What smart phone is right for me ? [iphone vs droid, other suggestions?]?

[~Knut~Is~Cute~]

I'm a college student getting ready to go off to school 900 miles away. I plan on using my smartphone for pretty basic actions... Texting, pics, scheduling, facebook, etc. as well as more complex actions like GPS. (I've never lived on the East Coast before, it would be nice to have something really reliable in this respect.)

So what it all comes down to for me: Reliability, coverage, battery life, and cost long term. [Any info on free texting apps / internet costs?]

Thanks in advance!
Incidentally, I will be going to school in Western Massachusetts if that makes any difference. (College town, lots of forests and mountains nearby.)

[iFlash]

an iPhone 4 is great smartphone for beginners. It's great for your needs such as texting, taking pictures, scheduling, facebook and gps.

Reliability: It's thin, and gorgeous. But note, both sides of the iPhone 4 has glass. So if you drop it, it will crack! So buy a good case for it.

Coverage: Depends which carrier. In the US Verizon is a great choice. Covers most of the US than AT&T.

Bettery life:
Talk time:
Up to 7 hours on 3G
Up to 14 hours on 2G (GSM model only)
Standby time: Up to 300 hours
Internet use:
Up to 6 hours on 3G
Up to 10 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback: Up to 10 hours
Audio playback: Up to 40 hours

Cost: Iphones come in different memory models: 16gb is $199.99, 32 is $299.99
If you use verizon as your carrier check out their plans at
Verizonwireless.com
Prices may Vary
There are some free texting apss such as "What's App". The way that it works is, that another person has to have "What's app" too.

Overall your getting a world class phone. It comes in Black & white, and has million of apps in the app store.

[Jerman]

get a droid phones,(preferably the galaxy s2, the best android/iphone out right now), and with a app called "double twist" you can sync all your itunes music to your android

I prefer android over apple for the reason that its open-source, that means that the majority of the apps are free, and you get more revolutionary and cutting edge apps. And do things are even only barely available on a jail broken iphone
The android market already has 250000 apps- closing in on apple 500000; some say it will surpass it before the year is over. Also any popular iphone game or game adaptation can be found in the android market for free.
Another great thing about android as that if you dont like something (keyboard, homescreen, etc.) it can easily be swapped without jail-breaking, unlike the iphones one-size-fits-all approach.

Other features only on android
Turn-by-turn voice GPS
Better and larger screen
No need to connect to computer to sync
Here is a big one, add a sd card
Live wallpaper
Better calls
widgets
4g
More customizable
More powerful hardware
Flash support, watch ALL the online videos

Apple lovers that say that the iphone is made of better quality material? They don’t realize that Samsung, an android phone maker, supply’s the screen, processor and memory for apple devices, so android has the advantage here.
The iphone is pretty, but not durable, drop it once- it breaks, all that glass around it? That was honestly a mistake. Android manufactures clearly saw that, and decided to do with something a little more durable.

And the iphones “retina display” is a huge scam. By definition a ‘retina display’ is one where the human eye cannot distinguish individual pixels. But this is determined by several factors; most important being the distance between the screen and your eyes. The iphones retina distance is 12in, move any closer than that- say 7in and it’s no longer a “retina screen” because your eyes can now see the pixels, by that same token, if I move my android phone back, to say 16-17in, amazingly, it becomes a retina screen as well! (feel free to google this)

Also apple never invents anything, there never “the first”. All they do is steal old technology, give it a fresh coat of paint and mass advertise it as “magical” and “innovating”, thus fooling the mass of the population into believing that apple offers cutting edge technology, that in fact has been around for quite a few years.
So instead of innovating, apple actually hinders technology- after 4 years they still have low-power single core phones, while android, an example of technology in overdrive, has rumored that, after their second year, the release of quad core phones that will surpass even some desktop computers in shear processing power.

Apple should now feel pretty worried; android has passed it in market share
http://www.businessinsider.com/android-i...are-2011-4

Then apple panics and sues
http://www.dailytech.com/Google+ExCEO+Ap...e22190.htm
The funny thing is that apple can’t sue for being the first touchscreen or tablet, because they weren’t,(Nokia fist touch screen, “archos” first tablet) so instead they sue for much more relevant things like, “the rounded icon corners” and “having a flat screen” or “the square shape of the phone”……..

To top it all, if you’ve seen apples 2011 presentation, they blatantly copied over five "new" features that were previously on android.
http://androidandme.com/2011/06/news/fiv...to-google/

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/06/06/app...e-arrival/
1. Notification bar
2. Twitter integration
3. No need to connect to PC to sync
4. Launch apps from lock screen
5. Tabbed browsing

And not only are they copies, but apple didn’t even bother to improve, or change some of them in any way- some even have LESS features than their android counter parts, it’s basically a cheap imitation with the ever-popular iphone skin.
According to Steve jobs, these "revolutionary" new technologies that android users had since 2007 will be available on IOS5, and it would not surprise me to see some more android features from 2008 on IOS6.But the truly sad part is that due to apples marketing, in a few months, apple lovers will really think that apple invented those features and call android the copycats…yet again.

Though I suppose Google should’ve seen it coming….

“Good artists copy great artist steal”- Steve jobs (apple CEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU