Android phones, apps and tablets

I was tempted by one of those but I'm sticking with the N1 choice.

Any idea how long BT take to move a phone number from one place to another? I'm trying to minimise my broadband downtime when moving house.

Flippin ages. Why would you need a specific landline number? You use your landline for calling?

I was tempted by one of those but I'm sticking with the N1 choice.

Same here.

Haptic feedback does it for me. And HTC Sense UI is nice, but not that nice... the pictures on the N1 may not give it away but you put widgets on that front page that make the phone more useful in a short time (once customised) than HTC Sense gives you. Sense gets you going faster, but I'm a tweaker and would rather build it exactly how I want, and I'd rather have the haptic feedback.

Flippin ages. Why would you need a specific landline number? You use your landline for calling?

No. I heard it was cheaper/quicker/easier to move it rather than cancel and reconnect. Is it?

Dunno. Probably not. BT will find any excuse to bleed you of cash.

Same here.
Haptic feedback does it for me. And HTC Sense UI is nice, but not that nice... the pictures on the N1 may not give it away but you put widgets on that front page that make the phone more useful in a short time (once customised) than HTC Sense gives you. Sense gets you going faster, but I'm a tweaker and would rather build it exactly how I want, and I'd rather have the haptic feedback.

You don't need to wait for HTC to write their updates on new versions of Android either. You just get the updates from Google. Job done.

The only advantage I see with the HTC is the pad vs. ball thing and I've never used the pad so I'm not even sure this is an advantage.

I thought about that... and perhaps if I own the phone for years (plural) and use the trackball constantly... AND if it's substantially worse quality than the blackberry trackball... only then would the HTC approach show any advantage over just having the trackball.

moving my BT number from my old flat to this one took 4 weeks. it's quicker to just get a new number

Fring and Gizmo5 : I just made a 10 minute call over my home wifi to a landline in Australia, slight delay but great quality voice, cost: 20p!

I use Skype on my Android mobile to call Australia for £buggerall.

I use Skype on my Android mobile to call Australia for £buggerall.

requires end user to have skype also.....I think I got a pretty good deal to a landline....does Skype actually use the phone or system speaker/ I've used skype on previous devices and it uses system speaker, Fring uses phone speaker so it's just like using a phone, you can also make fring calls over skype and google voice with your existing usernames, in fact it collates most messaging services into one app: ICQ, google chat, twitter, yahoo chat etc, etc.

No it doesn't. If it's Skype-Skype it's free. If you add some funds to your Skype account you can dial any normal phone number very cheaply. Mal called her parents in Poland from an Australian Skype-enabled PC for 30mins and it cost less than £1. Same for me when I did Skyped-mobile to Australian landline phone.

Skype on Android works just like using a mobile.. I'm a late adopter to Skype and was very impressed with how well it all worked.

Mobile operators hate Skype, funnily enough.

Skype on Android currently works by placing a local call over the phone network. Which is good if you have bundled minutes that you don't pay for. Not so good if you want to use it on wi-fi (as you can don with skype for iphone), or 3G (which you can do with the 3-mobile thingy). Hopefully there will be a full-on skype for android soon.

Skype on Android currently works by placing a local call over the phone network. Which is good if you have bundled minutes that you don't pay for. Not so good if you want to use it on wi-fi (as you can don with skype for iphone), or 3G (which you can do with the 3-mobile thingy). Hopefully there will be a full-on skype for android soon.

mattty is right, hippy is wrong....go Fring! and gizmos rates are cheaper than skypes anywayz.

No, we are both right :)
Hippy just said that "Skype on Android works just like using a mobile" which is true. The rest of his post was about Skypeing from a computer, which was also true.

Fring and Gizmo5 : I just made a 10 minute call over my home wifi to a landline in Australia, slight delay but great quality voice, cost: 20p!

that's sounds expensive for an internet based call.
the skype rate for australia is £0.014 per minute.

Just emailed Tim Bray to congratulate him on his joining Google to work on Android. The man is awesome, having founded OpenText (a Canadian ECM company that is Canada's largest software company, they recently purchased Vignette too), work at Sun (now Oracle) and having posted an awesome blog post on his move to Google:
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2010/03/15/Joining-Google

I don't under-estimate the long-term effect of having such passionate, experienced and skilled people aboard a project, and having Tim join the Google team to work on developer advocacy is a great thing.

In other news, my new job will involve making some Android apps. Normally I delegate work, but this seems like fun so I think I will choose to do that myself.

Perhaps a "alert me when I'm near" app. Such as "alert me when I pass an open pub that serves food"... and then cycle off and get vibrations from your pocket each time you pass (within 500m) a possible lunch stop (even if you couldn't see it from the road).

I dunno... just stoked at the development of the platform and the way my work is going to give me the chance to do something on it.

On my android phone I can call out over wifi (not mobile network), to any skype. google voice, SIP (have my own SIP number), for free, plus landlines at competitive rates, it doesn't use any of my airtime or data allowance unless I choose to use it over the mobile network whilst I'm away from a wifi network....I can also "IM" all my contacts on skype, google, yahoo, ICQ etc from the same app and they can see if I'm online too.

I'm OK with video-phoning using skype but for voice to voice much prefer the convenience of using the mobile phone......I think it's a good setup, but would gladly switch to alternative if someone suggests something better.

Hopefully there will be a full-on skype for android soon.

This is what fring does, but without the video

Mobile operators hate Skype, funnily enough.

I hate mobile operators, so they can suck my Skype.

Ah, right I get what you mean about the wifi thing, winston. If I had a wifi connection available I'd be using a laptop and skype the old fashioned way and then you just pay for the Skype->landline costs.

If I don't have a wifi connection then the Skype thing is a shitload cheaper than calling international from a mobile. If Fring is cheaper than Skype then I'll use that. I don't care.. someone just summarise which THING to install on my phone that will give me the cheapest, easiest calls to Australia? Thanks.

I hate mobile operators, so they can suck my Skype.

Me too. Clueless money grabbing morons mainly.

I was tempted by one of those but I'm sticking with the N1 choice.

Same here.

Haptic feedback does it for me. And HTC Sense UI is nice, but not that nice... the pictures on the N1 may not give it away but you put widgets on that front page that make the phone more useful in a short time (once customised) than HTC Sense gives you. Sense gets you going faster, but I'm a tweaker and would rather build it exactly how I want, and I'd rather have the haptic feedback.

I have been looking into the N1 v Desire battle since Vodafone announced it would stock the Desire and I think the Desire is the better choice, especialy for someone based on London and due a free upgrade.
HTC sense can be turned off, leaving you with standard the Android 2.1 UI
Looks like the N1 will cost over £400 to import into the UK and you would also not get the full range of software support available in the states email/forum only. The desire has full, local support (according to early reports)
I have been using Windows mobile for the last 5 years and am very picky about the set up of my phone, I am looking forward to getting my hands on Android and I am deffo going for the Desire.

Also, N1 release date has been put back :-(

I'm beginning to have second thoughts about the Sony-Ericsson Xperia X10.

I want it for the 4 inch screen, and 1Ghz processor. Though the very reluctant statement on the official Sony Ericsson blog,
hasn't inspired me with confidence. They say they will upgrade the OS from Android 1.6, but not say WHICH version of Android
they will upgrade to. I think it would be obvious to upgrade to Android 2.1, since has now been out for a while, and is established.
But Sony Ericsson's wish is to impress users with their Timescape and Mediascape UI, but I'm not very interested in those, and
truthfully, don't really even want them.

If the Milestone were available as an upgrade, I'd have got that immediately as it was realeased. I still don't think a
3.7 inch screen without a physical keyboard is what I want. It looks like its boiling down to the X10 or the HTC Desire.