New phone advice

[Garrett]

OK, so I've been putting this off for ages now, but I need one so I might as well just bite the bullet..


Kinda fancy something that has a bit of muscle and can be used for gaming/emulation as well.


I'm NOT looking for a Pandora replacement more of a partner, I know there are things that the Pandora is never going to cope particularly well with (most N64 games etc) but most phones on the other hand are unlikely to offer things like Dosbox, the community projects, ports, non game applications etc..


Anyway recently borrowed a friends HTC Desire Z & was very impressed (I know It's not cutting edge now) nice physical keyboard, very overclockable (and stable at least on his) pretty decent battery life, good screen & most importantly (at least for me) great performance with the emulators.. especially N64 (I believe the emulator is N64oid) I'm also considering an Xperia play (although I have no experience with one) does anyone here have either of these two devices or experience with them..? what's the consensus.


Suggestions for other make/models would also be appreciated.. got to have some kind of physical input/keyboard though (touchscreen only devices are an anathema to me!)


Thanks.

 

[FaeMinx]

Sorry, no experience with either of those. My first and only Android phone is the HTC Sensation. I think you can get one now for not too much outlay, and they feel wonderful in the hand... But, while it is super powerful and can be overclocked up to I think about 1.8Ghz (dual-core) with a nice qHD screen... The stock battery life is abysmal! Get an Anker battery replacement to solve this issue, and they're fairly cheap too.


The *only* other gripe I have with this phone is the lack of physical controls - for gaming. I was quite surprised how easy it became to touch type and I actually find typing on my Sensation much faster, more natural and comfortable than typing on my Pandora. So I guess all I need is an iControlPad and i'm set.


The reason this is such a nice phone to hold either vertical or horizontal is it's lovely weight, curved shape, and full aluminium body.


This phone is capable of console quality gaming by the way, and n64 emulation is fantastic and looks gorgeous!


Tethering to my Pandora is a breeze.


If you like modding, you can buy a second battery cover (or just use the one you've got if you're brave) and painstakingly polish off the paint layer for either a brushed aluminum or chromed look depending on your preference... Which in my opinion gives you the sexiest and most exclusive looking phone ever made by man.


Oh, and it's due for an Ice Cream Sandwich update in the next few months too.


Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk

 

[Garrett]

Sorry, no experience with either of those. My first and only Android phone is the HTC Sensation. I think you can get one now for not too much outlay, and they feel wonderful in the hand... But, while it is super powerful and can be overclocked up to I think about 1.8Ghz (dual-core) with a nice qHD screen... The stock battery life is abysmal! Get an Anker battery replacement to solve this issue, and they're fairly cheap too.


The *only* other gripe I have with this phone is the lack of physical controls - for gaming. I was quite surprised how easy it became to touch type and I actually find typing on my Sensation much faster, more natural and comfortable than typing on my Pandora. So I guess all I need is an iControlPad and i'm set.


The reason this is such a nice phone to hold either vertical or horizontal is it's lovely weight, curved shape, and full aluminium body.


This phone is capable of console quality gaming by the way, and n64 emulation is fantastic and looks gorgeous!


Tethering to my Pandora is a breeze.


If you like modding, you can buy a second battery cover (or just use the one you've got if you're brave) and painstakingly polish off the paint layer for either a brushed aluminum or chromed look depending on your preference... Which in my opinion gives you the sexiest and most exclusive looking phone ever made by man.


Oh, and it's due for an Ice Cream Sandwich update in the next few months too.


Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk

Thanks I'll take a look, but think having no physical controls is going to kill it for me..

 

[Wilhood]

Have a look at the sony xperia play.


I picked mine up for £150.00 from o2 shop in the uk.

 

[-Tj-]

I haven't had any experience with the models you suggested, or any others here, other than a brief test of the Xperia Play which I thought had buttons too clicky and small for my taste.


I personally have a Samsung Galaxy S2 (i9100). No physical keyboard, but it's by far the best phone I've ever owned. I may not need another phone for another 2 years! The Galaxy Nexus is supposed to be pretty good, too, as is the Galaxy Note. Galaxy Note has the advantage of a huge screen and pressure sensitive Wacom stylus input, but it's on the larger side with its 5.3" screen. All three should have no problems with emulation. I've only used SNES and Genesis emulators so far, but they were both very, very smooth and stutter-free. Paired with an iCP it's even better.


Another option might be to hold out till the Galaxy S3 is announced. Dunno when that will be tho.

 

[Nintendo]

I highly recommend Xperia Play since it now has ICS Beta, but in saying that...I have no experience with anything else though.


http://developer.sonymobile.com/wp/2012/03/29/ics-beta-rom-now-available-for-unlocked-xperia-play-smartphones-download/

 

[Cloudef]

I'm serious.

 

[Nintendo]

^ Lol, N64oid would be nice on that.

 

[moz]

Whoa there Cloudef, we're talking phones, not impenetrable weapons!

 

[FaeMinx]

The Galaxy Note has pressure sensitivity!?


Oh Meow! =3


I hope the Note 2 is released by the time my upgrade rolls around. =^. ^ =

 

[craigix]

Have a look at the sony xperia play.


I picked mine up for £150.00 from o2 shop in the uk.

Funny you should say that, I saw piles and piles of them (not sure if there are different versions) for £99 last week in a non-chain discount phone shop.


I wonder how many Sony made and how much money they have lost?


If they get any cheaper they will be worth buying for the parts alone.

 

[Nintendo]

There are rumours of an XP2?

 

[-Tj-]

I hope the Note 2 is released by the time my upgrade rolls around. =^. ^ =

Me too! I'm not a fan of the Pentile arrangement of the pixels, so I'm holding out for a Note 2 (or 3) with a Super AMOLED Plus HD screen. I had a chance to play with a Note at a BestBuy recently, and it was really neat! It's big, but not unreasonably big. Might take a little getting used to to draw on, but it felt a bit like a small notepad.

 

[FaeMinx]

I hope the Note 2 is released by the time my upgrade rolls around. =^. ^ =

Me too! I'm not a fan of the Pentile arrangement of the pixels, so I'm holding out for a Note 2 (or 3) with a Super AMOLED Plus HD screen. I had a chance to play with a Note at a BestBuy recently, and it was really neat! It's big, but not unreasonably big. Might take a little getting used to to draw on, but it felt a bit like a small notepad.

*purr* I'm going to keep an eye out for one so I can try it too! =^. ^ =

 

[Nintendo]

 

[Phelsumania]

Speeking of the note its absolutely brilliant and i love it to bits however it biggest flop is samsung have pissed the screens, resulting in the touch screens being inacurate and the stylus clicks 5mil high and to the right and samsung aint included a calibrator in the settings or options. And the phones been out for months now and not yet had an uate to include a fix or caliation tool. Fortuinately a nice developer who has a note has released his fix to the market which works but you have to manually configure the off set setting severy time you turn on the phone. Kinda seems like a huge balls up on samsungs behalf to release a phone heavily revolving around a s pen which in reality isnt anywhere near what it should be. Drawing anything half decent on it is a nightmare because if you remove the pen from the screen you have to gestimate where to re touch the screen to touch where u want which is nion imposible. Not cool but for a redeeming feature it can play pc games at full fpswhich if u play a lot of computer games like i do being able to play saints row, dirt 3, l.a. Noir, homefront (online multiplayer)etc on a phone is pretty damn impressive in my books.

 

[SNESFAN]

xperia play 2 aka sony atlas (xperia play 1 being the zeus ... greek gods codenames) should be announced in september timeframe if they havent scrapped it


nothing other than a name has been found yet... I've looked into all pictures and specs and hunted them down to the source... all hearsay... the name leak is valid, I posted the source on the xperia play thread in other consoles


EDIT and the source is valid because it fortold 3 of the dozen or so codenames sony/sony ericsson had comming out so far and nailed it pretty much to the day of press release months before they happened

 

[Fzero]

I Didn't know about the xperia play 2 ... I'm hoping it does look like that picture, I'll be looking to upgrade around Sept I think.


The Note looks alright too with it's features and large screen


Only other ones I heard of interest is the HTC One, they make solid phones imo.


Couple other interesting ones coming but I doubt they would be as good as suggested, for the gaming side I don't think anything will test the xperia play 2.


But Nokia have a 41MP camera phone that I imagine takes pretty good looking snaps, and Samsung have a new galaxy Beam that has a built in projector

 

[Binky]

But Nokia have a 41MP camera phone that I imagine takes pretty good looking snaps

But are the optics up to it? High-res image sensors are no good if all they pick up is scratches, flaws and interference. (genuine question)

 

[Fzero]

Tbh I don't know. I read something about it effectively being 7MP shots which are smartly stitched to make the high res... if you read this page down under the "facts about..." heading you'll see what I mean and probably make more sense of it than I can.


http://digitalconqurer.com/gadgets/nokia/41mp-camera-phone-nokia-808-pureview/


Note that on my phone that page has a video embedded which is waaaaay oversized and I need to scroll down loads to get to the paragraph under the video..


Also they have another one I just read here


http://www.crazyengineers.com/nokia-lumia-pureview-images-leaked-2036/