[Closed] why do people prefer the HTC desire over iphone?

I think the main reason people prefer the Desire is because they don't want to be seen to be following the herd by getting an iPhone.

Because everyone else has an iPhone?

Not sure if it's any better more on par with it. Both are very good smart phones, can't believe how much use I get out of my iPhone really is very good.

HTC is cheaper no? "Edgier"?

iPhones are so 2009.....

My reasons:

1) It's not an iphone
2) You can remove and replace the battery with a spare - essential when these phones have a short battery life.
3) The battery life is better (better battery)
4) It has a fairly decent camera
5) It's a bit smaller
6) Android has lots of free apps
7) I hate itunes - Desire will do most MP3s type formats
8) I prefer the OS
9) It's not an iphone

both the same price at the moment on orange for me (about £89 on the contract i want)

Niche

I really don't get the whole [i]"It's not an iPhone"[/i] thing.

[i]"Hey man, I'm not some fashion-whore that is defined by the phone I have, that's why I wanted this phone and not that other phone"[/i]. Weird.

One word:

Android

It's brown.

3) The battery life is better (better battery)

Not convinced about this - the battery capacity is higher, true, but battery life is reduced by inefficient multitasking implementation.

"Hey man, I'm not some fashion-whore that is defined by the phone I have, that's why I wanted this phone and not that other phone". Weird.

Yeah - strange

You seem to struggle with basic human behaviour graham.

-desire has a better screen

One word:

Android

[url= http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2010/05/01/android-2-2-to-do-things-we-assumed-it-already-did/ ]android-2-2-to-do-things-we-assumed-it-already-did[/url]

That article is clearly written by someone who hasn't actually used android, and half of it is factually incorrect.

2) You can remove and replace the battery with a spare - essential when these phones have a short battery life.

Useful, though there are plenty of external batteries available for the iPhone which are nearly as convenient and better in some ways (larger capacity, charge indicators, can be used to power other devices).

3) The battery life is better (better battery)

I think you missed out the word [i]"slightly"[/i] from that 🙂

4) It has a fairly decent camera

Agreed. iPhone camera is "adequate" but definitely not great.
If you are after a decent camera then this is definitely a clincher.

5) It's a bit smaller

Erm.. by how many nanometres exactly??

iPhone 3Gs: 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm (135g)
HTC Desire: 119.0 x 60.0 x 11.9 mm (135g)

6) Android has lots of free apps

Umm.. 200,000+ apps on the Apple App Store. Not sure what percentage of them are free, but it is a lot!

7) I hate itunes - Desire will do most MP3s type formats

Never had a problem loading mp3s onto an iPhone.

I prefer the OS

Probably the best reason! That and the screen is better.

You seem to struggle with basic human behaviour graham.

I'm a programmer.

how long does the battery last on these phones if you're using them for email / internet a bit in the day?

Is it a case of stick them on charge each night?

I guess as theres so many things you can download and use on them then you probably end up playing with them a lot more than a normal phone.

I guess as theres so many things you can download and use on them then you probably end up playing with them a lot more than a normal phone.

Yep that's the problem really. The batteries are bigger than "normal" phones, but if you're sitting surfing the web for a couple of hours over 3G, using the GPS, watching videos etc then you're hitting the battery pretty damn hard.

If you use it a lot you end up with charger everywhere: bedside charger, car charger, and USB lead at work to charge off the PC.

Yeah need to charge each night really, well mine does but I use it a lot during the day for checking emails and surfing. I don't see it as just a phone though really is passed that and more like a tiny netbook that makes phone calls and has a shit camera.

My nexus one lasts anywhere between:

5 days (on standby)
5 hours (continuous use, screen on, internet use etc)

[i]iPhone 3Gs: 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm (135g)
HTC Desire: 119.0 x 60.0 x 11.9 mm (135g)[/i]

Wow, they're so similar it's scary.

What I'd like, is for someone to find out it's just the same device in a different case running a different OS. The iphone lads could head for their laptop guys who could explain to them how it's not actually that difficult to put a generic PC in a apple case, stick a differnt OS on and charge twice the amount for it.

My wife charges her iPhone every night and it always lasts all day whislt she is out and about.

I do it the other way around as I am sat in the office all day so I charge all day and it lasts (very comfortably) till the next morning.

The whole iPhone / Android thing is a bit like comparing a Mac to Linux (not least because that's pretty much exactly what you [i]are [/i]doing).

If you're of the school of thought that you want it to "just work" and don't want to hack about with it then the iPhone is the clear winner. The downside is that you're tied into the Apple way of doing things, iTunes and vetted apps and all that.

On the other hand, if you like tweaking and playing about with your gadgets and want a broad range of different options for your applications, at the expense of perhaps [i]having[/i] to play about when something doesn't quite work perfectly, then Android's your man.

Personally I fall very heavily into the latter camp, but it's horses for courses.

I'd be waiting for the new iphone first - it may not be as expensive as you think, and will have a better camera etc

3gs prices may also come down at the same time

how long does the battery last on these phones if you're using them for email / internet a bit in the day?

Is it a case of stick them on charge each night?

Constant use kills my iPhone 3G in about 3-4 hours, but with a bit of browsing, email, iPod use, texts etc it easily lasts a day. Turn the data off and it lasts about 5 days (I tried this on holiday)

The 3gs is apparently better than mine

Cougar +1

he iphone lads could head for their laptop guys who could explain to them how it's not actually that difficult to put a generic PC in a apple case, stick a differnt OS on and charge twice the amount for it.

IS that still teh case with the macbooks, or are they doing their own proprietary stuff these days?

Coffeking they're Intel chipsets hence why you can use Hackintosh.

Cougar ±1 : I generally like tinkering about with stuff, but for phones I just want them to work.

I've used them both on work stuff.

I have a desire, because I write applications for my phone. If I had an iPhone, I'd need to buy a mac, then pay apple money, before I could even run applications I wrote myself on my own phone. Then if I wanted anyone else to be able to run them, I'd have to ask Apple nicely, and wait a couple of weeks before they could.

With the Android phones, I download the free development kit on any computer, write a program, then I can put it on my phone, or give it to other people to play with straight away.

Android is a lot more open in loads of other ways too - if you want to put music on it, you can use pretty much any piece of software, you're not locked to itunes, if you want to run a different web browser, a different sms application etc, you can choose to, whereas on Apple, you can only do what Apple let you do.

It'll be interesting to see how things pan out in the long term - in the usa, Android phones outsell iPhone currently, so potentially may end up with more applications also (especially given it is so much more developer friendly).

On practical stuff, the two are roughly comparable - both have only okay battery life, which is a pain. The gps in the desire is probably a bit better (it is very very good, the last iPhone I used a gps on was pretty inaccurate, that was only a 3g not a 3gs mind).

The android phones have widgets, where things like calendar, weather, Facebook updates, emails etc can be shown on your home screen, which apple don't let you do. They are currently a lot better for gps apps on the bike because iPhone doesn't support multitasking yet, meaning that if you get a phone call, the gps drops out.

From a usability point of view, both are pretty similar - decent web browsers, phone, email etc all easy to use. Much of a muchness really now.

They are both pretty similar, but as Cougar says, there are subtle differences. I went Android because I've never liked itunes, but I appreciate the seamlessness of the whole i-experience.

[i]Phone I used a gps on was pretty inaccurate, that was only a 3g not a 3gs mind[/i]

I find it incredibly accurate can point you to a few feet, tested it out in the wilds near fence lines and it had us bang up matching the OS 1:25,000 map precisely.

Also, if you are looking at the desire, check out the tariffs on the three website - I got mine for free on a 17 quid a month tariff, and there are ones with lots of minutes for 25 - worth considering a switch, you typically get much better deals for switching networks than you do when getting an upgrade. It is pretty unlikely that you'd need to pay 80 quid for it if you shop around a little.

Joe

I don't understand why anyone can 'dislike' iTunes. What is there to dislike? It catalogues music and you play it.

iPhone doesn't support multitasking yet, meaning that if you get a phone call, the gps drops out.

Seriously? what a pain

can you do multiple audio on the iphone? On my X10 I was very impressed it could play spotify, last fm, mediascape, beebplayer & a voice recorder app all at the same time. Not a tuneful combination I grant you but impressed nonetheless I'm hoping someone will do a 4 track app

Agree with most of what joe said.

Though I've recently got into the whole [url= http://www.openstreetmap.org ]contributing to OpenStreetMap[/url] thing and I've found the GPS on the iPhone 3Gs to generally be pretty accurate (I use the "MotionX GPS" app, which does do intelligent things like increasing the poll rate base on your speed and dead-reckoning when it loses signal).

I find it incredibly accurate can point you to a few feet, tested it out in the wilds near fence lines and it had us bang up matching the OS 1:25,000 map precisely.

ah, cool, I've only used the 3g gps, and that really sucked. the desire gps is pretty much the best consumer gps i've used - very quick to get a fix, and very accurate. I guess the 3gs has something similar.

Although, if you really want to know how good your gps is, try it in a city with high buildings and narrow streets - out in fields or hills is the ideal place for gps, and pretty much any modern unit will locate you to a few feet accuracy, it is in cities where they find it hardest.

wait 3 weeks until iphone 4 comes out?

Seriously? what a pain

Will change very, very soon with the new OS release.

can you do multiple audio on the iphone? On my X10 I was very impressed it could play spotify, last fm, mediascape, beebplayer & a voice recorder app all at the same time.

You can certainly play music in the background while doing other stuff and apps can still make sounds when music is playing. But you can't play a whole bunch of stuff together, mainly because there is no multitasking for third-party apps yet.

True Joe but I don't live near a city so had that.

[i]iPhone doesn't support multitasking yet, meaning that if you get a phone call, the gps drops out.[/i]

And then when your phone calls done it comes back. Ta Da!

Ah! Wait get what you meant the signal is lost so if you move you do speeds of 384mph when it comes back.

the new iphone is out within the next month and does support multitasking!

I dislike it because I use a small mp3 player and change the music every so often, I like the ability to drag and drop music from player to pc and back, and from phone to pc to player.
I also dislike the occasional 'where's my music gone?' problem that saw my daughters and my friends ipod wiped clean.
Fairly insignificant dislikes, I admit, but enough to put. me off.

I don't think there is much between them, I got a desire because it was cheaper, I am more a fan of Google/open source than MAC and it had a,better camera.

I don't understand why anyone can 'dislike' iTunes. What is there to dislike? It catalogues music and you play it.

Me too.... It's baffling.

I like Genius too. 🙂

[i]the new iphone is out within the next month and does support multitasking! [/i]

So will the 3GS.

I have many CDs - with a Desire (or most other phones) I stick them on the laptop then "drag" them onto my phone. Easy.

I can also view Flash websites and use open and manipulate Office files - all very handy. And all very free.

[i]I have many CDs - with a Desire (or most other phones) I stick them on the laptop then "drag" them onto my phone. Easy.[/i]

Yeah the iPhone does that.

joe: gps in cities: yeah but it can cheat there can't it because it can use wifi triangulation, on top of the cell tower triangulation to get a rough positional lock.

Anyway, I've been doing some mapping by walking round Gateshead with my iPhone in my pocket and it seems to have done pretty well unless I went under an underpass or something.

I dislike it because I use a small mp3 player and change the music every so often, I like the ability to drag and drop music from player to pc and back, and from phone to pc to player.

Not sure why iTunes would prevent you from doing that.

I have all my music sitting in normal folders full of mp3s that I can drag about in Windows, play in Media Player, play in iTunes, whatever.

I have many CDs - with a Desire (or most other phones) I stick them on the laptop then "drag" them onto my phone. Easy.

Yeah the iPhone does that.

True but I prefer to select and drag over. Mind you the feker sometimes insists on syncing and I end up with a load of crap I didn't want.

Mf - I'm too lazy/thick to set up playlists... 😳

use open and manipulate Office files

Ooh, what app is it for that? I only have an office file reader, not anything that can edit them.

I don't understand why anyone can 'dislike' iTunes. What is there to dislike? It catalogues music and you play it.

If you have a mac, itunes just works. If you have a PC, it is a bit buggy and nasty, and takes over your PC a bit. This is because Apple, being a very mac focused company, don't employ any decent PC developers, so their PC software is rubbish (Quicktime is pretty bad on PC too).

Also, there are different ways to catalogue music, for example some people like to keep them just in folders on their hard disk - that way if you change mp3 player, or have multiple mp3 playing devices, all of them will work with it*, whereas with itunes, doesn't it bung your files all into the apple library, where it will only work with apple things that work with itunes.

Joe
*I've used the exact same music library to put music on all my 3 last phones, made by 3 different manufacturers, and I put music on in exactly the same way.

Also, there are different ways to catalogue music, for example some people like to keep them just in folders on their hard disk - that way if you change mp3 player, or have multiple mp3 playing devices, all of them will work with it*, whereas with itunes, doesn't it bung your files all into the apple library, where it will only work with apple things that work with itunes.

Nope. That is exactly what I do.

My iTunes is set NOT to copy the files into its own special library and just use them where they are. Works fine.

Just untick this box:

[img] [/img]

If you have a mac, itunes just works. If you have a PC, it is a bit buggy and nasty, and takes over your PC a bit. This is because Apple, being a very mac focused company, don't employ any decent PC developers, so their PC software is rubbish (Quicktime is pretty bad on PC too).

Mf - I'm too lazy/thick to set up playlists...

I have an iPhone (free with job...) and it's a big step up from an old Blackberry I had before but the battery life is shocking and push email/calendar synching keeps crapping out, it also seems to reboot itself whilst charging. If I was buying my own smartphone now it would probably be a Desire

GrahamS - Member
Also, there are different ways to catalogue music, for example some people like to keep them just in folders on their hard disk - that way if you change mp3 player, or have multiple mp3 playing devices, all of them will work with it*, whereas with itunes, doesn't it bung your files all into the apple library, where it will only work with apple things that work with itunes.
Nope. That is exactly what I do.

My iTunes is set NOT to copy the files into its own special library and just use them where they are. Works fine.

I appreciate my obvious stupidity and shall rush out and buy a new ipod, iPhone, ipad and subscribe to itunes at once.
Or maybe there are different ways of doing things other than using Apple that might suit other people?
You can always tell a fanboy, but you can't tell him much...

You can always tell a fanboy, but you can't tell him much...

🙄

Yes, because in a discussion about the merits of iPhone vs HTC, any attempt to defend the former from any critical point, regardless of whether it is factually correct or not, marks you as a Jobs-gobbling Apple-whore ifanboi.

Please.

I would hazard a guess the main reason folk would choose a desire over a iPhone is cost. iPhones are damn expensive. But then for some people, they're not really. For a lot of folk £30+ a month on a phone isn't "too much".

I'm not being critical, I'm detailing why I don't use itunes or an iPhone. This seems to cause consternation rather than being accepted as a straightforward state of affairs.

I'm not being critical, I'm detailing why I don't use itunes or an iPhone. This seems to cause consternation rather than being accepted as a straightforward state of affairs.

Cost had nothing to do with it in my case. Our company pays so it's "free" anyway 😉

I'm not being critical, I'm detailing why I don't use itunes or an iPhone. This seems to cause consternation rather than being accepted as a straightforward state of affairs.

Yes and the reasons you gave are not factually correct.

Say you were having a nice discussion about the pros and cons of bikes versus walking and someone said to you [i]"I don't like cycling"[/i], [i]"Cycling turns you into a sex offender and is proven to cause cancer in unborn pregnant seals". "Walking is better because it is a mode of transport that allows me to get from one place to another.[/i].

Does replying "No it doesn't" "That's bollocks" and "so does cycling" mean you are a cycling fanboi?

For the record, I don't use Android phones because they give you the bad AIDS.

But given that I don't use itunes why is detailing the fact that itunes can do what I already manage to do helpful? Should I change everything over to Apple to achieve exactly the same result? It's a type of technology, there are different ways to achieve the same result, but, as always in these discussions, there is an assumption that if I don't use Apple I am somehow denying myself.
I've said why I don't like it, I've said that my concerns are insignificant, but that they were enough to make me choose, but it seems that any attempt to suggest that there might be an alternative is indicative of some kind of idiocy.

But given that I don't use itunes why is detailing the fact that itunes can do what I already manage to do helpful? Should I change everything over to Apple to achieve exactly the same result? It's a type of technology, there are different ways to achieve the same result, but, as always in these discussions, there is an assumption that if I don't use Apple I am somehow denying myself.
I've said why I don't like it, I've said that my concerns are insignificant, but that they were enough to make me choose, but it seems that any attempt to suggest that there might be an alternative is indicative of some kind of idiocy.

You seem to struggle with basic human behaviour graham.

I'm a programmer.

🙂

[i]the battery life is shocking and push email/calendar synching keeps crapping out, it also seems to reboot itself whilst charging[/i]

Something wrong there not had any of those problems.

But given that I don't use itunes why is detailing the fact that itunes can do what I already manage to do helpful? Should I change everything over to Apple to achieve exactly the same result?

No, obviously if you've got something that works for you then that's lovely.

But you offered your answers as reasons that you dislike and don't use iTunes. As an iTunes user am I not allowed to respond to those points - especially as they were wrong?

Something wrong there not had any of those problems.

Agreed. No issues like that here either. I use push email for work and private email and I do real-time syncing with Google Calendar via the Google Exchange server. Not seen it reboot during charging - unless the battery was so drained that the phone was only able to restart itself once power was connected.

Also, if you are looking at the desire, check out the tariffs on the three website - I got mine for free on a 17 quid a month tariff, and there are ones with lots of minutes for 25 - worth considering a switch, you typically get much better deals for switching networks than you do when getting an upgrade. It is pretty unlikely that you'd need to pay 80 quid for it if you shop around a little.

Joe

Joe, don't suppose you have a link for this? the only ones I can find are 30 quid a month for 24 months. I'm with 3 at the moment on a sim only after my last contract ended and I'd like to stay with them as they are a pretty good network to be on

Joe, don't suppose you have a link for this? the only ones I can find are 30 quid a month for 24 months. I'm with 3 at the moment on a sim only after my last contract ended and I'd like to stay with them as they are a pretty good network to be on

Bugger, can't find it on their site any more. Maybe it was a special offer last month or something, I am certainly on it (17 quid for 24 months), so it wasn't a mistake.

Cheapest I can see where you get the phone free now is £25, on Orange, vodafone and t-mobile, with various large amounts of minutes, and internet (I just looked on uswitch).

Joe

Apple's nauseatingly pleasant advertising has put me off for life.

The iPhone makes people smug and love the smell of their own farts.

surely the biggest flaw with the iphone is its memory

only 16gb

whereas a desire can take up to a 32gb microsd (tho they are £100)

its very frustrating when apple sell 180gb ipods but only 16gb phones, and im assuming a large chunk of that 16gb is taken up with apps and other gubbins

its a bit of a cynical ploy by apple to get you to buy 2 of their products imho

i heard the 4g iphone wouldnt be out til september?
i know brian singer has only just started work on the adverts for it, tho im not sure how long an ad takes to make

keep up kimbers, they've sold 32gb iPhones for a year now at least.

oops!

well 32gb is still way short of what im after my 30gb ipods full 🙁 and i want to get loads more on

and 64gb microsd are allegedly on the way

scottidog - Member
The iPhone makes people smug and love the smell of their own farts.

surely the biggest flaw with the iphone is its memory
only 16gb
whereas a desire can take up to a 32gb microsd (tho they are £100)

Apart from the y'know, the 32GB iPhone.

If you fill it with music than yes 16gb may not be enough, if you fill it with a moderate amount of music it's more than enough the appds don't take up a huge amount of room.

Apart from the y'know, the 32GB iPhone.

Shhh ... he was feeling all superior.

its a bit of a cynical ploy by apple to get you to buy 2 of their products imho

LOL - yes - keep Artists A-M on one iPhone and N-Z on another. People doing that will make a big contribution to Apple's cashflow!