iPhone or Droid Incredible? In other words, is AT&T really so bad? (1 Viewer)

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Scott Merryfield /forum/thread/300261/iphone-or-droid-incredible-in-other-words-is-at-t-really-so-bad#post_3707610

The screen was super clear. I opened up the map on both the iphone 3gs and the incredible and the droid was much clearer then the 3gs. I havent seen the iphone 4 yet i guess it will be as clear as the droid..

The Droid phone is noticeably better than that of the 3GS. But the iPhone 4 screen is better still, than the Droid screen. It has about 50% more pixels, or 25% higher resolution if you think in pixels-per-inch. The Android phones are prioritizing physically larger screens over higher pixel density at the moment. So, for the time being, the iPhone has the generally superior screen. No doubt this will in due time.


(A side note, I've used my iPhone 4 in outdoors in bright sunlight this weekend without trouble. I've read from reputable sources, but not seen personally, that the OLED Android screens are unreadable in bright sunlight. I suggest a demo before buying an OLED screen device, unless you never use your phone outdoors.)

 

[Sam Posten]

Call me a fanboy if you like but Marco expresses just exactly what concerns me about Android:

http://www.marco.org/769340032


I do have to admit that the improvements between the original Android release and Froyo are extreme, and great. But can that be sustained without incurring the huge amounts of fragmentation that the platform is known for?

 

[nolesrule]

The whole article is based on this premise

The Android ecosystem doesn’t seem capable of producing devices that are great on day one. Yet Apple consistently pulls it off.

I don't really think that's valid. Fragmentation of the Android OS has been a hot-button topic for three months now, and yet in practical terms it hasn't meant a thing. Whereas Apple eliminates fragmentation by just ceasing support for and accepting apps for iOS2. And iPhone 4 requires a $30 rubberband or an unnatural hand position just to make phone calls. Oh, you mean it's a phone too? And iPhone is an Apple product. QED. Honestly, in the last year or so this whole forum has started to turn into a place for Apple fanboys to congregate, and it's starting to get on my nerves. On the other hand, I will admit that Apple products are better than Bose, but the zombie-ism falling for the whole our way is good for you mentality is just mind-boggling.

 

[Hanson]

All I can say to Marco is... who gives a shit? All I know is that the EVO is already ahead of the iPhone hardware in many areas. The new Droids kill the EVO. The Samsungs will top the Droid. Because of the "fragmentation", the specs of the iPhone are behind the curve already. By the end of the year, the iPhone will be eating dust, with better spec'ed phones running froyo. This is all driven by "fragmentation". And I can give Marco a whole laundry list of why "it just doesn't work" for me.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by nolesrule iphone-or-droid-incredible-in-other-words-is-at-t-really-so-bad#post_3707782
Honestly, in the last year or so this whole forum has started to turn into a place for Apple fanboys to congregate, and it's starting to get on my nerves.

Hmmm.... On the one hand, who else would you expect to be in the Apple forum, but Apple users, who tend to be enthusiasts? And yet, if you read any of the discussions -- like the discussions on the AppleTV and iPhone 4 -- you'll see strong criticisms of the products.


And of course you're welcome to provide your own dissenting perspectives.


As for me, I'm thinking about my next round of praises and critiques from my early iPhone experience. (Namely: Apple did not create a "PDA", which can be frustrating if you want to do more than just surf the web and play games.)

Originally Posted by nolesrule
Fragmentation of the Android OS has been a hot-button topic for three months now, and yet in practical terms it hasn't meant a thing. Whereas Apple eliminates fragmentation by just ceasing support for and accepting apps for iOS2.

Rumor is Android 3.0 will require a 1GHz processor, which would mean the Droid couldn't run it. The original flagship phone would be obsolete after just one year. If the rumor is true, it will make Google even more aggressive about obsoleting hardware than Apple.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Hanson Yoo

Because of the "fragmentation", the specs of the iPhone are behind the curve already. By the end of the year, the iPhone will be eating dust, with better spec'ed phones running froyo.

What phone, for sale today, has specs that put the iPhone 4 "behind the curve"?


Likely, the iPhone will be outspecced by year's end. But today?

 

[Hanson]

On a strictly hardware level, the EVO has a 4.3" screen and capable of 4G speeds (already rolling out in NYC).


On a functionality level, it has a 3G capable videochat, Flash capable browser, voice to text, and turn by turn google maps.

 

[Sam Posten]

Have you actually held the bigger screens? I have. Doesn't feel natural to me. I'd rather have higher rez/ better quality pixels on screen than bigger real estate on my phone. YMMV. Also, take a look at the download tests some folks are doing, 4G is great but not necessarily the bump many people are expecting. And on a flagship phone you get 4 hours of use out of it, a LOT less if you are using flash. There's tradeoffs in all of these phones. Some are maddening. But as of right now I think Apple is making the best decisions for these tradeoffs for the way I personally use the phone, and despite how much I howl about AT&T coverage at my parents house that's really the only place I consistently get bad service. Again YMMV. Also, on that video chat, people who have actually used it arent all that impressed.


http://androinica.com/2010/06/05/qik-on-the-htc-evo-a-lesson-in-poor-app-launches-opinion/

http://www.androidcentral.com/evo-4g-wifi-speed-test-you-might-be-surprised-results


DaveF's comments on the obsolescence of so called flagship phones is only part of what I mean. You can't run Froyo on a G1, right? That kind of stuff. Yes I know Apple is doing the same thing, but not at that speed. And then you have to figure the carriers into the mix. It could be a half a year before some phones which are Froyo capable will be able to get that update and by that time Google will have you thinking Froyo is sooooo last year.

 

[Hanson]

I have played around with the EVO, and it's just a matter of days before I order one. It fits perfectly in my hand, and I can reach everything with my thumb (and I don't have giant mitts). If you're of the mind that it's too big, then I suppose it would feel unnatural to you.


The advantages of the larger screen are numerous -- the keyboard is great for being touchscreen, and the keyboard in landscape is about as accurate as a HW keyboard. I kind of laugh at the notion that the high dpi screen makes things easier to read -- you know what really makes things easier to read? Making it bigger. Everything on the EVO displays 44% larger than the iPhone. The disparity is even greater with movies and TV -- because the iPhone is a 1.5 ratio screen versus EVO's 1.67 ratio screen, the image after letterboxing on the EVO is a whopping 60% bigger. I've seen the iPhone and the EVO screens, and the difference in dpi isn't noticeable -- it's not like I can pick out individual pixels at 230 dpi. What is noticeable is that the iPhone screen is much brighter -- like salesmen in a Best Buy know, high contrast = "better picture". Maxing out the brightness on the EVO screen makes it comparable to the iPhone 4 screen. For someone who watches a lot of media on the train ride to NYC, the bigger screen is a huge plus in many ways.


BTW, the battery is not as bad as the 4 hours you state. The EVO user I know gets almost two days from a full charge. It would be like me stating that all apple phones for all users cannot be held on the sides. It's not true either.


Oh, and I read that the 4G speeds clock in at 3-5 Mbps, which is a "never look back" speed. Plus, the 4G doesn't take any more battery than 3G -- the reason you should turn off your 4G antenna if you don't have it is because the 4G periodically looking for a 4G signal will take extra battery life. But they have an app that turns off 3G and turns on wifi if you're at a hotspot and then reverses the process when you leave. I'm sure a 4G to 3G app will come out soon. But according to Marco, I shouldn't consider that when I buy my phone because it's not here now.

 

[Sam Posten]

I admit that I am using the Droid X whatever its now called as a size guide, not the Evo, not sure if they are the same or not. The size of that one is WAY too big for me to use comfortably as a phone and I have medium to big hands. (I have friends who have had it for a while unbadged testing for V). If I want a big screen that's what my iPad is for and I can't wait for that to be big AND hi-rez. I don't want a big thing in my pocket for a phone tho... Again YMMV...


As for the battery issues, I can only tell you what I have read, constant use of 4g and or flash drains the battery in 4 hours. If it's not that bad then GREAT. As I say I want GOOD competition in the mobile space. Android has proven to be better IN VOLUME (ie getting more people than ever to be interested in Smart Phones) than iPhone I just want it to be a challenger in UI, and from what little experience I have with it it doesnt match up there. Yet.


Someone at HTC has a little bit of taste at least. They need to move that guy to Google and put him or her in charge of the whole platform rather than letting it be just a perk from one vendor.

 

[DaveF]

Originally Posted by Hanson Yoo

On a strictly hardware level, the EVO has a 4.3" screen and capable of 4G speeds (already rolling out in NYC).


On a functionality level, it has a 3G capable videochat, Flash capable browser, voice to text, and turn by turn google maps.

 

[Hanson]

I read one review of the Droid X that explained the extra screen resolution (it's 854 X 480 rather than 800 X 480) makes for a taller phone than the EVO and it was difficult to reach from top to bottom with your thumb with one handed operation without adjusting your grip. I'd have to see for myself.


The EVO battery issue is interesting -- the review units were not kind about it (some absolutely killed it for that reason). I was initially put off the EVO just because of it. But the one co-worker who owns it said that his battery lasted at least a day, but after a recent firmware upgrade, it extended to two days. And mind you, this guy was streaming World Cup matches during the day. I have also read some users complaining about the battery life while others are mystified by the reputation. So it's either a firmware issue or a problem with a batch of batteries. The easiest solution is to buy a spare battery, which effectively doubles the life of the phone. I used to do this with the Touch Diamond -- that thing would be one bar after an hour on the train. But I'm fairly confident I'll get a day's use.


I don't see that significant a difference in the UI between the iPhone and Android, but then again, I'm a techie, so I might miss the subtleties that non-techies notice. What does bother me about the iPhone experience is the constant need to run back to iTunes to accomplish anything. The reason I'm jumping into Android instead of WP7 after all these years with WM is the inability to access storage directly and transfer files wirelessly a terrible decision MS copied from Apple. This is a major inconvenience I cannot live with.

 

[TonyD]

"transfer files wirelessly"
that would b e a void feature. As of now only on jb iPhone for $10.

 

[Hanson]

If you actually saw the EVO screen, and you could actually see the pixels, more power to you. I can't, and I doubt most people can. If you ask me if I'd rather have a 40" 1080p HDTV or a 58" 720p HDTV, I'd take the latter in a heartbeat. The retina screen is a marketing gimmick -- the resolution was set to double each dimension for easier scaling between generations. Isn't it fishy that Apple's big thing to to tell you they have a screen with resolution you can see? Doesn't that smell of marketing hype? 230 dpi isn't lo-res by any stretch of the imagination, not on a screen that size. To me, that's waste of money. But you will probably hear iPhone users clinging to this single spec as each new Android device blows away the previous one -- "but our screen is higher resolution"! At some point, the marketing hype will force one of the Android manufacturers to push a higher res screen just to win the spec war. Put an EVO at full brightness against the vaunted Retina screen, and the differences wash away. Note that I don't go on about EVO's 8MP camera because it's a silly number. And the picture quality contest is a draw, as some people think the EVO takes slightly better pictures with almost no lag while others like the iPhone's low light performance. The EVO has two LED flashes! Who gives a shit?


Flash capable browser may be a negative to you, but for many people, it completes the browsing experience. Even die-hard iPhone users want flash.

4G is in a handful of cities now, but will be in many more by the end of the year. It's rolling out in the NYC area as we speak. Anyone in a 4G area should be excited by this, but for some reason, you want to discount it because it's not widely available. Well, 3G isn't widely available for AT&T users, so by your logic, the 3G capability of the iPhone is useless. And 4G does not suck extra battery life (at least, not significantly more battery life) -- the 4G issue is that if you leave your 4G antenna on and don't have 4G service, it will expend energy trying to connect to it periodically. So this is a non-issue -- you have 4G, or you turn it off. I would be shocked if there weren't an app by the end of the year that automatically manages that for you.

Turn by turn apps on the Apple cost money, and the good ones cost monthly fees. If you're going to bring up the $10 up charge for the EVO as a negative (which still doesn't make the Sprint plan any more expensive than the comparable AT&T plan), I don't know why you'd toss off the monthly fees for a turn based nav program. But, Google is coming to the rescue with a free turn by turn app... if you're willing to pay the $7/mo for GPS with AT&T. Sprint does not charge.

Originally Posted by DaveF

Bigger screen but lower resolution. The iPhone 4's screen is "ahead of the curve", in your parlance. Personal preference as to which you prefer.


Flash capable browser is a negative to me. I don't understand the appeal on a mobile device.

4G. On Sprint. In the handful of cities that have it. And it consumes your battery rapidly. And you still get to pay the surcharge even that service is unavailable. It's more advanced than the iPhone, but it isn't national and has limitations.


Turn by turn Google maps is nice. But I can buy an app for that.



So in other words, there is no phone that puts the iPhone "behind the curve already". No doubt there will be a phone sooner or later with higher res screen, faster processor, more storage, more RAM, better camera, etc. But it's not out yet, and it's not the EVO.

 

[Hanson]

Is it a plus or a minus that you need to jailbreak an iPhone and void your warranty to do anything functional with it? Because I'm going with minus.


Besides -- can you jailbreak the iPhone 4 at this time?

Originally Posted by TonyD

"transfer files wirelessly"
that would b e a void feature. As of now only on jb iPhone for $10.

 

[TonyD]

Originally Posted by TonyD

"transfer files wirelessly"
that would b e a void feature. As of now only on jb iPhone for $10.

oh brother, posting from iphone I fat fingered that one.

"that would be a good feature".

 

[TonyD]

ONe thing mentioned in that article is that a new droid is right around the corner every few months or so.

I've been seeing how great the Incredible is then I started reading people say, but wait 'till the droid X comes out next month.


Now Droid X isn't a generic name for the next droid phone it is the name of the phone.

 

[Hanson]

I wasn't interested in an Android phone until the EVO came along. Just a convergence of must have features -- 4.3" screen, 1 GHz processor and 4G capability. When I saw the speed at which it loaded web pages, I was gobsmacked. My only issue was the need to convert xvid encoded avi video files to play on the phone. But with the release of rock player, my last ounce of resistance crumbled. I've had 4 HTC phones and I loved them, so I'm going to stick with the EVO over the Droid (plus, I really like my Sprint service and pricing a lot and don't want to move to Verizon). The Samsung Galaxy, even with it's killer specs, has a smaller screen.

There will probably be a phone with a 4.3" AMOLED screen a 1.5 GHz processor next year, but as long as Gingerbread, the rumored Android 3.0 build runs on a 1 GHz phone, I should be in a good place until the next upgrade is available. But who am I kidding -- I'll probably want a new phone in a year. My Touch Pro 2 only lasted me 8 months before I got the EVO itch!

 

[Sam Posten]

Hanson have you even held an iPhone 4 in person yet?

 

[Sam Posten]

Originally Posted by Hanson Yoo

Is it a plus or a minus that you need to jailbreak an iPhone and void your warranty to do anything functional with it? Because I'm going with minus.

Now you are just trolling us/