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The Smartphone Smackdown: transcript
In Saturday’s American-Statesman story about smartphones (and accompanying video, also below), we invited four Austinites with different devices to tell us about them.
The following is a longer transcript of that meeting, edited slightly for clarity:
American-Statesman: When did you get your phone and where did you buy it? Tell the story.
Cynthia Lux, Palm Pre owner: Hi, I’m Cynthia — I am a computer geek and I’m a gadget geek. I have had several Palms. Actually, I started out with a Handspring Visor as my PDA. Two years ago, I went to a Palm Treo 755, which I liked a whole lot but the screen was really small. I had all these people running around with iPhones making me a little bit jealous because they can get to real Web sites. When Palm announce the Palm Pre, I was really excited; I actually got mine on the first day they were available, June 4 or 6. I waited until 5 p.m. and I managed to run to the main Sprint store during my dinner break and they still had some. I showed it off to everyone that night because I’m a geek. (Laughs)
Jennifer Brown, BlackBerry owner: I’m Jennifer Brown. I have the BlackBerry. I got my phone because I started a company and I really needed a phone that was more oriented toward business and e-mail. I had a friend who had a BlackBerry; she really, really liked it. I went to the store. I had AT&T and they had the BlackBerry plan I wanted. I started off with a BlackBerry Pearl and within about three months I realized I really really liked it with all the features and I went to the Blackberry Curve immediately because it had the full keyboard. And ever since then I’ve been really happy with it. I’ve thought about getting the touch-screen BlackBerry (the BlackBerry Storm) but I have not heard a lot of good things about it. So I am gonna keep what I have because I’m really happy with it.
Clay Spinuzzi, T-Mobile G1 owner: I’m Clay Spinuzzi. I have been using PDAs forever. Like Cindy, I started with the Handspring Visor. I went through PDA after PDA from there. At some point, I thought, I’ve just gotta merge these two worlds and have something that will allow me to do Web surfing real-time. I like to be connected as much as possible. I looked at the iPhone. But there’s just something inelegant about repeatedly jabbing the screen with your forefinger. i wanted to wait until the G1 came out and compare the three major platforms that were out at that point. I did and Google had me from the word go.
Chris Carter, iPhone owner: I’m Chris Carter and I’m the iPhone geek. Like several other people at the table, I tried several other platforms. I had a kinda-smartphone, the Nokia 3650 that I would tether with my Windows Mobile Pocket PC so I could surf the Web with my Pocket PC. That wasn’t the greatest solution but that was the best that I could do at the time. I tried BlackBerry after that and wasn’t quite thrilled with that. Again, that was the best option that was available at the time. When the iPhone came out, being a long-time Mac user, I couldn’t wait to try it out. I skipped the first generation. Got a 3G and used it for the past year. This past June when the 3GS came out, I actually happened to be on a vacation in New York City the day it launched. My vacation was planned ahead of a time; I’m not THAT big of a geek. I went ahead and used the online reservation system and went to the 5th Avenue store. I was one of the first 10 people who came out of the store with the 3GS to get their iPhone at that store when it launched. CNN was there with their cameras interviewing me. It was kinda cool. Never had that happened with my BlackBerry. My Wife now has the 3G. No complaints. I finally found one I’m happy with.
(Continued after the jump…)
American-Statesman: Why you like your particular phone so much?
Lux: One, I really love the community behind Palm. If you go out to the forums and things like that, there’s a lot of great people out there. They do the homebrew stuff. I work for a company where we have a very big online presence. And we have a community of people who go out and help each other and Palm has that too. It’s quite possible that all those phones have that, but I’ve never had to go use it. There’s just been so many things over the years that have made me happy about it. It’s not about who has what apps and things like that because every app comes to every platform eventually. It’s a big equal field right now; the Web OS is brand new so they’re still working on getting more apps out there. You can run an app called “Classic” and run all your old Palm apps on your phone if you really want to. It’s all there.
American-Statesman: You don’t have App Envy yet?
Lux: No. Well, I really don’t need 6,000 apps to put a picture of a lighter on my phone.
Spinuzzi: What about concerts, though?
Lux:It’s really all just about having light. It doesn’t have to be a little Bic. It’s crazy when you can flick the Bic. What’s the purpose? Because it’s COOL! I have lots of cool stuff at home.
(Carter pulls his phone and shows off the lighter app.)
Carter: I hold this up at a concert when everyone is holding up their real lighters.
(Laughs)
American-Statesman: What is it about BlackBerry that’s different?
Brown: For me, when I was looking at a phone, it was all business-related. I didn’t get a phone to start surfing the Internet or playing online or any of that stuff. So for me it was what kind of phone is gonna give me the best results for e-mail, my online calendar. I can sync between Outlook and my phone and that’s a great way for me to store contacts. So that’s how I started with BlackBerry. And for me, for those purposes, I think it does a really good job. I get e-mails quickly, my calendar is right there and it syncs up with my contacts. You can put every piece of information there that you need. For me, it wasn’t really about the Internet. And the only apps I use are… “Pac-Man” (laughs around the table), Facebook and Twitter. And the GPS. And I use the memo pad. For me, it’s not really about the app. For me, the reason I use the BlackBerry was it’s the most business-friendly phone that I was able to find. And also, too, when I bought this, the iPhone was still $400 or $500. This was a lot more reasonable than that was. I picked up this phone and I understood it. I didn’t have any problems with how it was gonna work. With the iPhone, that was really the only other thing I compared it to — how am I gonna learn to use a Mac operating system when I’ve never used it before? So for me it was easy, it was quick to use, it was affordable, and for business purposes, it worked like a charm. The only thing about my phone that I was wish it was a little bit different… in a negative sense, I wish the camera was better. Other than that, no complaints. What’s so awesome about the G1?
Spinuzzi: (To Brown) You connect your BlackBerry to your computer? Yeah, I don’t get that. It syncs automatically.
Brown: I keep it plugged in. If I get an e-mail that comes across or an appointment, it’ll automatically go into my calendar. If I’m hand-entering, I sync it up every night.
Lux: I use Yahoo at home. I use Outlook at work. Both of those sync with Plaxo. I also have my Plaxo account syncing with my Google Calendars account. And THIS syncs with Google and Facebook. They’re all synced up together, living happily.
Brown: I use Outlook for everything.
American-Statesman: But you’re talking about wireless syncing.
Spinuzzi: I’m gonna be honest here. As far as being a phone-phone, the G1 is not a great phone. Like, placing a call is unduly complicated. Receiving a call is OK.
Brown: So what’s the point?
Spinuzzi: Going through a phone tree is impossible. But I don’t care because I don’t like to use the phone. This is a little Internet device that happens to have some phone capabilities. But that does really fit the bill for me. I use all of Google’s products. They’re completely integrated. If I put something on my calendar here, it’s instantly on my Google Calendar. I can Tweet as much as I want to. I’ve got a physical keyboard. I have push notifications, e-mails, IM’s all of that other stuff. All of that is really important to me. I’m extremely mobile. I may be on the bus or at the coffee shop. I need to be able to get to all of my data as quickly as I can. Those are the big things for me.
Brown: Does everybody here pay $30 a month to have the Internet? Or is that just the BlackBerry?
Lux: Nope.
Spinuzzi: I do, too.
Carter: I do.
American-Statesman: How much is each of your monthly bills?
Lux: Sprint has the Everything Plan. You can get the cheap version or the expensive version and I have the cheap version. It gives me 450 minutes, but it gives me unlimited data. Before I moved up to the Pre, it was about $55 a month. My plan actually moves it up to about $70 a month. I had to upgrade to a 3G phone. I made the manager explain to me in detail before I did it. I don’t mind upgrading to the technology, but I want them to give me a reason for doing it.
Brown: My phone bill runs about $147 a month and I know that because I paid it today. (Whistles and disbelief around the room.) But I don’t have a home phone, so I pay $99 a month. I talk anywhere between 8,000 and 10,000 minutes a month. I love to talk on the phone.
Spinuzzi: Are you kidding?
Brown: No, I’m dead serious. If y’all ever see me around town, this little thing will be hanging on my ear. I do, I talk a lot on my phone. For $100, I get absolutely unlimited minutes. For $10 a month, I get unlimited texts and I pay the $30 for the Internet, the data plan and a little bit of taxes. It’s through AT&T. My phone bill is expensive, but it’s worth it because I talk on the phone a lot. (To Spinuzzi) How much is your bill?
Spinuzzi: We’re on a Family Plan so it’s about $110 together. We jailbroke an iPhone for my wife. She’s pretty happy with it. We’re on T-Mobile.
Carter: Since my wife now has an iPhone, too, we have a Family Plan. My total bill is $172. We have $30 a month for each of our iPhones (for data). $30 unlimited text package for everybody on the Family Plan. And then 500 or 600 minutes. We don’t use our phones a lot to talk to people who aren’t on AT&T.
Lux: I was sad when I was told I had to move to one of Sprint’s unlimited plans with 450 minutes. My old plan was 200 minutes and I had unlimited text and unlimited data. And I was very unhappy having to spend another extra $15 a month. And I have these 450 minutes that don’t roll over and I don’t use them! It was annoying. After I made the manager explain it to me, then I said, “Now I’ll buy it.” As long as you explain it and it’s not just because you felt like it.
American-Statesman: What does your phone do better than any other phone in the room?
Lux: Really, they’re all, I think, on a fairly even balance. Android and Apple have more apps out there. Palm is working on the catch-up because this is first-gen. Some do video, some don’t. Some have better cameras. It’s all in what makes you happy, really. For the Pre, I really appreciate the fact that you can switch apps pretty easily. The little card-shuffle thing (switching applications) is pretty easy.
American-Statesman: And they’re all still running in the background?
Lux: Yes.
Carter: I am envious of that feature.
Brown: For me, it’s e-mail. It’s being able to put you here and put you there in a folder and do this and do that. It’s e-mail for business for me that I think makes the BlackBerry rock.
Carter: It is a good dedicated e-mail/calendar.
Spinuzzi: They have that legacy momentum, Exchange out of the box.
Carter: All the IT guys are used to them and aren’t afraid of them like the iPhone and G1.
Lux: And BlackBerry has that security thing going on, too.
Brown: Isn’t that what the President uses?
Lux: He’s got that $8,000, uber-secure one.
Spinuzzi: For me, I like that (the G1) has a physical keyboard and total Google integration. The way it handles notifications is really nice, too. I don’t like the idea of being interrupted in the middle of something with a dialogue box. It’s the most elegant.
Lux: The way Palm does it is it’s a little notification down at the bottom you can side-swipe.
Spinuzzi: I never hook this up to anything except to power it up, which I have to do frequently.
Lux: I’m on Sprint and everyone in the world is on AT&T. I remember being at South by Southwest and everyone with AT&T couldnt’ get online and I could. I had my Treo then. I’ll be curious to see how that goes next year.
Carter: (Rhetorically) What does (the iPhone) do better?
Lux: It’s preeeeetty.
Carter: It comes in black and white… (laughs) I spend a lot of time on the Web, so that was a huge selling point for me. Safari and being able to see pages how they actually look and not the dumbed-down mobile version you see on the BlackBerry.
Brown: I can flip back and forth between the mobile version and the real version.
Carter: I liked having the Wi-Fi on there. I like a lot of the apps that are available. I use a stock app that does a lot of the stuff that the desktop stock apps used to do. I can carry it in my pocket now.
Spinuzzi: Don’t forget the lighter.
Carter: I like the lighter. I don’t have the 5,000 lighter apps. Nor do I have iFart.
American-Statesman: What do you use the most? What apps are most indispensable?
Carter: I rarely… it’s maybe less than 50 minutes a week that I actually spend on the phone, if that. most of my friends if you try to call them, they don’t answer the phone. If you text them, they reply back right away. I text most of the time. Most of my usage is texting, Twitter (Tweetie or Tweetdeck) and my stock app that I use. And e-mail a couple of times a day. The stock app is called iStock Manager. It works with my Ameritrade account. I have a Mophie Juice Pack to extend the battery. It doubles the battery life. I also use Facebook.
Lux: I have a case and a hard case. I rarely use it. I end up sticking this in my pocket all the time.
Carter: Mine stays in my pocket.
Brown: This sucker has been swimming, it’s been dropped. It’s still kicking.
Spinuzzi: E-mail, SMS, Web browsing almost constantly and Twitter, those are really the big ones. I also use Google Maps a lot when I’m traveling. I love seeing that blue dot on places. I use Twidget (A Twitter app) and Twit To go.
Brown: I use TwitterBerry. I’m a big Facebook person; I use the Facebook app for BlackBerry and I think it is awesome. I talk on the phone a lot and get really good reception. And I use e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and “Pac-Man.”
Lux:: A lot of what I use is e-mail messaging. I do actually make calls from my phone. I do use Facebook but they don’t have a Facebook app. I use Facebook Mobile which I’m not real happy with. I have two Twitter apps, Tweet and Spazz. I haven’t ever played with Spazz because I like Tweet a whole lot. I use the Palm e-mail app. Unlike the old e-mail app on Palm OS, it works great. It syncs all my e-mails. Since it also syncs with your Google Calendar and Gmail and your Facebook contacts, I can keep everything synced up. I sync my Yahoo Calendar also via Plaxo. Everything’s connected and it makes me happy. And I play a lot of Sudoku because it’s the only decent game we have at the moment. There’s a new app too. I haven’t tried yet because I haven’t had a reason to… It actually allows you to accept credit card payments via your phone. I do photography and crafts. It is secure: GoPayment.
American-Statesman: What doesn’t your phone do that you wish it did?
Lux: I don’t have a Bic! (Laughs) I’m waiting for more of the official apps. Database apps I used to use that aren’t there yet. Some tweaks to the apps that are already there. All in all, it’s a great first-generation product and I knew it was first-generation when I bought it. They’ve been pretty consistent about getting operating system and software flashes that you download wirelessly on a regular basis. I’m just waiting for the greatness.
Brown: For me the one thing I wish is that it had a little bigger screen. I think that’s a shortfall on a BlackBerry on this particular model. As far as apps go, I don’t think you buy a BlackBerry for applications. If apps and games and cool features and gadgets is your thing, you buy an Apple. If you want a good, hearty business phone, you buy a BlackBerry. I wish I had a bigger screen and a better camera.
Lux: It makes me miss my Treo. I don’t have a way to go up, down, side to side. I don’t like the roller ball which is why I went with the Treo over the BlackBerry. I miss the jog button that I had on my Treo. I miss that very much.
Spinuzzi: It would always be nicer to have a bigger screen and a longer battery life. I wouldn’t mind it being a little thinner than this. This is a bit thick for your pocket. I hear they’ll have an official Facebook app out this week so maybe I’ll go back to Facebooking.
Carter: For my purposes, not really. I actually like not having a physical keyboard. I can stealthily type during a meeting without it going ‘click click click.” Plus, you tap enough on the keys your finger starts getting sore (on BlackBerry). A couple of people I work with got RSI from using their BlackBerry too much. It’s got resistance. As far as things I would like to have that it doesn’t — longer battery life maybe. I’m pretty happy with it now that they added video capability. A little better camera; it does better in low-light. No real complaints that I can think of.
American-Statesman: Is there peer pressure from a spouse or significant other to have the same phone?
Brown: I’m not married. I have a significant other. He has an iPhone.
Lux: I am the only one in my family with a Smartphone. I did give my old PDA to my sister and she was very happy with it.
American-Statesman: Are you the peer pressure person in the family?
Lux: I am the techno-geek in the family. I have four video game systems and at least three computers in my house and I’m single.
Brown: For me with the BlackBerry when it comes to cool phones, i’m the least cool. People say, don’t you want an iPhone? They do this, they do that, they’re so pretty! Three or four years ago BlackBerry, was all cool and new. Now it’s like the Nokia I had 12 years ago in high school. I think that for me a lot of people always ask me why don’t you have an iPhone? It’s not anything personal with the iPhone it’s just I’m happy with what I have.
Spinuzzi: My wife has an iPhone. She got a regular phone because all she wanted to do was text. It turned out her phone was a poor texting phone. We bought a used iPhone and jailbroke it, put it on the T-mobile network. It’s a 3G. She cant’ use the 3G; the bandwidth is wrong for this carrier. She’s on EDGE. It turns out T-Mobile has a Department of Unsupported Devices which seems like an oxymoron. She’s pretty happy with it. She’s not a fanatic. She says, “I like this better than your G1; it’s too complicated.” And it IS complicated. I’m happy with it. It does exactly what I need it to do.
Carter: My wife has my former iPhone 3G. Before that, she had a slider Sony Ericsson phone. She was perfectly happy with it until she got my hand-me-down iPhone and now she loves it.
Lux: We’ve all been talking so much about texting and Twitter and Facebook. Used to be I would never text on my old phones. I loved the clam-shells. That’s the only thing I hate about smartphones is you can’t get a clamshell. I’m always putting it in my pocket and managing to set something off.
American-Statesman: What do you think your next phone will be?
Lux: It depends on who comes out with that next. It WON’T be an Apple product. I dislike the proprietariness of Apple where you have to use iTunes and I hate iTunes.
Brown: I LOVE iTunes!
Lux: Oh, I despise iTunes. I had MusicMatch Jukebox for a long time. Then it got bought out and killed. I still run my old MusicMatch. (My new phone) might be Palm. I had looked at the Google Android, then they announced the Palm product. It really depends. Pretty much every two years on my birthday I get a new phone.
Brown: I am probably gonna stay with BlackBerry. i’m really happy. I can’t get the BlackBerry touchscreen with AT&T. It’s something I’ve heard really mixed reviews about with the Storm. I would probably be wiling to try it, maybe, if it was offered through AT&T. I’m gonna stay with what I have and we’ll see. I’m really happy with it.
Spinuzzi: I’m pretty happy with the operating system. The hardware — it’s an HTC phone — HTC is the manufacturer. If I can get something that’s lighter, that’s speedier, that’s a little more solid but still has a physical keyboard I’ll consider it , no matter which carrier has it. The fact that it’s all integrated just works for what I do. The one thing I really miss about my old feature phone is texting one-handed. T9 predictive text? I got so good with that.
Carter: Probably whatever the next iPhone is. I’m happy with it. I’m a long-time Mac user. It works and integrates with the applications and the platform I use. It doesn’t take any extra work to get things up and running. It kinda works out of the box.
Lux: It was, in fact, the iPhone that made me jealous enough to go get a smartphone and made me want to get on the real Internet with my phone.
Carter: As far my friends and families — my friend who sells PC parts on eBay — always teases me about being a Mac user. He’s always ribbing me about it. He ended up buying an iPhone. Now he loves his iPhone. Once I bought mine, my parents and my brother who’ve never had smartphones before all ended up buying iPhones recently.
Lux: I’ve gotten plenty of peer pressure from not having an iPhone from my friends.
Brown: You can say that Apple put together a great marketing campaign to build the hype.
Lux: Everybody likes their phone for a reason. Not a single one of these phones does every single thing I want it to do. If one did then maybe I’d jump ship. I’ve been on my plan for my service company for umpteen years. They don’t have a GSM phone which would be nice. When I go to Europe, I don’t take my phone. I think it’d be cool to have certain options that you don’t have. You go with what you like.
Brown: Everybody likes their phones for different reasons. You know how you can build a Dell Computer? It’s too bad you can’t build a cell phone completely custom-designed. I want the screen from Apple and for it to be that size… The likelihood of that happening and for it being cheap isn’t likely. You used to have bag phones. When I was in high school, my mom would say, “Here, Jennifer, take the bag phone with you!” We really have come a long way in phones. In 10 years, it’ll be amazing to see where we’re at.
Spinuzzi: I think most of our phones are gonna be able to do this stuff in the future. I think feature phones are gonna start disappearing. I think all of these are great phones. I could see myself using pretty much any one of these for different reasons, I’m just happy with the one I got.
Carter: Different phones work for different people. I don’t give anybody a hard time or try to convince them to buy an iPhone. If it works for them and they want to ask me about it, I’ll be glad to tell them about it. I carried a BlackBerry and an iPhone. I kept them separated. BlackBerry is a good dedicated e-mail and calendar device, if that’s all you really care about. It’s definitely not as intuitive to pick up and use like the iPhone.
Brown: I think the really awesome thing about all these phones is it’s getting so affordable. It’s really gone from you having to be the CEO of the company —
Lux: It was executive jewelry, really.
Brown: Yes! With this I can go to the beach and go on vacation. Do I have to check my e-mail every hour to see what buzzed in? Sure. I’m a small business owner. I couldn’t go on vacation without this. I’d be tethered to the office. This gives me affordable freedom. That’s worth $147 a month for me.
Spinuzzi: When do you turn your phone off?
Brown: Never!
Spinuzzi: I mute it and that’s it.
Carter: I have to remind myself to reboot it once in a while. I mute it.
Lux: This is why I love the Palm: It has a ringer switch.
Brown: Mine’s my alarm clock.
Lux: I usually leave it on in the other room.
Spinuzzi: I think the only time the phone is off my person is at the gym.
Lux:Every phone, not just smartphones, have a camera. That’s a big issue.
Brown: I would say I never (turn it off).
Carter: Mine’s on 24/7. My BlackBerry I had programmed to turn off every night at midnight and then came on at 7 in the morning.
Lux: How many of your phones actually turn off? This, it doesn’t turn off.
Brown: Mine turns off if I drop it and the battery flies out.
Carter: My wife goes to bed before I do. Sometimes she wakes up at night and she has found my holding my iPhone, asleep.
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