Galaxy S vs Desire

[Morsolo]

Thought I'd weigh in, as a new Desire user...

I went and had a look at the Samsung today at the Optus Store (a carrier here in Australia) and at first I thought it was a plastic fake model, but when the screen turned on, I was amazed as just how HORRIBLE the build quality is.

...It feels literally like a cheap plastic toy. Maybe it was a dud model or something, but what I felt, was horrible, I held it and couldn't help but foresee peoples money flushing away. The phone itself is great, don't get me wrong; and the screen is amazing, but it just feels so CHEAP...

If you're deciding between the two, go and actually grasp both in your hand and tell me which feels better. My Desire feels like a German Tank after holding the Samsung.

 

[TheTrueSpin]

Thought I'd weigh in, as a new Desire user...

I went and had a look at the Samsung today at the Optus Store (a carrier here in Australia) and at first I thought it was a plastic fake model, but when the screen turned on, I was amazed as just how HORRIBLE the build quality is.

...It feels literally like a cheap plastic toy. Maybe it was a dud model or something, but what I felt, was horrible, I held it and couldn't help but foresee peoples money flushing away. The phone itself is great, don't get me wrong; and the screen is amazing, but it just feels so CHEAP...

If you're deciding between the two, go and actually grasp both in your hand and tell me which feels better. My Desire feels like a German Tank after holding the Samsung.

Totally agree... I was AMAZED at how cheap the phone felt. The Desire feels solid and expensive, the Galaxy just feels like a toy.

 

[loveandroid]

What do you expect, your in a desire sub-forum.

Neither HTC, Samsung, or Moto has made good on 100% of their promises. I say we crucify them all until demands are met.

People choosing another brand because of previous experiences is a huge victory for the consumer and a proof that the consumer is not a moron that you can sell anything you want.

Obviously being in a desire sub-forum doesn't help but the fact most name their reputation also says a lot about it.

Not like other brands are perfect but samsung was taking the piss for so many years and now its paying the price for it.

I can only be very happy for this, may it be a lesson for all brands( there is one that is also taking a piss, antenna problems without admiting it )


I do have a question:

Has samsung corrected any of the problems or is still their usual whistle to the side?

Awful GPS
Lag between apps


I honestly don't care how the mobile feels in my hand, lighter the better.

 

[lcgreen]

Thanks for everyone's input- xD I've finally decided to getting a Desire after quite alot of thinking.

Totally agree... I was AMAZED at how cheap the phone felt. The Desire feels solid and expensive, the Galaxy just feels like a toy.

I also wasn't too keen on its huge buttons .

I do have a question:

Has samsung corrected any of the problems or is still their usual whistle to the side?

Awful GPS
Lag between apps


I honestly don't care how the mobile feels in my hand, lighter the better.

Yes the lag between the apps has already been solved, if you watch the newer video on that youtube channel of the embedded video above.
Samsung says a future update will fix the GPS and allow it to lock on to weaker satellites instead of only the strong ones.

The extra internal memory and gfx power was definitely tempting to me, but I rationalized thus: Unless the Galaxy series is a huge phenomenon that it topples iPhone as the consumer phone of choice, then there's not going to be anyone developing to use that graphics power. Maybe 6-12 months down the line they will be, when we have stuff like the 1.5Ghz snapdragons and mobile dual core and all that awesome for them to play with, but for now, its just going to be sitting there not doing a lot. Currently, if a game definitely needs more juice than Desire and its snapdragon sisters can play, the mobile developers aren't going to be making it.

The galaxy has good benchmark chops, but without apps to make use of them, the patchy GPS problems, lack of flash and potential lack of FroYo (or further down the road Gingerbread) are all big issues to me. No point in getting a 'bleeding edge' device and then have the best part either under-utilized for months or more (GFX) or likely to be lagging a long way behind in software terms (OS updates).

Internal storage is a total non-issue to me, especially with Froyo being so close. In general, I think a lot of people who have been into gadgets have a selection of MicroSD cards at their disposal, or are used to using the space at their disposal. I mean extra space is nice, but its not enough to tempt me.

Finally, although you can change the UI, I really REALLY hate that I'd HAVE to. I get that Samsung is pitching squarely at the iPhone crowd, and thats a great thing, especially with the built in storage. They are pounding on the door of people who are bored with apple, but don't want to move far. I think Sense UI is just gorgeous, and fluid and lovely, and its NOT iOS. I came to the platform because I didn't want an iPhone. Just because its popular doesn't mean everything should be exactly the same. Making your stuff more like the stuff your fans kinda hate with a passion, does not really endear it.

Also I am not comfortable using something made by a company who thought 'TouchWiz' was the right name for the hyper-geeky android market. Seriously... They could have called it ANYTHING, and they went with that.

So yeah, thats my thinking going with the Desire. Sorry this has gone on for ages, seems like this has been on my mind a little. Also the Desire is pretty.

I'm using a Legend so I might be slightly spoiled on looks- but forgive me if I said I thought that the Desire is quite ugly as well- just not as bad as the SGS. I'm definitely getting a Silver Desire if possible XD



mmm, I think a silver one would be quite rare....HTC should dump it's brown colouring soon... if they want a unique colour they should choose a colour less like....rusted metal or people's excretion.

IMO xD looking forward to a Desire

 

[Ghibli]

mmm, I think a silver one would be quite rare....HTC should dump it's brown colouring soon... if they want a unique colour they should choose a colour less like....rusted metal or people's excretion.

Quite frankly I wish it was actually brown... Indoors it's really more of a nice subtle grey, and in sunlight it's... well... purple...

 

[Morsolo]

but forgive me if I said I thought that the Desire is quite ugly as well- just not as bad as the SGS. I'm definitely getting a Silver Desire if possible XD

You know, at first I thought it was - as you put - "quite ugly", but I was happy to deal with a slight decrease in looks for the increase in performance, when compared with - let's say - the Legend.

BUT, after using it HEAVILY for the past 24 hours since use, the looks have grown on me, it is rather elegant, feels perfect to grip in your hand; and the colour isn't actually that bad, it looks (as I said) "elegant" and "sophisticated", almost like a dark champagne colour with a hint of purple/red.

...I think I'd go as far to say, I like it

 

[Infinifail]

(PRE-NOTICE: I have yet to receive my Desire)

Here's my phone history:
My first phone was a Samsung E900.
I loved the phone, it was awesome, my mum ahs it now as I got to choose a new one 2 years after.

My second phone was the Samsung Soul.
Also a great phone, I just got irritated over some bugs. I still use it atm.

Some time ago i went to the store where I usually get my phones, and they had 3 phones which I was quite find of. The Desire, Galaxy S and the Wave.
I removed the Wave from my list due to the lack of Android (What a shame), so it was either the Galaxy S or the Desire. When I got hold of them both, I knew immediatly which one I wanted: The desire.

Reasons:
I could see my fingers all over the backside of the Samsung
The Samsung felt cheap and bulky. 9I don't need an overly huge screen)
No (LED)Flash (I mean, COME ON! It's the freaking year 2010...)
I was unsure whether Samsung would update the phone to 2.2, but HTC had already said the Desire will get an update sometime.

And of course, Nice that it has a GPU, but what is it needed for? It's a phone, not a PSP.

Note that the phone's weren't turned on, so i couldn't compare the UI. However, from what I've seen on many vids I prefer HTC's Sense UI.

Samsung: Good on paper, but that's about it.

 

[lcgreen]

Quite frankly I wish it was actually brown... Indoors it's really more of a nice subtle grey, and in sunlight it's... well... purple...

purple O_O you mean the brown Desire will look purple in sunlight?

You know, at first I thought it was - as you put - "quite ugly", but I was happy to deal with a slight decrease in looks for the increase in performance, when compared with - let's say - the Legend.

BUT, after using it HEAVILY for the past 24 hours since use, the looks have grown on me, it is rather elegant, feels perfect to grip in your hand; and the colour isn't actually that bad, it looks (as I said) "elegant" and "sophisticated", almost like a dark champagne colour with a hint of purple/red.

...I think I'd go as far to say, I like it

ah- yea, and one thing I think is a bad design on Desire is the placement of buttons on the same line as the trackball. On my Legend, I can hold the device on either sides of the trackball when watching videos or reading texts on the screen- it seems I'll have to get used to holding the device on the sides of the device and the limited space to use the trackball..

The USB port is also placed wierdly, and bulges out on the back/bottom...

But enough of my rant lol.
I'm glad we didn't need to choose between pink and orange.

 

[LostAlon]

You know, at first I thought it was - as you put - "quite ugly", but I was happy to deal with a slight decrease in looks for the increase in performance, when compared with - let's say - the Legend.

BUT, after using it HEAVILY for the past 24 hours since use, the looks have grown on me, it is rather elegant, feels perfect to grip in your hand; and the colour isn't actually that bad, it looks (as I said) "elegant" and "sophisticated", almost like a dark champagne colour with a hint of purple/red.

...I think I'd go as far to say, I like it

Agreed.

The desire looks like what my brain expects a modern gadget to look like. Understated. Refined. The Galaxy looks like first gen hardware to me... Y'know... the same design ideas that we expected a few years ago.

Given a moment to think, the Galaxy looks exactly like a scaled up version of my GFs samsung touchscreen dumbphone, except hers is pink, and looks less cheap because it doesn't have that weird sheen you get on cheap uncoated plastic.

I guess its REALLY shallow, but if you look at a device and it turns you off, you'll never enjoy using it as much as a similar device that you love the look of. It just puts you in a bad mind set.

It kinda sucks that they stuck it in such a god-awful shell with such a god awful UI made by people who don't give a damn about their users after sale. If this was an HTC device in a similar HTC style body with Sense, we wouldn't even be asking. It'd just be called 'Desire II'.

 

[Kryten2k35]

Samsung make horrible phones.

Desire is getting 720p recording.

Built in memory is moot. We can change ours around if we like.

 

[Ghibli]

purple O_O you mean the brown Desire will look purple in sunlight?

Indeed. Sometimes almost pink...

ah- yea, and one thing I think is a bad design on Desire is the placement of buttons on the same line as the trackball. On my Legend, I can hold the device on either sides of the trackball when watching videos or reading texts on the screen- it seems I'll have to get used to holding the device on the sides of the device and the limited space to use the trackball..

That's because the Desire doesn't have the luxury of extra real estate on the front. It's one of the few lucky devices nowadays that maximizes the screen size over a limited surface area, unlike the Legend which has plenty of wasted space under the display.

 

[loveandroid]

mmm, I think a silver one would be quite rare....HTC should dump it's brown colouring soon... if they want a unique colour they should choose a colour less like....rusted metal or people's excretion.

IMO xD looking forward to a Desire

I heard that getting a desire lately is very hard. a silver one must be even harder, no?

 

[videoassist]

Let me say something...

SGS or IP4 may have the best camera, or GPU, or better touchscreen but, sincerely:

SGS - Do you want play games? Go for a gamer PC with an GeForce 4XX, 5XX, or FXX..
IPhone - It

 

[Niir]

my friend has just picked up a galaxy S after she was offered it insted of a desire (my recomendation) so ill see how they stack up against each other and report back!

desire FTW!!

 

[marc 1975]

HTC Desire vs iPhone 4 vs Samsung Galaxy S | News | TechRadar UK
hope this helps

 

[Desire D]

Decent review of the three phones via that Techradar link thanks.

Not there are any Desire regrets here anyway

 

[Phenomenological]

I don't understand the people who call the desire ugly. It really isn't. It's a sleek, well constructed device. It doesn't have any unnecessary design features, everything is spaced out perfectly to keep it comfortable but minimise size. It feels fantastic in the hand, and I think it looks better than even the iPhone 4. The iPhone tries way, way too hard to look good, and while it does for a while, once you've used it for a bit it starts to dawn on you that your phone is unnecessarily vulgar and flashy. The Desire sits perfectly with HTCs slogan - Quietly brilliant. It's understated, professional, and a tribute to the team that designed it.

The iPhone 4 is two sheets of glass with some metal around it. It's basically a bit of double glazing with a screen inside it.

 

[g4rvd4]

Haha.. I agree with you in that the Desire is very elegant and more suited for professionals. The quietly brilliant tag suits it very well. But I disagree about the iPhone 4, it looks excellent in my opinion.
Only that it too, lives up to its name, you can almost hear it screaming "I! Phone! I! Phone!"..

 

[JamesFoster]

I think HTC nearly nailed it with the HTC HD2.
3 buttons (ie home, back and search is the minimum) would have enough. Menu and an optical d pad is also useful.
Of course the HD2 had the obsolete WM6.x. But the design of the hardware was rock solid.
Don't forget that the Evo is just an HD2 with Android 2.1 and a CDMA chip.
I especially liked the aluminium battery cover.

 

[IOWA]

I think HTC nearly nailed it with the HTC HD2.
3 buttons (ie home, back and search is the minimum) would have enough. Menu and an optical d pad is also useful.
Of course the HD2 had the obsolete WM6.x. But the design of the hardware was rock solid.
Don't forget that the Evo is just an HD2 with Android 2.1 and a CDMA chip.
I especially liked the aluminium battery cover.

But the HD2 doesn't have any of these design flaws =(

 

[LostAlon]

Haha.. I agree with you in that the Desire is very elegant and more suited for professionals. The quietly brilliant tag suits it very well. But I disagree about the iPhone 4, it looks excellent in my opinion.
Only that it too, lives up to its name, you can almost hear it screaming "I! Phone! I! Phone!"..

TBH I don't think any of the iPhones have been especially good looking and the new one even more so. The old ones had the excuse of kinda looking like an iPod.

The new ones 'glass and steel' is the most horrible tribute to the vulgarism of modern architecture. It's desperate to be 'big', and be cool to the market that really matters, Enterprise (Fun fact... Despite RIM not really having much purchase in the consumer market, Blackberries have like 40+ % market share in the US). Apple want to sell their phone to people in suits and Porsches, and tbh that thought nearly made me laugh so hard I coughed up mountain dew.

Anyway, to take this back on topic:

The only reason you'd get the galaxy over the desire is because you're a spec whore. And that's not the right way to buy IMHO.

If the computer market has taught us nothing (we're all geeks here right ?) its that spec wars are bad for consumers. Jumping between nVidia and ATI doesn't practically achieve much, and they release on different cycles, so they continually back and forth about what is objectively best, but we can only buy once every year or so.

The best way to do it is to upgrade generationally. At the moment, we're at the top of this gen of droid devices. Yes, the Galaxy is on spec a better device, but if you're one of those people who MUST have the best device, you will be FAR better served sticking with whatever you have in this gen (tbh any Eclair device will do) and waiting for the scorpian or whatever the first of the 1.5Ghz dual cored devices are called.

They aren't that far away in the grand scheme of things, and they'll blow the galaxy straight out of the water. The touted gfx power won't compare, and in twelve months time when the serious game development is for the new generation, you'll be pissed that you jumped ship.

In the mean time, if you have an imminent upgrade, you'll be better served getting the cream of HTC's current gen goodness. You're in safe hands, its sexy, and its a dream to use.

 

[loveandroid]

alon, your iphone hate is obvious and ridicolous.

Iphone is extremely beautiful and one of the main reasons why iphone is so popular(I do remind you that Apple lives of his design models).

Calling someone a spec whore while being a desire owner, its the same as having a Ferrari and calling your neighbor a snob because he owns a Porsche.

I do agree with you that is too early to jump on galaxy boat, not because the phone is shit but because its better to wait and get a better phone from a more reliable brand(scorpion or whatever HTC/ Google will launch during Christmas).

 

[g4rvd4]

@LostAlon:

A good read.

 

[lcgreen]

alon, your iphone hate is obvious and ridicolous.

Iphone is extremely beautiful and one of the main reasons why iphone is so popular(I do remind you that Apple lives of his design models).

You forget this is dependent on the person- its his opinion that it doesn't look good and your opinion that it does. Neither are incorrect :/

I do agree with you that is too early to jump on galaxy boat, not because the phone is shit but because its better to wait and get a better phone from a more reliable brand(scorpion or whatever HTC/ Google will launch during Christmas).

Good point :/

But I can't imagine most people buying one phone every year.* If you were to buy a phone for long term which is the better option?


*except Apple followers of course >_>

 

[loveandroid]

At the moment Desire but if Galaxy gets 2.2 before Q1 of next year, then galaxy.

Galaxy loses a lot because it is a Samsung, they are not reliable at all.