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What DOESN'T the EVO have?

android 2.1 comes with native voice-to-text

apple only has one thing to hang their hat on at this point: a bigger app store. But with 30K apps in the android store and all the best iphone apps already on or in the process of being ported to android, it's really a non-issue.

EVO has nothing N1 doesn't unless you hate HTC Sense UI, and that would be addition by subtraction, but I've only seen a couple people saying they prefer the stock Android in all my months of reading android forums. Sense UI is great.

Theres a learning curve to getting the hang of android that might take all of a day or two to figure out, because it assumes the consumer isn't a decrepit fossil that doesn't need everything dumbed down to the lowest common denominator.

HTH :)
 
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Hey Cabbie and Klaskimo, thanks for your responses.

android 2.1 comes with native voice-to-text

I was aware of native voice-to-text, but i was talking about actually controlling apps on the phone with voice commands the way the 3GS does like saying "Call Bob" to call a friend or "Play 'Hurricane'" to play a song in your mp3 library or asking "What song is this?" and having a voice respond back with the answer. Are these kind of features included with the voice-to-text?

apple only has one thing to hang their hat on at this point: a bigger app store. But with 30K apps in the android store and all the best iphone apps already on or in the process of being ported to android, it's really a non-issue.

Yeah, the app store gave me pause, but I am confident I can find Android versions or suitable replacements for all the ones I really use. And until I do, I can just keep my 3G with me to tether off of the EVO for the occasional times when I still want to use an iPhone app.

Another feature I was wondering about, do Android handsets usually have headphone controls so that you can answer or decline calls, play, pause, ff and rew pushing a button or two on the headphones? What about bluetooth stereo headphones? I currently use a Motorola S9HD with the iPhone.
 
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Main thing for me I'll miss is no trackpad/trackball. But you won't miss that coming from an iPhone.As for the apps, I think there are 40,000+ now. There were almost 10,000 alone developed in March alone so dev support is growing exponentially.Some don't like Sense. What I don't like is Sense doesn't rotate to to landscape on homescreens, don't understand why. I tend to almost always want to operate a phone in landscape..but hey that's just me.
 
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So even though they said that Flash 10.1 will be on the EVO on release but will this change that?:

Adobe CEO: Flash coming to Android, WebOS and BlackBerry 'smartphones and tablets' in 2H 2010 -- Engadget

It's in final stages of private beta about to be released to developers as a public beta, the next step after that is open public beta or final release depending on how you do it. Second half of the year could be as easy as July. This truely isn't a deal breaker for me because Flash will inevitably come sooner or later and the phone already has the hardware to support it.
 
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The Nexus One has 802.11n (EVO has b/g), even though there is no support for it in Android.

Negative on the N1 supporting "n" wifi (although it erroneously says it does on some websites: Nexus One Phone - Feature overview & Technical specifications)


The App store thing is an issue of quantity, but not necessarily of quality. The majority of major apps you can get on an iphone you can get on an Android device. The big draw back (to me) is gaming though. Really only up until the Droid could an Android device compete with an iphone in gaming, so it hasn't even been a full year for devs to take advantage of the faster phones (the lack of "3D" games is an example, but its slowly growing).

As far as screen type, the N1's screen is AMOLED instead of a regular LCD (like the Evo's). One advantage of an AMOLED screen is that it makes color looks more vibrant and uses less battery, but the huge drawback is that you can't see it in the sunlight. So I mean there's an advantage/drawback to each - I won't say which is better (but I like to use my phone in the sunlight).

For a hardware wise comparison, it's not even close - the Evo destroys the Nexus One in nearly every category (except they share the same processor and RAM- I think that's it). Its unfair to compare the Evo to the "next" iPhone though, since nobody really knows how it will function. But I'd bet it doesn't best the Evo either.

A question for you: do you live in a major metro area? If you do, you will likely get 4G coverage at some point (if you don't already)...that is a pretty big incentive to me. But if not, don't fear because the Evo is still the king of regular 3G smartphones too :D
 
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I mean Google doesn't censor the hell out of Android apps for every little thing that they don't like/feel threatened by. Did you know in the App Store you can't say "Android?"

This is actually one of the three main reasons that I decide to look elsewhere (the other two being Apple's refusal to support Flash, and AT&T in general - overpricing, no tethering, terrible signal where I work, etc.).

Apple's censorship of the app store is completely out of control and I hate being told what apps I can't put on my phone. When they refused the Google Voice app, that was the beginning of the end of my love affair with the iPhone.
 
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A question for you: do you live in a major metro area? If you do, you will likely get 4G coverage at some point (if you don't already)...that is a pretty big incentive to me. But if not, don't fear because the Evo is still the king of regular 3G smartphones too :D

I live in New York City which I think is supposed to be getting 4G sometime in the fall. There really are a dozen or more reasons to be getting the EVO and I have pretty much decided on it at this point. I just like to know when I'm getting something what it doesn't have before the fact instead of getting it and then trying to do something and being disappointed when I can't. I like to manage my expectations :)

It sounds like voice commands is covered, though I would like more specifics on that. Still curious though as to whether there are controls on the headphones and whether the device will play well with Bluetooth stereo headsets and their controls. One of my favorite features with the iPhone is to be able to skip forward, back, pause, and answer calls or send them to voicemail without the phone ever having to leave my pocket.
 
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I wish I could answer you better about the bluetooth stuff and voice controls, but sadly I don't have an Android phone.

But, I will say that I'm sure it can be done. With android phones you can "Root" them which gives you access to everything - and very powerful applications can be used when doing this...if its not native I'm sure there are other ways to give you the functionality you want.
 
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Only things you may miss are all the games and toys and such you can get on the iPhone. They have a big customer base and have been around a while so they have a lot of development and the catalog is huge. The flip side to this as some have mentioned is the level of control they exert. Lots of things are not allowed on the iPhone platform.

Otherwise the only other thing you may miss is paying an extra $30 or so per month if you are a masochist or maybe searching for signal :D

Seriously though, App availability is the only thing I can think of and even then it's mostly 3D games and such that are more abundant on the iPhone. Most other app types are available on both platforms. I find the openness, better carrier, and nicer hardware specs to more than make up for the lack of 3D games which I never really buy anyway.
 
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+1 to neo.

I saw a statistic somewhere a month ago that the majority of the things downloaded to iphone were games and the majority to android were productivity/weather/news/functional stuff. I think that echoes the relative maturity of the app store vs the android market. I haven't browsed the app store in forever but what I imagine is the case is that its saturated with productivity apps that fully use (if you can call it that) iPhones capabilities, so now that people already have had those for a while, that leaves them really only wanting games.

I imagine a similar thing will happen to android, though I expect with the openness and customization on android phones that you won't see things tilted so much towards games as the market matures. I do really like good games and there are only a handful on Android that i'd call polished (such as robo defense). Even my favorite game, Wixel, has a lot of room for improvement (specifically online play).

Check out this article: Google Not Playing Coy When Wooing New Android Developers

“I received an e-mail yesterday from someone at Google claiming to be in their Android Advocacy Group. He basically said that he wanted to open a line of communication with me in case I chose to port the app to Android, and he offered to ship me a free Nexus One to play around with. “It shows that Google is actively recruiting developers to their platform, using the enticements of free hardware and open communication. “Contrast with Apple’s approach: it took us about three months of resubmitting our app to Apple before they stopped rejecting it for inappropriate content. And even now (after we peaked at the No. 7 paid app), we still have no relationship with anyone there. Huge difference in approaches between the two companies.”

Basically what its telling me is that Google is actively going after developers from other platforms to get the best apps offered elsewhere onto android, which is good for all of us. Hopefully soon we'll get "Words with Friends!" (scrabble game) and the goodies on apples app store :)
 
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