tiny budget VZW Android models

[jigwashere]

Ha-ha! I wasn't thinking kraken! Fearsome beast, indead! My son and I loved that ride at Sea World.



Too bad it's not compatible with XDAndroid:

[Hook]

By the way, I picked up a silver Samsung a107 flip-phone in a Gophone package that Best Buy was clearing out for $3 bucks each. I'm thinking of carrying that as a phone and switch the SIM to the Nexus One only when I need mifi for the Galaxy Player, which, honestly isn't all that often.

[Mi An]

Samsung Galaxy Pocket specs



This is one of the devices I might have gotten if it had been on the market, with an eye towards easy GVing and not much else. That said, the specs aren't that bad. Embarrassingly, it's a powerhouse compared to poor Syd. The video review picks on the resolution, but honestly it has a pixel density of 143 ppi -- not something I'd want to read a book on, but higher than the first two iPads. I'd wager the poor appearance he notices has to do with the scaling they did to make it usable, and that's something you can tweak. I'm not 100% sure what the chipset is, but a couple of sources say it's a snapdragon, and I suspect the clock rating alone undersells its abilities. It has a 1200mah battery -- once upon a time, that was standardish for top of the line smartphones.

As to the size, it look a little chunky for the 2.8" screen it packs, which I think bodes well for the yet to be released pricetag. A quick comparison to the htc touch, a 2007 era 2.8" winmo, has this as being slightly taller and slightly thinner, even though it's 5 years of size obsessing later. It's slightly smaller than the Moto Razr2 and my pearl flip. Someone put up a video comparing it in size to the Galaxy Note, and but for a little chunkiness, it would be as tall as the Note is wide: Samsung Galaxy Pocket vs. Galaxy Note - YouTube

I doubt this will make it to Verizon. I'm not even sure it's coming to the US. But if it did, I might keep an eye on the secondary market for a good deal.

[Varjak]

Nice unit. I think there's a market for compact models like this.

[Mi An]

I had thought HTC's product line simplification might take them out of this, but they have the HTC Explorer to replace the wildfire: HTC Explorer vs. Samsung Galaxy Pocket Specs Comparison Versus the pocket, it's got a tolerable screen res, is slightly smaller has a slightly larger screen (2.8 vs 3.2), but has a lower clocked cpu (would love to see comparative benchmarks) and less memory. Having given up on verizon and found h20 means there are tons of options. I don't regret my pearl flip -- it rescued me from some serious frustration, if anything, I only regret not getting it months sooner. But I am mulling something in this line as my next device someday.

The Xperia Mini (st15) has a 1ghz CPU, is smaller than both but is thicker too, has a 3" screen and more internal storage than the explorer. It even has an ICS upgrade available, FWIW (I think I might prefer gingerbread, but I like options). Of course this also has a 6 month old 73 page long support thread about overheating causing spontaneous capacitive button pressing and general wigging out... There's also a pro option with a keyboard, 4 lines and not offset, but at this size/$ I am more willing to compromise that than on a higher end phone.

[Mi An]

It sounds like a fearsome beast indeed. Eventually I'll hunt down a release the craken lol to christen the thread with.

Ha-ha! I wasn't thinking kraken! Fearsome beast, indead! My son and I loved that ride at Sea World.

Here's one that's a little more fitting to the topic: funny-pictures-kraken-is-small.jpg

[Mi An]

Comparing 2011/2012 sub 3.2" android devices

Comparison: Samsung GT-S6500 Galaxy Mini 2 vs. Samsung GT-S5300 Galaxy Pocket vs. Samsung GT-S5360 Galaxy Y vs. HTC Explorer vs. Sony Ericsson Xperia mini ST15 / ST15i & other devices | PDAcomparer | PDAdb.net

lightest: xperia mini, 94 grams
Thinnest: Galaxy Y, 11.5mm
(thickest: xperia active, 16.5mm, or xperia mini pro, 18mm)
Shortest: xperia mini, 88mm
Narrowest: xperia mini 52mm
Smallest screen: xperia mini, 3"
highest pixel density: xperia mini 192ppi
highest clock: all the xperias, mini, mini pro, active, 1ghz
largest battery: Galaxy Mini 2, 1300mah (most are 1200 mah)

On another note, I think I remember that the xperia active uses dragontail glass, a GG competitor, and is waterproof. It's also one of the priciest.

The xperia mini pro is only slightly larger than the xperia mini, except for one stat, where's it's the heaviest small phone of the bunch, by a lot. Only 2mm thicker than the mini, it's got an extra 40grams, nearly 50% heavier. Since getting Syd and google voice, I've been fairly responsive to texts. Before that I used to respond to all texts with either "yes" or "no", if at all. If someone didn't ask a yes or no question, I figured that was their problem. I don't like onscreen kbs even on larger more usable screens, so if I got the mini not pro, I'd probably revert to my old anti-text ways unless near a computer. The mini pro is about the best all around device for me, but the whole point of this search was to find a single purpose phone, not a jack of all trades. I was trying to find something tiny. The mini is also significantly cheaper than the mini pro.

I'll probably do nothing for now, but as my current page plus credits run out, I'll be mulling some of these GSM phones more and more.

[Mi An]

There's a new kid in town. The 3.2", 180ppi Xperia tipo/tipo dual. It's a little taller than average, but is very light and is average in other respects except with the largest battery in the bunch at 1400+ mah.

Sony Xperia Tipo Dual ST21a2 (Sony Tapioca DS) Specs | Technical Datasheet | PDAdb.net

The dual sim option is mostly what sets it apart. This was released just last month, but it still carries the same general processor as the rest of them. It feels like the end of a spec plateau, and I sense there may be a spec jump not far down the line (in a category where the plateaus last longer than in less niche categories).

[jigwashere]

It's hard to take it seriously with a name like tapioca.

[Mi An]

In Indonesia, tapioca is called singkong.