iPhone 4 vs Captivate

[Surfer]

Warning: This is a VERY long post, I honestly suggest skimming or not reading this at all!
Okay, so I have seen many people contemplating between the iPhone 4 and Captivate. Seeing as these are easily the best options for an AT&T smartphone I felt like my input may be somewhat helpful.

Seeing as these are both PHONES I am starting out with the primary aspects of these smartphones.

Reception/Call Quality- As everybody knows the iPhone has a very infamous Deathgrip issue. The bars seem to do just plummet down a little bit when you pick up the phone, but at the same time I found that it wasn't truly that bad. Sadly I found the call quality to be quite weak while talking and I dropped several calls. The Samsung Captivate is not without its flaws in reception. You can look at the screen and see the bars dance... and no not in a good way. This dance is comparable the dance of the Jersey Shore cast, the dance seems to go on forever, but you pray that it stops very soon. Surprisingly, the call quality really never differed, I could have had 1 bar or 4 but the voices sound very clear and good! (Although there have been some phones that have problems with call quality)
~ This round goes to ~ The Captivate

Texting/Keyboard- Another aspect to many phone users out there is texting or anything that really involves the keyboard. The iPhones virtual keyboard is quite responsive, but still, it is only an on screen keyboard so it isn't very impressive. The Captivate has a just as good if not better Android/Samsung keyboard input. The Captivate truly shines though with Swype and voice to text. I find myself getting messages sent MUCH quicker with the Captivate.
~ Yet Again, this round goes to~ The Captivate

Software (Operating System, Speed, Browser)- Well what can I say? The operating system we know as the sweet sweet Eclair is hard to beat, and with Froyo coming out, that is just even better. This truly comes down to personal preference, but the iPhone seems to be more simplistic at first, but also a lot more shallow. If you don't like OS, well you can't do anything, but if you don't like Touchwiz, you have several other options (i.e Launcherpro and Openhome) In a speed test it is a bit of a bitter tie. The Samsung Captivate surely has its share of lag, especially when the phone just turns on and it is warming up. The iPhone seems to not be very laggy, but if you look into it, loading similar apps takes longer on the iPhone. I tried opening Opera on the iPhone and Captivate at the same time and the Captivate seemed to pop up a bit faster. Now the browser, I couldn't find too many problems with either of the stock ones so I looked at Opera for both of them. Loading pages was a LOT faster, and I mean A LOT faster on the Captivate. The Captivate seemed like it was Usain Bolt and the iPhone was a fat kid running after the ice cream man. And also, using other browsers with flash is very cool to have. And last but not least the GPS. Well what can I saw, with all these "fixes" and such, the Captivate GPS just doesn't cut it. When I do get GPS signal it drops pretty quickly, but I do like the fact that I can still see the directions. In the end the iPhone 4 has a more reliable GPS.
~ I really can't give one clear winner except that the Captivate is a bit smoother, but has a lot worse GPS~ Tie

Hardware- Well the Captivate seems to get obliterated in this round. The iPhone gives a nice feel to it, but at the same time I felt myself liking the grip I had on my Captivate. It just seemed more natural to hold, but it seems to go downhill from here. The iPhone has LED Flash which is very useful at times, and although not very useful it has a Front Facing Camera. Well, the Camera front camera is pretty decent, but I find myself NEVER USING IT. The Captivate offers more options, but still, I like to be able to take normal pictures in better quality. The battery life on the Captivate seems to last for about a day with medium use, but the iPhone lasts a bit longer, but hey, the captivate has to power more with that BEAUTIFUL 4.0" Super AMOLed. The iPhones retina display is nice, and seems pretty sharp but it just depends which one you prefer. A smaller screen that is a bit clearer or a brighter more vibrant screen on the Captivate.
~This round goes to~ The iPhone

Yes I know I missed some aspects but, this review was already too long. In the end neither of the phones "suck" they are both very capable and strong phones. The iPhone is a bit more simplistic at the beginning, and it has more apps, and a better camera. It has it's flaws though with reception issues. The Captivate is a really great phone. Android seems to be unbeatable, but that is personal preference. Of course nothing is perfect, the Captivate has its GPS issues and for being an Android phones, its lag. All in all, I would recommend either phone, but I am happy with my Captivate and would give my iPhone back to AT&T if I had to make the choice.

 

[HX_Guy]

I have both phones as well and for the most part agree with what you said with a few more thoughts.

The Captivate works much better as a PHONE while the iPhone works much better at everything else so it depends on what is more of a priority for you.

As a phone, I find the Captivate more natural to hold, it has a signal everywhere for me and not one dropped call in the past week. The iPhone would drop at least a call or two per day. Captivate also works better over Bluetooth car handsfree and has useful basic features like long press speed dial and searching using the numerical keypad. One place the iPhone does much better is Visual Voicemail. I have Google Voice setup for Visual Voicemail on the Captivate but it's buggy at times. The volume is real low for some reason and sometimes it takes a while to load the messages, I've even had it give me an error that it couldn't connect. Never ever had a problem with Visual Voicemail on the iPhone.

The Captivate does a much better job for settings and switching different things on/off via widgets, but that can be done an a jail broken iPhone as well.

Typing is much better on the Captivate because of Swype. I love it.

For me, that is where the advantages of the Captivate stop.

The display is a hands down winner for the iPhone for me. I know the screen is smaller but it more than makes up for it with the clarity. Items on the Captivate look jagged...not always but often enough.

Email on the iPhone works much more reliable for me. I have it setup as IMAP and it just works, never had an issue syncing. On the Captivate, I've tried the stock app, K-9 and MailDroid and none have been reliable. Even Gmail, which gets the email real quick...doesn't work properly with my Apple Mail program (shows messages still haven't been read even though they were read on the Captivate). Visually the iPhone mail app is much more polished than anything available on the Android Market.

Browser is not as good on the Captivate, and I tried Dolphin HD too. Just usnt as smooth and I don't like how it renders the text.

Text messaging is pretty similar with using ChompSMS on the Captivate but again the iPhone is more polished when adding a picture to your message or allowing you to call the person directly from within the app.

The camera is far superior on the iPhone. I did some tests of shooting the same scenes and the iPhone easily won. Much sharper and better color photos. The app itself is also easier to use. Yes the iPhone has almost no adjustable features but it doesn't need them here, it just works well the way it comes. The LED flash is also great, not only for pictures but also as a flashlight.

Android Market vs App Store again is no contest. The App Store just has a lot more mainstream support. I couldn't find any apps to play Romanian radio on Android whereas the App Store has dozens of them. There is no Chase Banking app on the Android market and before you say there are alternatives, they are not close enough. The iPhone app allows me to deposit checks by taking a picture of the, the Android copy, not so much. These are just a couple examples but you get the idea.

That about wraps it up. As you can see, my biggest gripes withnthe Captivate are mostly Android related. It just feels amateurish to me, like a bunch of "shade tree" developers put it together while iOS feels like it was put together by a company who knew and cared what it was doing. I know youncan customize it as you want but Ive been trying for the last week to find the correct apps to make it "just work" and haven't been able to yet.

It's funny, I usuallybhave both phones within reach and I grab the Captivate if I need to make a call and the iPhone for everything else. I still haven't decided which I'm going to keep...having a cell phone that actually works as a phone is a pretty high priority.

 

[AdKat]

Just a few thoughts on this. I too was a long time iPhone user. I got my iPhone 4, and it worked well in most places except for my house and the area where I live. my old 3G dropped calls but never like this. Within 45 seconds the call would drop in most places in my home. I sent it back because the phone was so unusable. I don't mind ATT so much, so I picked up the captivate. Here are my thoughts and impressions.

The phone quality of the samsung is simply amazing, I have yet to drop a call. On my old 3G iphone I would drop at least 2 calls a day. On the iphone 4, within 45 seconds it would drop calls at my house and other places where the signal is not good.

Hopefully Samsung will fix the GPS issues ASAP, the phone is going back before the 30 day mark if they don't resolve this, it's so inaccurate, and takes forever to lock on, when it does lock on it's wrong and looses the lock. Everything about Android relies on your location, which is great, because you get things done faster, but come on samsung get this fixed and acknowledge that there is a problem.

Copy/Paste - I can't understand how this is not available in email and the corporate mail programs. It seems like such basic functionality and yet, you can't copy/paste from the gmail app and the mail app. Why? and if I'm missing something please let me know.

Screen lock. there is no time set function to set how long the screen presents a pattern to unlock it. Yes, I need a password on my phone, but come on. Let us set how long the phone locks or not. Again, if there is an app for this, please let me know, but this should be basic functionality.

Phone calls using speaker or bluetooth. I make a lot of calls in the car on bluetooth. My iphone screen would stay on and dim so you could hardly see it, so in it's car dock, it all I would have to do is tap the screen and you can easily do something else when needed. On the samsung, the screen shuts off, so your forced to hit the power button. Does anyone know of a way around this?

Aside from those few issues, I really like the captivate, I love how much you can customize the phone, the widgets are great and the phone quality is amazing. Regretfully, if they don't fix the GPS, it's going back.

 

[AdKat]

Almost forgot one important thing, there should be a timeout for the home, search, back buttons on the bottom of the phone, they go on and off and random and they should stay on more, or at least give us an option to keep them on. I just read in the forums that smasung released the code for the phone, so cudos for samsung for doing that.

 

[acp]

The iphone screen definitely looks better all things related to text, but the Super Amoled outshines the iphone when it comes to colors in games and movies, it makes the iphone screen look washed out.

 

[wirelessdroid]

I have both the Captivate and iPhone 4, having purchased them on day 1 upon launch.

I find both of them to be very nice, with the obvious advantage going to the iPhone simply due to it's well aged and developed OS. It's more refined and does more things well, except function as a phone which is blah...

That said, I'm really enjoying the Captivate with one exception. That is battery life. I begin the day with a fully charged battery, and after only about 2 hours of web browsing (only) I'm down to a disappointing 20% battery life. Now mind you this is two hours of back to back web browsing (the nature of my job) without a single call or anything else to drain the battery.

Note: I should also mention I have the display brightness set to manual and the lowest setting. I've also got anything else that could drain the battery turned off or down to the lowest setting. I have done everything I can to optimize battery usage.

I would like to hear from the rest of you as to what type of battery life you are getting when you use the browser.

Thanks!

 

[myrv]

I have had the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, Nexus One, and Captivate on AT&T. Of those four phones, I prefer the 3GS and Captivate. Right now I am waffling between the two trying to decide which I will keep as my permanent phone. If they get the GPS and email issues fixed in time or if Froyo fixes them fast enough, I will be selling my 3GS and keeping the Captivate, otherwise the Captivate will have to go back until those issues are resolved.

Overall, the things that make me choose the captivate more than any other phone are the size, because 4" screen seems perfect with 4.3" too big and 3.7" too small, and the snappy response of the gpu vs the Nexus One (this was prior to N1 having Froyo as I sold it a few months ago).

wirelessdroid, that is odd about your battery. I start my Captivate off with a full charge and mine lasts through an 8 hour work day. About 2 hours of browsing (I use Dolphin HD), 2 hours of talking, and maybe an hour of playing games, with the rest being standby. I only turn GPS on as needed (besides, it doesn't work on my captivate anyways) and also have wifi turned off. I keep my screen settings on auto adjust but with a decent brightness as my base level. My wallpaper isn't active, but it is the one that spans from dark to light blue with the circles.

Today at home my phone has been on wifi rather than 3g, no GPS, and is currently at 69% (note I am using a widget to give me a % as the stock one sucks for accuracy). I have done very little browsing, maybe 30 mins max, but have played several hours of games because I was showing it off to other family members and trying to convince them to upgrade. One thing I do that you might not is that I never charge my phone unless it is at near the auto turn-off point. I do this to help build battery memory. Maybe you got a defective battery?

 

[Eazail70x7]

Just a few thoughts on this. I too was a long time iPhone user. I got my iPhone 4, and it worked well in most places except for my house and the area where I live. my old 3G dropped calls but never like this. Within 45 seconds the call would drop in most places in my home. I sent it back because the phone was so unusable. I don't mind ATT so much, so I picked up the captivate. Here are my thoughts and impressions.

The phone quality of the samsung is simply amazing, I have yet to drop a call. On my old 3G iphone I would drop at least 2 calls a day. On the iphone 4, within 45 seconds it would drop calls at my house and other places where the signal is not good.

Hopefully Samsung will fix the GPS issues ASAP, the phone is going back before the 30 day mark if they don't resolve this, it's so inaccurate, and takes forever to lock on, when it does lock on it's wrong and looses the lock. Everything about Android relies on your location, which is great, because you get things done faster, but come on samsung get this fixed and acknowledge that there is a problem.

Copy/Paste - I can't understand how this is not available in email and the corporate mail programs. It seems like such basic functionality and yet, you can't copy/paste from the gmail app and the mail app. Why? and if I'm missing something please let me know.

Screen lock. there is no time set function to set how long the screen presents a pattern to unlock it. Yes, I need a password on my phone, but come on. Let us set how long the phone locks or not. Again, if there is an app for this, please let me know, but this should be basic functionality.

Phone calls using speaker or bluetooth. I make a lot of calls in the car on bluetooth. My iphone screen would stay on and dim so you could hardly see it, so in it's car dock, it all I would have to do is tap the screen and you can easily do something else when needed. On the samsung, the screen shuts off, so your forced to hit the power button. Does anyone know of a way around this?

Aside from those few issues, I really like the captivate, I love how much you can customize the phone, the widgets are great and the phone quality is amazing. Regretfully, if they don't fix the GPS, it's going back.

Download the app called "screen mode". It allows you to bypass the lock screen. It works like this, there are 3 settings, 1 for normal screen lock, 1 for bypassing the screen lock and one for the screen to stay on until you manually shut off the screen.

Screebl is another great app for keeping the screen on if you want it to stay on.

 

[Intervenient]

I've been killing myself on whether or not I'm going to exchange my Captivate for an iPhone 4 or not. I'm impressed with Android, but not to the point where I want to invest all my time in it yet. I'll go with the iPhone 4 for a year, sell it high next summer (resale value on iPhones are insane), and hopefully the perfect Android device will be out by then and Google will have solved some of it's bigger issues.

 

[wirelessdroid]

I've been killing myself on whether or not I'm going to exchange my Captivate for an iPhone 4 or not.

Having both to compare in the same usage pattern, I find the Captivate far nicer than the iPhone 4. Yet it's important to note, that I don't use any smartphone for it's camera or music or videos. I do email, text, browsing, calendar, tasks and notes. That's my usage. Heavy on the web as I'm a researcher that travels and thus my smartphone is my main portal to the net. I do carry a laptop with every form of connectivity, yet I'm on the move so much I rarely sit somewhere long enough to use it for the majority of my web needs.

The iPhone drops calls and is not even close to as good as last years iPhone 3Gs which I'm so sorry I sold. I trusted that Apple would do a good job on the 4, but I was sadly mistaken. By pre-ordering (never do that again) I was screwed as there was no way to know of the phones problems at that time.

Also out in the mainstream public the iPhone 4 is forever tainted with it's horrible antenna issue that Apple denies. It's very real and it's a problem. I know from first hand experience. In no way can I suggest the iPhone 4 to anyone. And note that I'm writing this from the keyboard of my new MacBook Pro, so I'm an Apple enthusiast but a realist and not a crazed fanboy that will buy anything Apple and claim it's the best.

 

[wirelessdroid]

wirelessdroid, that is odd about your battery. I start my Captivate off with a full charge and mine lasts through an 8 hour work day. About 2 hours of browsing (I use Dolphin HD), 2 hours of talking, and maybe an hour of playing games, with the rest being standby. I only turn GPS on as needed (besides, it doesn't work on my captivate anyways) and also have wifi turned off. I keep my screen settings on auto adjust but with a decent brightness as my base level. My wallpaper isn't active, but it is the one that spans from dark to light blue with the circles.

Today at home my phone has been on wifi rather than 3g, no GPS, and is currently at 69% (note I am using a widget to give me a % as the stock one sucks for accuracy). I have done very little browsing, maybe 30 mins max, but have played several hours of games because I was showing it off to other family members and trying to convince them to upgrade. One thing I do that you might not is that I never charge my phone unless it is at near the auto turn-off point. I do this to help build battery memory. Maybe you got a defective battery?

Thanks for your feedback, I will check into the Battery with AT&T.

 

[Aerimus]

As a phone, I find the Captivate more natural to hold, it has a signal everywhere for me and not one dropped call in the past week. The iPhone would drop at least a call or two per day. Captivate also works better over Bluetooth car handsfree and has useful basic features like long press speed dial and searching using the numerical keypad. One place the iPhone does much better is Visual Voicemail. I have Google Voice setup for Visual Voicemail on the Captivate but it's buggy at times. The volume is real low for some reason and sometimes it takes a while to load the messages, I've even had it give me an error that it couldn't connect. Never ever had a problem with Visual Voicemail on the iPhone.

I can't believe you said that bluetooth works better on the Captivate? I can get it set up but have 2 MAJOR complaints over the iPhone 4.

1)Music buttons only work with the music player...not with pandora, slackker etc, like they do on the iPhone.

2)You can't press the talk button to bring up voice commands like you can on the iPhone.


I'm using the Motorola T505(i think that's the number), which is a really nice unit that transmits everything back down to your speaker system with an fm transmitter...so nothing crappy. When I push the call button, it just beeps in protest. Yes, you can long hold it to redial, but that's it. On the iPhone 4 I can press the call button to bring of the voice commands and tell it to do all kinds of things. If I'm doing something wrong here...please let me know!

 

[lunatic59]

2)You can't press the talk button to bring up voice commands like you can on the iPhone.

That's been fixed in FroYo, which should be released for the Galaxy S phones in September.

 

[Baldilocks]

The ONLY thing the Captivate has over the iPhone 4 is the user customization of it's interface. In every other category, it falls short. (Except for the speakerphone perhaps.)

Don't get me wrong, the Captivate is a great Android phone for AT&T. But is it an iPhone killer? Not even close.

 

[Intervenient]

The ONLY thing the Captivate has over the iPhone 4 is the user customization of it's interface. In every other category, it falls short. (Except for the speakerphone perhaps.)

Don't get me wrong, the Captivate is a great Android phone for AT&T. But is it an iPhone killer? Not even close.

This is very true unfortunately. Although I do get shots of joy when thinking about getting froyo on this thing, and all sorts of custom ROMs. But when it's all said and done, what do you get? Just a customized phone.

 

[Sharkonwheels]

One thing I do that you might not is that I never charge my phone unless it is at near the auto turn-off point. I do this to help build battery memory. Maybe you got a defective battery?

This has no effect, as Lithium-based batteries have no "memory effect."

The only things that can happen to lithium, besides actually "wearing out," is overcharging or over-discharging. Overcharging will damage the cell, and can shorten the lifespan (which is why the phone reminds you to unplug it when it's fully charged), and over-discharging will actually be difficult to do, because the phone will most likely shut down first. But, an example would be using until the phone shuts down, then not charging for say 1-2 weeks. That might be enough for self-discharge to nuke the cell permanently.

T

 

[JDM9499]

The ONLY thing the Captivate has over the iPhone 4 is the user customization of it's interface. In every other category, it falls short. (Except for the speakerphone perhaps.)

Don't get me wrong, the Captivate is a great Android phone for AT&T. But is it an iPhone killer? Not even close.

Not even close? How are you measuring this by? How do you come to this conclusion?

Is there an Captivate "Killer"? Honestly, this is the wrong way of describing/labeling phones for consumers. What it comes down to are a coupe of simple things. One, how far do you want to go in customizing your phone? And two, does the user prefer a phone that would be more suitable for multimedia (i.e. video/games etc) or more on the lines of an e-reader? So to say the Captivate is not an iphone "killer" is going about the comparison all the wrong way.

The iphone 4 does a GREAT job providing brilliant support/updates and really great (virtually flawless) UI. The Captivate gives you the touch wiz interface, but allows you to customize it (UI design wise) any you want to create it. Literally.

As far as speed, well, it depends on what exactly you are doing with your phone.

To be frank, it comes down to design and UI preference. Both are brilliant phones, backed by great companies. Period. You really can't go wrong either way. It's truly personal preference.

With that said, I entered the smartphone world starting with the iphone 3G, later the 3Gs and now to the Captivate, for three reasons: One, because I wanted to literally change the UI to ways I wanted at any time when I was bored (thanks to Android). Two, I was wanting to experience the power and superiority of a what the Galaxy S offers as far as multimedia goes. Lastly, for my third reason - back in 1984 I remember a commercial that promised to set me free from the monopoly Microsoft once had. After going Apple in the early 90's, I never looked back, until I finally realized my whole life was consumed by what one man was offering me, not by what an assortment of companies were offering me in terms OPTIONS and CHOICES of phone and UI design. It's a personal choice I made to "stick it to the man", though I am well aware that one less Apple fan (me) will ever affect the current stock price and Steve Job's direction of the company.

I admire his zeal, and "consumer first" mentality, but it is either his way or the high way, folks. And I personally chose to veer off track and experience a different type of world. And thus far, coming up on my first 30 days, I will not be taking my Android device (Captivate) back. It has so far exceeded my expectations with the vastness what I can do with the unit. Most importantly, Android community here has been empowering and rewarding. A far better community to be a part of, making the Android/Captivate experience far superior.

Cheers!

 

[drweir]

Not even close? How are you measuring this by? How do you come to this conclusion?

Is there an Captivate "Killer"? Honestly, this is the wrong way of describing/labeling phones for consumers. What it comes down to are a coupe of simple things. One, how far do you want to go in customizing your phone? And two, does the user prefer a phone that would be more suitable for multimedia (i.e. video/games etc) or more on the lines of an e-reader? So to say the Captivate is not an iphone "killer" is going about the comparison all the wrong way.

The iphone 4 does a GREAT job providing brilliant support/updates and really great (virtually flawless) UI. The Captivate gives you the touch wiz interface, but allows you to customize it (UI design wise) any you want to create it. Literally.

As far as speed, well, it depends on what exactly you are doing with your phone.

To be frank, it comes down to design and UI preference. Both are brilliant phones, backed by great companies. Period. You really can't go wrong either way. It's truly personal preference.

With that said, I entered the smartphone world starting with the iphone 3G, later the 3Gs and now to the Captivate, for three reasons: One, because I wanted to literally change the UI to ways I wanted at any time when I was bored (thanks to Android). Two, I was wanting to experience the power and superiority of a what the Galaxy S offers as far as multimedia goes. Lastly, for my third reason - back in 1984 I remember a commercial that promised to set me free from the monopoly Microsoft once had. After going Apple in the early 90's, I never looked back, until I finally realized my whole life was consumed by what one man was offering me, not by what an assortment of companies were offering me in terms OPTIONS and CHOICES of phone and UI design. It's a personal choice I made to "stick it to the man", though I am well aware that one less Apple fan (me) will ever affect the current stock price and Steve Job's direction of the company.

I admire his zeal, and "consumer first" mentality, but it is either his way or the high way, folks. And I personally chose to veer off track and experience a different type of world. And thus far, coming up on my first 30 days, I will not be taking my Android device (Captivate) back. It has so far exceeded my expectations with the vastness what I can do with the unit. Most importantly, Android community here has been empowering and rewarding. A far better community to be a part of, making the Android/Captivate experience far superior.

Cheers!

JDM9499,

Well said my friend....Very well said.

 

[eyeseeyou]

Warning: This is a VERY long post, I honestly suggest skimming or not reading this at all!
Okay, so I have seen many people contemplating between the iPhone 4 and Captivate. Seeing as these are easily the best options for an AT&T smartphone I felt like my input may be somewhat helpful.

Seeing as these are both PHONES I am starting out with the primary aspects of these smartphones.

Reception/Call Quality- As everybody knows the iPhone has a very infamous Deathgrip issue. The bars seem to do just plummet down a little bit when you pick up the phone, but at the same time I found that it wasn't truly that bad. Sadly I found the call quality to be quite weak while talking and I dropped several calls. The Samsung Captivate is not without its flaws in reception. You can look at the screen and see the bars dance... and no not in a good way. This dance is comparable the dance of the Jersey Shore cast, the dance seems to go on forever, but you pray that it stops very soon. Surprisingly, the call quality really never differed, I could have had 1 bar or 4 but the voices sound very clear and good! (Although there have been some phones that have problems with call quality)
~ This round goes to ~ The Captivate

Texting/Keyboard- Another aspect to many phone users out there is texting or anything that really involves the keyboard. The iPhones virtual keyboard is quite responsive, but still, it is only an on screen keyboard so it isn't very impressive. The Captivate has a just as good if not better Android/Samsung keyboard input. The Captivate truly shines though with Swype and voice to text. I find myself getting messages sent MUCH quicker with the Captivate.
~ Yet Again, this round goes to~ The Captivate

Software (Operating System, Speed, Browser)- Well what can I say? The operating system we know as the sweet sweet Eclair is hard to beat, and with Froyo coming out, that is just even better. This truly comes down to personal preference, but the iPhone seems to be more simplistic at first, but also a lot more shallow. If you don't like OS, well you can't do anything, but if you don't like Touchwiz, you have several other options (i.e Launcherpro and Openhome) In a speed test it is a bit of a bitter tie. The Samsung Captivate surely has its share of lag, especially when the phone just turns on and it is warming up. The iPhone seems to not be very laggy, but if you look into it, loading similar apps takes longer on the iPhone. I tried opening Opera on the iPhone and Captivate at the same time and the Captivate seemed to pop up a bit faster. Now the browser, I couldn't find too many problems with either of the stock ones so I looked at Opera for both of them. Loading pages was a LOT faster, and I mean A LOT faster on the Captivate. The Captivate seemed like it was Usain Bolt and the iPhone was a fat kid running after the ice cream man. And also, using other browsers with flash is very cool to have. And last but not least the GPS. Well what can I saw, with all these "fixes" and such, the Captivate GPS just doesn't cut it. When I do get GPS signal it drops pretty quickly, but I do like the fact that I can still see the directions. In the end the iPhone 4 has a more reliable GPS.
~ I really can't give one clear winner except that the Captivate is a bit smoother, but has a lot worse GPS~ Tie

Hardware- Well the Captivate seems to get obliterated in this round. The iPhone gives a nice feel to it, but at the same time I felt myself liking the grip I had on my Captivate. It just seemed more natural to hold, but it seems to go downhill from here. The iPhone has LED Flash which is very useful at times, and although not very useful it has a Front Facing Camera. Well, the Camera front camera is pretty decent, but I find myself NEVER USING IT. The Captivate offers more options, but still, I like to be able to take normal pictures in better quality. The battery life on the Captivate seems to last for about a day with medium use, but the iPhone lasts a bit longer, but hey, the captivate has to power more with that BEAUTIFUL 4.0" Super AMOLed. The iPhones retina display is nice, and seems pretty sharp but it just depends which one you prefer. A smaller screen that is a bit clearer or a brighter more vibrant screen on the Captivate.
~This round goes to~ The iPhone

Yes I know I missed some aspects but, this review was already too long. In the end neither of the phones "suck" they are both very capable and strong phones. The iPhone is a bit more simplistic at the beginning, and it has more apps, and a better camera. It has it's flaws though with reception issues. The Captivate is a really great phone. Android seems to be unbeatable, but that is personal preference. Of course nothing is perfect, the Captivate has its GPS issues and for being an Android phones, its lag. All in all, I would recommend either phone, but I am happy with my Captivate and would give my iPhone back to AT&T if I had to make the choice.

Coming from a jailbroken 3GS, and just recently hopped to the Captivate, it sounds like we're in the same exact boat. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one experiencing these issues. I was starting to think I was turning into an apple fanboy.

I am experiencing the dancing signal bars, lack of GPS signal and feeling the exact same way about finding a comparable mail app. These are actually the only issues I really have a complaint about but also dealbreakers.

I'm only on my second day and the phone is great besides those issues and adjusting to the Android style OS. I'm still getting used to the Android style OS but after using a jailbroken iphone for the last year or two the differences between the two OS's don't seem as big as others might think.

A few things I've noticed already that make me miss the IPhone.

-Not having to look for a mail app that just works. Almost to the point where they should have suggested just using your gmail for this phone. Yahoo plus on the stock mail app took a while to setup and even then I can't view my personal folders.

-Comparable apps aren't as "polished" and sometimes as intuitive as the app store.

Why do links in the facebook app have to open up in a web browser instead of in the app itself?

One suggestion for Iphone to Captivate users, if you actually enjoyed the itunes style of syncing or just want you'r itunes play lists transferred over to your phone download the doubletwist desktop and mobile app. Alllllmost like they just installed the ipod application from the iphone onto the captivate.

Let's see if I can work with the captivate's "issue's" past 30 days.

 

[HX_Guy]

.

 

[StylinProfilin]

mSpot works really well also for syncing Itunes music(wirelessly at that). I synced over 18 gigs of music to my phone. I have had no problems with mSpot.

 

[sdelliott31]

I broke down and and bought an ipad today and now I'm trying to decide if I wasn't to keep my captivate beyond the 30 day period or get the iphone where it will work better with the ipad. I love swype and the camera and launcher pro and the screen but I needto decide I have 12 days left.

 

[Sharkonwheels]

I'm happy with my Cappy. Wife and one kid has an i4, and the screen looks so washed out. Did a 3G speed test, still 3/4 - 1/2 the speed of the cappy. Speeds the i4 is getting, honestly are not even faster than the backflip! i4 is smaller, yet heavier than the Cappy, not to mention how fragile it is now with that acrylic front and back.

Add to that the TOTAL customizability of the UI on Android, like launchers, wallpapers, themes, widgets, etc...

For me, there's absolutely no comparison - and I can walk in AT ANY TIME, and get an i4 for $199.

No thanks.

That being said, these things are like cars - there IS NO one car that is perfect for everyone. One may prefer the iPhone 4, another the Captivate, someone else may find the backflip perfect, and then maybe someone else thinks the Palm Pre Plus is the cat's meow!

I say buy what you WANT, buy what you NEED, buy what you ENJOY, and don't even bother looking back!

Of course, I understand Intervenient's position - torn between the two.

Inter - any things added to the i4 after jailbreaking it? I read the JB came out today.

T

 

[AndroidForMe]

A phone that requires a case to be usable is not better than the Captivate sorry...try again. I came from an iPhone 4 to the Captivate and do not regret it one bit and would do it a million times over.

One pinky to the lower left corner and say goodbye to data transmission and signal...suck it Apple.

 

[Baldilocks]

Sorry, but the antenna issue is way overblow. I have NEVER gotten any kind of signal fluctuation with my iPhone 4. Now, my Captivate?? It's signal jumps all over the place.

While the Super AMOLED screen is bright, it is NOWHERE near as detailed and crisp as the iPhone 4 screen. It's just a FACT that the iPhone can display text MUCH better than ANY other phone out there.

Also, now that the iPhone 4 is jailbroken, the 'gap' between the two has narrowed even more.

Like I say, I have both. My iPhone 4 impresses me much more.