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What is the best mobile phone for birding? (1 Viewer)

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Winterdune

Well-known member
Hi all,

I have a pay as you go mobile for texting and phoning but that's it. I'm considering getting one for accessing birdguides and other net things, taking pictures, recording sound (and perhaps playback too), and having portable field guides/bird sounds stored on.

Any recommendations for particular phones? And is this doable on pay as you go or would I have to have a monthly contract? As you can guess I am a total novice and this darned new-fangled stuff...

Thanks
Sean
 
seanofford said:
Hi all,

I have a pay as you go mobile for texting and phoning but that's it. I'm considering getting one for accessing birdguides and other net things, taking pictures, recording sound (and perhaps playback too), and having portable field guides/bird sounds stored on.

Any recommendations for particular phones? And is this doable on pay as you go or would I have to have a monthly contract? As you can guess I am a total novice and this darned new-fangled stuff...

Thanks
Sean
Click to expand...

Be sure to consider battery life!
I have a Motorola defy on O2.. It is packed with useful stuff like GPS, camera, internet, plus loads of useful apps. and good UK coverage, plus it is small, weatherproof and shockproof to an extent.

However, the battery life ain't so good.

I got round the poor battery life by a USB Battery pack

There will be better phones out there too by now. Mine is over 6 months old ..Shock!
 
If you are after a phone for id guides etc then it is all about the Apps. You basically have a choice of an iPhone or an Android phone.

iPhones can be had on PAYG but you are talking £500+. If you go for Android then you have a much greater price range to go for. My wife has just got a Sony Ericsson x8 for about £100 that runs Android, has GPS, OK camera etc. Android phones have been about a while and "old" models can be seriously discounted.

As Peter has said if you use all the toys on a phone and especially spend a long time with the screen on it any phone will use battery very quickly.

Also as for sound recording the main problem is the mics as they are designed for close up talking. If is usually possible to attach an external mic much often it entails a fair amount of bodging.
 
Thanks so far guys. Would I end up paying masses anyway on pay as you go if I checked the bird news/email etc regularly (say a few times a day)?
Sean
 
Most providers offer a PAYG bundle for internet access, I'm with T-Mobile and for £20 I can get six months free internet and that includes emails. You will have to have a delve around your mobile providers site to find out what's on offer.
 
£18 per moth got me a HTC desire S for £18, 1GB of data, 3000 texts, 150 minutes per month + 3000 minutes to other Virgin numbers - my wife is with Virgin as well, and she's the person I ring the most- and it's only an 18 month contract. Thtt owuld be considerablyu cheaper than PAYG as it's a £300 phone.

Battery life is a real issue though, with all of them I think.
 
HTC Wildfire is a good phone with loads of apps. GPS etc. battery last all day, just even if you are on the internet a lot. I love it.
There is a larger battery around that provides longer use of this phone.

Tesco mobile do a rollover package at £10 per month for unlimited interenet and texts and 300 minutes talk time to all uk numbers starting with 01,02,03. and mobiles 0845 etc you pay for at a cheaper rate.
 
I have a £15 a month SIM only contract with Vodaphone and buy a new Pay as You Go phone when I need one.

I haven't taken the plunge on Android or iPhone yet and have been able to get decent results on a Nokia Smart-phone (I've tried various models which have all been around the £90 mark). A decent-sized screen is essesntial and I find the Nokias have a bigger than usual screen while still having a decent battery-life (one that lasts more than a couple of days).

I use it mainly for Facebook and for accessing the birdguides website, for which it works well. I also have a bookmark to the RSPB mobile bird identification site, but the choice of species is fairly basic - so that's not much use.

I have also been rash enough to purchase an iPad2, to which I have become rather attached. The Birdguides app for iPhone/iPad is excellent - both for getting and submitting details of sightings. I have the Birdguides 'Birds of Britain and Europe' on there, which is good value, but I do find the quality of illustrations and photos varies wildly between species. It does have quite detailled texttual descriptions for all species, but I do find myself coming back to the Collins guide at the end of the day.
 
The best mobile for birding is the Iphone - the apps are more mature than the Android ones.
Best route for me was an Ipod touch and an Android phone - the Ipod has 'Twitcher', Birdguides 'Birds of Northern Europe' and 'IBird UK'.
The Android phone has 'Nature Explorer', 'WP checklist' and 'Birds Pro'.

My high frequency hearing has gone due to age and I find apps like 'Spectralyzer' & 'Audiokit' handy for finding sounds I can't hear.
 
I use a HTC Desire HD, contract £30pm for that i get loads of talk/text time and unlimited internet. Emails from birdguides cost nothing after you have paid your £40 to subscribe, the battery will last all day with internet on. Also there is and andriod App called WP birding checklist... it has a check list, songs/calls, photo's and ID discriptions... i love it.

The phone before this was the HTC hero... good phone and can be picked up at reasonable prices secondhand.

Jon
 
I have an iphone 3gs and have a couple of birdwatching apps on it.
The useful thing with this app is that it has bird songs/sounds on and on a few occasion when in a wood i've been able to play the sounds and get replies from wild birds!

I've had Coal tits come within a few feet to investigate these "foriegn sounds" , and goldcrests too find it intriuging. A bullfinch was calling back at Longleat forest , and I think if I'm right , a Nuthatch was interested!
 
Steve Babbs said:
Battery life is a real issue though, with all of them I think.
Click to expand...

True, I have an HTC Wildfire S which is a nice little phone, a bit too small for internet use and the battery is hopeless. I took my old Nokia N72 to Spain with me as a back-up as I didn't want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere with a nice smart Android phone unable to make a call because the battery died. I bought a car lead for it but it takes forever to charge, I mean 8-9 hours!
 
redeyedvideo said:
True, I have an HTC Wildfire S which is a nice little phone, a bit too small for internet use and the battery is hopeless. I took my old Nokia N72 to Spain with me as a back-up as I didn't want to get stranded in the middle of nowhere with a nice smart Android phone unable to make a call because the battery died. I bought a car lead for it but it takes forever to charge, I mean 8-9 hours!
Click to expand...

Trent Pack from Amazon is what I use plus I have a spare battery.
 
spuggyhawk said:
I use a HTC Desire HD, contract £30pm for that i get loads of talk/text time and unlimited internet. Emails from birdguides cost nothing after you have paid your £40 to subscribe, the battery will last all day with internet on. Also there is and andriod App called WP birding checklist... it has a check list, songs/calls, photo's and ID discriptions... i love it.

The phone before this was the HTC hero... good phone and can be picked up at reasonable prices secondhand.

Jon
Click to expand...

'Birds Pro' is similar (calls etc) but for us lesser mortals has a much better range of I.D. photo's.
WP Checklist is 'Transatlantic', Birds Pro is European - neither are full British lists but are the best we have at the moment.
 
I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 and an iphone 4S (was a 3GS till very recently) and the iphone wins everytime, its more stable, better interface, more secure and has much much better battery life, to be fair I hardly ever take the android device out. I guess that a smartphone needs to be more than just a big screen which the Samsung has.
 
I'm fast approaching the end of a vodafone contract (nokia5230 'not-so-smart' phone) and I'm finding this fascinating.
Darling Daughter lives at the cutting edge and looovvveeesss her iPhone and is trying to 'sell' me on the idea. I quite like the look of the HTC products. I suspect that (being a tightwad) my choice will be price driven......
 
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