Former iPhone users.. are you pleased?

[mrvirginia]

well, so far i've had a pretty positive experience with Android. the only negative i have thus far is battery life. phone on idle and in two hrs it has gone from fully charged to about 90%. i have sync/updates turned off, wifi/bluetooth/4g etc turned off as well. the Android OS still needs optimizing imo.

edit: oh yeah, and i've never dropped a call when i was on ATT. was talking on the phone the other day in my house and it dropped a call. at times either my voice or the person i was talking to would break up. my area is well covered, i just think the radios used in the Evo suck.

 

[tmaxey1]

well, so far i've had a pretty positive experience with Android. the only negative i have thus far is battery life. phone on idle and in two hrs it has gone from fully charged to about 90%. i have sync/updates turned off, wifi/bluetooth/4g etc turned off as well. the Android OS still needs optimizing imo.

edit: oh yeah, and i've never dropped a call when i was on ATT. was talking on the phone the other day in my house and it dropped a call. at times either my voice or the person i was talking to would break up. my area is well covered, i just think the radios used in the Evo suck.

If you have never dropped a call while using an iphone on at&t then you have never made a call on an iphone using at&t. I have used them for a few years and the number of dropped calls is huge. It is a very common thing. Yet you have NEVER even had it happen once? BS

I dont care where you live. The calls drop.

 

[Headcase_Fargone]

Try downloading "NoLock", free in the Market. Turns the phone on with either the power button, or either of the volume buttons. Also eliminates the "swype" screen.

Trying this right now. Sounds perfect.

the reception in my area stinks. One bar when I'm outside the reception is ok.

This is what's really getting me. I live in one of the largest cities in the country (Houston) and both my reception and 3G are absurdly bad. Bad to the point that if this is typical I don't know how Sprint has managed to stay in business.

Since I don't want to sound like I do nothing but complain, the phone itself is absolutely amazing. I'm totally in love with Android. Coming from iPhone OS where everything is locked down and sanitized it's a breath of fresh air. Definitely not something I would recommend to my less tech-savvy co-workers who probably would have thrown the phone at a wall by now, but I love it.

I really violently don't want to go back to the iPhone, but I may end up having to if these connectivity issues aren't resolved in the next few weeks. My iPhone is getting 1.5 to 1.8mbps down in the same locations that my Evo is getting .2 to .5mbps. And my cellular reception is pretty horrible where I live, which is only a hundred yards or so off of I-10. Not service I'm willing to continue paying for all around.

 

[tmaxey1]

Trying this right now. Sounds perfect.



This is what's really getting me. I live in one of the largest cities in the country (Houston) and both my reception and 3G are absurdly bad. Bad to the point that if this is typical I don't know how Sprint has managed to stay in business.

Since I don't want to sound like I do nothing but complain, the phone itself is absolutely amazing. I'm totally in love with Android. Coming from iPhone OS where everything is locked down and sanitized it's a breath of fresh air. Definitely not something I would recommend to my less tech-savvy co-workers who probably would have thrown the phone at a wall by now, but I love it.

I really violently don't want to go back to the iPhone, but I may end up having to if these connectivity issues aren't resolved in the next few weeks. My iPhone is getting 1.5 to 1.8mbps down in the same locations that my Evo is getting .2 to .5mbps. And my cellular reception is pretty horrible where I live, which is only a hundred yards or so off of I-10. Not service I'm willing to continue paying for all around.

If you live in a poor reception area then no one would blame you for ditching the evo or any sprint phone. You may consider switching out the phone for another one. Maybe your phone is defective in some way. I originally had 2 palm pre's and 1 was great on reception and the other was terrible in the same spot on my couch.

One thing i have noticed and im not sure why really is no matter what my speed test reports, my internet browsing seems to be the same. Load a full picture site like AMW | America's Most Wanted with John Walsh and time it. Then try that with your iphone. If you dont mind post the results. I now have the Hero and a Pre and the pre always wins the speedtest but the hero actually loads web pages faster. It makes me wonder. So i try not to get too excited over speed test in general. Now if im trying to load a web page and its take 60 seconds then thats a different story. But 3-4 seconds difference wont change my life. In fact i would rather my sites load 5 seconds slower on a 4.3 inch screen than 5 seconds faster on a low res 3.5 inch iphone screen.

 

[Headcase_Fargone]

It's very strange, actually. According to Sprint I live in an "excellent coverage area." People in the same building have Sprint phones (not Evos of course) and get full bars at all times. My iPhone had full bars at all times. I'm very close to probably the biggest interstate in the country in one of the biggest cities in the country. It HAS to be blanketed with coverage, there's no way it's not.

I'm really baffled by the reception. I know that my device has issues as it refuses to connect to 4G anywhere, even in the Sprint store. They (the Sprint reps) were at a loss. BestBuy has ordered me another phone so hopefully that will help with the other issues. I'm just afraid 3G and cellular "is what it is."

As for browser speed, I'm not really all that concerned with that. Mainly streaming media. Youtube is unsuable even at low res, and I'm not even able to reliably stream low bitrate MP3s from my Subsonic server. It's pretty bad.

 

[bhagiratha]

Coming from an iphone 3g and 3gs and being an Apple fanboy for many years, I made the decision to depart with my 3gs just a few months before the EVO launched. I pretty much got tired of it, and even though it was jailbroke and unlocked, I felt it wasn't enough for me.
So when I first saw the EVO and begin reading the many reviews I know that this is what I needed and plus I wanted an excuse to leave ATT.
I have had the EVO since Friday and I haven't put it down yet. The phone is just mind-blowing. This is my very first experience with Android, and I am totally loving it.
The mutli-touch is very good and I like the way you can customize it.
I am glad I made that move and haven't looked back.

Gone are the days when I was an iPhone fanatic !!!

 

[tfreeman]

The main thing I hate about the iPhone is the network, so any phone with non-dropped calls is a bonus. I've spent a lot of time trying to set up the phone and keep running into bugs/issues. I'll mention a few..

Set up the phone, downloaded all the apps I wanted, set up email, downloaded the patch...ran into the activesync bug. Hard reset, downloaded all apps, installed email, no issues. Rebooted at some point, reboot bug. Downloaded all apps, one at a time with reboots, installed email, found the bug. Redid everything again, downloaded Touchdown to fix the issue.

On the same topic, inputing the password is a pain. You have to have a number, but can't have only numbers (found this out reading about the activesync bug), so the keyboard is cumbersome to use everytime for the password. After the bug and this issue, I ended up just downloading LockPicker. I don't have any security lock on the phone, but don't have to deal with the keyboard.

Syncing movies and music is a chore. On a past Android phone, I just used Double Twist. For some reason, it's now giving me a DRM error and won't sync. I have no DRM music, I upgraded to DRM free a while back before I had purchased many songs. Due to this, I can't sync any music. Movies don't have any option to sync at all, so it's a manual copy to the storage. I'd hope there is a better way to accomplish this, but haven't search much on this yet.

Battery was terrible over the weekend, but I assume it's due to trying to activate. I have both the iPhone and EVO set up with the same tasks (push email, etc) and unplugged both at the same time. iPhone is at 84% and the EVO is showing about 80% (don't have a percentage, just the bar to compare). With that, it's not showing much difference.

The hardware of the EVO really is superior. The screen is great and any camera is better than the iPhone one. The only negatives have already been mentioned in the power button and vibrate. The power button is just not easy to hit with one hand. Also, being in and out of meetings constantly, the vibrate button has been missed already this morning. I already mentioned the keyboard, but it doesn't seem to be as responsive. I'll try others, but with me constantly sending email, this is a major issue at the moment.

 

[DucatiDude]

So far I like it, only gripe is no pipeline character on the keyboard (due to HTC). Waiting to be able to root it and put plain android 2.2. I really don't like HTC sense UI at all.

So, have you run back to the store to return your phone like you said you were going to do in that other forum?

 

[Oridus]

The main thing I hate about the iPhone is the network, so any phone with non-dropped calls is a bonus. I've spent a lot of time trying to set up the phone and keep running into bugs/issues. I'll mention a few..

Set up the phone, downloaded all the apps I wanted, set up email, downloaded the patch...ran into the activesync bug. Hard reset, downloaded all apps, installed email, no issues. Rebooted at some point, reboot bug. Downloaded all apps, one at a time with reboots, installed email, found the bug. Redid everything again, downloaded Touchdown to fix the issue.

On the same topic, inputing the password is a pain. You have to have a number, but can't have only numbers (found this out reading about the activesync bug), so the keyboard is cumbersome to use everytime for the password. After the bug and this issue, I ended up just downloading LockPicker. I don't have any security lock on the phone, but don't have to deal with the keyboard.

Syncing movies and music is a chore. On a past Android phone, I just used Double Twist. For some reason, it's now giving me a DRM error and won't sync. I have no DRM music, I upgraded to DRM free a while back before I had purchased many songs. Due to this, I can't sync any music. Movies don't have any option to sync at all, so it's a manual copy to the storage. I'd hope there is a better way to accomplish this, but haven't search much on this yet.

Battery was terrible over the weekend, but I assume it's due to trying to activate. I have both the iPhone and EVO set up with the same tasks (push email, etc) and unplugged both at the same time. iPhone is at 84% and the EVO is showing about 80% (don't have a percentage, just the bar to compare). With that, it's not showing much difference.

The hardware of the EVO really is superior. The screen is great and any camera is better than the iPhone one. The only negatives have already been mentioned in the power button and vibrate. The power button is just not easy to hit with one hand. Also, being in and out of meetings constantly, the vibrate button has been missed already this morning. I already mentioned the keyboard, but it doesn't seem to be as responsive. I'll try others, but with me constantly sending email, this is a major issue at the moment.

Lol I think I may be the only person alive who doesn't mind the power button placement or find it hard to press with either hand.

And I even have an innocase II on it.

Sent from my HTC Evo 4G using Tapatalk Pro.

 

[twospirits]

nice thread. Welcome previous iPhone users.

I set up a thread to discuss transitioning from iPhone to EVO/Android here.

TS out

 

[misterzeno]

It's very strange, actually. According to Sprint I live in an "excellent coverage area." People in the same building have Sprint phones (not Evos of course) and get full bars at all times. My iPhone had full bars at all times. I'm very close to probably the biggest interstate in the country in one of the biggest cities in the country. It HAS to be blanketed with coverage, there's no way it's not.

I'm really baffled by the reception. I know that my device has issues as it refuses to connect to 4G anywhere, even in the Sprint store. They (the Sprint reps) were at a loss. BestBuy has ordered me another phone so hopefully that will help with the other issues. I'm just afraid 3G and cellular "is what it is."

As for browser speed, I'm not really all that concerned with that. Mainly streaming media. Youtube is unsuable even at low res, and I'm not even able to reliably stream low bitrate MP3s from my Subsonic server. It's pretty bad.

I am also in Houston and have had Sprint since 04 and the only signal issue I had was inside my home in Almeda and we moved there in March. Sprint sent me an airrave for free and they are waiving the monthly cost for the airrave. You could have a bad unit Headcase, I have had many different sprint phones over the years and have gone all over Houston and have no signal issues. Also inside my home in Almeda we would get 1 or 2 bars indoors and to Sprints credit the coverage map does show that address as a weak spot. Hope it gets better with the replacement phone.

 

[redenfield]

-- Top button placement to unlock the screen (I am sure I will adapt to it over time)


Download "No Lock" from Android Market. Allows you to use the side volume up/down key to 'wake' the phone and disable the 'slide down to unlock' feature. Best OS app to date!

 

[fiskadoro]

They just announced Farmville for iPhone at WWDC. That's the best reason ever to switch to Android.

 

[Wendemi]

I'm getting used to it, learning lil quirks here and there. Finally got my calendar set up, had to export from ical into google calendar, but its cool to have it update on the fly and sync. Only way to do that on apple was to sync by wire or or pay for mobileme.

Some my cons:
-I am worried about the applications/games staying loaded, even after I close them, which is unlike the iPhone.
-Auto brightness on the phone isn't as reactive as the iPhone either, which causes problems when the screen is TOO bright in dark room or not bright enough in bright sunlight.
-I liked being able to create bookmark folders to separate some of my tech sites from sports sites and whatnot, seems as if Android can't.
-i also liked being able to touch at the top of the screen and having it auto scroll to the top on the iPhone.

Pros:
-Screen is A----MAZING! When I pick up my iPhone, it feels like a toy and aggravating to work on lol.
-Keyboard is easy to type on
-No isues with phone service
-Wifi on Evo loads pages a LOT faster than the same page on the iPhone
-WIDGETS!!!
-FB/Twitter integration
-Tons more

Overall though, I'm really pleased with the phone, can't wait to learn more about the Android world.

with FROYO coming soon, you'll have the ability to see what apps are running and close them. Also, you'll be able to create folders for your apps.

 

[aleicgrant]

well this affirms my decision to buy an evo. the 4g iphone isnt anything stellar to write home about. bye bye Steve and gang

 

[chazglenn3]

Same here. The iPhone 4 just doesn't bring enough to the table. Evo/Android wins!

 

[jrstinkfish]

Yeah, I was reading the live blogging about the new iPhone, and it's not very exciting. There's not really a lot more you can do with it that will make people want to race out and get one. The new form factor is cool, as is the included storage, but things like iMovie on the phone to edit movies ... meh. Fact is it's still on AT&T's crappy network, and that will always be a huge strike against it, no matter how much they cram into the phone.

 

[photostu]

+1

Yeah, I was reading the live blogging about the new iPhone, and it's not very exciting. There's not really a lot more you can do with it that will make people want to race out and get one. The new form factor is cool, as is the included storage, but things like iMovie on the phone to edit movies ... meh. Fact is it's still on AT&T's crappy network, and that will always be a huge strike against it, no matter how much they cram into the phone.

 

[Headcase_Fargone]

I am also in Houston and have had Sprint since 04 and the only signal issue I had was inside my home in Almeda and we moved there in March. Sprint sent me an airrave for free and they are waiving the monthly cost for the airrave. You could have a bad unit Headcase, I have had many different sprint phones over the years and have gone all over Houston and have no signal issues. Also inside my home in Almeda we would get 1 or 2 bars indoors and to Sprints credit the coverage map does show that address as a weak spot. Hope it gets better with the replacement phone.

What kind of 3G speeds are you seeing in town? I've been forcing everyone I work with to download SpeedTest on their phones for comparison purposes. I'm seeing .3-.5mbps, co-worker's Droid on Verizon is similar. All the iPhones on AT&T are still getting 1.5-1.8 down.

 

[bingo]

I'm finishing off my first month of the "Android Experiment", after coming from an iPhone 3g and am pretty pleased thus far. I started with an Incredible, but Verizon's data coverage at my work location was nonexistent, and even voice was spotty. I researched and found that we have Sprint repeaters installed in our building and it was a no-brainer to exercise my escape clause and get an EVO at launch.

I like the freedom to tinker and personalize more than what the iPhone OS allows, and the EVO is a great showcase for what Android can do. I'm excited for 2.2 in the future as well.

I haven't had battery issues, largely because I've done my homework by lurking here and elsewhere and taking the best of the advice on offer to heart, with a few tweaks to suit my own usage habits. I am using Task Manager and a mix of basic management steps (turning off mobile network and background data when they're not being used, but that's about it), and my current reported battery level is 60% (up time 60:25:57, awake time 12:08:48, 1d 17h 28m 51s since unplugged) with Data turned on but not using 4g (low signal here in the basement). This is better than I could have expected already, and I can't see it getting much worse.

Here in Seattle, 4g coverage is hit or miss. I've had solid connection in some places and less than usable in others. The 3g has been remarkably solid everywhere, and has outperformed the 4g connectivity for me several times, even when 4g was rock solid. Hotspot works great with my WiFi iPad, which was a huge reason for my purchase of the EVO to begin with.

I've had the WWDC live strem feeding my desktop all morning, and I have to say that as nice a piece of tech as the iPhone 4 surely is, I think this is really Apple's "too little too late" round, compared to what the competition is bringing to the table this time. This is good for everyone in the long haul, as whetever Apple does to counter being behind the curve this generation will surely raise the bar for Google and everyone else for what the next generation of phones brings to our sweaty little palms.

 

[JustFrozen]

Coming from iPhone 3GS (my first smartphone).

Initial impressions so far are that there are little things that annoy me compared to the iPhone OS, but overall I'm falling in love with the EVO more and more every day. The OS definitely isn't as "smooth", and the browser is certainly not up to par, but the other qualities by far make up for the minor annoyances.

Especially after seeing the real deal behind the iPhone 4, I'm 100% glad I switched to Sprint and the EVO. The icing on the cake? Not a single dropped call yet. That's ^#$%ing awesome

 

[septro]

Even though our video chat still needs to work wrinkles out.. the iOS4 video chat will only be over wi-fi for 2010.. what kind of sh@#t is that? If you and you're partner have to find a n open wi-fi spot to video chat, OMG what a hot-mess that will be.

Netflix on iOS4 sounds hot tho - but we'll get SlingPlayer so I call that a wash

I'd have to see the new iPhone Retina display to see how much more a clear display on a 3.5" screen is better than LCD on 4.3". I'd go with the latter.

Dual-mics is nice for noise cancellation - wish the EVO had that

The PDF reader looks really polished - but still no Flash. That's the deathknell for web surting imo.

iMovies? Well looks like we have competition in 720p vid recording on both phones. Supposedly iOS4 is 720p recording @ 30fps while the EVO is at 20FPS. They might win this one but not by much.

iAds ?? You can keep that Steve-O.

--------------
The only thing that would have blown up the interwebz at WWDC today was if the iPhone 4 was going to be available on Verizon.. since that wasn't announced, EVO 4G is the king of SmartPhones for the forseable future.

 

[Mistiq]

.

Dual-mics is nice for noise cancellation - wish the EVO had that

The EVO doesn't have the dual mics? I remember being disappointed when I first read that the Iphone (the Gizmodo leaked version) had that, but later on in my (obsessive) reading about the EVO, I read that it has that as well. Unfortunately, that was a while back so I have no idea where I read that at, so was I mistaken about that?

 

[Vulcan]

yes i am very much the phone 3gs is the Htc evo 4g's bitch literly i bought 4 extended batterys and i have them in my warhammer bag 24/7

 

[seigex]

Same here. The iPhone 4 just doesn't bring enough to the table. Evo/Android wins!

iPhone 4 = lipstick on a pig....