mycuppa wrote:
In terms of phones - I just purchased a new Samsung Galaxy S4 last week after many years of iPhone ownership and updated my wife's iPhone 4 with an iPhone 5. I chose the S4 over the iPhone5 because of longer battery life - which is very important for me. Can't say I'm impressed with the S4 yet - interface a bit clunky and it does not look as strong as the iPhone in terms of being able to sustain wear & tear. Very thing and light - can see me leaving it in the back pocket of my pants and sitting down - like so many times with the iPhone4 and it survived.
For me, the apple interface is clunky and hard to use. I suspect, a least in part, it is what you are used to. If you can break a gorilla glass screen by siutting on it, I will be extremely surprised. My Galaxy and Nexus have both been sat on many times. I advise getting a soft silicone rubber case (about $0.80 on ebay) as mine gets dropped on roads/driveways a lot and has survived. Anyway, back on topic: Phone or dedicated gps? I say get a phone for this reason:
C-man wrote:
My phone is a about to die anyway so I will be shopping for a new one with GPS
Almost all phones have GPS these days and it works well enough for casual use. There are also advantages to a dedicated GPS for anone who uses GPS regularly. JB HiFi have regular 30% off sales for GPS units. I like TomTom. Navman sucks (for me). iGO is my current dedicated GPS software and it is OK, but not as good as TomTom. GPS apps and units are all fast enough when driving, it is recalculating routes when you take a wrong turn on 70/80kph trunk roads the old/crappy ones sometimes have issues - my 6 year old Aldi model sometimes lags a bit and I have passed the next turn by the time it has calculated a new route. Look for a good returns policy if you buy a dedicated GPS - next to impossible to try them out in store and usability is a major issue - I found Navman routing and interface was so bad it had to go back after 20 minutes use on the road. Different people will like different things though. I tried Sygic on my phone and hated it, but plenty people love it - easy to do a return of apps on google store though. If you intend to keep a phone for a long period of time, get one that will be supported for ages. Google Nexus phones, Samsung Galaxy 'S' series, Apple iPhones. SOME HTC phones are also well supported. Budget for $200-500 for a quality phone. Plenty near new apple phones hit the market as their users suffer terrible upgraditis. Yes, check data plans. I am on $19/month with 2GB data and $450 calls/text. Personally, I run close to the data limit and hardly get close on calls, but I am on the road all day and use a lot of data. the crappy 200MB plans will not be enough for anything more than intermittent use away from home.
