iPhone 3GS or Android Phone

strikarz

I've used both the iPhone4 & Samsung Galaxy S2... they're both pretty much exactly the same, with the S2 edging it in terms of speed.

The Samsung is far better value and at the very least just as good.

The 3GS is old.

horngkai

BlueFox wrote: »

I have to disagree with you there, you can do pretty much anything most people would want to do with a smartphone on an iPhone - ie, browse the internet, email, text messaging, make calls, take photos, check the weather, use calendar etc etc.

In fact the only thing you can't do is watch flash based video but this is less of a problem than it used to be as website owners are making video in different formats to combat this.

Everyone has their own opinion on this subject & there is no right or wrong, just whatever suits you best. If you don't like Apple or the iPhone then don't get one.

What I don't get is why so many people have to slag off anything with the Apple logo on - is it jealousy?

There are nothing you can't do on a smartphone that you can't do on android, wm7, iOS. However, for the other smartphone that does not have an apple on the back, you save quite a lot of money from buying the phone itself. You continue to save money from having lots of apps (often free) from 3rd party producer that are not able to produce those useful apps as apple would not allow them to do so, but decided instead to copy them and put them on iOS5 (after years of them being available to other platforms)....

jealousy? Not at all.... Much rather have my money in my pocket than Steve Jobs'....

I do agree however, this is a choice that ppl have to make themselves. If you want a phone that works, pretty much any smartphones out there will do what you want. Just decide on how much you want to pay and whether you want to have the so call 'apple status' that some people seems to think its all that matters....

By the way, most reputable smartphones will 'just work' straight out of the box, even iphone (doesn't need itunes to activate soon).... No point asking for others opinion as you will always get into a iphone Vs Android battle which would neva ends. This is how technology world works, they will not stop copying each other... Just sit back, relax, and enjoy as the end user with all the choices available to us. :T

horngkai

Idiophreak wrote: »

I'm kinda bored of debating this on these boards, but what the hell.

"Just works" isn't just marketing speak, it's a measure of ease of use, intuitive interfacing and slick display.

A child being able to use it isn't enough.

Your child would become frustrated by the ridiculously poor battery life on the Desire HD. They'd have to disable most of the features and all of the nice UI tweaks to enable them to call you when they were going to be late home.

They'd get annoyed that their "superior" handset has horrific bugs around facebook integration and would get fed up of being unable to reply to messages that are sent to them.

They'd be envious of iPhone users who's Camera Roll loaded instantly, scrolled flawlessly, who could skip back and fourth between photos instantly - they'd look at their HTC sitting and caching and jerking back and forth and think "wow, this is just rubbish".

Then, in all probability, your child would ask you to take back your HTC Desire HD and provide them with a phone that "just works" in the same way all their friends' iPhones do...

(I have to say, however, that the idea the iPhone "just works out of the box" is a mick take - you can't even turn it on until you plug it in to iTunes - that's a serious issue)

Again, no point saying which one is better....

Somedays my phone batt (HTC desire) runs out before my wife's iphone and sometimes hers goes out first. All depends on how we are using it... worst... depends on where you are as both phones dies pretty fast when they are desperately searching for signals...

Not sure which HTC desire you looked at before... Mine does not jerks or do whatever you just said. Camera loads quickly without problems. scroll through picture flawlessly... few iphone users enjoyed using my phone as well...

It all boils down to personal preference really.... as Apple themselves put it, 'If you don't have an iphone, you dun have an iphone'.... But... you have lots more other choices :j Pick the one that suits you.... and be happy

Idiophreak

horngkai wrote: »

Again, no point saying which one is better....

Err, the OP was asking for options on iPhones vs Android phones, so I was comparing an iPhone and an Android phone...there seems to be quite a good point to doing that, actually...

My comments were about the Desire HD - which has much poorer battery life than the regular Desire - and much poorer than either the iPhone 3GS or 4G.

I've used a couple of different Desires now and they all have issues scrolling through image galleries as smoothly as the iPhone - maybe you're just more tolerant of this than I am, or your phone for some reason is better than the ones I've seen..but not sure why that would be.

Try an objective test. Scroll through 100 images quickly (half a second each?) on your phone. At each image, just drag your finger from right to left once. Every time you have to go back and drag it again to actually get to the next image, count it up. I just tried it on my iphone, and counted to one. I did this same test with the Desire HD and found that 13 times out of a hundred I had to swipe twice to get it to do the right thing.

Cerro

BlueFox wrote: »

Are you sure the word you are looking for is not jealousy?

Just out of interest, why do you pity Apple customers?

No it's definately pity. We can't all be as technically savvy or have the time to do the research, it is unfortunate but it happens - then again part of me feels they deserve to be ripped off. I once went to the effort of explaining it all to one Apple Fanboy I worked with and why the iPhone was a waste of money. His response "yeah but it's prestigious!" His reason for buying an iPhone was simply because it was the thing to be seen with... wow. I've no issue with people buying something that looks good, I've an issue with it when that's the only reason they are getting it. It's a bit like following a religion - the 'Apple Cult' is not an entirely inaccurate description.

Idiophreak wrote: »

"Just works" isn't just marketing speak, it's a measure of ease of use, intuitive interfacing and slick display.
A child being able to use it isn't enough.
Your child would become frustrated by the ridiculously poor battery life on the Desire HD. They'd have to disable most of the features and all of the nice UI tweaks to enable them to call you when they were going to be late home.

They'd get annoyed that their "superior" handset has horrific bugs around facebook integration and would get fed up of being unable to reply to messages that are sent to them.

They'd be envious of iPhone users who's Camera Roll loaded instantly, scrolled flawlessly, who could skip back and fourth between photos instantly - they'd look at their HTC sitting and caching and jerking back and forth and think "wow, this is just rubbish".

Poor battery life? Ever used one? Mine lasts a day and a half to two days. I sit at work and listen to music on it for most of the day and make a call or two, the odd bit of surfing / facebook and a bit of gaming and it easily lasts the day. Even GPS doesn't drain it that fast. And if I forget to charge it, I can sit and charge it at work because I can use any of the blackberry chargers... The reason the iphone has a long battery life is because it lacks real multi-tasking and it has no flash support - those things do drain batteries, if you actually had them on the iPhone you'd see the difference but you don't do you? Because Jobs has a personal issue against Adobe - how sad.

Horrific bugs? Please do tell because I've not found them... what version of Android were you using? I've encountered none of the bugs you describe. You on the other hand have that god-awful Safari as a browser, no wonder most of you switch to Opera.

I can also skip effortlessly between photos, so again - how long ago was this? I haven't seen load screens / freezes since I had my HTC Magic years ago. The camera takes a 5-7 seconds to load but I hardly use it since I have a compact SLR for taking real pictures. The 8MP camera is servicable (more than the 5MP on the iPhone4) should I have need of it and can take good pictures - the dual LED flash and autofocus mean all I have to do is point and click which produces far less blur, the iPhone 4 doesn't have that. Of course, if I really wanted to take a ton of pictures with my phone I could put them all on a seperate MicroSD card instead of taking up space for my apps... I could also do the same for music but 1, 32GB card has been good enough so far.

This is without mentioning the HD's bigger screen and the wide range of free apps. Or the fact that I can use my phone as a mobile hotspot for multiple devices (free I might add), or the Dolby surround sound speakers on the HD which beats the poor effort Apple have made. I have a huge amount of freedom with my phone that the iPhone will simply never have because Steve Jobs doesn't "believe in open source".

And your description of "Just works" matches any decent phone out there. It's marketing - all style no substance. You are paying extra for a shiny case and a logo.

BlueFox

Cerro wrote: »

No it's definately pity. We can't all be as technically savvy or have the time to do the research, it is unfortunate but it happens - then again part of me feels they deserve to be ripped off. I once went to the effort of explaining it all to one Apple Fanboy I worked with and why the iPhone was a waste of money. His response "yeah but it's prestigious!" His reason for buying an iPhone was simply because it was the thing to be seen with... wow. I've no issue with people buying something that looks good, I've an issue with it when that's the only reason they are getting it. It's a bit like following a religion - the 'Apple Cult' is not an entirely inaccurate description.

So you now tar everyone iPhone owner with the same "Apple Fan-Boy" brush? That everyone who has an iPhone has one because it looks good? :rotfl:

You have your opinion, which is no more or less valid than anyone else's, but to suggest that everyone who owns an iPhone is stupid & has been ripped off is a little insulting.

I get you dislike Apple & iPhones with a passion but there is no need to mock anyone who dares to buy anything from Apple.

~Brock~

I was given the option of a 3GS or whatever the latest Android phone was at the time last June as a company phone. This was after already having the original Google Android phone for a year, which although showing potential was at the time I felt a bit underdeveloped and glitchy.

I chose the 3GS for one reason only....ITUNES !!

I was already a regular user of iTunes with my iPod and the idea of using my phone with the same application was too good to miss.

I have since been upgraded to the iPhone4 and the switchover process, via iTunes, was a pleasure to watch. Everything was restored to exactly how it had been on the 3GS.

Whilst I hear those decrying the 'it just works' mentality.....my experience has been exactly that!

And finally, I am lucky enough to be able to say that my phones have cost me nothing, thanks to my employer, so i do not think I have been ripped off at all !!

foxtrot_mike

Cerro wrote: »

No it's definately pity. We can't all be as technically savvy or have the time to do the research,

So what is your experience with using an Iphone?

Idiophreak

Cerro wrote: »

Poor battery life? Ever used one?

Yes, I had one for a month before I sent it back.

Once I gave up on the idea of using the phone out of the box, I got the battery life up to about a day and a half. All I had to do was reduce the screen brightness, disable push, turn off GPS, bluetooth and wifi, install a task killer to clean up apps after use, etc etc etc.

iPhone lasts a day and a half out of the box, with everything enabled. Simples.

Cerro wrote: »

The reason the iphone has a long battery life is because it lacks real multi-tasking and it has no flash support - those things do drain batteries, if you actually had them on the iPhone you'd see the difference but you don't do you? Because Jobs has a personal issue against Adobe - how sad.

I don't give a monkey's why it has good battery life. Just pleased it does. I actually came across a flash site I couldn't view the other day - the first in 6 months. So I looked on my PC. Not really a massive drama.

Cerro wrote: »

Horrific bugs? Please do tell because I've not found them...

The facebook integration pulls people's numbers from FB and *insists* that they're the default.

On a not-entirely-unrelated topic, you can't dial, or text, numbers with the +44 formatting.

If, then, someone has a number on facebook with +44 at the beginning, every time they text you and you try to reply, it tries sending the message to the facebook number, irresepctive of the number they texted you from, with the +44 and falls over. Then you have to go into your messages and forward the message on to the non-facebook number manually. Every time you reply. I tried to find a resolution and asked around online, didn't seem to be one other than to disable FB integration. In any case, I decided to switch to a phone without such ridiculous flaws.

Cerro wrote: »

I can also skip effortlessly between photos, so again - how long ago was this? I haven't seen load screens / freezes since I had my HTC Magic years ago.

Around 6 months ago. If I scrolled too quickly through the images, they'd become blurry and you'd have to hesitate a moment for them to focus. If you scrolled too quickly through the thumbnails you'd have to wait for them to refresh/populate.

Cerro wrote: »

The camera takes a 5-7 seconds to load but I hardly use it since I have a compact SLR for taking real pictures. The 8MP camera is servicable (more than the 5MP on the iPhone4) should I have need of it and can take good pictures - the dual LED flash and autofocus mean all I have to do is point and click which produces far less blur, the iPhone 4 doesn't have that.

Err, the iPhone 4 *does* have point and click focusing - have *you* actually used one? I concede that the dual flash on the HTC was nice, but the sensor isn't actually as good as that on the iPhone. You're obviously one of these people who thinks more megapixels = better pictures. Sadly, this isn't the case. In all situations where the flash isn't in use, the iPhone, for me, takes sharper pictures with better colour balance.

Oh, and of course the iPhone has a front-facing camera, too...which the HTC doesn't have at all. No FaceTime for you, then

Cerro wrote: »

This is without mentioning the HD's bigger screen and the wide range of free apps. Or the fact that I can use my phone as a mobile hotspot for multiple devices (free I might add), or the Dolby surround sound speakers on the HD which beats the poor effort Apple have made.

I have to admit, the external speaker on the iPhone is a poor effort. It's one of the few let downs. The amount of times you block it accidentally when just holding the phone...And it's not even stereo. This needs fixing in iPhone 5.

As to the bigger screen, again, you seem to measure goodness in numbers, so have a look at the pixel counts instead of the size. Or actually just look at the two screens and ask yourself "which looks better. Really. "

The iPhone *is* my mobile device, so I've yet to fully get my head around why I'd want to be able to connect mobile devices to it via wifi, but "yay for you", anyway, I guess.

Cerro wrote: »

And your description of "Just works" matches any decent phone out there. It's marketing - all style no substance. You are paying extra for a shiny case and a logo.

"Decent" is the key word here, though. I tried the HTC first, remember, it was my first choice, ahead of the iPhone - and it was cheaper. So if it *had* been decent, I'd just have stuck with it, wouldn't I?...I've tried and lived with both phones which is why I can give an honest, fair assessment of each. Your vitriolic ranting somewhat suggests you haven't...

strikarz

...there seems to be a lot of people taking their opinions very seriously here.

We're comparing mobile phones here, not trying to come up with a solution to third world debt.

iPhone 4 vs Samsung Galaxy S2.... both just as good as eachother. Simple as that. There's a few little technicalities, but to the everyday user they really aren't that big a deal. I personally feel the Samsung is generally the better phone, but if you've got your heart set on an iPhone4... just get it!

Time to get a grip.
:beer: