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Review of HTC Desire As Alternative To iPhone
Andrew Smith writes "My search for an alternative to the iPhone has been long and frustrating. On paper, the HTC Desire is the first serious challenger to the iPhone's reign as king of phones. But how does it compare in use? There is much good and much bad. (This review is primarily for UK readers as HTC's new handset, the Incredible, will not be available [in the UK].)"
The iphone still rules the "total experience dept". Even after trying two android phones, I came back running.
FP?
Beautiful screen, Exchange integration works perfectly (even with the exotic configuration I have at work) and the widgets available are really cool.
Battery life is acceptable. Better than my last smartphone (N91).
There are some fantastic apps: Layar in particular is not only technically cool, it actually has a practical use.
Downsides:
1. Not all alls in App Market are available, including goodies like Google Earth. Though I hear that this'll be solved soon enough.
2. Keyboard is terrible when you need to write in multiple languages (in my case dutch & english). For English alone it's fantastic.
3. SMS, twitter dms, emails aren't integrated into one app. I'd love to see a single 'messaging center' for all apps (even if its just via a notification API or something). No idea if the iPhone / Palm can do this btw.
"The problem, you see, is that the iPhone is close to perfect. It feels solid, it looks pretty, and its screen responds to the slightest gesture."
Followed by..
"But it is hobbled by Apple’s super-tight approval process that...."
Don't you think, that the reason iPhones are close to perfect, is because of the super-tight approval process.... Not only in the App Store, but also in the build and design of it. Where other manufactures make something just good enough to sell, Apple go one step further.... The touch screen has to work perfectly, it has to feel solid, and the Apps that are available for it, better not let the whole experience down....
...however, take a peek at the N900. The screen is way better than a 3GS, Skype & IM integrate seamlessly, and there is no sleazy attempts to keep you from doing anything with your phone. Meamo 5 may be only, say, 75% done, but it's better than only being able to use 50% of the phone!
!Equality through palindromes semordnilap hguorht ytilauqE!
Why do people always refer to the iPhone and call every new smartphone "iPhone Challenger", "iPhone Killer", "iPhone Alternative"...
Many new smartphone are superior than the device from Cupertino. Why should I care how it compares to another phone unless I'd rather have that other phone.
That they have excellent hardware but their long term software support is as miserable as the rest of the industry.
Usually you get the phone, and as soon as you are out of the store, they dont see you as a customer anymore.
If you are lucky you get one quick bugfix update, and then you wait for ages and if you are lucky you get another software update.
The classical example this time is the HTC Hero, the top phone from them until January.
The Android 1.6 update was promised, than they said, they were going for straight 2.0 in january, then february March etc...
Now they have released the HTC Legend which is almost the same as the Hero except for the sensor instead of the trackball
and the aluminium casing, it has Android 2.1, well the result was to protect their Legend sales the Hero update again was postponed
to June. However in May Android 2.2 will be released.
All I can say is avoid this phone like the plaque go for the Nexus 1 which will get the software updates in time for the forseeable future unless you are willing to hack your phone open and use the community as software update center.
Actually the Hero will be my last non google branded phone. HTC has pulled the same stunt back then on the touch, and I should have been warned, now they are pulling the same stunt again with the Hero.
As for me I will run the Hero until the end of the year and then will go straight for what Google has to offer (hopefully a non HTC Nexus2)
HTC Desire is the first serious challenger to the IPhone
I'd like the author to elaborate about the many advantages of the IPhone over the Hero.
is in my opinion the Nokia 100, 1987, a 1G Candybar, what a phone, low power, good screen, nice feel, reliable, tough, easy... Maybe you are referring to the modern portable mobile computers that help us bring spamto ourselves in new and exciting ways?
Waiting for the other shoe to...
iPhone could still be #1 for a longer time if they switch the far superior CDMA radio band. GSM is sooo poor quality.
Review of HTC Desire as alternative to Apple iPhone
My search for an alternative to Apple’s iPhone has been long and frustrating.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve walked out of a highstreet phone shop, disappointed by devices that promised so much but turned out to be flimsy toys with sluggish software and unresponsive touchscreens.
Anyone who has similarly quested an escape from Apple’s grasp will know my pain!
The problem, you see, is that the iPhone is close to perfect. It feels solid, it looks pretty, and its screen responds to the slightest gesture.
But it is hobbled by Apple’s super-tight approval process that, for example, blocked Pulitzer Prize-winning work by satirist Mark Fiore, and kept customers waiting an astonishing 20 days for the popular Opera web browser to be allowed on to the device.
(Fiore’s work was eventually approved after much public outcry, while Opera rocketed to the top of the iPhone app chart with more than one million downloads in 48 hours.)
The latest, and most enticing alternative to the iPhone comes in the form of the Desire by Taiwanese mobile phone specialist HTC.
With HTC’s announcement on Friday that its next handset, the Incredible, will not be launched in the UK — and presumably not on the Continent either — it is likely that the Desire will remain as the iPhone’s main European rival for some considerable time.
Hyped as the world’s first superphone, the Desire is fast, beautiful, and its touchscreen is every bit as tactile and responsive as that on Apple’s handset.
At the heart of the Desire is Google’s Android operating system so it is near-infinitely customisable.
It is also out-of-stock across much of the UK after delivery flights were grounded by the volcanic ash cloud.
On paper, the Desire is the first serious challenger to the iPhone’s reign as king of phones. But how does it compare in use?
Red faces
The failings of the Desire hit you within minutes of first using it.
Its screen is bright and colourful indoors, but almost unusable in sunlight. This severely hampers all aspects of the phone, from sending texts to web browsing, to taking photos.
The touchscreen intermittently remains active during phone calls and it’s too easy to press the on-screen buttons with your ear. I’ve accidentally hung up on people dozens of times.
Sound quality during calls is noticeably worse than the iPhone. Both the earpiece and the speaker produce a feeble, tinny sound with a background hiss.
Used indoors, the Desire’s vivid screen is great for most apps, but when viewing photos or web sites you realise that the screen is severely over-saturated. People’s faces become beetroot red.
Open Android
Web browsing is a joy. Pages render quickly and accurately.
When you zoom in on a web page using the familiar un-pinch gesture, the Desire neatly re-formats text to your screen width for easy reading.
Built-in Google chat is a surprise boon, offering a free and instantaneous alternative to text messaging between friends.
The phone is advertised as a hub-in-your-pocket for social networking, yet support for Facebook and Twitter is incomplete and unreliable, at times missing entire blocks of messages.
Thanks to the open nature of the Android operating system, there is a myriad of alternative apps to replace the standard ones.
Antiquated list-style text messaging is easily upgraded to a free iPhone-style app with familiar speech bubble conversations.
There are superb free apps for Twitter, note taking, reading news feeds, and almost anything else you may want to do with a phone. Facebook apps are thin on the ground and quite poor, although a full-featured official Facebook client is persistently rumoured to
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
The submitter has it backwards. The Verizon Incredible is a US-only handset, this is a review of the near-identical device the rest of the world is getting. At any rate they're so similar that the review should be completely applicable, whatever the Verizon rep tries to tell you to excuse the laughable price.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
The phone has very good specs. It's fast, the screen is fantastic, and its dimensions are perfect for carrying in you pants' pockets. The only thing I'm disappointed in is the camera, in particular making movies (framerate).
The thing is, Android is what makes it incredible. You get so used to just about everything working perfectly, and to the fact that almost anything is possible, that when something isn't possible, it bugs you a lot!
Have to wait and see how HTC handles software updates...
I have HTC Legend. I was thinking about switching to Desire, but from what the guy is saying, Desire seems to be much worse phone than the Legend. I don't have problem with screen brightness, flash is working flawlesly and my battery runs up to two days (I can squeeze maybe three if I stay of the TowerDefence games). I'll be sticking with the Legend since it seems to me that it is much much better phone than the IPhone.
I use a Google Nexus, almost equivalent to the Desire, and I can recognize the battery drain. However, after a few weeks, the phone easily holds a day - probably because "moderate; use" is really "let's see what this device can do; use".
Also, some apps are written badly and consume a lot of power when in the background. If you are experimenting a lot with your phone, chances are big that you have installed one of these. There are two solutions:
1) Uninstall the bad apps.
2) Use a tool, like task killer, which can kill the bad apps when the screen turns off.
Additionally, if you are always online, and have enabled wifi, it will consume power. Quick solution: put a wifi on/off widget on your front screen, and keep wifi off under normal use.
Battery life is appalling. With moderate use I have to charge the Desire twice each day.
That's about what I get with my iphone using bluetooth and frequent mp3 playback. Annoying, I'd agree. But I think it'd be far less so in a device where I can just swap the battery out.
Everything will be taken away from you.
I mean, I know I'm not supposed to, but come on...
/. you're not even trying anymore.
oh my god... it's full of stars!
Smartphones are still too thick and heavy. The next generation of phones should be thinner than 1cm and lighter than 100 grams.
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I was considering getting an HTC Diamond (yeah I know, I'm a late adopter). But the real trick in China is to get a phone that supports 3G, GPS, and Wi-fi all in the same package. I'm similarly not an Apple worshipper, so no iPhone for me. Any hardware that fits the bill? All the mainland phones seem to be crippled and only have GPRS and Wifi instead of 3G.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
The "incredible" is not even released.
There are many phones that are already Android-powered and make the apple toy irrelevant.
- wifi tethering - the Droid does
- freedom to select an app steve jobs didn't approve with his pedophile priest - the Droid does
- open-source - the Droid does
Sorry iCrap, the Droid does...
E
Got an e-mail from my host (Pair) saying that my blog had been disabled due to a script problem. But it's just a Wordpress blog. I've re-enabled it and hopefully it'll stay up now. Sorry for those getting 403 earlier, or database failure now :-(
That's a rather subjective observation. My Android phone broke the other day, leaving me with my work phone (iPhone) as only phone for a week.
Kisisel Basari
Kisisel Gelisim
Genc Beyin
ilk Ögretim
Psikoloji
Kpss,ygs videders
Beden Dili
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Link give 403 forbidden.
I am finding that the biggest issue with the N900 is that it is being bought by people who think they are technically knowledgeable and are then finding that, basically, anything non-Windows is difficult. I went for it because it can ssl into my servers, and because the multitasking lets me run certain background applications that would never be accepted by Apple (they are our remote management tools.) So for me, as a developer, the N900 is a tool for which the iPhone could never be a substitute.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
To be honest, as a Desire user, I think this review is overly harsh.
While I do agree with the screen complaints (the OLED screen is all but unviewable in direct sunlight) and the battery life isn't great (although I find it'll last the day with moderately heavy use (and thats before dicking around with sync settings and other various battery-improving tweaks)), the other complaints I diagree with - for example I much prefer the chat system on the Desire to the bubble-style conversations of the iPhone although obviously other people will prefer things the other way (and they can install Handcent or one of the myriad other progams that will bring that functionality.
He complains that on the iPhone there is a button to bring up the menu for any given app - this is true, but there is no guarentee it is in the same place or clearely labelled on each program - with the Desire you always go to the same place allowing for a more consistent experience. Personally I find that the phone has just the right number of buttons, even if it is a few more than the holy iPhone (home, menu, back, search and then power and volume keys
The standard keyboard is a bit tricky to use in portrait mode due to key size (especially for me - I'm 6'5 and fairly stocky) however what it does offer is *choice* - quite apart from the landscape mode keyboard (which I believe iPhone now allows globally?) there are two other portrait keyboards you can use instead - compact QWERTY (each key has two letters as with some blackberries) and then a Phone keypad. One feature that impressed me is that if you have accidentally added misspellings to the dictionary (which I have done more than once) you can delete words individually rather than just resetting the user dictionary (which is certainly what you used to have to do with the iPhone, but I must admit my info could be out of date here.
I do not see any of the complaintes about the sound quality of the phone - the earpiece is typical smartphone (which is to say good enough but easily beaten by the old dedicated phone handsets) and the speaker is pretty loud. Of course you'd never want to listen to music with it, but its good enough for spoken word stuff (audiobooks and stand-up comedy in my case).
I don't agree with his complaints about the trackpad either, although to be fair I've not tried to use it with wet fingers so I can't comment on that, however I have seen no unusual behaviour with it either (and to be honest I don't use the track pad much anyway, It's served more use as a camera shutter button than it as as a navigation device - while its nice to have the choice I find the touchscreen is just much easier.
To be fair there are some things that do annoy me with the phone, but its all minor things - for example in the media player I would like that in the media player it was possible to navigate back up the tree, but thats not always an option (for example if you pick a track from 'first principles' (ie fire up app, select artist then album then track) you can do it, but if you just tap on the media player widget it takes you to the currently selected track but if you want to change you have to navigate from those first principles again (with the exception of pickig a different track from the same album.) but its a pretty minor complaint, and the other things that annoy me are all little things as well.
One thing that is an issue currently is that a lot of pay-for apps are as yet unupdated for Android 2.1 and are just not there in the app store, which is really irritating to be in a position to download say a 'free' (whether ad-supported or somehow limited) version, want to buy the complete version and its just not there. Lack of Google Earth is particularly annoying.
It's amusing that you are classing the discussions in this thread as coming from "babies" when yours is the first immature post I have come across. Everyone else has been discussing the pros and cons of the Desire vs the iPhone with relative lack of immaturity. And yes, there are clearly downsides to the iPhone, much like there are downsides to the HTC Desire, both of which have counterpoint upsides.
The trick is to find the phone where you have more "upsides" (on a person by person basis) than downsides. For some that will be iPhone, for others that will be the HTC Desire, or some other smartphone.
Anyway, I think it's time for you to do your homework, the adults are talking now.
There are thousands of alternatives. For example some1 wants to make phone calls, then pretty much every phone is good enough, including iPhone with could be considered viable option if not for its cheaper alternatives in voice calls. If he wants advanced contact management, then there is just a few competing in this field. If he wants good web browser, e-mail and instant messenger client then there will be a few as well. Some or all of those might cover iPhone, so people might go for it. But they certainly have alternatives. I for one decided to go with Android G1, as it had hardware QWERTY with was a big plus for me, but iPhone and WebOS were viable alternatives (and vice versa).
If someone wants all what iPhone has, ie he wants iPhone, not its features - then whats the point of looking for alternative? If its just the features, then I would say there is plenty of alternatives for individuals.
Pointless search is pointless.
Ah, the "total experience". The endless syncs with iTunes. Third party software like Senuti to try to work around Apple's idiotic restrictions. Having applications randomly disappear from your phone. OTA sync that doesn't quite work right. Getting basic functionality like cut-and-past wrong.
The iPhone could be a decent phone, comparable to Android. It's better in terms of looks, design, and responsiveness, and it's worse in terms of functionality, consistency, and sync. But Apple's idiotic restrictions make it simply unacceptable.
You're so cute. You're confusing the "desire" (exists) with the "incredible" (doesn't exist).
Immature is discussing or defending the discussion of stuff that hasn't been release.
(there's no such thing as "counterpoint upsides" lol).
Welcome to the modern world. Try not to invent English expressions OR hardware that don't exist.
E
You claim that the iPhone (in your opinion) is worse than Android, and yet give no reasons why you feel that way.
Off the top of my head (I have both):
You may not care, but many people do. And these aren't just obscure geek-issues.
Normally, I'd agree. But iPhone is different for several reasons. First, Apple copied a lot of the technologies on iPhone but markets the device as if they developed it themselves. Second, iPhone is getting popular enough that we're seeing the Windows effect: no matter how much it sucks, you may have to get one just because everybody else has one in order to be able to communicate. Third, and most importantly, Apple has been successful with a business model--locked application store and restricted development tools--that would be very bad if it caught on. Microsoft has already copied that model, but they don't matter much. If other companies switch as well, we're in trouble.
People care about the iPhone because the iPhone is very bad for the mobile phone industry. If you buy one, it affects me negatively.
As a Desire owner who's also played with the iPhone a fair bit, I think I'm pretty well-placed to judge this. It's fairly simple: the Desire is the better phone in almost every respect.
Additionally, I think the author of the article may have a faulty handset. Many of the problems he mentions having with the Desire are not an issue at all on my device. The supposedly oversaturated screen looks beautiful (put it side-by-side with an iPhone and see the difference), I've never had the touch screen remain active during a call, and the "tinny speaker" sounds great to me, giving far greater call quality than I've experienced on a iPhone. He's right that the screen can be difficult to see in bright sunlight, but I solved this problem by living the U.K.
iPhone pros
50/50
Desire pros
Some of the above will be added in the new iPhone OS, indeed I'm sure the hardware will catch up with (possibly overtake) most of the above too. So if you're a real Apple junkie it might be worth your while waiting for the summer. But if you're after the best smartphone available right now, I don't think there's really any competition.
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Static page should work:
http://www.meejahor.com/2010/04/23/review-of-htc-desire-as-alternative-to-apple-iphone/
Sorry again for all 403, 404 and database errors :-(
This link is still working.
http://www.meejahor.com/2010/04/23/review-of-htc-desire-as-alternative-to-apple-iphone/
Here's another opinion. As someone who _had_ an iPhone and went back to a $50 Nokia I'll tell you the iPhone is junk.
I think you meant to say:
As someone who _had_ a smartphone and went back to a $50 Nokia I'll tell you that I don't actually want or need a smartphone.
...because if you strip out the usual Apple-hater memes many of your criticisms apply to many smartphones (Battery life, lots of dross in the App store, features knobbled to appease carriers, bugs & crashing, halfbaked Bluetooth). NB: I use a HTC Hero, not an iPhone and, yeah, it shares many of your issues (plus some all of its own, like a halfbaked WiFi implementation with no proxy support and unreliable and slow reconnection) and a basic $50 cellphone would be more practical if you just wanted calls and SMS/MMS.
Apple's answer... use email or MMS. What if I'm sitting right next to the person and want to save some data charges? Nope. Use email or MMS.
One helpful hint: a smartphone without an unmetered data plan is as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike. If you don't want to pay for unmetered data don't bother with a smartphone (of any flavour).
Oh and thank you for not forwarding silly videos and pictures to all and sundry over the already overloaded cellphone networks. Social networking sites are there for a reason.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
Immaturity is calling your perceived opponents "babies" and calling products you don't like by deliberately derogatory terms.
The term "counterpoint upside" refers to the downsides I mentioned for each device.
Downside: made of stone, heavy
Counterpoint: won't rust, sturdy
Counterpoint here is broadly a synonym, and in the phrase "counterpoint upside" it is an adjective.
The original article was written by a guy in the UK comparing the iPhone to the Desire, since his point was that (when the Incredicle is released, as he notes) it will not be available in the UK. Thus, in a comparison article, the Desire is as good as it's going to get until more release information is forthcoming - ie, that it's a fair comparison, and not a comparison of the iPhone with an "older model that will soon be upgraded").
The point of the article was a side by side of the Desire vs the iPhone, with a note to UK users that the soon-to-be-released Incredible is not coming to the UK, so is not an alternative choice that needs to be considered at this time. There's no confusion at all here.
http://www.harrykey.com/blogs/the-htc-hd2-review-demon-phone/ ... reviewer has clearly never felt the wonder that is the hollow within a beautiful woman..
Blame the carriers as well.
I used to work as a software developer for a mobile phone manufacturer and was told by various people that phone software updates are more controlled by the carriers than by what the manufacturers or consumers want. Sometimes its a case of "the carriers wont fund the costs of porting to , therefore we wont do it". Sometimes its a case of "we have an update to for but we cant release it as our carrier partners havent signed of on it yet" or "its up to the carriers when this release happens"
Apple seems to be the only company to date who has told the carriers to go jump and taken over control of updates directly. Microsoft has hinted that they are going to do so for Windows Phone 7 also.
Personally, I think RIM should follow Apple and MS and tell carriers that firmware updates will go through RIM for future devices and not the carriers (and none of the big 4 US carriers could afford to not carry Blackberry devices due to its massive popularity so they would have to accept RIMs terms)
You've got to be kidding me. From someone that has owned an HTC phone, I can tell you that the iPhone wins hands down as far as I'm concerned. HTC doesn't have a clue when it comes to cell phones, they offer glitz over function, and I'm not buying into the glitz thing, I want functionality.
On paper, the HTC Desire is the first serious challenger to the iPhone's reign as king of phones.
If I had a nickel every time I heard that I would be able to retire. Who cares about beating the iPhone? It may be a big seller, but it still sells far fewer units than the rest of the smartphone market. The ONLY thing that the iPhone has done was to be the first phone to offer a fully integrated, easy to use smartphone experience that the average consumer could appreciate. It's been done dozens of times since then, and much better in many cases, but because Apple was the first one to truly simplify and bring smartphones to the masses they still get all the press. It's much like MP3 players, the iPod was by far the best but people just bought them. Or at least that's what they led us to believe.
Personally, I'm surprised that people overpay for such a restrictive bauble of a phone.
"total experience" if you ignore bad experience. The ONLY way you can have that statement as right is if you decide that the bad stuff isn't bad *for you* in *your opinion*. For others, the "total experience" of the iPhone is atrocious.
You'll find no other phone measures up... because it's not an iPhone. What kind of phone do you NEED?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Does she look better? Then that is the better model! ;)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Incredible multitouch is better than the N1:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/confirmed-droid-incredibles-multitouch-support-is-better-than/
Only geeks and some developers care about tyrannical control. End users just buy the phone, use it and download the apps from the app store. If you want to be 100% in control of your device, be it a phone or a computer then you don't buy a 'console'. The iPhone is comparable to a games console as it is locked down.
The average person doesn't care about emulators, terminal emulators and SSH.
The fact that the iPhone appears to have the best user experience seems to confirm that Apple have high standards and won't let people ruin that with lazy Adobe Flash to iPhone conversion tools.
is that Samsung has had the i8910 out for almost a year, and no one is talking about this really great phone.
I've got one, and the qualities are endless: ;P :D ;)
1) seamless video playback of up to 1280x720
2) video capture of 720p quality
3) excellent GPS
4) strikingly beautiful amoled screen
5) incredibly powerful graphics processor
6) symbian OS
7) Wireless support
8) front facing video camera
9) stereo speakers as well as normal headset input
10) DLNA server and controller
11) you can use it as a phone
12) being able to use skype through wireless with the phone instead of calling the person.. really nice
13) great community which is trying to improve it even further.
14) multi-task
15) copy paste function from beginning
- I'm probably forgetting some other bonuses.
The flaws so far are:
1) doesn't have multi-touch
2) you need to do some googling and software browsing on various websites to find and set up tools you'd like to use.
With this phone, I've got everything I could ever need in hand. It's my first one-cellphone-does-all item, and I'm liking it very much.
Eh, I won't buy Apple because there's no freedom outside of the company and whatever they want me to use! No thanks, I'm independent. the HTC Desire looks like a nice bit of kit, I'll probably be getting one from DubLi when it hits the streets.
Only a geek could have trouble seeing why an iPhone is considered superior to other smartphone platforms.
Geeks care about feature counts. A device with 100 features is considered superior to a device with say 75 features (lets ignore the issue where you could count each available app as a feature because then Apple would win hands down, we wouldn't have anything to argue about and well where's the fun in that?)
For non-geeks, just being able to use the device in the first place is a huge feature. This is where Apple wins. They make the user interface not only so easy but enjoyable to use that people stick with the device long enough to learn how to do other things on it. Back when Smartphones were new I knew some real estate agents and other professionals who had Treo's, Blackberries and Windows Mobile phones because they thought it would make them look more professional but they were never actually able to figure out how to use the devices beyond the phone and contact functions. Everything else on the devices was just too difficult for them to use, including installing 3rd party apps. Then here comes Apple with the first iPhone and its like the first Smartphone for normal people. To non-geeks the other devices really don't count as smartphones because they're so hard to use.
Android is actually pretty easy to use compared to Palm OS, Blackberry OS, Symbian and Windows Mobile. The problem for Android is the iPhone OS is still easier to use. That being said I fully expect Android to eclipse Apple in marketshare because its free for OEM's to slap on a phone and thus you can literally throw a free or low cost Android phone at people whereas Apple will probably never have an iPhone below $150 or $100 if they ever get down to that price point. Windows Phone 7 is also surprisingly promising but we need actual shipping product before any real verdicts can be said about that.
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
Google Voice was denied by Apple, from what I remember. However, I don't recall the reason–don't know if a reason was ever given. That is Apple's fault.
Google Maps with Navigation, that is Google's fault. They are the ones that have denied iPhone users that opportunity.
On a slightly different, but very related issue, it is funny how the people here often rail against Apple's managed platform, but not against Google's very aggressive collection of user data, for their own uses with Android. Very interesting and very funny to me.
that had a Treo 600, Treo 650, Treo 680, then Centro, let me say: No.
They did not do "everything modern smart phones" do, and for you to suggest that is just disingenuous. My iPhone required initial configuration to enter account information for calendaring, email, facebook, twitter, bank accounts, and a few other things, and after that, it stays immediately and permanently synced, without intervention. No need to plug it into a PC and synchronize. Palms did not do that.
My iPhone gives me access to my Dropbox account and lets me open most kinds of files and even edit MS Office files sitting in my Dropbox account. That means that I have continuous, on-the-go editing access to current project files from wherever I am, and whatever work I do on my iPhone is automatically available on any Mac or PC I happen to sit down at anywhere in the world. Palms did not do that.
My iPhone lets me download and install tens of thousands of applications immediately, without browsing the web, without having to connect to a PC, and with tons of rating information and screenshots about each of them to help me make up my mind. Further, when I select one, I just tap it and it's mine, no need to enter payment information, registration serial numbers, whatever. Palms did not do that.
My iPhone lets me browse the total web without needing "mobile versions" of even very complex pages. As a university instructor I can log into campus systems and do grading, rosters, posting to e-courses, etc. Palms did not do that.
My iPhone lets me use just about every social networking site on the go, from wherever I am. Palms did not do that.
My iPhone lets me use WiFi hotspots wherever I am without any fuss. Palms did not do that.
My iPhone gives me street-by-street positioning and navigation anywhere I go. It furthermore maps out where stores, businesses, gasoline, ATMs, and any number of other things are in relation to me, providing me "augmented reality" compass-based views to locate them. Palms sure as hell did not do that.
Now Android can do most if not all of these things (even if it does these more awkwardly and imperfectly and often requiring more user intervention to set them up), but Palms sure as hell couldn't, at least not before the Pre.
But by then I was already gone go iPhone.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
What are you smoking? Judging by the mod of 4 and 'insightful', it must be a group water pipe, filled with some really good shit.
http://erictric.com/2010/04/23/iphone-market-share-in-japan-surpasses-72/
The iPhone has 72% of the smart phone market share in Japan. However, even I take that with a grain of salt, because the definition of a 'smart phone' is even more confused than it is here. However, the iPhone has 4.9% of the total market, and growing.
However you cut it, seems to me that they are doing quite well in what may be the toughest mobile market in the world. A place that has destroyed attempts by others do the same thing.
This article and your comment are total bullshit! Just the Motorola Droid is far superior to any iPhone you can buy right now, you don't have to wait for the next Android to get something that totally humilliates any iPhone.
It's unfortunate but Slashdot is infected with either Apple fanboys that cannot see beyond their noses or Apple employees gaining their salary spreading wide bullshit news... sad.
Dear
is smoking crack. I am a multi-published developer and tech guy who's been in the industry since the days he was using a Sun 3/50 all-in-one 68k machine with SunOS loaded from DC600 tapes. I'm not tech-incompatible.
I spent days and hours frothing at the mouth because "in theory" the Palm "should" be able to do X, Y, and Z or because the Palm was "so close" do doing what I needed... and yet with all the hours and evenings spent trying to "just make it do this one little thing" that would make my life easier, the Palms always fell short. I always fell back into "well, what are you going to do, those are the trade-offs of mobile devices" thinking.
That has never happened to me with iPhone. I have spent damned near zero time configuring, syncing, hacking, installing, manipulating, and maintaining. It has just worked from day one and I have never found anything that I wanted it to do that it didn't do with a minimum of fuss and an almost stunning lack of impediment.
And anyone who says that Palm or Windows Mobile is more extensible than iPhone is smoking crack. Maybe you can put a bigger MicroSD card in a Palm, but there's damn near no point in filling it up with anything but music. And beyond that, there's no real extensibility there. You have half a dozen "usable" shareware apps to choose from (most of them $50-150 to register) and a whole world of utter, utter app crap in the Palm and Windows Mobile spaces.
iPhone on the other hand has excellent apps that universally cost less than $10, most less than $4, and that don't require registration, configuration, or tethered installation... not to mention that not one of them has yet caused me to go into spontaneous reboots, data loss, and other things requiring a factory reset and restore from backup, a regular occurrence with Palm that was a strong disincentive to actually install apps and try to make use of that "extensibility."
Basically anyone still arguing that there is nothing new with supersmartphones like iPhone or Android and that all of this could have been done before, and that people are just responding to "hype" or "shine" or whatever... Well, such people have far too much time on their hands to dick around with gadgets, and far too few real needs for those gadgets to actually work, or they'd know that previous gadgets in fact didn't, by and large.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I just recently got a Nexus One at about the same time my girlfriend got an iPhone. I don't know about the Desire, but I know that Google got fed up with other companies not implementing Android well, so they made their own phone as they envisioned it, and that's the Nexus One (it's the only phone they make, www.google.com/phone). It's very similar in design to the iPhone, but has a ton of stuff that I would prefer any day over the iPhone. Intimate integration with all google services, voice recognition, and an open app market make it much better in my opinion. Most other interactions are very similar to the iPhone, but to me it seems more polished.
If you want to see true Android, get a Nexus One. At least most people on Slashdot will find the feature set much more desirable than the iPhone, and it's overall price is actually slightly cheaper than the iPhone.
What swung it was Engadget riffing about integration with external services like Twitter/Facebook/etc - goes completely against Apple's principles, whereas Android actively works to do this.
I've been reading up on the Desire for the past couple of days, and funnily enough this is what really swung me against the phone. I don't want lots of social network integration. I don't want lots of integration with Google's cloud services. I deliberately avoid putting lots of data in the cloud and relying on third party services normally, so why would I want my phone to do this?
I want a phone that, first and foremost, makes calls well (good quality mic/speakers, simple controls for things like muting and conferencing people in). It also needs to handle messages well (good keyboard, good management of past messages, easy and ad-free integration with my e-mail systems) and manage contacts well (good address book, speed dialling).
There are plenty of other PDA features I wound find useful on a mobile device, but I want them to be generic and open. I'd like a calendar/alarms, but it's not worth much if it only syncs with MS formats and Google Calendar. Apps to do things like time zone conversion would be useful in my case, and a web browser is a useful addition and completely generic, but I don't need the bloat of lots of preconfigured apps on day one that tie in with specific services I will never use. (I appreciate that others would find this useful, and the right phones for me and for them will be different.)
Unfortunately, almost anything running Android seems (unsurprisingly, given Google's involvement) to be heavily biased towards lots of on-line working that I don't want. The iPhone is a non-starter because of Apple's closed system and their apparent willingness to append their own marketing to messages (hardly a professional image for a work phone!). So I'm back to looking at the established PDA brands again.
That's too bad, because the screen on the Desire looks really impressive, at least for those who don't want to use it in bright sunlight. It seems like small format mobile devices are finally pushing the envelope for high resolution full colour display technology in a way that only things like high-end medical imaging have done in the past. When they make a 24" widescreen version of that AMOLED screen, sign me up. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I imagined it was as well for two years after the release of the iPhone, based on my previous experience with smartphones. Then, when my unlocked retail Centro developed dead keys for the second time, I finally went to the local AT&T store and tried an iPhone. I took it home on a Saturday and figured I'd probably return it by Monday.
Instead, by Monday I'd bought $40 worth of apps (dozens of them for an amount that would have netted me a single app in Palm space), and was beyond hooked. The iPhone unexpectedly revolutionized my life. My personal file access system went from a complex mix of scripts, USB flash storage/readers, and tethered syncs to completely cloud-based. For the first time ever, electronic calendaring for my personal tasks and to-do lists actually justified the time required to maintain and synchronize these (i.e. no time at all). Everything changed.
I had been trying to use PDAs since the original Newton. I'd owned Palms, Clios, Stylistics, every manner of Windows CE and Windows Mobile devices, phones, and smartphones, subnotebooks, and any other portable device imaginable, always looking for The One that would finally bring the promise of mobile, cloud-based computing to fruition.
I unexpectedly found it in iPhone. And now you couldn't even pry it out of my cold, dead hands.
Sorry, but it's not about hype. It's about functionality, pure and simple. The others promised it for two decades. The iPhone actually delivered it, and did so in fact with a minimum of hype, to my eyes. They could have spent a lot more time touting a lot of things it does. Instead, they let glowing reviews and wild word of mouth carry it to the top.
And I recommend the iPhone to anyone that asks, because it's just THAT GOOD.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Plus, it's easy to develop for (with Qt) and has IR, FM transmitter, and all sorts of neat toys.
Its fatal flaw is that it is Nokia's bastard child, unloved and unsupported. Ask your local n900 owner about Nokia's maps. Have a tissue ready; he will cry unashamedly. The head of Symbian development at Nokia must be GREAT in the sack, because every single good thing for Nokia's phones (Ovi Maps 3, better Exchange support, etc.) comes to the Symbian phones.
I love my phone. I can VNC into work, I can tether to my laptop, I get good battery life and can write any app I want (though not as easily as with Android, I admit.) But I'm seriously considering ditching it for the Next Big Thing in Android. The hardware is a gold mine, but the maps are terrible.
be using Android. But anyone that suggests that there is no difference between the current generation of capacitive touchscreen "supersmartphones" and previous generations of mobile phones and tethered/sync smartphones... they have simply never spent any time using iPhone/Android, and come off as clueless and uninformed.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
CE PDA just two nights ago. It's an NEC MobilePro 900 that I used to use because the Palm's couldn't hack it for mobile editing. The thing has a USB port, but it won't see flash drives. It has a micro-USB port for syncing, but after installing ActiveSync in my Windows XP VM, it wouldn't connect. So I dug out an old Cisco PCMCIA 802.11b card and slid it into the slot. But it wouldn't connect with my 802.11g network. :-(
I beat on it for hours before finally remembering that I could take the CF card out of my camera, slide it into a PCMCIA CF reader on the MobilePro, copy the files to CF, then put the CF card in a card reader on my Linux PC via USB, to copy off the files. Yay.
Once on my Linux box, I just dropped the .doc files in my Dropbox folder and they were then immediately accessible and editable on my iPhone, and any changes I save on my iPhone are immediately accessible and available on my Linux desktop in my Dropbox folder.
My Palm Centro with an aftermarket (for $35) file manager shared many of the same difficulties in getting files on and off... For all the bitching and moaning about iPhone capabilities (or lack thereof), it's a damned sight easier to work with the iPhone, including doing things like "getting files on."
The fact is, they don't have to be on. With iPhone, I just edit them in the cloud, and they're automatically copied down to, backed up on, and automatically synchronized with the same files across all of my regular computers (a Mac at work, a Linux machine at home, several PCs in the departmental offices, and of course my iPhone).
Sorry, but the belittling of complaints that you see is often because the complaints appear to be based in total irrational ignorance of iPhone's capabilities, and not in reality.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
There are reasons why you all don't run companies and instead just bitch about the offerings; you have no vision and are oblivious about how the real world operates. Aside from the probably 0.0001% of the market that /. represents, no cares about most of the things that you all care about. Get a clue, companies want to create things that people buy. If create a widget that gives me a 80% profit and I'm selling millions, get a clue, I don't care if 0.0001% don't like that I don't allow them to do x,y,z. You do not dictate the market to me, I dictate it to you. I might listen to you from time to time, but mostly I just put my mighty marketing prowess into overdrive and tell you what you want; and you slurp it down like the good little consumers that you are. So suck it up, be sure you swallow, open your wallets, and enjoy the devices I give you.
-A thoughtful CEO
I researched long and hard before I bought my iPhone a couple months ago. I had been using some form of Palm device for about 15 years; the last two of which were a model of Treo. The bottom line is that I needed NON-EXCHANGE-TYPE access to calendars on mail servers. Specifically, I have a Zimbra FOSS mail server for my family, and a Zimbra NE server at work (which handles 2 companies). I didn't want either server to be "canonical," so I refuse to use ActiveSync and let it "take over" all of the PIM functions of the phone. For calendars, I use CalDAV, and the iPhone has KILLER CalDAV support. (I use a Funambol server at home to sync contacts, and the Zindus plugin to make them work with Thunderbird, though SyncEvolution works almost as well with Evoltion.)
Neither the new WebOS-based Palm phones, nor any of the Android phones I can find, have any support for CalDAV. At all. How this situation exists, I have no idea, but I don't care. The iPhone has been great. However, I am one of those people who has used Linux on the desktop for about 11 years now, and I'm watching and waiting for an Android phone that will integrate with my collaboration servers as well as an iPhone. When this happens, I'll give the iPhone to my wife. Heck, I'd pay an early-termination fee to switch providers if the Sprint Evo could do it!
Acts 17:28, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being."
I don't have most of these problems with my Nexus One. The voice/sound quality is much better than my old iPhone. The sunlight glare is still an issue, though. I'm just curious, have you tried the Nexus One? I love it! Never buying Apple again!
Android phones can install swype keyboard...
Faster than crackberry physical keyboard if you can spell LOL
After getting used to it, its become a must have feature on touch keyboards IMO. Hunt and peck on touchscreen kb (capacitive or not) seems so primitive and slow now....
Only drawback is that its tricky to use when you're drunk :) but theres nothing stopping you from using it like a normal KB.
I had a whole long comment written out and then my vaio touchpad went spaccy and closed chrome...
I was trying to say how awesome the N900 is, but that's rather knocked the wind out of my sails.
Go buy one, they're great.
Android is nothing but a poor copy of the iPhone. Android was purchased by Google as an alternative to Windows Mobile and the 1st versions looked like Windows Mobile. Now they have made it a poor copy of the iPhone OS with substandard hardware. Look at all the hardware issues of the HTC made Nexus One. Rock solid huh? In the meantime Google still can't figure out how to segregate app and storage space and thus allow more than a few hundred MB of apps to be installed and run. Some smartphone. This argument about Apple controlling too much is foolish. People who say this are apparently completely unaware that Google has locked Android down tight. They do not allow access to the most important functionality of the OS. All code reviewers work for Google, meaning that Google is the only authority that can accept or reject a code submission from the community. There is also a rampant NIH (not invented here) culture inside Google that assumes code written by Googlers is second to none. Ask anyone who’s tried to contribute a patch to Android and you hear the same story: very few contributions get in and often no reason is offered on rejection. The public SDK source code is by no means sufficient to build a handset. Key building blocks missing are radio integration, international language packs, operator packs – and of course Google’s closed source apps like Market, Gmail and GTalk. There are a few custom ROM builders with a full Android stack like the Cyanogen distribution, but these use binaries that are not licensed for distribution in commercial handsets. The visibility offered into Android’s roadmap is pathetic. At the time of writing, the roadmap published publicly is a year out of date (Q1 2009). To get a sneak peak into the private roadmap you need Google’s blessing. In short, it’s either the Google way or the highway.
By making the battery non-removable, Apple can make it larger and hold more of a charge. The thinking is that most people will be able to charge the thing pretty readily at some point during their day, and they'll be ready to move on to a new phone by the time the old battery wears out. That sucks for people like you, who don't have ready access to a plug all the time. But that's the tradeoff Apple's made. So unfortunately, your choice is to suck it up and live with the problem, or buy some other phone.
One thing I will point out: if you really, really want the iPhone, but can't deal with the lack of a second battery... they make external batteries for the thing. You can get models that connect to the dock port via a lead, or models that consist of an iPhone case with an external battery built in. Either way, kinda clunky and not for me, but better than nothing.
That's pretty funny. I have a WinMo phone and my wife has the HD2. I've seen some of those issues the review talks about. The thing about Windows Mobile phones is that they are basically tiny PCs, and that's the best and worst thing about Windows Mobile.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Because anyone who's been to Japan is automatically more trustworthy on this subject than actual DATA (which, famously, is not the plural of anecdote).
Guess what! I've been to Japan too! But I'll be signing up for the actual statistics, rather than yours or my random impressions.
Oh, spare me. That sentence would be just as true if you substituted "Windows" for "Mac". It would almost be true if you substituted "Linux" (the difference being that it's essentially impossible for a non-geek to modify Linux to do something different than what, say, Ubuntu wanted them to do). Mac makes it hard for newbies to customize by design (which in your book apparently == "crippling the device"). Windows makes it hard for newbies to customize/cripples the device by making it confusing. Linux does some of each, with proportions varying by distro.
I use all three OS's, and I'm just as annoyed by OS fanboys as anyone. But you know what's just as annoying? OS trolls.
... and I agree that a lot of the specs on the iPhone were, well, lame. The 650 did do more than than the iPhone did on release. But dude, the iPhone was released a while ago now, ok? Some particulars:
Yep, you're right. iPhone 3.0 addressed this - while the IM application doesn't literally run in the background, it does get "push notification"... which is more-or-less equivalent for IM. Works fine.
Yeah, and I didn't buy an iPhone until they fixed that. Which they did. A couple years ago.
Some of the criticisms are (IMHO) legitimate - the IMAP idle thing, Apple's ultra-rigid control of the App Store. But a lot of the stuff you're talking about is pretty outdated at this point.
Some of the things you mention really are obscure geek issues (non geeks object to using iTunes? Complain about the lack of multitasking? Really?)... but a lot of this stuff is a genuine pain in the ass. One you didn't mention: the absolutely worthless lock and home screens. The lock screen has nothing but the time and date, and the home screen has nothing but an array of application icons and the time. No useful information or functions are allowed to appear in either place. Why? Because Steve said so. Don't like it? Tough shit.
For the time being I'm going to continue with the iPhone, but if things don't improve in the fairly near future, I may be in the market for an Android phone.
Got mine last week. Have not used an iPhone yet but know it from friends. The biggest advantage I can see on side of the iPhone is the sheer number and quality of accessories on the market especially cases and the like. The selection for the Desire is very limited yet. Screen is fine. Apps are fine for what I need. Sound quality is fine. Don't have the problem with the ear setting off something while talking on the phone. Battery drain is proportional to what you do e.g. heavy use of internet will make you recharge daily but having it lying around as a dumb phone will give you 3 to 4 days I guess. That is similar to the HTC Tytn I lost last year. I did not find any (sensible) use for the widgets yet. I find it far more comfortable to right go into the app than to use a limited widget which will open the app anyway if touched a little to long. Waste of screenspace mostly. I blame the quality of those widgets. The concept itself has potential. I was first going for a Legend cause of the look and feel of the Unibody but since had the Desire in my hands I do net regret anything. Looks very elegant and feels solid. A softbutton for Menu and Back would be nice because the physical ones are way harder to press than the slight touch of the screen which can be an issue when using the device one handed. The included 4 GB SD-Card is too small though. I leaves you only 1.6 GB left upon first start. That's plenty for apps but not for music or pictures or as a mobile data store. The 32 Gigs of the largest iPhone are something else here. To come to an end: The Desire is a great smartphone. Buy it if you don't want an iPhone! You won't regret.
So if android is so open why does the Desire not have 'root' access ? Again 'jailbreaking' is required. I got a Desire last week since I needed new phone contract.... guess where it is going ... straight on ebay. It's good but it's not open and its not an iphone killer
I've been using a nokia 5800xm for about 12 months now and I love it. I don't find myself envying my wife's i-phone at all. I'm able to use well-known GPS software, have F-Secure's security suite, and can use a micro-sd card. There are a lot of choices out there.
"That has never happened to me with iPhone. I have spent damned near zero time configuring, syncing, hacking, installing, manipulating, and maintaining. It has just worked from day one and I have never found anything that I wanted it to do that it didn't do with a minimum of fuss and an almost stunning lack of impediment."
Being pretty much locked into AT&T I have considered an iPhone. My wife and son recently got one each so I spent a few hours yesterday to see if it was a suitable replacement for the WM phones I have always had. The main things I want to do are media and email - I could care less about twitter and facebook.Oh yeah, and make phone calls.
I used to manage my wife's phone from my computer so installed itunes and signed on with her login. I had to deauthorize and reauthorize my computer to do so since I had installed itunes in the past to work with my son's jailbroken itouch. I found out she only has one computer left for authorization now since she has her home and work desktops, the family media PC, and now my PC authorized. At least there's one left she can authorize her laptop. As someone coming from cooked ROM WM phones, this was almost unbearable, but I perservered.I really loved how when I was about to install a free app it informed me that all her existing apps, including many paid ones, would be deleted. Needless to say, I did not install any.
I have a large library of avis. I know an iPhone will never, ever be able to play one, so I went ahead and started the hours-long conversion of one to mp4 format while I investigated the other features. Besides watching movies, I mainly listen to audiobooks and read ebooks and have a large collection of m4b and pdb files. It took me well over an hour to figure out I could not load either of these types of files from my computer via iTunes. Perhaps there is a way to do this but after googling for a good while and just messing around, I could not figure it out.
After the movie was done converting, I did get it loaded with the (to me) convoluted itunes process. When I watched the vid it filled up the center 2/3 of the screen. I could find no way to increase the size of the vid to fill the screen. I did find that after the first few minutes of the video you lose all control except to change the volume and exit the application, but it does retain the position for the next time you enter. I thought this was so strange that I took the phone to her computer (so I could actually load an app) and looked around in the app store for media players. I found three (woohoo!) including GOM player, which I use on a PC and consider an excellent media player, but the iphone app for it appears to only be a search engine for japanese videos that only play in the regular media player. WTF? Is there no decent video player for this thing, either?
So, the iphone failed, for me, on every "smart phone" function I would want it for.
I found that the iPhone had indefensible flaws, periodic lag and slow app loading which would mar the otherwise slick nature of the interface. Running one app at a time was indefensibly stupid considering the hardware capability, and especially when the G1/Magic were capable of this with a slightly slower cpu and much less RAM. Consider doing something as trivial as having a chat program, twitter and facebook app logged in whilst checking a web link quickly. A pocket computer that can't multitask? Deal breaker for me.
... Hmm so after all this Android lag is merely because Linux has always gotten a bit funny without swap?
So I 'upgraded' to a HTC magic just after they came out which incidentally costed about half what my iPhone 2G for about 90% of the spec. Stock Android wasn't that good at the time, but I like how aftermarket ROMs make the phone feel with improved speed and features like multitouch, screen accuracy and vastly improved camera image quality.
Oh and it's Linux, root access allows the ARM core is overclocked 384mhz -> 528mhz and I enabled a swap partition on a fast SDHC card
Multi-tasking is so indespensible to me now that I cannot go back to a iPhone. An Open platform is a killer feature, and not for any ethicial reasons. Aftermarket software modification is the principal benefit, ultimately a Android phone can now do more (such as easy tethering - your Android phone is a instant usb ethernet gateway), there are things in the Android market that now are not available in the iPhone app store. I might not even bother with a new handset as Android 2.1 will be backported to existing handsets soon.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
My missus recently changed mobile phones and went for the iPhone; she likes it and gave me her iPod Touch.
The Touch is a neat little music player with some nice Internet apps, but I was pleased I got to mess about with it first because when I changed mobile phones, I went for the HTC Hero - and I'm happy with it.
Here's why HTC and Android wins for me:
1. iTunes - I have a large music CD collection that I've MP3ed onto a network drive, far bigger than the Touch's 16GB capacity. Therefore, whenever I sync to the Touch, I want to copy just the music I select and I *don't* want iTunes touching the original MP3s, though I don't care what it does to the files copied to it. However, iTunes seems to like messing around with the original MP3s and, despite being a long term Windows & Linux person, iTunes "scares" me because I never really know if it's going to delete the original music collection. Compare that to the HTC where I can just mount it as a disk and copy the files to it manually, or use MediaMonkey in Windows.
2. Linux - you have to use iTunes to do anything useful with a Touch or an iPhone, and iTunes doesn't run natively on Linux.
3. OS agnosticism - one reason I changed phones in the first place was to escape being locked into a single OS since I use Windows and Linux equally. Having owned a Windows Mobile phone previously, I had to use ActivSync and Outlook to sync anything to the phone - going to the iPhone would have been just as restrictive. With Android, the syncing to Google apps and mail is transparent, it doesn't care about Windows or Linux, it just does it.
Maybe the iPhone does have a slightly neater interface but I don't think Android is far behind and I'm waiting to see the imminent new Android release. But I am more than happy to sacrifice eye candy for a more open platform and I therefore don't regret not going for iPhone.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I went with the Iphone to manage my networks. It became immediately necessary to hack the phone in order to get the applications / tools that I needed. After a day of config and cracking, I ended up with a phone that can bluetooth to an external Freedom folding keyboard (for real typing). I purchased the N900 running Maemo (linux debian based, I think). I've gotten most things working like I want on that, but have not been able to migrate completely yet, mostly due to a lack of time. I like the freedom the N900 provides as far as not being required to hack the phone. I'm still trying to get NX Client to run on it bug free. The only problem I have with the N900 is that it does not support 3G with ATT since it does have have the frequency capability.
The onscreen keyboard is also easily fixed, since there are lots of alternatives available. I use SlideIT.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
I've read the same kind of review for almost any Android smartphone over the past year. They all start by how the iPhone is so awesome and "close to perfect" (really ?? oO ) and how [insert reviewed Android phone] is so cool and it's better because it's open but for whatever classified reason over some parts of the GUI it's not as easy as the iPhone herego not goo. All of this is narrow-minded crap and once was enough thanks. I mean who would give credit to someone saying the iPhone is "close to perfect" ?
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Unless you jailbreak it
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
My search for an alternative to Apple’s iPhone has been long and frustrating.
Why? What's wrong with the Motorola Milestone/Droid in that respect?
On paper, the Desire is the first serious challenger to the iPhone’s reign as king of phones.
Really? Is the Desire that old, or is the reviewer just misinformed?
Its screen is bright and colourful indoors, but almost unusable in sunlight.
Isn't there an autobrightness option somewhere? My Milestone is perfectly usable in sunlight. Except when autobrightness mysteriously managed to turn itself off.
Really, the biggest issue with my Milestone is that various features seem to be turning themselves on or off by themselves.
The touchscreen intermittently remains active during phone calls and it’s too easy to press the on-screen buttons with your ear. I’ve accidentally hung up on people dozens of times.
I don't think that's happened to me, but my Milestone has on occasion called someone all by itself. It only did that when I just had it, so maybe I learned not to do whatever it was that caused that.
Sound quality during calls is noticeably worse than the iPhone.
On the Milestone, sound quality is excellent, and people on the other side of the phone call tell me it's a lot better than the iPhone on their end.
when viewing photos or web sites you realise that the screen is severely over-saturated. People’s faces become beetroot red.
That's bad. On the Milestone, the screen looks pretty much perfect all the time, except when autobrightness managed to turn itself off again.
The on-screen keyboard is more fiddly and auto-correction is often silly.
This is unfortunately also true for the Milestone. Although I've turned autocorrection off, it still keeps turning "wel" into "we'll". I don't know what mind-bogglingly stupid idiot thought that could possibly be a good idea.
Battery life is appalling. With moderate use I have to charge the Desire twice each day. The phone loses around a fifth of its charge just sitting on the bedside table overnight.
I have on occasion had a half-full battery be dead the next morning, probably because my Milestone occasionally fails to turn itself off properly (it will keep the lockscreen on indefinitely, and it loves going to the lockscreen when you try to turn it off -- by far its most silly and unnecessary bugs). Most of the time, however, battery life is excellent. I should recharge every day, but when I forget, I can usually use it for the next day with little trouble.
My impression from the review is that the HTC Desire is a decent enough attempt, but still flawed in comparison to the Milestone.
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