QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Nov 5, 2013 -> 10:10 PM)
Help Soxtalk. I'm considering getting a smart phone (or normal phone as it is now) and getting rid of my dumb flip phone. Besides the obvious iphone, which everyone knows about and my wife has, I don't know the first thing about different phones available. I don't need the fanciest one out there. I'd be using it for texting, checking sports scores (and twitter for sports), maybe watching games?, some email. I'm sure there are apps I don't know about that I could take advantage of, but I'll be more or less pretty basic with the phone, just having internet capability etc.
I'm open to any opinions on which direction I should look to go here, ones to avoid, etc. I know I can do research on this as well, but getting first-hand knowledge instead of reading specs on a website is a lot easier.
TIA.
Edit: Not looking for this to bring out the iphone vs other pissing match...just want honest opinions/reviews. I only know some about the iphone from my wife, and know nothing about other ones. I have zero brand loyalty, so it doesn't matter to me either way. If it matters any to this, I'll likely still be using ATT for service.
Here are some questions to answer that will probably lead us towards consensus:
Budget: If you're willing to buy on contract, your willingness to spend "hundreds" will do fine. All the major carriers now have plans that give you the chance to upgrade on a yearly basis as well, though each one has different specifics.
And now...your priorities.
iOS vs Android vs other: You may or may not have an opinion on this, we can hash out some pros and cons, but if you do have an opinion that will obviously be helpful. Perhaps some of the other priorities will lead you back to this one.
Screen size: Is this a big deal? If so, do you have a preference for smaller or larger screens? Must they be in the middle somewhere? I'd suggest heading to Best Buy or the ATT store to physically handle some of the phones. My experience tells me that phones that have bigger screens than you have ever used before will invariably feel really big at first. The trick is figuring out which ones will always feel big or always feel small.
Build: There are a few different things to think about here, but to some extent it comes down to how you want the phone to feel. You have phones with a plastic body, like Samsung phones. You have Apple, which have a nice feel with glass front and back in the 4s, plastic on the 5c, and a metal-ish backing on the 5s. The HTC One is the main phone with an aluminum design. There are other things that might factor in here, like weight or shape. Thickness, for instance. Or, a few phones have a giant camera lens on them like an actual camera.
Camera: Does camera quality matter? How do you anticipate using your camera? You have megapixel monsters like the Nokia Lumia. You have solid all-around cameras like the Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy, iPhone 5s. You have ones whose best features are in their software or other non-hardware aspects, like the One and it's Zoe feature and great low-light performance at the expense of distance shooting. For me, I tend to think a lot about the camera when buying and think little about it when owning.
Battery: At this point, there isn't a ton of variation in terms of battery life. They all require a daily charge, for the most part. There aren't any obvious duds. The Moto RAZR MAXX (only available on Verizon, I think) might get you over 24 hours and is pretty much the sole exception. There are a couple of phones still out there that have removable batteries, if that feature matters to you.
Screen tech: You're pretty much looking at LCD vs AMOLED and whether you care that much about resolution. LCD performs better in daylight but generally has poorer contrast and uses less battery. AMOLED typically looks best in low lighting and performs poorly in sunlight. The higher the PPI, the better - but it reaches dubious value at a certain point and all of the high end phones are pretty similar in general in this regard.
The processors on all of these phones are all so high end that I don't feel like it is worth distinguishing. Of the high end phones (the ones that cost 100-200 w/ contract right now), the performance differences will be based on software rather than processing power.
Other hardware features...
NFC: Near Field Communication is a technology that does "stuff" when your phone gets near it. This will lead to widespread payment by Google Wallet with cell phones and has some other capabilities as well. For instance, you can buy a little thing to put on your desk at work and it will automatically switch your (Android) phone into "work mode," whatever that is for you. Might just be a volume adjustment.
Fingerprint reader: This was the new innovation for the iPhone 5s and seems to be well-implemented. I know the HTC One Max has this as well, but I don't know of any other Androids or others that do.
Bluetooth 4.0: This is the Bluetooth you know and love, but uses a lot less battery and pairs up with more devices.
Sound: Different phones perform much differently in this regard. It is one of the selling points of the HTC One, that it has loud and clear speakers. Some phones have crap for speakers, but many more people don't care.
SD Card Reader: This allows you to cheaply expand storage if you need. It is becoming an anachronism as well, as it apparently makes the phone harder to design and wasn't oft-utilized. Be warned that sometimes it doesn't work as smoothly as it looks.
There's a bunch of software features to look out for too, especially when it comes to different flavors of Android. Generally speaking, each OEM has a different take on Android. Samsung has a really feature-rich version, but some find it frustrating and slow. Others are more hands off. HTC has a distinctive graphical difference, but fewer feature interventions other than the Blinkfeed feature, which can now be turned off. The new Moto X is pretty bare bones, with a few potentially neat features. LG is incredibly bloated. The Nexus phones will have the speediest software with the least asinine or cumbersome features, but also fewer features in general.
iOS is uniform across the phones and its key features are less notable. With that said, iOS is not so much about features as it is about stability, speed, and ease of use so this doesn't have to be a bad thing. I might be leaving something really good out since I haven't used iOS7.
Windows and Blackberry have a bunch of features of dubious and varied value. The live tiles of Windows Phone certainly have some potential.
There's much more to be said about software, of course, but I'll leave that for another post. I'll leave you with some resources to evaluate the market.
http://www.t3.com/features/best-android-phones
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-iphon...ite-smartphone/
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/the-best-...hone-fall-2013/
http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/29/engadge...de-summer-2013/
http://gizmodo.com/iphone-5s-review-its-an...d-fu-1405289089
http://gizmodo.com/at-t-next-or-t-mobile-j...uld-y-800949834
http://www.theverge.com/reviews/categories...hones/3/1/score
http://www.androidcentral.com/best-android...buy-august-2013
A few different kinds of info there, about Androids, about iPhones, about carriers. Tried to give a range of opinions