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Smart Phones

darren

darren

Member
I going to buy a smart phone in he next couple of weeks.

It needs to be robust (you know what cavers are like) have GPS and have a map reading capability for cross country walking/Biking.

I'm thinking of a Motorola Defy. Anyone got one, or can suggest an alternative?
 
menacer

menacer

Active member
mmilner said:
Hi Darren. I've got one of those and love it!  8) Regards, Mel.
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I second that, scratch proof(gorilla glass) and waterproof  = caver proof.
Probably need a second battery if using gps when not plugged in , it drains the battery quick, i always revert to my normal gps when "off road"
The free sat nav with google maps, is fantastic.very useful in the car travelling.

 
SamT

SamT

Moderator
+1 for an Android based phone.  V pleased with my HTC desire.  Though the battery gave up the ghost and had to buy another recently.
 
martinm

martinm

New member
graham said:
Rob said:
That looks great. Almost a shame pocket topo doesnt run on Android...!
Click to expand...

Yet ...
Click to expand...

I'm just starting to learn how to develop apps for Android, it's sort of J2SE (Java 2 standard edition), but with the obvious phone extensions/hardware to take into account. Just getting my head round Eclipse and the Android SDK, etc. What's pocket topo written in? If it's Java, it could be ported, probably...

Regards, Mel.
 
underwhere

underwhere

New member
bubba said:
Samsung Galaxy S2 is an amazing phone.
Click to expand...

I have the older, slower = cheaper Galaxy Ace; does everything I want. Battery life with GPS on is about 2 hours. It takes 5 to 10 minutes from switch-on to become accurate to 2 metres. Is that usual?
 
bubba

bubba

Administrator
underwhere said:
I have the older, slower = cheaper Galaxy Ace; does everything I want. Battery life with GPS on is about 2 hours. It takes 5 to 10 minutes from switch-on to become accurate to 2 metres. Is that usual?
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Battery life is always an issue with smartphones, i've bought a spare battery for when I'm away from a charger for a full day.

I'd say that's pretty slow for getting a decent GPS fix. There's some discussion on your issue here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1373159  Those forums seem to be the best the place to find any solutions for Android phones.
 
A

And

New member
I have a Defy. I quite like it, although the earpiece recently broke about a month outside the warranty  :mad: so I can only hear calls on speaker phone. Maybe it isn't as robust as it claims. Looking on the internet it seems like it is a common problem with the earlier Defys.
  Until I had that problem I quite liked it. It didn't get scratched like my previous phones, and seemed ok after I dropped it. I haven't tested whether it is waterproof or not yet  :). It's a good size, unlike the the iphone/HTC Desire bricks. The processor is a tad slow though, so it occasionally momentarily freezes if you flick between tasks.
 
TheBitterEnd

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
I'd been holding off getting one because I didn't want a brick in my pocket, then I saw the Samsung Galaxy Y, which I've had for a month or so. That's not long to give a decent report on how robust it is (and TBH the build quality isn't great) but I've been reasonably impressed with it. Large enough to be useful but not much bigger than my old "non-smart" phone. It's a full on Android 2.3 phone with WiFi, GPS, 3-axis accelerometer, 3 axis magnetometer, querty keyboard, apps, etc. The GPS seems pretty good and sensitive enough to work indoors. I live in a poor reception area and get better reception than my old phone.

All in all it may not be the most solidly built but seems like value for money at under ?100 for a full-on smart phone.
 
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