Yet Another iPhone3g to EVO Review

[jeffslaw]

Just posted my first blog with my opinion about the EVO 4G after the first month.

iPhone 3G to EVO 4g

 

[StealthTH]

Nice little write up. Thanks.

 

[pfretty]

Glad to hear you decided to stick with the EVO. It's nice to hear a review/comparison based on an extended time frame.

 

[esimpson1]

I would say I am one of the original iPhone fanboys, albeit, I've never waited in line to get one at 6 in the morning. That's pushing it a bit far. (And yes, I upgraded to the iPhone 4 already.)

I will add that, if I had never had an iPhone, I'd absolutely love to Evo. There are some areas where I think it falls short but based on what I've been reading, some of these items are going to be solved in future releases of Android.

The first is that the stock HTC Sense keyboard is pretty bad, especially having come from the iPhone which I found quite usable. I bought Better Keyboard and tried several skins and found one I really liked. With the stock keyboard, when I'd hit "space", I was constantly hitting the arrow keys below it. I think Google would do well to build in some options here without having to pay for a 3rd party app.

Continuing on the conversation about the UI, I think Google needs to lock down the interface so it is consistent across all applications. This is one area where Apple has always excelled. The UI is consistent, notifications are stellar, and app behavior is consistent. For example, if I get a notification from Facebook, the app itself has a red-circled number (indicating how many notifications I've received.) The HTC Mail App does this already.

I've seen so many comments about the lack of notes, to-do lists, etc -- this should be part of the core Android release. HTC makes a great app for calendar and mail and has decent integration with Exchange / ActiveSync, but lacks notes and to-do list. I bought TouchDown for Exchange, but think the interface for that is hokey, also. That said, the functionality is the best for Exchange i've seen so far.

The iPhone 4 has a phenominal battery life. Per the blog about turning services off and such -- I turned off 4G since I don't live in a 4G city and only turn it on when I need it. The first couple of days, I left it on and I wasn't even getting a full day. Now I am. I also turned off Bluetooth which made it even better. All in all I don't really have any complaints with battery life, other than to say the iPhone4 is better (I don't have to turn off Bluetooth, Wifi, etc and get almost 2 days of moderate use.)

Like I said, if I hadn't used the iPhone ever, I'd be so in love with the Evo it's not even funny. I do think Apple should be worried... With Froyo and Gingerbread coming this year, Apple should REALLY be worried. And that's really my last complaint -- HTC is slooooow to update/upgrade software. Froyo has been out for a while and HTC is only promising "Before Christmas..." Uneacceptable.

 

[jeffslaw]

Thanks for the comments

 

[effluent]

Great writeup.

 

[LazyEngineer]

How are you using Swype on an EVO? I don't care for the EVO's keyboard and spell correction. I find I often miss the space bar, or maybe I'm hitting one of the directional arrows below it. So two words end up merged into one, it's cumbersome to get back into the middle and add a space, and often the double word will end up in my spelling book. Swype looks interesting.

 

[Connectz]

I would say I am one of the original iPhone fanboys, albeit, I've never waited in line to get one at 6 in the morning. That's pushing it a bit far. (And yes, I upgraded to the iPhone 4 already.)

I will add that, if I had never had an iPhone, I'd absolutely love to Evo. There are some areas where I think it falls short but based on what I've been reading, some of these items are going to be solved in future releases of Android.

The first is that the stock HTC Sense keyboard is pretty bad, especially having come from the iPhone which I found quite usable. I bought Better Keyboard and tried several skins and found one I really liked. With the stock keyboard, when I'd hit "space", I was constantly hitting the arrow keys below it. I think Google would do well to build in some options here without having to pay for a 3rd party app.

Continuing on the conversation about the UI, I think Google needs to lock down the interface so it is consistent across all applications. This is one area where Apple has always excelled. The UI is consistent, notifications are stellar, and app behavior is consistent. For example, if I get a notification from Facebook, the app itself has a red-circled number (indicating how many notifications I've received.) The HTC Mail App does this already.

I've seen so many comments about the lack of notes, to-do lists, etc -- this should be part of the core Android release. HTC makes a great app for calendar and mail and has decent integration with Exchange / ActiveSync, but lacks notes and to-do list. I bought TouchDown for Exchange, but think the interface for that is hokey, also. That said, the functionality is the best for Exchange i've seen so far.

The iPhone 4 has a phenominal battery life. Per the blog about turning services off and such -- I turned off 4G since I don't live in a 4G city and only turn it on when I need it. The first couple of days, I left it on and I wasn't even getting a full day. Now I am. I also turned off Bluetooth which made it even better. All in all I don't really have any complaints with battery life, other than to say the iPhone4 is better (I don't have to turn off Bluetooth, Wifi, etc and get almost 2 days of moderate use.)

Like I said, if I hadn't used the iPhone ever, I'd be so in love with the Evo it's not even funny. I do think Apple should be worried... With Froyo and Gingerbread coming this year, Apple should REALLY be worried. And that's really my last complaint -- HTC is slooooow to update/upgrade software. Froyo has been out for a while and HTC is only promising "Before Christmas..." Uneacceptable.

I hear you but the notification system on Android and the EVO is FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRR superior in every way to Apple's....

With the EVO and Android devices, most notifications come across the top of the screen ticker-style, completely out of the way... With Apple, the notifications pop-up on the screen very intrusively... And in some cases, you have to leave the app you are in to see the entire message...