HTC desire, iPhone for or X10?

Rev

As the title says really, would appreciate some opinions as to which of the above is best?

Please could you offer some reasons behind why you're saying a particular phone too? I appreciate 'HTC all the way...' type replies, but it doesn't actually give me any pros and cons.

Oscar_The_Grouch

Hi there

The iPhone has 3 main drawbacks:

1. It's micromanaged by Apple
2. It's having signal reception issues at the mo
3. It's expensive

There's nothing you can do about drawback 1, but it does mean that nothing you load onto your iPhone should ever contain a virus; Apple's micro management means that they test and retest everything before it's allowed onto the App Store.

Disadvantage 2 is supposed to be something to do with the way the system manages the frequency it's using. An update is expected in a week or so, which should resolve the issue. It would be worth waiting to see what happens on that score.

With 3, the benefit is that they do hold their price and re-sale values are great.

The iPhone advantages are:

1. App Store
2. Ipod
3. Interface
4. The "I want one" effect

The App Store is brilliant. There is no need to go anywhere else (you can't anyway) for any of the apps you may want. There's loads of free stuff, including sat nav, games, business bits and bobs, social networking and lots more.

I don't have an iPod. My kids do and every radio in the house has an iPod dock, as do some of the TV's. Sharing music and video has never been easier.

Apple have done everything they can to make the interface as slick as possible. It's widely accepted as one of the most user friendly phone interface available.

The last benefit is also the reason why I want one. If you turn round to someone and say "I've got a Windows Mobile" or "My HTC Desire is great", who cares? If you say "I've got an iPhone", it becomes a talking point. People want to see it, touch it, have a play with it and either admire or tell you why you shouldn't have bought it. Other people with iPhones will want to see what apps you've got for it.

My current phone is a Windows Mobile. It's great. It does what I need it to. It's got lots of memory, Mobile Office, Tom Tom, games and lots of great features. It's biggest failing: it's not an iPhone.

4743hudsonj

HTC Desire

Pros:
-Its very fast
-Very functional
-Openness - Lots of customisations and non market apps
-Very nice display - OLED looks gorgeous
-Android is becoming more and more advanced and polished, 2.2 will offer full flash support and the ability to make your phone a wifi hotspot natively. The future 3.x updates also looks very nice with some developments being shown at google I/O.
-Android market supposedly has more free apps (and most, if not all the useful ones of app store)
-Expandable memory with sd card
- Htc sense, most love it, it takes the standard 'vanilla' ui of android and makes it look fantastic

Cons:
-Battery life isnt the best, ive coped with it and always gotten a full day out of it and maybe 2 dependant on use though.
- Its still not quite iOS4 "polished"
-Android market isnt as big as apples
- Stock is terrible, hard to find
- Still expensive considering the iphone 4
-Internal space is nothing to brag about
- custom ui means slower updates than stock android devices like nexus one.


Song X10 (obviously still android so pretty similar to above)

Pros:
-Very large nice screen
-Nice but somewhat odd ui
-fast

Cons:
- Ui takes getting used too
- Not as customisable as htc sense

Iphone

Which one?

lozzaman

Agree with the above post by 4743hudsonj, though don't forget the X10 is still on Android 1.6 and their custom UI does seem to slow what should be a very fast phone down. S.E have an unproven record with Android software updates so far and from their excellent build quality of 5 years ago, they slipped for a while.

Have you also thought about the new Samsung Galaxy S?

What is it you are looking in a phone? I really would have a play with the phones if you get a chance. I love the Desire (mainly because it runs Android to be honest) and still cannot see what the fuss is about the iPhone other than the expansive app store and the fact the devices are very, very stylish. I find the interface a little bit too simplistic and there's all this popping in and out of apps all the time and the absolutely appalling notification system. Admittedly I've never used iOS4 though. The browser also wastes space in that I can't find a way to get rid of that top and bottom bar.

Android also managed notifications, in my opinion, in a much better way. There is a bar at the top of the screen which you can slide down which shows any missed calls/new messages etc, along with network information and any applications running that report to this bar. I use a Shoutcast internet radio player that uses it as well as one of the widgets I use, which shows battery information reports to the top bar.

Rev

Thanks for the replies.

I have a iphone 3G which is obviously a few years old technology wise. And am looking to upgrade. The iPhone 4 is very tempting since I love my 3G but the signal problems and price put me off. Plus the fact that (for me personally) you have to jailbreak it to see its full potential. I love the convenience of the app store and cydia, since there literally is an app for everything. But I'm not sure I can justify paying £500 for a phone with signal issues (especially since there's no news of a fix out yet). I find the 3G very simple to use, the UI is smooth and intuitive. But it's far from perfect, no bluetooth, no customisation options etc.

I've never had a HTC phone and have no experience with android but it can't be over looked since it's widely considered one of the best, if not the best phone on the market right now. With the HTC, how to you get applications on there? Is there a store type thing, or do you download from the net and install that way?

As for the sony, I'm a bit of a sony fan girl, have had a lot of sony phones and loved them all, but in terms of looks, the X10 is the one I find most appealing.

Whatever phone I decide to go with I'm planning on keeping for a good few years so want a do all phone with regular updates and a lot of applications to keep me interested. I've had a lot of phones in the past, but get bored after a few months because there's nothing new about them (of that makes sense).

I'm not a fan of Samsung at all, had a few over the years and always hated them. Thanks for the suggestion though,

DCFC79

The iphone cant do flash whereas the desire can, cant really say anymore except id go for desire, x10 then iphone,

maxtweenie

Rev wrote: »

Thanks for the replies.



I've never had a HTC phone and have no experience with android but it can't be over looked since it's widely considered one of the best, if not the best phone on the market right now. With the HTC, how to you get applications on there? Is there a store type thing, or do you download from the net and install that way?

There's an icon on the phone that takes you directly to the Android Market where they can be downloaded directly. As Android is open source, there are lots of Android Apps on lots of other sites though, unlike Apple where they're only in the one place. You can either download these by going directly to the various websites from your phone, or you can use the barcode scanner to take you directly to the app by scanning the QM code from any PC. There may not be as many apps as on an iPhone, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. You don't really need 27 different McDonald's Finders anyway.

lozzaman

HTC (and any Android phone) has the Google Market, which is like the app store. You can load applications on from elsewhere, but the market is the easiest. The only thing to note is some applications will not work under Android 1.6, hence I would steer towards the HTC until Sony release their update to Android 2.1/2.2

Apple claim the new iPhone cannot be jailbroken. I'm sure this isn't true, but why use something you feel you need to jailbreak in the first place?

4743hudsonj

The android market is very similar to the app store, the same thing just with different ui.

You click to download and it behind downloading in the background (appears at the top in the notifications blind)


You can however install apps downloaded off the net which is nice but is at your own risk.

Rev

lozzaman wrote: »

Apple claim the new iPhone cannot be jailbroken. I'm sure this isn't true, but why use something you feel you need to jailbreak in the first place?

IOS 4 has already been jailbroken, so I assume it's just a matter of time before the ip4 is jailbroken.

Why use something I feel the need to jailbreak? Because I can lol. I like to faf with things, if I get the HTC I'll mess with the firmware, plus jailbreaking gives you access to cydia, and once again a whole more heap of apps.

The battery on thr HTC wont bother me, as I'm used to an iphone battery and I doubt it can get worse lol.

I'll have to have a play with all three and see which I prefer.

4743hudsonj

Well android has rooting, which means you can do anything and everything with it. XDA seem to love pumping out roms for the desire. Anything from faster updates to camera upgrades.