Please help me choose which smart phone to buy.

[SirWagginston]

I have to get a smart phone for business reasons (must be able to respond to emails rapidly/on the go). I'm kind of a PC/video game nerd, but I don't know much about phones. I hear great things about the upcoming iPhone 4S, but the arbitrary restrictions it places upon the user bother me (I don't want to have to jailbreak anything) so I'm trying to look a little deeper.

Here are the things I'm looking for in making my decision:

• Speed. I want one of the fastest machines I can get, so things don't take so long to load and so I can play games on it.
• Restrictions. I might be inclined to download applications on my computer and want to move them to my mobile phone.
• Software support. In the end, it doesn't matter if I have the ability to transfer games to my phone if the good games are not supported on said phones operating system. My fear is that the iPhone's OS gets all the support, but correct me if I'm wrong.

I also (obviously) want a phone with a good variety of features, but I'm guessing those exist across all brands--again, correct me if I'm wrong.

Sorry if all that's a little long-winded. Any advice, guys?

[weegie]

Welcome SirWagginston.

Given you don't want restrictions and want to side load applications, the only choice is Android really, even Android isn't as restriction free as people will have you believe, but, it is by far the least restricted, and at least you can drag and drop files from your PC on to it, along with purchase applications directly from most decent developers without going though Google's BS 10 second return period and giving them your credit card...which is the only payment the app store currently accepts.

Any of the three, iOS, Android, Windows phone 7 [not including Blackberry even though it's easily the most secure and probably best for business email because I don't know if games even exist for it] will allow you to have email pushed to your device on the go and let you respond as fast as you wish.

If you want a hardware keyboard, that counts apple out, windows phone 7 has one model that as far as I know still doesn't reorientate when you slide the landscape keyboard out, system wide, different manufacturers of android models have numerous keyboard models to choose from, along with numerous models and screen sizes.
Samsung Galaxy SII is probably the fastest at the moment, cpu and GPU, but is about to change, as there's a bunch of new hardware coming out [as it constantly is, with Android models particularly]

If you could be a bit more specific about what sort of form factor you would prefer, and where you're based, whether you want something unlocked as far as carrier goes etc etc, we can probably suggest some good options

[SirWagginston]

Hey, thanks for the welcome.

I'm in Canada, so I'm going to be on the Rogers network. I'm not worried about having to unlock anything. My concern is this: what if I want to move an application from my PC to my smart phone that is not "officially approved" by some developer. I'm a big fan of the freeware community, and (hypothetically, of course!) I might also want to download a game off the Internet rather than buy it through their official website or mobile store. Obviously, this is impossible on an unmodified iPhone, but what about other models? If this is actually true in general, then that's another point for getting an iPhone to me.

I don't really care if my device looks "cool." I consider function above all else. I do want to have a keyboard, but I don't feel a strong preference for having either a physical one or a virtual one on a touch pad--as long as it works very well. I'm sure there are many models to choose from, but I don't know what they are, and frankly, the sheer number of them makes it intimidating to find out.

As for software support, in my (very brief) examination of mobile games, I seemed to notice some that are only available on the iPhone OS. If that's actually true in general, then that's another major point for getting an iPhone. Otherwise, I might as well find a cheaper brand that has the same functions, right? Is there some kind of game developer support war brewing, like what video game consoles have?

[r0k]

Apps that run on a PC won't run on any smartphone on the market today. You can find some smartphone apps that can open the same files as their desktop counterparts. But when you say "move an app to the smartphone that the developer might not approve of" it's not the developer that is blocking you, it is the difference in operating system between your smartphone and a desktop.

If you want app selection, iPhone is your best choice. If you want to sideload, you can always jailbreak but now that iOS updates will be OTA, the future for jailbreaking is somewhat unclear. Of the half a million apps, a LOT of them are free. Many very good apps are free with in app purchase to register or unlock features. There is virtually no risk of malware on iOS.

[SirWagginston]

Let me clarify: I don't mean that I want to move PC apps to my mobile device. I mean that I want to use my PC to download mobile apps for free (like games for example), then move them from my PC to my mobile device. Finding apps online in the format of a mobile operating system isn't that hard, but I've discovered that devices like the iPhone (before jailbreaking) prevent you from using them.

So you say it's true that the iPhone kind of monopolizes the development market? If I get an Android, am I going to end up reading about lots of awesome games that are only playable on the iOS, leaving me out to dry?

[weegie]

I'm certainly no expert with games on a mobile, but it would appear that iPhone probably has the best selection of quality titles, and your almost certainly not going to run into any performance issues that the huge variation in hardware on Android models occasionally causes.
Whether, even after jailbreaking, your going to be able to use those titles via side loading is another thing, because I'm not sure whether apple contractually stops any developer who sells via their app store from enabling such functionality [I'd be amazed if they didn't].
Everything is a choice of pro's and con's, I will never own anything I can't just dump stuff from my pc on to, nor will I use an app store, the whole concept of them makes the veins in my temples bulge, because they are a form of tax and control by an OS maker [ should I say platform] so they can get a cut of everything you do with your device, and all done under the smiling subterfuge of making things easier for the average gimboid who find it too hard to get software from the people who actually make it, or copy and paste a bunch of their music from their PC to the device.

Back off my rant now I don't really like playing games on something without buttons, it's kinda like trying to eat a plate of peas with chopsticks to me, I was fiddling around with one of the Sony playstation phones the other day, and it had crash bandicoot preinstalled, this would be what I would get if I wanted a phone that does games as well.

Not sure how they're getting on with adding titles
Sony Xperia Play Launching With 60 Games | Geeky Gadgets

And a demonstration playing crash bandicoot here
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play running Crash Bandicoot - YouTube