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HTC vs Iphone
- Thread starter Ori
- Start date
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I've not used the Diamond Touch, but many devices very close to it, including the original touch. and some with more power and bigger screens (a Toshiba with a 800x480 screen.
I got an iPhone a couple of weeks back and havent regretted it for a second. In fairness to the Diamond touch, which is just a high end WM6.1 device with a nice interface tacked on top, it is a great platform for many things and i do like WM6.1, but it simply isnt great as a phone interface without stylus. The keyboards often cover up vital things on the screen that makes it an ergonomic nightmare. As a pda, with a stylus, and a hardware screen its great, but as a phone, with soft keyboard (even though the new htc ones are close, and apples is not perfect) the apple one feels so much more designed for it from the outset.
Opera 9.5 is good however, but slow! for most browsing on wm6 your better off with Opera Mini 4.1 - which is scary fast and great on a vga screen.
The problem is, lots of web apps and pages are optimised and work great on the iphone, and whilst there are many many more apps of a wider range for WM6.1, the iphone will catch up, and they seem to work better on the iphone, and are far easier to install, not to mention easier to buy, apple has really nailed the delivery system and purchasing for iphone apps, they hit a home run with that one to use an americanism. That far outweighs the closed shop issue of app store for me.
In WM6's defence its probably still far better in the workplace / power users pocket. It has office apps built in - i do miss spreadsheets and prey for the day google docs works on the iphone (sorry know i dont know if they are actually working on it)
My final thought is the touch is often free on contracts that mean full price for an iphone, and they have no other choice because the huge hype (reasonably well deserved) of the iPhone.
My summary, iphone is amazing and wins in most areas, but if you like to fiddle, are a windows guy (or gal) and can live with a stylus, then the diamond is a great phone - but if i had to have one i would be waiting for the diamond pro with slide out keyboard
Stephen
I got an iPhone a couple of weeks back and havent regretted it for a second. In fairness to the Diamond touch, which is just a high end WM6.1 device with a nice interface tacked on top, it is a great platform for many things and i do like WM6.1, but it simply isnt great as a phone interface without stylus. The keyboards often cover up vital things on the screen that makes it an ergonomic nightmare. As a pda, with a stylus, and a hardware screen its great, but as a phone, with soft keyboard (even though the new htc ones are close, and apples is not perfect) the apple one feels so much more designed for it from the outset.
Opera 9.5 is good however, but slow! for most browsing on wm6 your better off with Opera Mini 4.1 - which is scary fast and great on a vga screen.
The problem is, lots of web apps and pages are optimised and work great on the iphone, and whilst there are many many more apps of a wider range for WM6.1, the iphone will catch up, and they seem to work better on the iphone, and are far easier to install, not to mention easier to buy, apple has really nailed the delivery system and purchasing for iphone apps, they hit a home run with that one to use an americanism. That far outweighs the closed shop issue of app store for me.
In WM6's defence its probably still far better in the workplace / power users pocket. It has office apps built in - i do miss spreadsheets and prey for the day google docs works on the iphone (sorry know i dont know if they are actually working on it)
My final thought is the touch is often free on contracts that mean full price for an iphone, and they have no other choice because the huge hype (reasonably well deserved) of the iPhone.
My summary, iphone is amazing and wins in most areas, but if you like to fiddle, are a windows guy (or gal) and can live with a stylus, then the diamond is a great phone - but if i had to have one i would be waiting for the diamond pro with slide out keyboard
Stephen
I used an earlier version (HTC 8525) for the last 2 years. Just got my iPhone 3G yesterday and have NO regrets. I HATED Windows Mobile. It was a slow, clunky nightmare. It's no contest IMO. iPhone > HTC
here are some good videos talking about the Diamond IMO these are non bias
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc2YSMqewXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u67PcaF8ANI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff2GCkVWdPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc2YSMqewXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u67PcaF8ANI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff2GCkVWdPA
HTC the verdict
Ok,
My friend bit the bullet and got the HTC. I have just received this email which I am pasting into this message. This is honest and genuine and I have to tell you he was gloating about the the deal he got from orange all week. Luckily he has a 7 day trail period. I have tried to remove all swear words, but if any survived then let me know and I'll edit.
Geezer,
Where do i begin. REALLY REALLY disappointed!! A thoroughly dreadful piece of s**t! I never thought the HTC diamond would be this bad.
absolutely HORRIBLE and AWKWARD to use. totally unresponsive and unreliable compared to iphone/ipod touch. jerky and erratic - keeps on opening apps i didn't request. it behaves like its got a mind of its own. the browser is also a major let down. how the fudge did it get such good reviews? those gadget mags/internet sites must get backhanders. i'll never trust their reviews again. i'm telling you, the past three hours have been PAINFUL.
HTC = Horrible, Tacky, Crap!
HTC Diamond = A jack of all trades and a master of none!!!!
creaky, plasticy, overheating piece of poo. my palm is on fire.
just reconfigured my ipod touch to give to my sister. it was blissful...heavenly...a pleasure to use. i bet her that she'll end up putting her Blackberry on eBay and getting an iphone along with me!
don't get me wrong, i will miss the minutes deal that Orange offered me but hey...life's too short.
...iPhone here iCome!
Ok,
My friend bit the bullet and got the HTC. I have just received this email which I am pasting into this message. This is honest and genuine and I have to tell you he was gloating about the the deal he got from orange all week. Luckily he has a 7 day trail period. I have tried to remove all swear words, but if any survived then let me know and I'll edit.
Geezer,
Where do i begin. REALLY REALLY disappointed!! A thoroughly dreadful piece of s**t! I never thought the HTC diamond would be this bad.
absolutely HORRIBLE and AWKWARD to use. totally unresponsive and unreliable compared to iphone/ipod touch. jerky and erratic - keeps on opening apps i didn't request. it behaves like its got a mind of its own. the browser is also a major let down. how the fudge did it get such good reviews? those gadget mags/internet sites must get backhanders. i'll never trust their reviews again. i'm telling you, the past three hours have been PAINFUL.
HTC = Horrible, Tacky, Crap!
HTC Diamond = A jack of all trades and a master of none!!!!
creaky, plasticy, overheating piece of poo. my palm is on fire.
just reconfigured my ipod touch to give to my sister. it was blissful...heavenly...a pleasure to use. i bet her that she'll end up putting her Blackberry on eBay and getting an iphone along with me!
don't get me wrong, i will miss the minutes deal that Orange offered me but hey...life's too short.
...iPhone here iCome!
I've played with my friends touch diamond and i can safley say it's horrible.
It's SO laggy, the screen is too small, it requres much fingerpressue to get things right..sometimes you press something and dont know it's been pressed as the delay is so long!
everything is unusable. Screen is dim, it's rubbish.
I have owned a few WM phones, so this is not bias.
It's SO laggy, the screen is too small, it requres much fingerpressue to get things right..sometimes you press something and dont know it's been pressed as the delay is so long!
everything is unusable. Screen is dim, it's rubbish.
I have owned a few WM phones, so this is not bias.
"I have a friend..." Right.....
LOL....
Iphone for about a year now myself!!
To be fair I did warn him as I had used the original HTC and found it awful. He is gutted though as he thought the deal would overcome any compromises the phone had. Alas it didn't.
I have to be honest too....the friend I am talking about is more than willing to compromise. He said if it takes a few seconds longer than the iphone I don't mind as the deal I am getting is superb.....after 3 hours with it he wanted to through it against the wall! He already has his PAK code and is picking up an iphone soon. His actual words to me on the phone were unusable......which is a shame as I think good competition spurs on better products.
This is actually true of nearly all the PDAs out there. They promise a lot of features and are packed with all these alleged capabilities, but they are all implemented very poorly. The really successful models (primarily Blackberries) focus on a core set of things, and do them well. For RIM, it's e-mail.
This is why my hackles raise up a bit when people complain about the iPhone lacking this or that. Yes, it lacks some things that people have come to expect in a smartphone, but what it has it does extremely well.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but I think 2.0 demonstrates this. More frilly features? More bugs. Hoefully things won't get too cluttered.
Just FYI, Opera Mini is so fast because they use a proxy. Your info is not secure.
I thought this would be a problem until I realized I do more reading of office docs than actual editing.
I think you hit the nail on the head with the fiddling/customizability of Windows Mobile. That's what I miss most -- I have no desire to void my warranty by jailbreaking my iPhone.
As for the keyboard, I personally type much faster on my iPhone than my Tilt, which had a physical keyboard. Also the Tilt's keyboard was beginning to fail right before I picked up the iPhone. The one thing I can't stand about typing on the iPhone is the auto-complete. There needs to be a switch to turn that crap off, bringing us back to the aforementioned customizability complaint.
PS: The real dealbreaker for me re HTC is the lack of 3.5mm jack. It's really annoying to have to carry around a dongle and/or special headphones.
Yes I agree with the design and features, but the are apparently impossible to use so whats the point in having them?
He also said it does feel a little cheaply built and the quality wasn't there. The web browsing was not a good experience as once again it kept selecting things instead of moving blah blah blah.
I'm going to have a go at it before he sends it back on Monday. Will have better judgement then.
As I said...shame as I really do believe that good competition leads to innovation. Look at how everyone is trying to up their game since the Iphone came out. Everyone was quite happy to rest with what they've got. Now they are all busy busy busy developing. Soon their will be real competition for the Iphone and the Iphone will have to up it's game to stay ahead!
I had an HTC Tytn and I liked it at first. After a while it was just got annoying. I thought the placement of the buttons sucked and it was nothing more than a bloated WM6 phone.
Maybe if it ran something other than WM6...it would of been better. I cant stand WM6. It really cripples whatever phone its on.
I'm officially an Apple convert. Although you can't cut/paste & download files in mobile safari, the iPhone solves a lot of the problems in WM6 devices. The lack of true hardware acceleration in almost every WM6 device gives a lot of unnecessary lag in doing simple things like answering/making calls & switching between portrait & landscape. When dialing numbers, there is at least a 1 second delay from the time you actually dial a number to when you see it on the screen which makes it very slow, unusable & annoying. The Sony Xperia X1 & Touch pro seem promising with the larger VGA screen but we still aren't sure if they will support hardware acceleration. 3rd party browsers like Skyfire & Opera are a step toward the right direction but they still need a lot of work - they're nothing compared to mobile safari. They don't render as fast & Skyfire's proxy based java applet like opera mini is lightning fast, but takes away native browser functionality like being able to type directly into text boxes without having to do so in annoying pop ups. The scratch resistant glass on the iphone is a deal breaker for me - I hated having to protect windows mobile screens from scratches.
Had to post more....
Exchanged an email or 2 and just got this this reply which made me laugh more!:
i'm f***ing not!!
actually unable to respond to your email whilst out tonight - yes, the HTC is that s**t and dreadful i just couldn't face having to use it.
the keypad covers the whole screen thus preventing you from actually seeing what you are meant to be typing.
Way to go HTC!!!
An unmitigated pile of excrement!!
----- Original Message -----
From: Ori
To: Mark
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: HTC s**t
Still laughing!!!!
Sent from iPhone.
Exchanged an email or 2 and just got this this reply which made me laugh more!:
i'm f***ing not!!
actually unable to respond to your email whilst out tonight - yes, the HTC is that s**t and dreadful i just couldn't face having to use it.
the keypad covers the whole screen thus preventing you from actually seeing what you are meant to be typing.
Way to go HTC!!!
An unmitigated pile of excrement!!
----- Original Message -----
From: Ori
To: Mark
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: HTC s**t
Still laughing!!!!
Sent from iPhone.