The mobile phone thread

[maxdamage]

I would like to know I smsed 31050 and it said I can upgrade 01/03/12. On Vodacoms site it says you can upgrade 2 months before the end of the 24month contract, does it mean I can upgrade now or is the 1st of March the 22nd month?

My dad used to be able to upgrade 2 months before his cellphone contracts expired but the last one they refused to let him and he was only able to upgrade about a month(or less can't remember) before his contract expired.

[x-scon]

I've been able to upgrade since the 13th of December. My contract only "expires" on the 12th of March. That is 3 months before the "end" of the contract.
The dude in the Vodashop did say that you need to average R800+ a month to qualify for an early upgrade though which is weird since my average is R369 or so.

[Toxxyc]

The dude in the Vodashop did say that you need to average R800+ a month to qualify for an early upgrade though which is weird since my average is R369 or so.

BS I think. I had my first contract at Vodacom costing me about R450 a month and I qualified for an early upgrade in 2011. May be because the contract was still on my dad's name though, as his bills exceed R800 a month by a pretty long shot.

[Toxxyc]

So, people have been complaining about this a lot, so I figured this is a good article. Yes, almost everything's been said before, but informative and good to recap on anyway. Here's to an hour or so more battery life:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/battery-...view-1741.html

Some cool apps and things you possibly didn't know about on there as well, for Android, iOS and WP. I see no reason why many of these tips can't be applied to Symbian as well though.

[Wesley]

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/battery-...view-1741.html

My Nokia E52 laughs in the face of the advice given in the column. Modern smartphones just aren't built to give a great battery life to the end-user.

[Toxxyc]

Anyone else notice the dips in network performance over the course of about a week at the beginning of the month? I'm on MTN, and I noticed it, as did my girlfriend (Vodacom) and a few other friends (various networks, from CellC to 8ta). It's fine again now, but the interesting thing was that I noticed the drop mostly in the lacking battery life on my phone. **** reception the whole time caused my phone's battery to barely last 12 hours with minimum use. Now that it's back up, I get 36~48 hours easily with the same usage.

Just wondering if anyone else had the same stuff happen to them.

[Drone]

Hey all, does anyone here want to buy a Blackberry 9700 or swap for something else. PM me if you are interested.

Does anyone here know anything about the Samsung Galaxy S3? or is it just BS...

[Wesley]

Does anyone here know anything about the Samsung Galaxy S3? or is it just BS...

Its all bull**** for now. Samsung is releasing a mobile on May the 22nd, but its most definitely going include the GT-I9300 and perhaps a few more lower-priced models.


Samsung I9300 to have a 4-inch 720p AMOLED display

There are Galaxy SIII phones out in the wild though, make no mistake. Carriers are currently testing everything out, and I wouldn't be surprised if everything is already ironed out by the time it lands.

[Wesley]

I know this is technically double-posting, but there're people here who would never even look in the Android thread.

Everyone needs to stop off at their local Telkom store NOW and pick up their brochure for 8ta. The company is having a firesale of sorts of the handsets that they still have in stock around the country.

Feel like a Galaxy SII? R3598 on prepaid. Motorola Defy? R1558. HTC Desire S? (assuming anyone has bloody stock) R998. My personal favourite is the Samsung Omnia 7 for R858. If only I had the money...

[Jodez]

^Here's a list from their site:


Nokia E5 Smartphone - Contract 1 @ R90 pm x 24 months, R958 on prepaid

Samsung Galaxy S2 Smartphone - Contract Basic S @ R170 pm x 24 Months, R3598 on prepaid

Blackberry Bold 9780 Smartphone - Contract 2 including BIS @ R189 pm x 24 Months, R2498 on prepaid

Blackberry Curve 9300 Smartphone - Saver 2 including BIS @ R159 pm x 24 Months, R1598 on prepaid

Huawei Ideos S7 Tablet Slim - Saver 1 @ R50 pm x 24 months, R1498 on prepaid

Samsung I8700 Omnia 7 - Saver 1 @ R50 pm x 24 months, R858 on prepaid

LG T310i - R428 on prepaid

Nokia 5030 - R 148 on prepaid

Motorola MB525 - Contract 1 @ R90 pm x 24 months, R1558 on prepaid

HTC Legend - Saver 1 @ R50 pm x 24 months, R898 on prepaid

And you can download the entire brochure here - http://www.8ta.com/media/downloads/h...re_reduced.pdf

[GeometriX]

That Omnia 7 is a stupidly good deal. I'm still extremely happy with mine and would gladly pay triple that price if it came down to it.

[Wesley]

And you can download the entire brochure here - http://www.8ta.com/media/downloads/h...re_reduced.pdf

Where in the hell did you find that? Their website has the most atrocious navigation I've yet to see, its like navigating a minefield where there's only one mine in a square kilometre of muddy marsh.

That Omnia 7 is a stupidly good deal. I'm still extremely happy with mine and would gladly pay triple that price if it came down to it.

If I had the money, I'd get the local shop here to order one from one of the other stores. ****es me off that its not something that's available countrywide.

[Toxxyc]

OK guys, I'm getting pretty frustrated with my phone currently. It seems to drop packet data usage from time to time, and then come back up like nothing is wrong. It happened when I first got my phone in January for a week or so, and then went away completely. Started up again yesterday. So, info'z:

- I have a Samsung Galaxy S
- I'm on an MTN contract
- It detects and identifies the available connections (GPRS, EDGE, 2G, HSDPA, 3G, etc) and displays it on the information bar
- I do have signal, phone calls and SMS's work fine
- I do have airtime and a data bundle available to use
- It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the phone, rather with the MTN service, as I've seen similar reports all over the interwebz, though I may be wrong
- While down, it will stay like that for about two hours and then suddenly everything will be back up, like someone flipped a switch
- Upload seems to work slightly, the little green "up" arrow lights up, but downloads are dead completely
- I sometimes get the "Packet data connection not available" message when trying to open my browser
- Restarting the phone does not work

Yes, the phone is still under warranty, but I don't have the heart to give it in now. It has hundreds of megs worth of apps and things downloaded to it, and if I get a replacement I'll have to download everything on the replacement and redownload them on my phone when I get it back after a week or so. I was hoping someone here can shed some light on this? I'm not very familiar with wireless and mobile internet services...

[D34thByCh01c3]

OK guys, I'm getting pretty frustrated with my phone currently. It seems to drop packet data usage from time to time, and then come back up like nothing is wrong. It happened when I first got my phone in January for a week or so, and then went away completely. Started up again yesterday. So, info'z:

- I have a Samsung Galaxy S
- I'm on an MTN contract
- It detects and identifies the available connections (GPRS, EDGE, 2G, HSDPA, 3G, etc) and displays it on the information bar
- I do have signal, phone calls and SMS's work fine
- I do have airtime and a data bundle available to use
- It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the phone, rather with the MTN service, as I've seen similar reports all over the interwebz, though I may be wrong
- While down, it will stay like that for about two hours and then suddenly everything will be back up, like someone flipped a switch
- Upload seems to work slightly, the little green "up" arrow lights up, but downloads are dead completely
- I sometimes get the "Packet data connection not available" message when trying to open my browser
- Restarting the phone does not work

Yes, the phone is still under warranty, but I don't have the heart to give it in now. It has hundreds of megs worth of apps and things downloaded to it, and if I get a replacement I'll have to download everything on the replacement and redownload them on my phone when I get it back after a week or so. I was hoping someone here can shed some light on this? I'm not very familiar with wireless and mobile internet services...

I had a Similar problem on Sunday, although I am with 8ta and there was no internet connectivity, I tried everything to get the internet working, I deleted and manually created the APNs, restarted the phone, turned data on and off, nothing helped. My only solution was to do a factory reset, it was the only thing that worked, this may or may not work for you. I know you don't want to lose your apps, but use a Wi-Fi connection and just leave it to re-download the apps.

EDIT: try recreating your APNs in mobile network settings, I remember a friend on MTN with a galaxy S had that problem a while back, delete the internet APN, press menu button, new APN, name it anything and make the Access point "internet", then press menu button and save, select that APN and try turning data on, if that doesn't work then maybe my above solution?

[Wesley]

The cellphone market is not a good place to be in right now

This year has been a tumultuous one for mobile handset manufacturers, with Apple dragging people to court left, right and center; Intel joining the smartphone race with its Atom processor, Nokia ditching Symbian after over ten years of development and companies this year turning lower and lower profit margins thanks to the dominance of Android.



It looks like competition is no longer healthy, at least in a market served all over by the same handful of manufacturers producing the screens, the chipsets, the chassis and RAM and the OS. Right now there are only three big players left in the market - Apple, Google through its many software partners and Microsoft, now attempting a takeover of more market share with the Windows market place. Since there's a ton of news out this morning, I'm lumping it all here for you to peruse. Grab a cup of coffee and some calming pills if you're a Blackberry or Nokia fanboy.

Linky - Link goes live at 8:00 AM tomorrow morning!

[Wesley]

Blackberry's Curve 9320 lands today, wants to dump your 8520

At release (as of today) only the Curve 9320 will be available on competing networks and MTN's latest pamphlet already has the phone on contract. The cheaper 9220 will also be available in SA but its unclear when that device will actually launch. My guess is that RIM wants stock of the Curve 9300 to filter out before introducing the newcomer. If Cell C's build your own contract idea is anything to go by, they might be the service provider to go for when the mobiles hit there.

Linky

[hawk]

I'm really loving my SGS3 :D

[Toxxyc]

My GF got the new BB Torch 9801 last week. I must say, it's not a bad piece of hardware. Only bother is the touch-screen on the device. It's not nearly as responsive as the one even on my old Galaxy S, despite being two years younger. It's also capacitive touch, so I told her to get it, but now it's pretty **** when compared to her old Xperia X10i. Eh.

Still, it's a good phone. Easy to use, and conveniently fast, but I just feel that it could've done so much more with a little Android mixed into it...

[Wesley]

The responsiveness improves with OS 7.1, so get your GF to update hers soon.

[cr@zydude]

Serious techno-noob needs some help. I currently have an HTC Chacha which came with a 2gb memory card. I want to buy an 8 gb card, and use that instead. Which is the easiest way to transfer all the stuff on the old card onto the new? I would just copy and paste, but don't know how safe that is.

After that is done, I want to put the 2gb card into my mum's phone. Should I delete everything on it before putting it in her phone? Thanks guys.