Nooblet Starting To Narrow Choices

[Jenneh Babesh]

I have used a Tracfone my sister-in-law gave me several years ago, but that is my only experience with cell or smart phones. I never used more than 100 min a month with that phone, since I have viop at home and never needed to call much when I was out of the house.

I have a strong tec background and don't mind messing around with something like a Nokia n900, but also understand something like an iphone or Blackberry may be a more stable platform for some options.

I am an experienced photographer and while the IQ (Image Quality) of the camera in a cell phone is not a deal breaker it is a factor. I have done searches here and not been able to find a shoot out between various cameras in cell phones. I also went to pbase and checked out stuff like this

http://www.pbase.com/pentax_in_london/iphone_3g

as well as stuff from the n900. So far the results have been inconclusive. Can anyone point me to a definitive review of cell phone camera IQ?

Next question for me is GPS ability. I have a Garmin watch/heart rate monitor that I can navigate with off road and would like to have this ability from a cell phone. I do lots of nature photography (using those big white lens you see at football games) both on land and in swamps where you can get lost so road maps are not as important to me as setting way points to get back to the starting point. Another issue is can you do this where there is not data connection, just using the GPS signal (I have no problem with doing this with line of sight).

My final question for this post is about web browsing. I need a big screen like the Droid Incredible of Nokia N900. I will be doing this mostly form wifi hot spots, but a little using a data plan.

So far the Droid Incredible and Nokia N900 are my leading choices. The easier typing on a Blackberry is a big plus for that choice, and the iphone seems to be the cell phone for dummies. I am not locked into any of these choices and also understand not all phones are available from every provider. I live in the Florida Panhandle, Tallahassee, but also travel to national parks, especially in the West. I would mostly use GPS and wifi web browsing and wifi viop skype phone in the parks, if that is possible.

Comments welcome. :help:

 

[Jenneh Babesh]

First: if you can wait, see what the next iPhone brings. It may have not just a higher resolution camera (5 megapixels versus 3.2) but could be better in low light... and it'll finally have a flash! It may also have a very high-quality display (full color gamut, 960x640), so that would be handy for getting a good idea of final photo quality.

Camera quality definitely isn't dictated by resolution. I've taken a few very good shots with my iPhone 3GS, since it usually produces low-noise shots and has a smart tap-to-autofocus system. The Motorola Droid's camera is better than the Nexus One's, and I'd say the Incredible's isn't as good as the Droid's even with the higher resolution.

An N900 might not be a good idea for navigation; I don't know that Ovi Maps with turn-by-turn is free yet on Maemo. Google has awesome Maps Navigation for free on Android devices, but that will absolutely need an Internet connection to work... in which case, either an iPhone or an Android phone will work. Both have a number of apps you can buy that will give you offline navigation; the iPhone may have the edge as it has more apps from big names like TomTom, among others.

You probably need to try both Android and the iPhone OS in person to judge. The vote is close enough that the subjective experience may determine what you go for. Again, though, wait until June; we'll know what the next iPhone is like on June 7th or 8th, so no sense committing to a device when the one you may have really wanted was out a few weeks later.