to have all my email on the google "cloud".
Lastly individual phone comparisons - is there a good site out there that racks and stacks all the phones from various providers and compares tech specs / features? Example, how does the HTC thunderbolt from verizon compare to ATT's Inspire or Motorala ATRIX or Incredible vs Aria... There's to many damn choices and should I let available phones influence my network choice?
thanks a bunch,
drc
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