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HTC ChaCha
by perrywinkle9
I have been using this phone for a year and a half. I went for an HTC as I had never before owned one and several of my friends had positive experiences with them. I went for the Cha-Cha as It came with a relatively low monthly contract cost, I got a free laptop with it (mobiles.co.uk) and I really like having a physical keyboard but ... have gone off Blackberry.
On the plus side I have visited many indignities on my phone over the last eighteen m18onths; it has been dropped in the sink, dropped on the floor on several occasions (the last of which was on concrete and cracked the screen), has had orange juice spilled on it, dropped in a bowl of tuna mayo...The list is endless. Usually I am much more careful with my phones but for some reason this one seems to live by Murphy's law. Despite all of this the phone still works as well as it ever has.
The screen is very clear despite being smaller than a lot of modern phones and the touch screen works well. The keyboard/touchscreen combo works well and only confuses a handful of apps. I have heard some people complain about the battery life and although I don't leave the internet on all the time I do use it regularly and often play games on it and use some apps on it every day, the battery lasts for around 18 hours (I charge it every night while I sleep).
The camera works OK, having an 8 megapixel camera was another big plus when I chose this phone but for some reason the pictures never seem to look that good, I have seen some of my friends take pictures with 4 or 6 megapixel cameras on their phones that regularly turn out better than mine. Perhaps it's just me. At the end of the day I have a decent camera that I use for taking pictures I just wish the camera was better on my phone as whenever I am out and see something I want a picture of I wish I had my camera with me instead of just my phone.
The worst thing about this phone is the abysmal amount of memory. Although I have supplemented it with a 16gb micro SD there are some things that the phone insists can't be stored on the SD card. As a result when it wants to install the latest HTC upgrade you have to strip it back to it's factory default to create enough room. There has been an upgrade available for the last six months but it just isn't worth the trouble.
Overall the Cha -cha is a pretty good phone but it feels a little dated now and the memory problem has become a major problem. I am really looking forwards to getting a new phone in September.
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Apple iPhone 5
by scooch12
I've been the owner of a shiny iphone 5 for a few months now so feel I'm able to give a fair review on it. I was the owner of an iphone 4 before this but my contract was out of date before the 5 came out - I had been really impressed with the iphone 4 I had so decided to upgrade to Apple's updated model of their famous phone. I pay £42 ... per month and paid £29 for the phone but I think it has come down in price and there are a few deals to be had since I bought it. Mine is the 16GB black version but they also make a 32GB version and white models.
The phone comes in Apple's usual format - a small white box packaged compactly, looking professional with instructions, charger, USB cable, headphones, a clip to add/remove the sim card and of course the phone. The headphones are an updated version of those that have been included with the iphone 4 and are very good looking, whilst the USB cable has a new connection as they have updated the connection on the phone so that it is far smaller than those on their previous iphones, ipads and ipods.
Overall Look
The phone is approximately 12cm x 5cm x 0.7cm and weighs lighter than it's predecessor at 112 grams. It now features a black shiny/dull metal back rather than a complete shiny glass black back and also has a larger screen than the iphone 4, at around 10cm . The back of the phone in my opinion makes it look a bit more stylish and the screen size is much better although with all of the hype that Apple products receive before their release, I have to admit I was expecting a bit more from the look of the phone - I was hoping for a few more changes but from a bit of a distance I still find it quite difficult to pick the iphone 5 out from it's previous model. If my other half has put his iphone 4S on the side, I have been known to pick it up unbeknown to me that's it's his and not mine!
Overall Use
The phone has a button at the bottom that controls the phone when not using it's touchscreen. Pressing this button returns you back to the homescreen where all of the applications are held, as well as the phonebook, text messaging and other sticky apps such as the calculator and the notes feature. If this button is double clicked it brings up all applications that have been previously in use and from here you can close them down so that they're not running in the background. Most of the phone's features are controlled by touchscreen and from using other phones in the past, I find that the controls on this one (as well as on Apple's other iphones) are the easiest to use. If I was to recommend a phone to my friends and family who aren't very tech savvy, I think this would be the one to recommend because it is so easy to use. To answer a call, all you need to do is swipe the slidebar that appears when it rings to the right. The phone is easily connected to wifi and has Bluetooth. It also has 3g and 4g connectivity depending on the contract you have, network and where you are using your phone.
Screen
The bigger screen size that it has is great for surfing the web on and does make a difference in everyday use -even for little things eg texting. I didn't think I'd notice much of a change until I went back to using my other half's iphone 4S one day and realised the difference it made. The screen also has a much better resolution so everything looks clearer and more defined. The resolution is now 1136 x 640 pixels.
Apps and the App Store
Not specific to the iphone 5 but exclusive to Apple products, the Apple app store offers thousands and thousands of games, utilities and quizzes for you to download. Some are completely random - eg see how fast you can drag toilet paper off a roll! Downloading apps can be done directly from the phone itself, as long as you have an apple ID. Once on the phone, it places a symbol for the app on the homescreen and these can be categorised (eg if you wanted a group for silly apps like the aforementioned toilet roll app I have!) by dragging the app symbol on top of another app you want to put it with. An update to the iphone 5 means that you get a little banner over new apps before you use them for the first time to say that they are new onto the phone which I find quite useful and would especially be useful if you download hundreds of them.
Signal
I will be looking to move networks at the end of my contract to see if the problems I have with signals are network issues or if they are the phone's issues. I regularly lose signal wherever I am although I live and visit urban areas that have high populations and masts for the network I am on are fairly close wherever I go. The phone can tell me I have signal of 3 bars (the maximum being 5 bars) but will cut out sometimes when on a call. It can also sometimes tell me I have 2 bars yet really struggle to send a text message.
Battery Life
This is a major issue, barely a day goes by where I don't have to charge up my phone. I always charge to 100% but within a day it is flashing up with an indicator that there's less than 20% available, then another to warn that there's only 10% available. It charges quite quickly though and I think smartphones in general seem to need charging more often than normal feature phones from what friends say.
Camera
The camera is much better than any other I have tried on smartphones. It is an 8 megapixel camera and even though I own a good digital camera, I tend to find myself taking pictures with this as it's handy and always with me. I have a baby so I'm taking loads of photos but I rely on this to capture all of those first moments and as yet hasn't let me down once! Pictures uploaded to the laptop and printed off always look very good quality. It also has a panoramic feature so you can take a picture of large areas by moving the camera from one section of the shot and across to the other to capture the whole thing in one go.
Connections
The updated, smaller USB connection is much better than it's predecessor - the USB cable connects to the phone much more solidly than the bigger connection did on previous models. The only issue I've found with it is the connection to other devices like my docking station that I had for my previous phone. There is an adaptor available from Apple to get around this hitch but it costs around £24.99 and to me is a little overpriced. I may end up buying a speaker dock with wireless connection to use but it will be a fairly cheap one if I do as I'd be scared of the connection being changed again.
Snycing to ITunes
Apple are very good at designing products but I do wish they'd look at their products interaction with their music and video software, iTunes. It is a free download that you can install for use in conjunction with Apple products to put your music and videos onto devices but it can be very fiddly and if you press a couple of buttons incorrectly it's easy to delete thousands of songs from your device in seconds! I consider myself to be (quite) clued up on technology but this has happened to me before!
Other minor issues
I have found very little about the phone that I don't like - my other half calls me an Apple fan boi (even though I'm female!) because I do love a lot of their products and very rarely can find fault. One thing that does annoy me a bit though sometimes is when a text hasn't gone through because of no signal. Sometimes, but not always, it puts an exclamation mark over the messaging symbol on the homescreen to alert you that the message hasn't been sent - recently I've noticed a couple of times that it's not put the exclamation mark there - the other day I'd sent one (or thought I had) that needed a quick reply but three hours later when I eagerly checked for the response, I clicked into the message itself and then it told me that it hadn't gone.
Also I have a tendancy to mute calls that I'm on with the power of my ear! I can be talking away and getting no response back from the other end - makes me looks a bit stupid and I have to act very professional and like it was a 'signal problem' to the unsuspecting caller on the other end. It seems the heat from my ear is mistaken as the heat from my finger and mutes the conversation.
Accessories
Accessories are available from a variety of places - carphone warehouse, phones 4 u and the network shops (EE, Vodafone and O2) all sell a range of cases, silcon gel covers, screen protectors etc but I've found them to be quite expensive, averaging at around £15-£20 each. There are other places that sell accessories too though, in our local town there is a stall within the shopping centre that sells cases and screen protectors for a lot less and I've found them to be great quality even though they're not official Apple products.
Overall, I would definitely recommend the Iphone 5, it's easy to use, a lovely looking phone and does everything you want it to do. A great buy that seemed expensive at the time but with the amount I use it, it was definitely worth it.
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Apple iPhone 4S 16 GB
by thatshitcray
The first iPhone I had was the 3G, which was good because it did everything it needed to at the time. But, knowing my luck, I went and lost it in the snow a couple of years ago. I was devastated..
I then saved up, and only asked for money for my birthday and Christmas, and finally had enough money to buy a new ... phone.
I was debating whether to get the 4, 4S, or the 5. I'll talk you through my thought processes-
iPhone 4-
Pros-
Much cheaper than the other two
Fast internet speed
Looks nicer than the 3G/3GS
Thinner than the 3G/3GS
Front camera
Cons-
Might get out-dated quickly with new releases
Doesn't have Siri
iPhone 4S-
Pros-
Siri
Faster than the 4
Newer model- so you aren't so far behind when even newer ones come out
Front camera
Cons-
iPhone 5-
Pros-
Thinner than the 4/4S
Faster
Newer model
Cons-
Maps were messed up when the phone came out
Has a different charger- you can't just use the standard Apple charger for this
A lot more expensive than the previous two models
I couldn't really think of any cons for the iPhone 4S, and so I decided to go for this one. It is a lot more expensive than the 4, but Siri is very useful and also quite a bit of fun! Also, I wouldn't have to have two different chargers for my Apple products like I would if I had got the 5. Apparently all the chargers will be done like this in future, but for the products I have, I wanted the same one. There seemed to be quite a few problems with the 5 at the time I was looking for phones, and over £100 extra seemed a lot to pay for something that may not actually be that much better than it's predecessor.
I love my iPhone 4S and I don't think I'll be changing it any time soon, unless they bring out some really awesome features on the next model that are reasonable value for money! All my friends have either Blackberrys or Android phones, and the few of us that have iPhones are envied by everyone else, who wishes they had one. In other words- it's the best phone model out there, so get one!
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