Originally Posted by SchnookoLoly (Post 11234574)

We just spent $1200 on a Lenovo YogaPad... we are really happy with it. :) We bought a netbook in 2011 for $250... that worked well but after 2 years seriously started to freak out.

Mac just kind of depends on the audience. If you are doing super stuff with graphics, then yeah, more of an argument to be made for Macs - they really do just get things more vibrant. My brother and I chose to get my parents a Mac when we bought them a new computer a few years ago, got them a Mac Mini, since they had a good screen already. It's great for them because they use the computer in a way that lends itself really well to Mac. My mom likes to play games and she doesn't mind paying for them; the Mac App store gives her a one-stop-shop to buy games and not be too concerned about the source or if she's downloading something shady. My dad occasionally gets it in his head that he wants to go "exploring" in the computer... it's much, much harder for him to create a mess of the Mac (which I then am the one to clean up!). Mac works very, very well for their purposes. (They also have an expectation that their computer should last a billion years... I bought them a Dell Dimension desktop back in 2004, it's still running, although just - and has had a lot of its guts replaced through the years. The Mac at least I know will last awhile and stay in reasonable condition as they won't replace it until it actually dies!)

Haha at 15 I can understand just being okay with what dad says since he's the one paying - but do give Android a shot once you're choosing your own handset. :) Even my mom is find on her Android phone! She works at a school and one of the 10 year olds saw her "Swyping" to type, and was like "OOOOOO THAT IS SO COOL HOW DO YOU DO THAT" and then proceeded to be all jealous when Mom was like "your iPhone can't do that! HAH!" Too funny.

And just saw the other posts - I personally loathe WP8!

Originally Posted by gozitanguygoinghome99xx (Post 11234586)

I will keep the yoga in mind-I know it comes in multiple flavours :)

Actually i'll take a look now since i'm just bored on the internet.

Yeh i'm giving my nana my friends old Google Nexus - it's a decent phone for talk, text, email and viber. We want her to have a smartphone so once she moves home we can "text" her for free :)

I do want to try android-I would love to have a part time job at one of the cell phone places, big discounts on the phones :thumbup:

Originally Posted by SchnookoLoly (Post 11234601)

It's pretty cool, we thought the whole rotating case thing would be kind of a gimmick, but actually we use it a lot, particularly in Stand mode for when we're watching movies and such. Windows 8 is meh, I prefer 7. 8 isn't great if you don't have a touch screen, it's alright with a touch screen.

Originally Posted by gozitanguygoinghome99xx (Post 11234606)

Meh. I actually have it on my current (non-touch) laptop, it came with it, and I like it with the new modifications that now allow you to pin "Modern" apps to the desktop taskbar, and boot-to-desktop. It's almost like 7, but maybe slightly better. But when I originally bought this laptop I downgraded it to 7, if you'd like I could tell you how I did it :)

Originally Posted by SchnookoLoly (Post 11234608)

The YogaPad has a touch screen so 8 is good enough on it. I just quite like 7 actually... 8 still needs a bit of work IMO. :)

Originally Posted by SchnookoLoly (Post 11233992)

I can try. Techy nerdy stuff is kind of my guilty pleasure passtime.

So your $700-800 phones (iPhone, Galaxy, HTC One, etc) are basically mini computers. Top of the line processor, lots of RAM, larger hard drives, bigger battery, higher-quality components generally, better quality cameras. More bells and whistles (fingerprint scanner, pedometer, slightly higher resolution screen, stronger backlight, etc etc etc).

The more midrange phones, like the N5, will cut corners in some other places. So my N5 doesn't have some of the fancier bells and whistles (like the fingerprint scanner, or an FM radio tuner), and the camera isn't quite as good as on the more expensive phones, but it hasn't cheaped out in other places. I'll take the handful of features that it doesn't have if it means I get a great phone at half the price.

For the lower-range phones, I'll compare to my husband's $200 Moto G. It's not as fast as the N5, and the camera is only just passable. The phone isn't that peppy, it starts to bog down if a lot of programs are open. However, it does have an FM tuner! But nothing else that's particularly fancy. The processor isn't the most modern, and the battery is notably smaller. However my husband just needs something to pass the time on the GO train, so for just internet it works well enough, and the reception it gets is fine. YOu can tell holding the phone that it doesn't feel as solid as the better phones (N5 included - I personally find the N5 feels better than the Galaxy!), but it does the job and he's not fussed about phones. His phone also does not have LTE capability, it only has 3G.

(I didn't really need to get myself an N5, but I wanted a new phone and I'm a bit of a tech nerd so I decided to treat myself.)

Hopefully that works a s a quick overview, happy to elaborate more on any area if you want!

Edited to add:

As for your comment about your other half only buying Apple, etc.

I have used both. For ages I had everything Apple - I had a Macbook and I've had two iPhones (3G and 4). Great products. Loved how slick they are - definitely a case of "Everything just works!". Great product, good quality, durable, reliable. For people who wants a product that's easy to use and runs well, Apples are great for that. The whole Apple ecosystem also integrates exceptionally well. If you have an iPad or an iPod or other APple products, they seriously all play very nicely together.

However, after awhile, I wanted to start to be able to play more. I wanted to be able to tweak more of the settings, to install custom software, to sideload software, to do things with torrenting, etc, and Apple was just too locked down for me. I wanted more flexibility to play with my phone. I'd tried jailbreaking but it destroyed my battery, and I figured, I shouldn't need to completely break the software to be able to install custom stuff. So I swapped over to Android after that, with an HTC One S, which I used for a year, then got the N5 in November.

Apple is great if you want something reliable that "just works". Apple's customer support is also great, particularly with warranty work. Android is a bit more disjointed but that's also because there are so many more providers and "versions" of it. Android behaves differently on different phones because of the "skins" that manufacturers put on it (Samsung's, whose name is escaping me... Touch?, HTC Sense, stock Android, etc etc).

Apple in particular tends to have a very loyal fanbase who rave about Apple products without really being able to explain why. Apple stuff just works. It's non-hassle. It doesn't require a lot of set up. It's very intuitive. It just clicks. There's also a certain power in so many people having Apple products - a friend of mine who has no other Apple products (Windows laptop, BlackBerry phone) got an iPad because her nieces all have iPads and iPhones and she wanted to be able to do Facetime with them. Sure you can download Skype, but that requires downloading the app, signing up for an account, logging in, etc etc etc, whereas Facetime is built right into the phone and, well, just works. So she went with the iPad for that reason.

Android at its base does work but there's more customization on it you CAN do if you want, which is what I like. The more recent versions of Android are more intuitive, but those who have been using Apple don't want to switch. So you tend to get more people buying Android who are either "NOO BOOO EVIL APPLE", or who are a bit more like me who just don't want to be as locked into using their phone the way the company says you should use their phone.

Done now. :)

Originally Posted by iaink (Post 11232915)

Text or voice. Voice and text prices have both gone up recently:thumbdown: Voice is 40c a min, plus 40c extra for long distance if applicable, Texts are a rather unreasonable 30c per for outgoing texts. But for my modest needs its enough.

Unfortunately due to geography I get crappy reception at home, so still pay Bell a ludicrous $38 a month for a landline too:( If that were not the case then a monthly cell plan and better minutes would make sense.

Originally Posted by beckiwoo (Post 11235046)

At 15 years old I was paying my own phone bill (although back then it was pay as you go and topping up) with my pocket money and money I made from my paper round! ;)

Originally Posted by beckiwoo (Post 11235046)

At 15 years old I was paying my own phone bill (although back then it was pay as you go and topping up) with my pocket money and money I made from my paper round! ;)

Originally Posted by Jsmth321 (Post 11235464)

At 15, pagers were the in style method of portable communication for teens...lol...Cell phones were out of price for teenagers.

Originally Posted by Jsmth321 (Post 11235464)

At 15, pagers were the in style method of portable communication for teens...lol...Cell phones were out of price for teenagers.

Originally Posted by Siouxie (Post 11235585)

:rofl:

I remember getting my son a BT 'phone home' cellphone which allowed one number to be called free of charge. He was only allowed it because he was attending a school a fair way from our house (and had been followed a couple of times by some weirdo in a car). Once he got to 16 and was working part time in a coffee shop he saved up and bought his own.

;)

Originally Posted by Oink (Post 11235634)

That's some hardcore parenting. :blink:

Originally Posted by Siouxie (Post 11235660)

He wasn't allowed a tv or computer in his bedroom either.

Mean person, me.

;)