older Android phone recommendations needed

[wayover13]

Hi. I'm actually still a dumbphone user--but one with a decent level of technical acumen--who's looking to get an older Android smartphone for a pretty specific, non-cellular use. Not being real familiar with the various makes and models of Android phones, I thought I'd ask here for some recommendations. First, though, let me explain about my rather unique usage scenario.

I'm not looking for a phone primarily for its cellular capability. I MAY end up activating the phone with a prepaid plan, but I haven't decided for sure about that. Rather, the phone's main usage will be as a 1) GPS, and 2) a SIP phone. So I don't care about 4G and that sort of thing. Given this scenario the phone's processing power and memory capacity are somewhat secondary. Finally, I'm budgeting about $30-$50 for this project.

From some perusal of classified ads and ebay postings, It looks to me I should be able, in that price range, to get a phone that was manufactured 2-3 years ago. There's a lot to choose from, which is why I thought of turning here to describe my need scenario and ask for some recommendations.

One of the main things I'm looking for in a phone like this is screen readability in outdoor, daylight conditions. The phone is going to be powered off most of the time, so battery life isn't much of a concern: having the screen set to maximum brightness and thereby using up excessive battery while powered on shouldn't be a problem for me. Also, the phone should, of course, have GPS functionality. It should also have wifi capability. And if I do go with a prepaid plan on it, it will likely be through a CDMA provider. Finally, I would prefer a phone that could be loaded with cyanogenmod, but that's not a deal-breaker for me: if find one in my price range with good screen readability in outdoor daylight conditions, and it has GPS and wifi but it turns out not to be compatible with cyanogenmod, I'll buy it.

So, can anyone here recommend a 2-3 year old phone that will have good screen readability outdoors in daylight? One that is GPS and wifi capable?

Your recommendations will be appreciated.

 

[Thom]

Welcome to Android Forums.

I moved your thread to the sub-forum where phone comparisons are discussed.

... Thom

 

[iTzKPanda]

HTC EVO Shift 4G Blue Sprint Smartphone C 821793007829 | eBay

LCD Displays are usually better for outdoors than AMOLED.

 

[badblue1]

Lg Optimus V ...i think you can find one on eBay for around $25.00

I'm still using mine, rooted, running gingerbread but with a bigger sdcard jellybean is no problem.

Can see good outside if turned way up, wifi and wifi hotspot.

It's thru virgin mobile.

EDIT : also has GPS.

 

[chanchan05]

One thing to look out for though, GPS won't be too accurate or be fast in getting a fix if the phone doesn't have cellular/internet service to access AGPS functionality.

 

[wayover13]

Thanks for the responses and links thus far. I've bumped into the A-GPS factor in searching out specs for some phones I've run across so far and wondered about how it would work without the phone being active on some cellular network. Glad to get some clarification that it could be a problem. I guess I'll need to determine whether the phone has A-GPS since, if I do end up activating it with a prepaid plan, it could end up costing because the A-GPS will be drawing in GPS data over the prepaid cellular network.

Later edit: I experimented with a friend's old LG Optimus 670, which was not active on any cellular network and the GPS functioned fine: no problem at all getting a fix and clearly showing movement in real-time. I assume that phone was not A-GPS but some other kind that doesn't need to get GPS info over the cellular network. I would have bought it but the screen did really poorly in outdoor daylight conditions.

 

[chanchan05]

Phones nowadays have both GPS antennae and AGPS features. AGPS generally helps in areas where it's difficult to get a line of sight to GPS satellites and stuff, like maybe the "canyons" between skyscrapers.

 

[wayover13]

Ok. Still grappling with understanding GPS/A-GPS. It seems from what's being said like I might expect any phone that would meet my needs to have both GPS and A-GPS--correct? I can see how A-GPS could be important, since so many cellular users live or spend time in those "canyon" areas. My usage, to the contrary, will almost never be in such areas: on over 95% of occasions when I will need GPS functionality, I'm going to be in rural or semi-rural areas with no such "canyons."

But, getting back to the A-GPS/GPS issue. Any phone whose specs indicate that it has A-GPS is going to have both traditional GPS as well as A-GPS, correct? By "traditional GPS" I mean an antenna that can get a fix on GPS satellites and accompanying hardware/software to allow display of coordinates on a map, while by "A-GPS" I understand a means, probably via software, of obtaining coordinates through cellular towers, perhaps by triangulation, and displaying those on a map. On the other hand, can I expect that any phone whose specs say it has GPS (without the "A"), will not have A-GPS?

Maybe there's not a clear answer to this question. Or perhaps I'm not formulating it correctly, not understanding well these capabilities and how they are put together in smartphones.

 

[wayover13]

Another issue I've come across in looking into the recommendations given by some of the responders in this thread is the fact that it can be difficult to use certain phones with certain providers. As an example, the HTC Evo Shift recommended above is apparently a phone limited to a certain provider (Sprint). Interestingly, that phone can apparently be loaded with cyanogenmod. So, a question: were a phone like that to have cyanogenmod loaded on it, would the carrier restriction still apply? Would it be possible, for example, after getting it to run cyanogenmod, to get it on some other CDMA network like a Verizon reseller? (and, yeah, I did become aware in researching the phone that there are loads of folks out there who claim to be able to help you switch carriers for a fee).