J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I think the market is just cottoning on to the HTC, i.e. those that arent techies, early adopters, Gadget fiends etc, the Desire is beign offered fairly cheaply on contract so you average punter who doest want to shell out £40 a month for an Iphone is getting one almost by default and being pleasantly suprised, Iphones have typically been restricted to certain networks and price plans and seen as a premium product which it is (was ?), the kudos associated kept the prices high but I think the HTC will make a lot of people think about whether they still want the Iphone as badly as they can get the look and feel for much less, I wonder whether it will be seen like Hi-Tec trainers were at school though, did what the Nike's did but with a brand that didnt excude cool, will the urban trendy, tw4tty haired junior estate agents still have an Iphone clamped to their ear when driving a Mini or the HTC Desire ?

The 4th gen Iphone is going to have to pull a blinder or Apple are going to have to drop prices to compete, have to say though, Apple lead, others followed and they caught the market on the hop and made all the others look lame and tricky to use, the other manufacturers have played catch-up but can Apple ever produce that game changing device like the Iphone was again, I am no Apple fanboy but I hope they can as it Spurs the rest of the pack on.

And where did HTC appear from ?

Snazy

Inclined to agree with J4CKO there I think.
HTC have been about for eons, just used to manufacture for the networks mainly. Lots of the older PDA style phones from years back etc, then went own branded.

Certainly gaining pace. Some will criticize for their constant launch of phones, others find their favorite amongst the bunch.

Whats all this sync'ing with wires? lol OTA for me, mainly because i dont bother with music etc. Google Sync takes care of all I need.

Oh and as a techy person Jack, somehow me thinks you are taking the pi$$ asking what a micro USB is Good one !

JackClark

He said Micro SD, and yes I was taking the ****.

Snazy

lol do you know what, when I was writing that, I didnt read up but something made me think thats what I had read too, teach me to be lazy eh

I know that you know, that I know you were, I just thought I would check that what I thought I knew was what you knew too.

Tidgy

had my desire for a month or so now, relay good bit of kit.

as far as connecting it to the pc, i havn't tried to sync it but i have used it as a portable hardrive, dead easy. plug it in select you want to use it that way from the screen and reads just as a portable usb storage device.

apps wise, not sure where you've been looking that there aint many, lol, i;ve been lookign through the store for prob 4-5 hours since getting the phone and still not gone through the whole list. Finding the app you want can be a pain cos theres that many.

takes a micro sd card, mine came witha 4gb one already in it. (may have misreda what you were on abotu with those comments though lol)

much much more compatible than the iphone, none of this, 'o damn i need an app to do that'

also you don;t have to pay apple stupoid fixed prices for contract and cost of the phone.

Wireless wise, its not too bad, not superb i have to admit, but for nocking aorudn the house, office etc its more than fine.

on the downside of the htc, the battery life, its **** poor tpo say the least.

all in all im pretty please with it and glad i didn;t go for an iphone

ChefDude

Much as I'd like this to happen, either way, I don't think it will.

Apple's 3GS is inferior to the Desire - we all agree here. But the sales of the 3GS are still outpacing android phones...


Apple simply have to keep up with technology and they will still trounce HTC.... unfortunately.

I think the next iphone will have higher res, faster processor, front camera, better rear camera (5mp) - not really a Desire crusher tech wise, but sales when the new iPhone comes out will slay HTC.

ChefDude

I do hope iphone 4 will tether okay to my macbook, coz it seems Android 2.2 will make tethering really too simple

Scooby Soon!

Tidgy

what sort of life are you getting out of your battery?

I get pretty much a full day of push email (8 accounts with lots of emails coming through) about an hour of internet browsing and have wifi on all the time (desire locks on to my network at home and in the office). Probably only talk on it for 45min to an hour a day through but I do have the screen on full brightness because it looks so much better

Its unplugged from about 8am until 11.30 and I have not had it go flat yet maybe play with the settings?

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I suppose the Iphone still has massive momentum and is still a must have gadget for those who arent really keeping an eye on the releases of new stuff or simply must have an Apple to fit in, those who are worried that even though it equals or better the Iphone in all areas people might think its a cheap phone by an unheard of make, HTC are way more well known than they were but I would imagine that they are still virtually unknown compared to Apple, so rather than actual capabilities it will depend largely on perception and peoples fragile ego's.

They do seem to be selling very well, the Desire, judging by the lack of stock.

You may well be right but its going to be interesting to see some genuine competition.

I wont be buying either, am determined to do away with my personal contract in November and just stay with one phone, my BB Curve, which does a great job but feels pretty old school compared and clunky to the Desire, but the battery lasts and work pay for it, will stick with my Ipod Touch for some Apple action.

Snazy

I got to say the newer berry's feel that little bit more natural in the hand than the older series, however there IS indeed a distinct difference in feel between a touch device and a keyboard device. As for the battery, im always in awe of its life lol.

As for the HTC thing, I have to stop doing this, but again I agree. They are very well known, but not as their own brand, but that is changing, and like you say, its changing fast. Starting with the Hero it seems that the only way is up for HTC right now. Just a shame everyone is suing everyone at the mo.

I think now if everyone agrees that Apple have set the bar so to speak, and may well continue to do so as far as UI and following go, it is also fair to say that HTC are nipping at their heels constantly, and offering the first GENUINE viable alternatives to the iPhone the market has seen. And tbh, I hope that is a position they maintain. 1 to keep the market open and 2/ to keep everything fresh and progress alive.

Meanwhile, while they battle it out, I will stick with what I know best and works for me.... a keyboard lol

Tidgy

mmm, i have it connected to laptop at work, so finish at 4, get home, on standby till about 10, **** around looking for apps, surfing etc for 1/2 hours, leave it on standby again and by 8 when i get back to work its going spastic about low battery

Snazy

Do you have many apps running constant updates or anything? That can have a heavy drain on the battery. Worth checkin the permissions on the apps. Also if you have GPS see if thats turned off when not needed, another big drain.
My droid lasts well if the GPS is not on all the time

Scooby Soon!

It could be an odd app, gps (uses lots and lots of power) or are you in a poor reception area???

JackClark

Better in every way than the iPhone 3GS, careful, you'll be burned at the stake for such sweeping statements. Get them Snazy, heretics.

Desire

OK, I just joined here to give my opinion after reading through this thread.

I have had an iPhone for the last 2 years and have just changed to a Desire, so here are the facts.

1 - Desire is much, much faster than the iPhone. Whatever you are doing, opening apps, browsing menus, settings etc, there is no delay at all. The CPU in this thing is twice as powerful as the 3GS.

2 - The Desire screen is marginally more responsive than the iPhone but is far better quality. Not sure how the resolutions compare but I know that the Desire has an AMOLED screen and is gorgeous to look at, sharp, bright and superbly detailed. I used to watch movies on my iPhone and they looked great, but this is like the difference between DVD and Blueray.

3 - As well as changing phones I have changed networks from O2 to Vodafone which gives me access to their HSPDA network, which means I was sat in a field downloading Youtube videos at 7.2 mbps when my home broadband has a maximum speed of 8mbps (although in reality actually runs around 6mbps). If you have the signal, data speed is very, very fast.

4 - iTunes app store currently has approx 130k apps, android market about 35k. OK, but remember how long each has been running. Add to that the fact that android is basically open source and anyone can develop whatever they want quickly and cheaply and you are on the brink of an android app explosion. The android market will catch up and probably overtake the app store within the next 12 months.

5 - iTunes app store is governed by Apple, if Steve Jobs doesn't want you to have an app, you cant get it. EG for a long time Apple wouldn't approve any turn by turn navigation apps, Tom Tom was written and ready to go 6 months before Apple allowed it on the app store. (Incidently Google Maps now does voice guided tun by turn and is free. It is still only a Beta version so is not as polished as my Navigon but it works just as well).

7 - Too early to comment on battery life but my iPhone was charged every night.

8 - Ergonomics - iPhone wins, just better in the hand and the few actual buttons that there are fall easier to the fingers. The desire does feel a tad smaller and much thinner. Apple are masters of design and all of their products (even the iPhone charger!) are beautiful, but this comes at a price.

9 - The only issue I have had with the Desire so far is that it wouldn't connect to my laptop however I eventually found out that this was because none of my USB ports were working, duh!!! Plugged it into my wifes laptop and it was recognised and installed within 30 secs, no drivers, no software, just plugged in and ready to go. Plug and play? I should coco.

10 - I though the iPhone was the best phone in the world but now I have changed my mind.

For functionality, value and the freedom to customise the phone to your own requirements, go Desire. For style and kudos, go iPhone.

Hope this helps.

M

StickyMicky

Charged every night ?

Christ!
But you cant have it both ways, you want an needed big silly CPU, then you need the extra jungle juice to run it, smartphones are going the way of the PC, with people constantly clambering over getting the fastest hardware, when its not bloody needed!!
MOAAAR RAM
BIGGAHZ CPU
MOAAARR BLOAT

The Desire will be "out of date" soon enough (fwiw i dont think it is a nice looker) as HTC seams to throw the phones out faster than Nokia
The best thing about android phones IMHO is the XDA developers and the custom roms available, seriously!
People are still using the Tmobile G1 (on android 2.1 lol)

If you can root/flash it, you can usually fit a much more streamlined rom on the thing, giving you extra features, and stuff HTC would have you believe that your phone can not do.

They make a good product, and IMO intentionally hinder them, so people buy a new one in a few months.

Best thing i ever did to the hero was root + flash a custom rom, install apps to the SD card if you want, tethering, battery life doubled, performance went off the chart, i cant actually understand why anybody would need anything faster, apart from maybe play some crazy 3D intensive game, seriously though, you don't really buy them to "game" (get a DS)

Dedrater

WTF

Tidgy

so does that mean the iphone is a geriatric? lol

Desire

Charged every night?

Yes, why? Because it sits in dock next to my bed that holds it up allowing me to see the night clock and because it gets used all day long for calls, texts and a significant amount of internet via both 3g and wifi, not to mention a couple of hours music playback.

Any phone that can do that for 2 days without a charge would be kinda difficult to fit in my pocket tbh!

Remains to be seen how the desire battery holds up but at least with this I can turn WiFi/gps/bt on and off straight from the desktop (widget is built in) without having to go through 6 menus.

No doubt it will be out of date soon but then so is the current iPhone (by about 3 years), even the forthcoming iPhone is already dated, so what? I didn't buy a new phone to have the latest or greatest, I bought it because it was 2 years old and my contract was up. I then bought the phone that best suited my needs at the time.

ChefDude

Is this a stab at iphone?
Settings>General>? was the furthest i needed to go.

you're definitely quite sensationalist when listing the relative attributes of desire and iphone

tathan

Well, it gets replaced in 4 hours...



FWIW, my desire was terrible on battery life until I installed an app to turn wifi and 3g off when the screen was off (turns back on every half hour to check emails etc). I've pretty much doubled life to two days now.

tathan

wtf is wrong with this forum software????!

Snazy

I use mine a hell of a lot, very similar sort of usage, a few hours of recorded use of email, chat, and browsing, as well as lots of music player and camera use (inc uploading pics) and I can do 2 days with ease without charging.

StickyMicky

last time i checked I got 37 hours use from my HTC Hero, 5 hours of that was classed as awake time with the screen switched on (internet/twitter/camera etc etc) with wifi switched on none stop
And its probably a bit smaller than your Desire

Music playback probably does not count so much as the screen times out after a while and it does not take so much jungle juice

My point is/was, that a stock HTC phone could not do it, as HTC are a bit gash when it comes to making the device run properly, the 1ghz snapdragon cpu is not needed at all, and all it is doing it churning up battery power.

5 hours awake time with the screen on, god that would be a long **** film

tathan

the snapdragon idles at a lower speed only clocking up to 1ghz when it needs to

Desire

See now this is the problem with iPhone owners, and I know because I was one and I was exactly the same. It's called single-mindedness, to an iPhone owner, and indeed to anyone else who doesn't know any better, the iPhone is the ultimate, the greatest, most perfect phone ever, and until the competition caught up, it probably was.

For me, the user experience I have with my Desire is better than I had with my iPhone. It is faster, the screen is better and browsing the web is as fast as my home network. There are things I don't like about the Desire but that is mostly a case of acclimatisation after using an iPhone for the last 2 years, I'll get used to it.

I loved the iPhone, it is a great phone but once you've been there and done that you've been there and done it.

ChefDude

your opinion is absolutely fine, but you don't have to exagerate the 'qualities' of the iphone to improve the perception of yours

I am an iphone fan and the first to say it is lagging behind on technology. And the prison like digital rights must be a pain for some/lots. Right now, it probably scores fifth on list of top smart phones.

Luther

iTrader: (13)

What app are you using?

tathan

juice defender

the paid version has a lot of useful extras too.

JackClark

See now this is the problem with Desire owners, it's called single-mindedness, to an desire owner, and indeed to anyone else who doesn't know any better, the desire is the ultimate, the greatest, most perfect phone ever, and until the competition caught up, it probably was.