Need Advice......in Japan!

[JennaWentz11561]

Hey guys,

So, my contract with my Japanese cell phone carrier (I live in Japan) has run out, and just in the nick of time too because my iPhone 3gs has basically kicked the bucket (barely usable these days). I'm now free to go to any carrier (the big 3 being au, Softbank, and Docomo) and am willing to pick up any phone.

But which phone should I choose?

Docomo definitely has the biggest lineup (which you can see here in English: http://www.nttdocomo.com/features/newseries/index.html) and because of the absolute rave reviews, I have been leaning toward the new Samsung Galaxy S II. However, after playing around with the test model in the store today.....I've gotten some reserves. First off, the screen isn't as great as everyone is saying....quite dark and not sharp at all. Also, I'm not sure if it was just a bad test model, but the touch response time was SUPER laggy. There was a about a whole second delay between swiping the phone and seeing any action. Very strange. Like I said, could be a bad test model (the phones were just released today).

On the other hand, I was reasonably satisfied with my iPhone 3gs until it started acting up. Simple, smooth and nice display. However, I despise iTunes and iOS's lack of customization ability, so I've been really considering Android. But now with all the iPhone 5 rumors jumping around, I really don't know WHAT to do. Perhaps wait until the iPhone 5? Buy a temporary phone until then? Jump into the Samsung and hope my phone is better than the test model? Are there any other phones worth checking out? Ugh! Head is gonna explode.

Thanks in advance guys!

 

[nickster785]

Which carrier has the coverage you need?

 

[dave-o]

I got an SII and it feels very zippy. There is no way you should get a second of lag because mine certainly doesn't.

It is likely that the phones have not been properly setup , which means like apps that want to log in to Google to activate the phone are constantly searching the wifi or the 3G for some internet.

Also when the phone is started, make sure it goes through all the procedures like checking the media before handling it.

Are you sure you handled the SGSII and not the SGS? They both have a similar outside appearance.

If the screen is dark that's only because phone isn't set up at all. If you adjust the screen it can be extremely bright that it can hurt the eyes.

As for sharpness, with a 4.3" screen and 480x800 resolution, the pixels isn't going to be as small as those with screens commonly found with Japanese phones, where you take the same resolution, and pack them in screens ranging from 3.2" to 3.7".

IMO, given that I have one right now, this phone is near perfect. Everything flies, not just smooth or sleek, but with a definite sense of authority that feels like running applications on a PC with a quad core.