What can I expect out of cell phones in the next 6 months to a year?

In My Humble Opinion (IMHO)
#1

My dad’s cell phone is dying. He’s up for a new one. In fact, he’s been up for a new one for the last few years. The reason for that is that he really didn’t want to buy one so he took my old one when I bought a new one. Anyways. His current one is probably going to bite the dust in the next day or so. I think he’ll use this opportunity to make the jump to a smart phone. But I know he won’t be thrilled about shelling out the cash for a new one. Because of that I was thinking I would give him my Droid and get a new Android based phone (Samsung Fascinate maybe) for myself). Thing is, I could just save the $200, let him by his own phone and mine will be ready to upgrade in August.
It seems that not only are phones so advanced at this point, but also the OS is easily upgraded OTA. I’m curious as to what’s going to be out there in the next 8 months that would make me want to wait?.

BTW, I’m with VZW and been very happy with my Droid.

#2

You’re lucky in that the Consumer Electronics Show is going on right now and very little will be introduced in the next few months that’s not being shown now. One is the Motorola Droid Bionic.

#3

Also from CES: larger screens.

#4

If you currently have a Verizon phone and wish to stay with them, then you might be interested in the new smartphones that they’ll be releasing in the next three-to-six months that take advantage of their new 4G network.

(Note that Verizon isn’t the only company that’s in the midst of a 4G upgrade, either. At any rate, I suspect that six months from now 4G-capable smartphones will be all over the place.)

#5

Dad decided that whatever he does, he’s more then likely not interested in a hand-me-down. So I’ll guess I’ll see what’s available in August.
If he changes his mind in the next few hours I’d probably get the Fascinate.

#6

I can’t imagine there’s going to be anything revolutionary coming in that span. Slightly bigger screens, slightly better cameras, 4G capability, etc.-- mostly just small upgrades and tweaks. The biggest upgrades will be in the software and apps which like you said can be updated OTA.

Personally I’d wait and if there are no amazing breakthroughs by then I’d get a price-dropped current (as in now) generation phone.

#7

Well, as it turns out, my phone suddenly has an upgrade available (to those of you not paying attention, my OP was from 1/7/11).
So now I’m re-looking at this whole phone thing again. It seems my choices are HTC Thunderbolt, Droid X, Samsung Fascinate or wait for the recently released Motorola Bionic, which based on a little bit of reading seems to be pretty much identical to the Thunderbolt.
Any thoughts on any of these?

Also, it wouldn’t happen to be possible to transfer Angry Birds from one phone to the other, would it?

#8

NOT the Samsung Fascinate. Samsung makes great hardware, but the software side is shite. You’d think that all being Android, it’s the same, but it’s not. Each manuf. gets to add whateer they want on top of the regular Android OS, and Samsung’s “TouchWiz” UI is pretty bad. Not only that, but they are horrible with updates. I think the Fascinate still comes with 2.1 (when 2.3 is out for some devices, and almost all ‘current’ ones have at least 2.2) They keep releasing and then pulling the 2.2 update because they find something else wrong with it.

They also use a wonky file system that makes the whole phone laggy unless you root it and install a fix, and it may or may not have working GPS.

I’d say the Thunderbolt, because HTC is the best with both decent add-on software to the OS, and giving timely updates. Though odds are a Droid X2 will be coming soon (maybe already announced?), but it might be too far down the pipe for you to wait for.

Edit: Yes, you can transfer all your apps from one phone to the other…well, sort of. You don’t transfer them, but since they are all linked to your google account, so long as you set up your new phone with the same account, you will get all apps on that phone, so no need to buy them again if they’re paid, or sort through one by one and download them. However, any saves or progess in the games is local to the phone only, so you’ll have to start all over again.

#9

I read exactly the same thing somewhere else (Samsung is bad with updates, HTC is good). But I figured I’d toss that phone into the mix anyways.

I’ll probably get the Thunderbolt, maybe. It’s actually bigger (based on the specs, I haven’t actually looked at it) then my Droid. But based on experience, I might forgo the case which cuts down on the size quite a bit. As for a waiting for newer phone, there’s always a newer, better phone just around the corner. I can wait for the Bionic or the DroidX2 and there will be another one a month after that. The way I see it, the longer I wait for this phone, the longer I have to wait for the next one.

Fuckit, I’m on 12-1, I’m not starting over. Stupid Angry Birds always killed my battery anyways. Maybe I’ll try the Angry Birds Rio that it keeps showing me ads for.

#10

I’m taking my sister up to Verizon later to get an iPhone so I’ll look at it, I guess the next thing is to decide if it’s worth spending $250 on something that probably isn’t really that big of an upgrade over my Droid…except it won’t have a slide out keyboard, which is nice as I hate the keyboard.

#11

I dimly remember early reviews of the HTC Thunderbolt complaining about the speed with its battery discharged when under heavy use, so you might want to check out that situation. Other than that, it’s the first Verizon phone to use its new LTE network, which is supposed to be really fast.

I loves my Droid X, but these days that’s hardly a new phone.

#12

While my sister was buying her iPhone, I played with the Thunderbolt. It almost seemed a bit too wide for my hand. Almost as if after a while it would have made my thumb sore. I even asked them to get me one out of the back without all the crap mounted on the back and it still felt that way. After a while I looked at the Droid X and realized that after playing with the Thunderbolt for 15 minutes, there’s no way I could get something as tiny as the X (which is the same size as mine I think).
I’m pretty proud of myself for walking out of there without spending $250. I know it’s odd, but taking the case off my phone has made it feel like a new one, if I didn’t do that, I probably would have bought this one.
He mentioned that this one was on sale for $200 during March, if he had offered me the $200 deal, I probably would have taken it.
I’m sure when the Bionic comes out (he said it’ll be out in May), this will go back down to $200, so I’ll reconsider the two phones then I suppose. Of course I’m impulsive so it would be very much like me to go and get it tomorrow as well. But I just spent a shit ton of money on some other toys, so I should probably hold off for a little while.
I’m not out of the woods yet, there’s nothing stopping me from going and getting it anyways, it’s just that I don’t really need a new phone, I don’t know that there’s anything special it can do that mine can’t, and it’s actually bigger then mine (but the screen is freakin’ huge).

#13

Also, WRT charging, since these phones all charge via USB, it’s not usually a big deal for me. I don’t typically push them too hard and when they do, I’m usually close enough to a computer to plug one in. At work, I have a wireless mouse that charges via USB and that charger works for my phone, if I’m over at my parents house, there phone charger works with my phone, if I’m in my car, I have a USB jack in there that works. So even on the odd occasion that I’ve killed my battery in a few hours, it’s not usually a problem, as long as I can typically make it a full day I’m not too worried.