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[Merged] Sprint / HTC Evo vs. iPhone 4

Nice review. Here are some more topics you could possibly cover as well:

Battery Life,
Touchscreen accuracy,
Bugs,
Price,
Notifications,
Widgets,
Social Network integration,
Fragmentation,
User-friendliness (I guess it's kinda integrated in the OS part...),
Sound quality,
Endurance (as in, resistance to scratching/breaking),
Community-base (as in, how big the community that supports and develops projects for the device is)
Hardware Quality (as in, existence or absence of hardware problems, like buttons breaing, screens popping, etc),
Resell value...

... and last but not least:

Girl-Magnet factor.

Cheers!
 
Thanks guys.
I would honestly take the iphone over the evo but i am on a family plan on sprint and att is just too expensive.
 
TLDR.

I read the end. Engadget came up with the same conclusion. Its about personal preference. Buy what you want and don't complain about the other side.

Good review (from the bit a read) im lazy.....
 
Blues003 said:
Nice review. Here are some more topics you could possibly cover as well:

Battery Life,
Touchscreen accuracy,
Bugs,
Price,
Notifications,
Widgets,
Social Network integration,
Fragmentation,
User-friendliness (I guess it's kinda integrated in the OS part...),
Sound quality,
Endurance (as in, resistance to scratching/breaking),
Community-base (as in, how big the community that supports and develops projects for the device is)
Hardware Quality (as in, existence or absence of hardware problems, like buttons breaing, screens popping, etc),
Resell value...

... and last but not least:

Girl-Magnet factor.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Working on this now, should be up in the next half hour
 
Considering taking back iPhone4 and getting EVO?

I have been debating this all day with myself. This new iPhone 4 is a very nice piece of hardware, with the new screen and cameras with flash and everything else. But honestly, I am actually really intrigued by the new EVO on Sprint. I guess I am just getting tired of the same operating system. I have had iPhones exclusively since day one and I have loved them the whole time. But the android and Sense UI on the HTC EVO looks pretty slick with all the stuff that can be customized on it. I went to a Sprint store yesterday and played around with one for a while. That big 4.3 inch screen sure is great. It has better resolution than my previous iphone but not as good as my new iphone 4, but I think the screen size makes up for it. It has a neat speech to text feature in the text messaging app that I think I would use a lot. The live wallpapers are cool, too. I took a picture on the camera and it looked awesome, but I am aware that the video camera only records at 25 fps. That is noticeably not as good as the iphone's smooth 30 fps. Another thing that I love about the EVO that Apple refuses to use for some reason is the L.E.D. notification light. All phones should have these. The kickstand is a bonus.
Maybe someone here is in the same boat as me and is trying to decide what to do. Also, if I decide to try the EVO and I decide to keep it, what are my options pertaining to returning the iPhone? Because I'm thinking that I would return the phone to Apple and then I would have to call AT&T and make sure they go into my account and show that I actually returned the phone and therefore, they need to change my early termination fee back to the previous rate of $175 and not the ridiculous $325 that comes with buying the iPhone 4 now. Yeah, it will be frustrating, I know. They are quick to send you the new, expensive ETF, but very slow to take it off or change it to show correctly the old one. Or, could I just sell the iPhone 4 and pay the new more expensive ETF and actually have money to spare? Or is this against the rules somehow and would AT&T sent me a charge for the full price of the phone if I don't return it to the Apple store? Confusing.
Anyway, what do you guys think? I have not made up my mind.
Thanks.
 
To be fair it'd be hard for him to compare every aspect of the phone as he said he only used the iPhone 4 for an hour.
 
I have an EVO and iPhone 4 and the difference is day and night. The issue for me with the EVO is

1) Battery life - With or without 4G turned out the battery life is terrible
2) Display quality - Once you use the Retina screen nothing else compares
3) Build Quality - It feels very creaky and i swapped out the evo 2 times and had 2 that share this trait
 
If you want to buy an inferior phone then be my guest. The iPhone 3GS is a better product than the EVO, nevermind the iPhone 4.
 
Non-geeks would prefer the iPhone because of the "smooth, pretty and polished" UI. It takes a little bit of geek knowledge to fully appreciate features of the Evo such as the 4G, 1GHz processor, Android OS and it's benefits, etc. Still, I'm sticking with the iPhone 4 because I don't have 4G service in my area or even in my state I believe but Sprint charges you for 4G nonetheless. And I'm developing some apps for the App Store and need a device to test my apps on.
 
Dataquest said:
So, you tried one and decided this?
Click to expand...

Yes I did. I used a free EVO from google io for two weeks. Took it to Vegas even and tried out 4G. The phone is just underwhelming. It offers nothing compelling over the iPhone.
 
Dataquest said:
I have been debating this all day with myself. This new iPhone 4 is a very nice piece of hardware, with the new screen and cameras with flash and everything else. But honestly, I am actually really intrigued by the new EVO on Sprint. I guess I am just getting tired of the same operating system. I have had iPhones exclusively since day one and I have loved them the whole time. But the android and Sense UI on the HTC EVO looks pretty slick with all the stuff that can be customized on it. I went to a Sprint store yesterday and played around with one for a while. That big 4.3 inch screen sure is great. It has better resolution than my previous iphone but not as good as my new iphone 4, but I think the screen size makes up for it. It has a neat speech to text feature in the text messaging app that I think I would use a lot. The live wallpapers are cool, too. I took a picture on the camera and it looked awesome, but I am aware that the video camera only records at 25 fps. That is noticeably not as good as the iphone's smooth 30 fps. Another thing that I love about the EVO that Apple refuses to use for some reason is the L.E.D. notification light. All phones should have these. The kickstand is a bonus.
Maybe someone here is in the same boat as me and is trying to decide what to do. Also, if I decide to try the EVO and I decide to keep it, what are my options pertaining to returning the iPhone? Because I'm thinking that I would return the phone to Apple and then I would have to call AT&T and make sure they go into my account and show that I actually returned the phone and therefore, they need to change my early termination fee back to the previous rate of $175 and not the ridiculous $325 that comes with buying the iPhone 4 now. Yeah, it will be frustrating, I know. They are quick to send you the new, expensive ETF, but very slow to take it off or change it to show correctly the old one. Or, could I just sell the iPhone 4 and pay the new more expensive ETF and actually have money to spare? Or is this against the rules somehow and would AT&T sent me a charge for the full price of the phone if I don't return it to the Apple store? Confusing.
Anyway, what do you guys think? I have not made up my mind.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

*flies into the wall of text, crashes and tumbles to the ground.. looks around for the Evo and the iPad... mumbles "thank god they are not made of gorilla glass". :D

Seriously though, Evo is a fine phone if you like tinkering with your phone and don't mind trading a bit of battery life for that. Six clear advantages that made me try it are:
(1) Notification system
(2) Free Google Voice navigation
(3) Swype
(4) Voice search integration in pretty much all screens
(5) Wifi hotspot.
(6) 4G (available in my area)

The iPhone is clearly much more aesthetically pleasing. At the risk of irking feminists everywhere, iPhone is the hot cheer leader with the occasional B.O. (AT&T) and Evo is the nerdy chick that can play sports, fix your car, and give you a mind-blowing .. massage. But she is definitely not a cheer leader. :D
 
Juan007 said:
Yes I did. I used a free EVO from google io for two weeks. Took it to Vegas even and tried out 4G. The phone is just underwhelming. It offers nothing compelling over the iPhone.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the insight. I'm trying to talk myself out of leaving the iPhone for the EVO. I would probably be better off.
 
Ipadq said:
*flies into the wall of text, crashes and tumbles to the ground.. looks around for the Evo and the iPad... mumbles "thank god they are not made of gorilla glass". :D

Seriously though, Evo is a fine phone if you like tinkering with your phone and don't mind trading a bit of battery life for that. Six clear advantages that made me try it are:
(1) Notification system
(2) Free Google Voice navigation
(3) Swype
(4) Voice search integration in pretty much all screens
(5) Wifi hotspot.
(6) 4G (available in my area)

The iPhone is clearly much more aesthetically pleasing. At the risk of irking feminists everywhere, iPhone is the hot cheer leader with the occasional B.O. (AT&T) and Evo is the nerdy chick that can play sports, fix your car, and give you a mind-blowing .. massage. But she is definitely not a cheer leader. :D
Click to expand...

So, which phone did you end up with?
 
Battery life

iPhone
I only got to play with it for an hour, but from other reviews I have read, and the bigger battery the iPhone's battery lasts longer.
However people seem to forget many things with the EVO

with sense (HTC's 7 screens)
many people have the clock/weather widget,
newsfeed or facebook widget,
mail
youtube,
contacts
etc.

All of these things auto update ever 15 minutes meaning your phone uses a lot of data every 15 minutes and you don't even know it or have it on. Not to mention it is a 4G phone. When the first 3G phones came out they were so called "battery killers" as well

However i have no background data running on my EVO, no LWP, Bluetooth, GPS, and wifi are off, and I manually update my mail. And I use it for easily a day, and maybe 2. So people Need to know that the reason the EVO's battery isn't that great is because they have things in the background running and updating. Overall the iPhone may be just a bit better, but don't believe people saying the EVO's battery barely lasts them 4 hours.
And On a side note, if you have an EVO and have 4G turned on and don't get 4G TURN IT OFF that is what kills the battery, it is using all of its systemm power to catch a 4G signal, that it barely lasts 5 hours

Touchscreen accuracy

iPhone has always been the most sensitive an accurate touchscreen I have used. The EVO and hero have had an issue where if the phone is laying on a flat surface, the touchscreen must be pressed harder in order to recognize touch, and it is not accurate at all, infact the top 50% of the screen will barely recognize touch input. iPhone is clear winner

Bugs

iPhone has always been the smoothest OS out their IMO and maybe the 2G had some bugs, but in terms of iPhone 4 v. EVO. I have had a sec or 2 of sluginess on the EVO, But nothing at all that affects use and nothing on a 3GS or iPhone 4. Very very close. But in terms of smooth, polished OS iPhone wins. But the EVO is very very smooth and fast.

Price.
Same price for Phone.
Sprint is half the price of AT&T.
EVO is clear winner.
Evo for $90 you get unlimited mobile to mobile, interner, texting, email and 700 minutes. All that on AT&T is i think $150 (with unlimited data)

Notifications

EVO is clear winner, with the notification bar, you can access any alarms, texts, emails, alerts just by dragging down the top bar, and see everything without having to unlock the phone, iPhone has popup notifications, but the EVO and android kill the iPhone in this department.

Widgets

Nonexistent on iPhone, plenty on Android.
Facebook, calender, SMS, email, weather, music, almsost anything you want is a widget. Evo is winner

Social network integration.

HTC has this cool thing where it integrates all of your friends from twitter, facebook, myspace and combines all of their info, numbers, birthdays, photos into one app. it is really cool. However the facebook iPhone app is much better than android

Fragmentation?
Apps being runned? both OS run smooth with apps in background

User friendliness.
tie.
Hard to explain but the iPhone just works smooth and easily which is a big plus
however HTC offers even more customization than a normal android phone so IMO if you can customize the phone how you want it is a better user experience.

So out of the box iPhone, after a week EVO is much better in terms of customization.

So for your average consumer will prefer the iPhone, just because they don't care about indepth customizaiton like people on android forums

Sound quality.

Both very good on both device, EVO's speaker is very loud. Evo is a bit better.

Scratch resistant

Have never dropped my EVO and have it in a case and have screen protector so I would say they are both very delicate devices, but since the iPhone uses glass all around, it has to be more prone to breaking/scuffing.

Community based

Definetly goes to iPhone, itunes support, 3rd part accessories, cases screen protectors, iHome, workout stuff for iPhone, the list goes on and on, and the jailbreaking team does a great job showing people how to JB their phone, I have JB an iPhone, and Rooted an android device, and iPhone is much much easier. Not to mention when you JB, cydia is diectly on the device so you don't have to mess with connecting it to the computer. People who creat JB software know that the average iPhone consumer is not as handy as they are so they make it as easy as possible.

However EVO has XDA support which is a fantastic website and has a lot and i mean alot of talented developers and software.

Hardware

Both phones don't have to many buttons, I guess the kickstand on the EVO is more prone to breaking than not having one obviously, but HTC designed it well so their is a very small chance that anything would go wrong. So I would say tie.

Resell value, well the iPhone 3gs and iPhone 4 are going to be hot items for a while and I am guessing iPhone 4 owners a year from now can get at least $150 more than what they originally paid for it if they wait a month before the next iPhone release. But with the EVO, you know their are going to be more and more android devices coming out, I would say at least 4-5 big ones a year, so Each time a newer phone comes out the EVO, will lose a little bit of value.

hope this helped.
 
Good summary, but I disagree about knocking the Evo on its design because of the kickstand. I use it alot and love it. Being able to prop the phone like that when watching TV is great. My roommate owns the iPhone 4 and I own the Evo, here is my brief take on the two...

Display as well as photos and videos go to the iPhone. Although the screen is smaller, its beautiful and the photos and video look awesome. Evo looks good straight on but from an angle, you can see how washed out the colors are. a 65k color and 16 bit display isnt too great at all.

OS is more streamlined on the iPhone but the problem is that its very plain looking IMO and there is little to no customizing it. On the Evo, you can swap in all kinds of keyboards, dialers, messaging apps, fonts, icons, widgets etc...If Sense UI is too "laggy" for you, you can turn it off and enjoy the default Android interface. When you start factoring in Evo having Google maps and navigation built in for free and speech to text anywhere you can type (texts, emails, facebook/twitter updates etc..) it really startes to add up in favor of the Evo. Not to mention you can install a file manager and gain control over a good part of your phone without even hacking. Evo easily wins this.

Apps go to the iPhone for sure, although there are too many apps that all do the same thing.

Speed goes to the Evo on 3G. On wifi, its more of a push. However, Froyo (Android 2.2) is WAY faster than 2.1. The Nexus one with 2.2 is getting ridiculously fast times in benchmark tests. 54 mflops compared to 6-8 on the Evo. So when you have 2.2 on the Evo and then 4G it will really fly.

Browsing the net is smoother on the iPhone for sure but it also doe not auto reformat text like the Evo when you pinch and zoom in. Its also easier to copy and paste or look up words/sentences with the Evo. Not to beat a dead horse, but the iPhone also does not support flash, the Evo does and 2.2 will bring full 10.1 flash support. Evo easily wins this IMO.

Battery life, notifications, widgets, social network integration, sound quality and endurance all go to the Evo. Battery is replaceable and you can put extended life batteries in it. Notification bar is top notch on Android as are widgets and HTC's Friend Stream which integrates your Facebook, Twitter and Flickr into one auto updating widget/app. Speaker on the Evo is almost too loud and even on speaker phone, no one can tell I am on it. Have already dropped my Evo twice. Once on concrete from 3 feet and one on hardwood from a few feet, not even a scratch.

Touchscreen accuracy, user friendliness, Hardware quality and resale value all go to the iPhone. The iPhone touchscreen is top notch and accurate. The phone is very user friendly basically because there isnt much to it. Its very simplistic compared to Android but many people like easy to use devices. hardware is good despite its little antenea flaws which are terrible, just dont drop it. Resale value will be much better since a new Android phone is released every month trying to out do the other.

My personal preference is the Evo. I like the screen size, the very customizable OS, ability to swap in batteries and memory cards and all the other things mentioned. However its definitely NOT a phone for everyone and I wouldnt recommend it to most people. Most people have no idea what most things on their phone are let alone how they work. Good example is my friend who just got an Evo and hated it cause her battery only lasted 4-5 hours. I looked at it and sure enough it was a mess. She had her 4G running although we have no 4G out here yet, her wifi was on with no wifi network around and her GPS was on when she doesnt even use it. She also had her facebook, twitter, stocks, mail etc...set to update every 2 hours which is useless and just takes battery too. Shut it all down for her and now she gets a full days use no problem. So again, it all depends how savvy you are and how much you like to tweak your phone.
 
i would agree with most of what you said. i did a reveiw earlier in the thread that agrees with almost every thing you wrote.
 
Thanks for all of the info guys, it is very informative. I would love to have those widgets and the turn by turn navigation. And I was not aware that the voice to text feature works in many of the apps too! I may just have to try one.
I would like the new challenge of the android os after using the simple iPhone os for so long.
Oh, by the way, the Facetime video feature on the iphone is awesome and works very well. How does the video calling compare on the EVO??
 
I spent about five minutes with the iPhone 4 and HTC EVO 4G, so take my impressions with a comically-oversized grain of salt.

Build:

 iPhone 4: Feels like a million bucks. Really slim, feels like a solid slab of glass/metal. Buttons feel great. The device makes the 3GS feel like a bloated plastic ovoid with a thick, gaudy chrome bezel. No real complains here.

◊ EVO 4G: Looks nice, solid but plasticky build. Like a Sony product in this regard I suppose. The kickstand complements the large screen nicely for video viewing. Hate how the camera lens protrudes out, making it a scratch magnet. Not bad overall but not in the same aesthetic league as the iPhone 4.

Screen:

 iPhone 4: I confess, I'm a sucker for high DPI screens. If the 21.5" iMac had the same resolution as the 27" iMac and the prices were identical, I'd go with the 21.5". The iPhone 4 is simply the most beautiful screen I've seen on any electronic device, bar none. Sounds like hyperbole, but really, IPS, excellent contrast, deep blacks and of course the astonishing detail. I'm glad to see this headlining feature on a mainstream device like the iPhone 4, hopefully higher DPI screens will proliferate in other consumer electronics in response.

◊ EVO 4G: I see the merit of a larger screen for media. Good contrast but somewhat exaggerated colors. Not IPS. I believe the iPhone 4 screen is superior but if the larger size of the EVO screen entices you, I understand that.

Interface:

 iPhone 4: Everything works fluidly, even smoother than the iPad I think. The fluid interface combined with the high-DPI screen makes the experience a real treat for the eyes. Snappy operation.

◊ EVO 4G: My biggest beef with the EVO lies here. Sweeping around the interface was a laggy affair, noticeably choppier than even my brother's 1st gen iPod touch. With all the talk of the 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, I don't understand why the interface is so sloppy. Hoping Android 2.2 fixes this. The EVO certainly has features the iPhone 4 doesn't, but they don't appeal to me. Mobile hotspot? Pass, no need. 4G? Not in my area. Open marketplace? App Store has everything I need and more. If these features appeal to you, I can see why the EVO would be your pick.

So there you go. It's rather clear the iPhone 4 is my pick. I'm currently using a BlackBerry Curve 8330 on Verizon and will switch to the iPhone 4 as soon as these antenna issues are resolved.
 
I am using the evo & i4 side by side.
Best look & feel - i4
Best download rate - evo
Best upload rate - i4
Best apps - i4
Best quality photos/video - i4
Best tether/hotspot option - evo
Best screen quality - i4
Best sync/backup option - i4
 
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