What kind of cell phone/smartphone do most linux experts use?
 

Hi all,

What kind of cell phone/smartphone do most linux experts use? I really would love to hear from moderators too. Also, if you are using Linux exclusively, how do you back up your contacts, calendar, to do, sms, etc.?

Thanks,

trox

As soon as I can get out of my Helio contract (cell phone is the Ocean), I'm getting an android phone. I'll have to see what's on the market in a year...

G1 here. I like it a lot in general and most of the contacts and such are sync'd up to my google account making what OS I use pretty much moot. I can mount it as a usb device if I want to also.

I don't have a cellphone. And I hate phones in general, since they ring at the worst possible time, when I have absolutely no intentions to talk to anybody. :)
But if I were to get one (in case I fall into a well and need to call for help), I'd be inclined to get something as cheep as possible. :)

I use s60. As far as backing up. I don't really. I do save my contacts to the memory card every once in a while in case my phone dies, would easily be able to move my contacts to another phone. Sms just stays on my phone, use gmail imap for email. And goosync for google calendar. There is pretty much an app for anything in the symbian world, so wouldn't be hard to find what you are looking for.

The thing about nokia s60 phones is that they have killer cameras. In addition to the camera, it's an awesome smart phone so you pretty much get everything you want out of a phone.

I've got a Nokia 3330 dumbphone. I can talk into it at one end and hear people out of the other end, and that's pretty much all I want from it. I've really not been bitten by the smartphone craze at all.

Oh, and I backup my contacts using a pen and a little black book. ;)

Ive got an iPhone and I love it. I use it more than my desktop at home and almost as much as my laptop.


And before this turns into an iPhone bashing thread... SAVE IT. I don't care what your opinion of Apple or the iPhone is. You're not going to change my mind and I dont want to hear your rants. And I'm not an "Apple fan boy" this is the first and only Apple product I've ever owned and will ever own.

/rant


:)

I would like to see the Zii Egg become a phone. I would be inclined to get that.

ncsuapex: So, how's your experience backing the thing up under CentOS? I'll be in the market for a new phone as well; can't see getting a Windows Mobile device and can't see ever buying anything ever again from anyone associated with Palm (because they made the Pre non backward compatible with the Palm OS apps as well as too many other similar bone headed business decisions :) )

So.. I'm debating Blackberry vs. iPhone. Like the OP, I'd like to know the best option. I'm not a fan of cloud computing and keeping my data on someone else's machine isn't really an option for me. It's always good to hear other people's experiences.

hmm. You obviously haven't had a cell phone or you'd know that there wouldn't be any signal down in the well. ;)

I don't have so many contacts that pencil and paper don't work for backup. Just losing them and starting over wouldn't be any disaster either.

I go for the simple. I had a Nokia and liked it. Now I have a Sanyo, and I think the user interface is nowhere near as good. Too many steps to do things compared to the Nokia. Even though mine is a simple model, the company's concepts for user interface are likely to go through to their "smarter" products.

If budget were no issue, I might jump on an iPhone just for the fun of it. But I'm not sure I would like being tied to their service provider. I use Credo Mobile, which goes over the Sprint Network. Credo doesn't charge me for roaming, so, even when I get into some wonky network area, I can often get a call through. Once, I was on the Appalachian Trail in Northern Maine, coming down off Old Speck Mountain, and I actually got a signal good enough to call our favorite B&B and make a reservation. I don't normally use or like cell phones on hiking trails, but on that day I was very happy to turn it on and get a signal. We were dead tired, and it really perked us up.

[rant]
---and I find that lately, every manufacturer of every product out there is calling their product 'smart-this' and 'smart-that'-- it makes me crazy! :confused: -- smartcard, smartphone, smartlease, healthsmart, smartcar...
[/rant]

Several years ago, I had a Samsung SCH8680 and I really liked it. After it went away, I tried to get another identical unit, but it had been discontinued. I really liked that phone.

Disclaimer: I slightly adjusted what I quoted above; poetic license.

I use Nokia phones because it is efficient and can last long without having any problem.

I DON'T recommend Nokia E90 - it's a huge brick full of office packages that you'll never use.
That is my first and last 'smart' phone. Having used it for a year now, I realised that I don't need anything like that.
My next phone will be something following KISS principles (most probably Nokia 3210)

If I ever get another non-desk telephone, I'll be making sure it does NOT have a GPS/chip inside it. I won't go into details-- watching the news, or CSI, gives a good indication why to not carry around a locator device. .. And if there are no models w/o a GPS, I won't get one.

[semi-on-topic]
On that note: apparently the U.S. Gov't's (military?) satellites which provide GPS data for handhelds & GPS's are all aging and failing. They say there'll within the next 10 years be virtually no GPS data and handhelds (GPS's) will not work reliably, *if* the satellites are not replaced. While this may be the case for the general population (no data), there's no way on earth though, that the U.S. will allow themselves to NOT have GPS data for their own usage.

Too bad for all those who have bought in-car GPS's, or cars with GPS's built in, or e/i/'smart'/phones for the GPS capability, *if* this becomes true.
[/semi-on-topic]

Sasha

Hello together,

an interessting thread ;-).
Today I purchased a Nokia 2760. I use my cellphone for my work and often had the problem that when the phone rings and I pull it out of my pocket I touch any key and the incomming call is terminated. So it was necessary to get a phone which has to be opened before it is possible to press a key.

Also I hate too complicated menues and too little keys. Nice feature of my new Nokia is the builtin email-client. It can directly connect to an imap-server.

Markus