Ask Engadget: What's the best iPhone 3G alternative?
By Darren Murph 
posted Jul 24th 2008 9:15PM
posted Jul 24th 2008 9:15PM
We know, we know -- this one's going to be a doozie, but it's something that just has to be done. For folks out there too far from the reaches of GSM or simply unwilling to cough up the requisite dough to pay for AT&T's comparatively pricey plans, we figure Kevin's question will hit very close to home: "What is the best alternative for the iPhone / iPhone 3G? I am looking for a touchscreen phone that has most of what the iPhone can provide, such as media and decent web browsing. I am also looking for a device with a lower cost (with or without a new plan). Could you please help point me in the right direction?"
Feel free to dish our your best options for GSM and CDMA, particularly if you've wondered this yourself and found your answer. Keep it civilized down there, alright? Got a question you'd like to pose to Engadget's fine, fine readers? Shoot it over to ask at engadget dawt com and hope for the best.
OpenMoko!
Samsung Instinct! It has everything the iPhone has to offer and it looks really nice as well. I'm sure Kevin will like it.
@ Ian.
Samsung Instinct!
check it out at www.gsmarena.com
i think it also comes in cdma. you can buy it unlocked as well.
If you are interested in something "like" the iphone but not the iPhone, I say hold off for a few (one or two) months and check out the HTC Touch Pro or the Sony Xperia X1. Both run on windows mobile software, from 2 of the best phone manufacturers. I can't wait! Good luck in your search.
Actually, its only CDMA in the United States. You can get another model in the middle east that GSM.
I found another iPhone competitor. It's GSM and it just came out like a week ago.
The Samsung i900 Omnia. Check this one out over there. It has GPS and the lot.
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i900_omnia-2422.php
Hell yeah OpenMoko for sure.
You'd be right, if it at least had EDGE
@Ian
Your sir, are an idiot , open moko isn't 3g
I don't have one but the HTC touch phones look really awesome, they have windows mobile.
I do have a treo 750 and its not all shiny and super sexy but it is a great phone.
I agree with rock99rock.
HTC Touch Pro is going to be awesome. I have an HTC Mogul right now and i definitely say that it is the most enjoyable phone i have ever owned.
But seriously, get something with a (pull out) keyboard. I played with the Samsung Instinct and the HTC Touch, and i didn't enjoy typing on the screen. Every time you put up the keyboard, the page was re-sized so small that you couldn't read anything.
I like the Digitalrise x99i. It has dual standby/dual bluetooth, is quad band and kind of looks like HTC Diamond... http://www.gadgetgreats.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=790
OpenMoko is exactly what I was thinking!
As several commentors before me have noted the only good thing about the Openmoko is that it's totally open,
I'd go for the Sony Xperia X1 as the ultimate iPhone killer...
It's got everything the overly exaggerated iPhone has plus a qwerty keyboard.
I have a an HTC P340 - it's not a bad phone but I *really* don't like windows mobile.
My telco gave me an iphone though - free! Don't know why.It's pretty good too. I hate the Apple/Iphone hype though. Most mac fanboys think that Apple invented everything ...
modded LG Viewty ku990 ftw!
@Abhinav
Well i have the iPhone and i do type with it, and if it doesnt have a qwerty keyboard then i dont know how i can be typing so quickly and efficiently....
the touchscreen keyboard is actually much easier to use than a tactile.... I end up making mistakes on tactiles because the keys are always put right next to each other with no space in between them...
The iPhones software really helps you adapt to the touchscreen keyboard.
JITTERBUG all the way
no iphone
I'm using the HTC Touch on Bell in Canada (the phone was free on a 3yr plan, and unlimited data for $7! - including free tethering to a laptop if you use PDANet), and with Opera 9.5, the web surfing experience is almost identical to the iPhone 3G in speed and render quality (except for screen size/rez of course).
There are a number of replacement keyboards available for free, and I prefer either PCMKeyboard (at pocketcm.com) which has some iPhone like skins, or the HTC Diamond QWERTY keyboard, which is nice and big, and you can hold a key down for a second to input alternate characters (@ : # / etc.)
There's also a youtube player called youtubeplay (free) but if you want to rock DivX/Xvid natively Core Player is the way to go (and has a YouTube search function).
And although the phone has GPS, it's up to the carrier to unlock the feature (which it is in the US on Sprint). Not so lucky here in Canada, but that's what xda-developers and ppcgeeks.com are for. :D
The Instinct doesn't have WiFi. That's a pretty jarring omission when the claim is "it has everything the iPhone has and more."
"looking for a touchscreen phone that has most of what the iPhone can provide, such as media and decent web browsing. "
Samsung Instinct? HAHAHAH. You have to be kidding me. I don't even own an iPhone, but it is LEAGUES above that piece of shit. Verizon's "Voyager" is just as pathetic.
I've owned or played with just above every single smartphone/media phone on the market, including three of four HTC models, Samsung models, SE, Nokia's latest, three Treos, and a few modern blackberry models. I've used every major mobile OS, and have stuck with Windows mobile or form of Symbian for the last 3-5 years.
Many of these phones are pretty good, and with A LOT of modifications and 3rd party software, Windows mobile was almost usable, other than the constant crashing and UI lag. Nokia and RIM are usually a step above the rest, S60/Symbian is pretty good, but (other than email) RIM's system needs some work.
After almost a decade of owning many phones though, I can honestly say that
for intuitive, simple to use real-world functionality, nothing really comes close to competing with the experience the iPhone offers. The highly refined user interface makes the phone truly a joy to use all day. The primary feature besides of course the iPod/media functionality is the UNMATCHED WEB BROWSER. If you want to browse the web on a mobile phone, there is simply NO OTHER choice, since the iPhone is literally years ahead of the rest. Also, I was highly skeptical about the practicality of the touchscreen keyboard considering their legacy in the past, but this is not your normal touchscreen. It is a capacitive-driven model, which results in an incredibly sensitive surface and the excellent software makes it very good experience for SMS and short/moderate length email.
However, If you don't need to browse the web (although I would think hard about this), and really only care about email/txt communication or you simply have to have a hardware keyboard, Get a high-end blackberry. Other than web browsing, these are EXCELLENT devices and for corporate and/or personal email focus, there is simply nothing better.
Also, obviously the iPhone is ONLY available with AT&T in the USA, and many other countries there are only 1 or 2 carriers with it. If you have to have service with a non-iPhone carrier, then I would get a new Blackberry. If you can wait a month or two, the new Blackberry Bold "9000 series" model is going to be TWICE as good as the current Blackberry models. It will have a beautiful hardware shell and a polished user interface similar in spirit to the iPhone. The screen is similar in size to the existing models, maybe a tad larger, but the resolution has been nearly doubled.
If you can wait longer than a month, Both RIM (Blackberry) and Nokia are supposedly working feverishly on their own full-touchscreen based "iPhone killers". How good they will be remains to be seen, but Nokia probably has the better engineering expertise, though I'm sure the Blackberry won't be a slouch.
On a final note, smartphones running Google's Android OS should be out in the Q3-Q4 timeframe, including the HTC "Dream". I'm sure Android will come a long way to displace Windows mobile, and I hope perhaps RIM will adopt it for their new Blackberry models. It will no doubt be a huge success unless the "open" nature of it causes the OS to be fragmented in to a million incompatible versions. The other potential problem is that Google is not stopping the carriers from tampering with it, so they will no doubt be "enhancing" (AKA ruining) Android by adding all their own expensive proprietary music/video/ringtone download services. I can only imagine what Verizon would do! UGH! However, if Google and the manufacturers can keep the carriers from locking down the platform/disabling features/screwing it up, then it could easily turn into a major iPhone OSX rival that would reach millions more people on low-cost devices.
anyways, just my two cents...
OpenMoko. Right.
http://www.vimeo.com/1366923?pg=embed&sec=1366923
That was certainly more than your two cents mr
I have an LG CG180. It is a dream come true. It does everything I have ever wanted a cell phone to do for me.
fast data for sure and better signal
3G phone
first of all,it's a phone.and then with 3G
so i would say data and signal
You really don't read too well, now do you?
It's clear you aren't answer the posed question but I'm left wondering to what question could you have possibly been responding?
brilliant. truly
hehe... I can't help but laugh... totally agree with above replies....
Oh thank u for ur input , George Costanza ...
Anything but an iPhone?
Seeing as this article is entitled "What's the best iPhone 3G alternative", lets think... oh yes, anything but an iPhone would be right. -_-
How about HTC Touch Diamond?
@simon
ok smartass
how bout a brick
Why on earth would you use a brick ad a phone? That's just silly. :)
what will come out Nokia N96
Hands down... The LG Dare.
I say that a phone is only as good as its network, and there is no substitute for Verizon. In the northeast at least.
The touchscreen is responsive and easy to use. See my review on Youtube for more info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyyz43TRXKg
The web browsing is ultra fast and you can get service pretty much anywhere.
thats my 0.02
which, with the cfrashing economy, used to be $1
Eh.. my roommate just got one, and i think it's terrible. The web browser is horrible, and i would NOT consider the touchscreen all that responsive. Whereas the iphone just requires your finger to come in contact with the screen, the Dare requires a certain amount of pressure, so often your finger knows it hit the screen and your brain moves on before you realize you didn't hit it hard enough. It also has no error correction when texting (and likely, ever), which makes the touch screen keyboard useless.
I can type on my iphone keyboard without looking because it fixes the occasional errors, but without error correction, messaging on a touchscreen keypad would be maddening (and indeed on the dare it was when i was trying it out).
So yes, i own an iphone, but i'm not a zealot. I owned windows mobile phones for years and mocked the iphone for a long time till i saw what you could do with jailbreaking, and how much better the browser was. The dare doesn't offer even close to the same level of usability as the iphone, and that's something i don't want to give up on a device i use every few minutes (i text a LOT).
When the iphone first came out i was really excited... not because i wanted one, i thought they were lame for being closed to development and non-3G... but i hoped it would raise the bar for other cell phone companies out there.... And sadly it just hasn't! HTC rocks but until android comes out they are still stuck with windows mobile, which just sucks. The LG dare is lame. I haven't tried the instinct, but at this point i wonder what value other phones will have to someone like me, who loves to customize, when soooo many people are developing for or hacking the iphone. I can't imagine a similar community cropping up for those phones so they will likely never enjoy the same level of customization as you can get with a hacked iphone. :(
-Taylor
The Dare is what I would recommend for people stuck on Verizon for contract/service reasons. Certianly, not because its the best of phones.
lol
Stephen Colbert is awesome!
I like the verizon network, I like the concept of the DARE, but after watching your video, I'd rather have an iPhone 3G. Thanks for making my mind up!
i know you said touchscreen but i find the blackberries new series of phone, although not touchscreen to be the best phones on the market.
lovin my Tilt... rockin with Opera, Orb, logmein, pandora radio, wifi, bt, 3mp camera.... added the smart touch interface from HTC, and the iphone "like" contacts app... im good to go!
How did you get pandora running on a tilt? what version of opera?
TILT!!!!!!!!
I have opera also on it. It is so damn fast!
Also, with a couple of add-ons from HTC and other third party apps, it blows away anything the iPhone can do!
The Tilt supports the TouchFlo interface! My friends with iPhones get mad when i start using my finger so much on the screen to stuff just like them!
Yessss i love my Tilt
add skyfire and slingbox to that list, and theres no phone that can come close to it yet.
The banana phone of course!
ring Ring ring ring Ring Ring ring ring...
I prefer the hamburger phone.
@Andrew
You killed it.
Hamburger phone = win
I see someone hasn't seen Juno.
I gotta admit that it is the best, it beats the rest, plus the iPhone isn't cellular, modular, AND interactive-odular.
And I'm sure a bananaphone tastes a whole hell of a lot better than an iPhone.
zephead, you deserve this highest ranked a hell more then I do!
and it blends...
into a delicious smoothie :-)
Plus, it can be used as a dildo!
Did I take it too far?
The banana phone! My avatar definitely wants one of those. I sure hope it's WinMo powered. My avatar won't settle for anything else. Him and Steve Ballmer have some sort of a Monkey Dance kinship. He thinks that the banana phone is definitely going to be called the ZunePhone. I don't know where he gets these notions from but I guess that's the way a creature that flings dung around for recreation thinks.
"Developers, bananas, developers, bananas, developers, bananas"
B00p boop a d00p a doop!
I have a T-Mobile Wing, it's at least a relatively good touch screen phone.
Yeah they held back compared to the Mogul but I plan on getting the HTC Touch Diamond
It's decent, but still overpriced at $300 USD
I had one for 4 months and it's completely usable unless you XDA it with touch-IT or something.
nokia 5190
I see what you did there and raise you a Nokia 2190!!
I bought the AT&T Tilt (HTC TyTN II) instead of the iPhone. It's about the same price ($199), but it can do just about everything the iPhone can do, and has a slide out qwerty pad, and runs on WM 6.1.
As your Windows Mobile Tilt reboots in the middle of the night and the Windows reboot song wakes you up, I'm sure you'll keep lovin' the Tilt.
For GSM, I would say: Nokia N95, N78, SE X1, SE W960i, HTC Touch Diamond, Touch Pro, etc. etc. All these phones (with the exception of the X1, which even isnt out yet) are know to give performance better then the iPhone, while retaining ease of use and also having lots of features that really make you second guess any decision.
CDMA: Tough, I walked away from CDMA a long time ago. Ill go out on a limb and say that anything HTC is a great choice. Specifically the Diamond and Touch Pro. Other then that...I really don't know what else CDMA has for it in terms of phones.
Unfortunately the HTC Touch Diamond costs way more than the iPhone 3G. If it didn't, I'd be fingerbanging it right now.
Agree...Touch Pro if you like the keyboard (I do) or Diamond if you'd rather slim it down a bit.
If WinMo isn't your thing, could wait for the touchscreen BB.
The only standard phones I know of offhand are CDMA. But why would you want something standard like that, they're generally more locked down than the iPhone.
Funny, in Denmark the HTC Touch Diamond is way cheaper than the iPhone 3G (Especially taking the forced subscription into account).
Total price is about half for the Diamond, compared to the iPhone.
Also I'd perfer the Diamond over iPhone any day, also a reason I'm now owning the Diamond.
I was accually offered an iPhone 3G in trade for my Diamond, but refused - I find the Diamond superior in every way.
(Though it could be alittle faster - but nothing a weekly reboot can't fix)
bb thunder. : )
HTC Touch Diamond.
I don't know if it fills the spectrum requirements since I live in the EU and don't ever have to consider that sort of thing, but I think it's the best alternative.
Yea I agree. I plan on ditching my N95 for a touch diamond. Why? I like having a real OS, and a touch screen, and something truly unlocked to devs to make anything.
The reason WinMo excels is because the apps are only limited by the hardware on the phone, not the software.
Did they fix all the issues that makes the HTC Touch Cruise a useless piece of shite?
(Yes, there are A LOT of issues with that "phone")
/G
I just picked up my LG Dare (VX9700) from verizon and I love it. Full touch screen, music and video, a slo-motion video camera option which I love, 3.2 megapixel camera, you can type/dial by regular keypad, tilting the phone on its side which automatically switches to a full keyboard, or using the pen mode where you just write on the screen with your finger and it identifies it.
The only downside is the lack of applications. There are only a few on get it now/vcast but its only been out for around 2 weeks so im guessing there will be more as time goes by.
Totally off-topic but I love your user name.
For CDMA you could get the LG Dare or wait till the HTC Diamond comes out.
i would suggest the sonyericsson P1i. its a 3G phone, with touchscreen, blackberry support, great media capabilities, tons of applications, and its cheap.been using it for 7 months now for work, listening to music and watching videos.
Just wondering, What does that run? Symbian S60 or UIQ?
@aj: it runs UIQ 3.0, based on Symbian 9.1.
it runs UIQ 3 dude and i agree with jobart16
the only problem is that it does not support North American 3G networks
I don't have one but a friend at work has the Instinct and it is quite good. Very responsive and very fast. Easy to type on. Not quite as glitzy as the iPhone but about as good as I've seen.
I'll just get this off my chest...if your shopping for a provider based on the phone, you may not get what you bargain for.
What's your pleasure? CDMA, GSM? Do you travel out of the country frequently? Ever? Will you need your device to act as a 3G modem for your laptop? I see you want media...will it be your only/primary MP3 player? Do you need a smartphone or just a touch screen phone?
Not knowing an of that information, here's my suggestion by category:
dumbphone - VZW Dare or the Sprint Instinct.
smartphone - The HTC Touch (both sprint and VZW carry it) is nice, functional and best of all, is constantly getting upgraded by a loyal group on the web. but, no wifi.
That's what I've personally played with. I hear the HTC Diamond is nice, but I think it's only GSM for now and I'm not sure if it's carried by a US Provider yet.
oh my.
you impress.
Why are we North Americans, in general, so focussed on providers (carriers). A couple years back we went unlocked/unbranded and now I can't imagine doing it any other way. (We use W810's BTW).
S
Why are we North Americans, in general, so focussed on providers (carriers). A couple years back we went unlocked/unbranded and now I can't imagine doing it any other way. (We use W810's BTW).
S
why are you, in general, double posting?
and you actually leave a signature in a comment response?
why. so. self-absorbed?
We are so focused on it because you have to be. You can really never win, something has to give. I think we all would love to have the option to pick any phone, and take it to any carrier, but we live in America, and things don't work that way.
@Simon - because the network a phone runs on is incredibly important, given how many shitty, underperforming, or straight up nonexistent (esp w/r/t GSM 3g) ones there are here.
Palm Treo 800w
You could consider the Blackberry Bold: It should be out Q3 for AT&T in the States. 3G, Wifi, BT, GPS, and the nice larger screen resolution that isn't found in the other Blackberry Devices.
The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X.
Yes. Wonderful. Absolutely brilliant.
8Bit sound ftw!!!
Yes. Wonderful. Absolutely brilliant.
Ill take mine in black.
If you can wait a while, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 is promising to be great , I have an Iphone and I'm thinking of switching to it as I don't want to be forced in T-Mobile's arms (which is the exclusive carrier for Holland)
If you order through Amazon you can get a really good deal. I have an HTC Touch thorugh Sprint that I really like. Its fast and customizable. I would recommend getting something with a keyboard if you text a lot.
Must be the Samsung Omnia.
http://www.phonearena.com/htmls/Samsung-OMNIA-Review-review-r_1981.html
Agreed about the samsung omnia - it's got everything the iPhone hasn't!
Agreed about the samsung omnia - it's got everything the iPhone hasn't!
motorola startac
i still have mine