Time for a new phone.

M

Mike Pyle

Junior
Jan 11, 2011
277
1
18
Santa Rosa, CA
My aircard crapped out on me the other night, so I am using an app on my old Nokia that let's me use it as a wifi hotspot. Works pretty good.

I'd like to get into a newer phone, maybe an android or windows model. Anybody set one of these up as a hotspot without the restrictions of the wireless carrier? I know people use PDAnet to tether, but as far as I know it isn't wifi capable.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

Anything Android can easily WiFi tether without network limitation or restriction. In fact, my HTC Incredible on 3G beats out my DSL quite easily. If you're near a city with LTE, get a phone that has it, otherwise it's pretty pointless. PDAnet also limits HTTPS connections unless you pay for it, AFAIK, while WiFi tethering does not.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

Absolutely get an Android based phone. The on board file system alone is worth it, and throw in tethering and you are miles ahead of the iPhone. I don't use a wifi hotspot type connection, just tether my laptop to my phone for my own personal mobile internet connection (I guess I'm selfish because I don't want to share my data connection).

However, if you are on AT&T the unlimited data plan is gone, probably for ever, and Verizon is about to end theirs any time now. So if you are going to switch, do it now. Tethering will eat up lots of data. Trust me, I tether all the freaking time.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

iPhone. Best damn phone I've ever owned. My parents just switched from Droids and they say the iPhone is worlds better. I have a jailbroken iPhone 4, and I tether with it all the time. I have the unlimited data plan on AT&T, and I've used 4+ gigs a month without AT&T ever saying anything.


Evan
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

Justice C. Bigler said:
...I don't use a wifi hotspot type connection, just tether my laptop to my phone for my own personal mobile internet connection (I guess I'm selfish because I don't want to share my data connection).

However, if you are on AT&T the unlimited data plan is gone, probably for ever, and Verizon is about to end theirs any time now. So if you are going to switch, do it now. Tethering will eat up lots of data. Trust me, I tether all the freaking time.
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When you tether with Android, you can either MAC filter your clients or use encryption. I've found that encryption is usually too much CPU overhead for the phone, but MAC filtering works just great. That way I can leave my phone in my pocket and browse away.

I use over 3GB/month even without tethering, so any limited data plan is going to be a big deal for a lot of people. I strongly recommend getting on board while the unlimited is still available.

Most of the cool functions require rooting (Android equivalent of jailbreaking), which is actually not illegal in any way. On top of all the above, I now see Android apps coming out before iPhone apps, so I think in the next year or two the tides are really going to turn in favor of Android.

Some apps I like for Android:

Samba Filesharing - this lets me share my SD card on the network like it's another computer

Wireless Tether - obviously, this gives me WiFi tethering capability
 
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Re: Time for a new phone.

I have found battery life to be the greatest limiter. I have both tethered and WiFi'ed but both really require the phone to be charging if the session is longer than a couple of minutes.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

Jay Barracato said:
I have found battery life to be the greatest limiter. I have both tethered and WiFi'ed but both really require the phone to be charging if the session is longer than a couple of minutes.
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Agreed. Another nice thing about Android is that all the carrier-provided 'junk apps' can be uninstalled quite easily, allowing the phone to run as lean as possible and get great battery life. Mine lasts all day with no problem.

Another interesting factoid, since I'm the local Android fanatic: people have modified the Android operating system to run on the iPhone. Imagine that! Apple people want to run Android.
 
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Re: Time for a new phone.

I feel the same way about phones as I do about loudspeakers, I want one that's not going to waste my time. I have also found the iPhone to be an excellent phone, and the over the air sync with my calendar and contacts is seamless. If you're the type of person who needs to constantly fiddle with their device, jailbreak it or buy an Android. I have jailbroken my phone to get tethering in the past and the problems with keeping outside of the normal AT&T/Apple update world were not worth it. Tethering is unfortunately crazy expensive, my only complaint.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

What I've been using to investigate this is my 3 year old unlocked Nokia 5800 on ATT's basic email/data plan for dumbphones, which is a $15 monthly charge for unlimited data. There's a $10 symbian hotspot app that seems to work perfectly and provides up to 128 bit encryption. Whether I'm at my warehouse or at a gig where I'm using the laptop, I need to keep the lappy online but still be able to carry the phone with me. Been doing that for a couple of days now with the nokia. It actually seems to run quite a while without charging, but I do plug the charger in when I sit in front of the computer. The speed is not quite what I got with my verizon 3G aircard, but I expect if I were plugged in to the USB port that it would be. No problems doing this and using other common phone functions at the same time, but I notice occasional light distortion in the incoming phone audio.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

Silas Pradetto said:
Another interesting factoid, since I'm the local Android fanatic: people have modified the Android operating system to run on the iPhone. Imagine that! Apple people want to run Android.
Click to expand...

I propose it could be the other way around, Android folks might like the Apple hardware better. Same is true in the computer world. Bootcamp on Mac allowing users to run Windoze on a much sleeker piece of hardware is popular. Not to mention the performance of Windows on some Macs laptops can actually be better than comparable laptops by HP and Dell.

Greg
 
Jeff Babcock said:
Try one of our lovely Canadian iPhone providers and you'll feel a lot better about what you have.
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Jeff - I'm typing this from my an iPhone on AT&T. If you can believe it, I actually miss my Fido (Rogers) iPhone service. Calls were dropped all along the 87 heading south 80 miles out of NYC and here in Baltimore the coverage is spotty (especially 3g). I'm travelling west after this weekend but can so far say I'm not a happy AT&T client. $2 a day unlimited prepaid is great - dropping phone calls is not. Also, Rogers also allows tethering with any plan over 1 gig - not so with AT&T.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

The new windows phones are starting to become just as equal to the already powerful android and iphone. If you have an xbox or use windows alot then go with a windows 7 phone. The Samsung is great. If you want to go with the crowd then go with iphone. If you want to have a good phone that does what you want then android is yours.
 
Re: Time for a new phone.

Evan Kirkendall said:
iPhone. Best damn phone I've ever owned. My parents just switched from Droids and they say the iPhone is worlds better. I have a jailbroken iPhone 4, and I tether with it all the time. I have the unlimited data plan on AT&T, and I've used 4+ gigs a month without AT&T ever saying anything.


Evan
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Same here, also have friends that resisted getting iPhone but once they got it are wondering why they waited so long. I am curious how long the grandfathered unlimited data plan will last but meanwhile I'm tethering quite a bit. PDAnet works great and over wifi too -and the purchase price from the Cydia store is minimal compared to most apps.
 
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