Tao or Hero?

[sleemie]

I'm about 90% certain I'm getting the hero this weekend, but seeing that Tao is giving me second thoughts. I'm already with Sprint, but my contract is up so I'm a free Agent. I love Sprint's pricing, and my son has a phone also where the contract is not up so I would still have to carry a single line on two different carriers and miss out on any mulitiple line discounts.

So..outside of the monthly cost factor and just comparing phones, I really like the idea of a big screen, but at the same time I want a pocket phone, so that's both a positive and a negative. The overall looks I would have to give to the Tao. The keyboard...who cares. I'm not really sure about the rest, seems like they both have all of the standard stuff, 3.5, wifi, bluetooth, microsd. Don't know anything about blur, but can't imagine that it would have any major advantages over sense, so that's probably a wash. Motorola vs. HTC, probably a wash also. Carriers, I would give the nod to verizon because of the better network, although I have no complaints about Sprint.

Anyone else trying to decide between the two?

 

[Jacqueline]

Sprint doesn't work well here, so the Hero would be a 2nd or 3rd choice due to the network. Looking at just the phones, I would still pick the Sholes/Tao/Droid phone due to the much better specs and what seems like a similar price (price based on rumors).

 

[sparty569]

Sprint doesn't work well here, so the Hero would be a 2nd or 3rd choice due to the network. Looking at just the phones, I would still pick the Sholes/Tao/Droid phone due to the much better specs and what seems like a similar price (price based on rumors).

Much better specs + Android v2.0 Eclair. Rumored of course.

 

[ajm144k]

the droid is a little bit thinner than a blackberry curve, so it technically is a pretty pocket-able phone.

droid also doesn't seem to have blur on it- its gonna be a google experience phone. i take this as a positive, but its completely subjective.

from my experience, all htc phones' cameras only function well when you have a VERY still hand. no saying its still like that on a hero, since ive never taken a picture on one. no saying Moto wont be worse in that category, but i really dont see it happening.

 

[batrick]

droid, i THINK, is going to have a faster processor than the hero. 600 mhz on droid compared to 528 mhz on the hero.

Clock speed comparisons are worthless for modern chips. Please don't spread the misconception that they are otherwise.

 

[batrick]

well no, not completely. it isnt relevant to compare mhz of processors from different families. in my case, i was wrong. my bad. the droid will have a ti processor, while the hero has a qualcomm. but...

please dont spread the misconception that mhz dont matter. if youre comparing processors from the same company, its going to be much more relevant as the chips function more similarly- modern or outdated.


either way it seems the droids gonna be pretty quick.

No I'm sorry, but you are still wrong. Iterations in a chip will typically drastically change the architecture in various ways that cause more to be done per clock cycle -- this makes the chip more efficient in a given unit of time. A change in clock cycle is not indicative of any performance boost, it just means the time unit has changed. For a given chip, if the clock speed is increased, we will see higher performance so long as the chip can continue to function (subject to many factors). This last point is important, we may (and do) restrict the clock frequency of chips in phones to lower heat generation so we don't set fire to our pants.

Newer phone chips will include more features such as cryptographic functions, device controllers etc. that add hardware capabilities that could not be done in software or were expensive in software. (Also see System-On-Chip for more information on that.) Newer chips also include larger caches, improved instruction pipelines, and on-board memory controllers which all improve performance without necessitating a change in clock cycles. This is why I say clock speed comparisons are worthless. They do not indicate the maturity, feature set, or actual performance of the chip.