I got my Evo on August 2nd and after about two months it's definitely a keeper . I had been trying to decide between it and an iPhone4 and decided on it mainly because Sprint's network is superior to AT&T's. Now after three weeks of heavy use I'm ready to make an informed comparison of the Evo to an iOS device, as my wife has an iPhone 3GS and I have an iPod Touch running iOS4. So let the overly detailed comparison begin:
Where the Evo is better
(in no particular order)
1. Superior 3G network coverage. Works just about everywhere, including many places my wife can't get any data or calls on her iPhone. Note that even though Sprint supposedly has a 4G network in my area, I've found the 4G network to be mostly a nonfactor. It doesn't have coverage most places I try it, including in my office right in the heart of RTP. So I usually keep 4G turned off to save battery. That said, Sprint is just a better network than AT&T, and it's cheaper. My desire to stay on Sprint and avoid AT&T was a huge factor in choosing the Evo over the iPhone 4.
2. Screen size: The bigger Evo screen is nice. I wear glasses for nearsightedness and I often had to take them off to do anything on the iPhone's screen. I usually don't have to that with the Evo. The screen isn't that much bigger on paper, but it reads much bigger and clearer during real world use, in my opinion. It's more comfortable to use than the iPhone's smaller screen, no matter how much better the iPhone's screen supposedly is.
3. Google integration: Google has an excellent Gmail client for Android, and also the phone integrates with Google Voice so I can automatically have my calls made with Google Voice. There's a Google search widget, Google maps, etc. They all have native Android clients instead of the inadequate HTML 4 substitutes that Google provides for iOS. Also when I configured the phone for the first time it automatically downloaded and synched with all my Google contacts and calendar, which I had previously synched from my old Blackberry. It was the easiest migration of contacts and calendar from one phone to another ever.
4. Facebook integration: When I gave the Evo my Facebook login, it went out and grabbed Facebook information (including profile picture and additional phone numbers and email addresses) for all of my contacts who are also Facebook friends. It also allows me to link contacts together so I can tell it, for example, this contact is the same person as this Facebook friend and is also the same person as this Gmail contact (useful for cases where the names aren't spelled exactly the same in each place). Then the Facebook profile picture is displayed where-ever that contact is used on the phone, for example in text messages and call logs and incoming calls and in the Gmail client when displaying an email from that person, etc. Incoming calls also show the person's facebook status under their picture. This seems like minor window dressing, but it's pretty cool. I would love to show a screen shot of this, but see Evo disadvantage #3 below.
5. Integration between apps: It surprised me that this is better on the Evo than on the iPhone. On the Evo, if one app calls another (for example clicking a link in the Gmail client that launches a browser, or going to the Amazon mp3 store from SoundHound), the "back" button returns from the called app to the calling app, and puts you back where you were in the calling app. This isn't possible on iOS devices -- on iOS a trip from one app to another is one-way. To return to the original app on iOS, you have to do it manually by clicking the home button and then relaunching the calling app -- and many times, it relaunches from scratch instead of returning to where you were in it when it called the other app. Also on Android, holding down the home button brings up a menu of the last several apps you were in. These two features make interactions between apps much smoother and intuitive on Android.
6. Removable battery and SD card. 'nuff said.
7. Haptic feedback. I didn't think I would like this but I do. This just means the phone vibrates to let you know when it finishes something. For example when Soundhound identifies a song it vibrates slightly, nice to know when holding the phone up to a speaker in the Miata with the top down. There are a lot of other small events that cause small vibration which I've found to be very handy.
8. Open architecture. I almost put this in the "wash" category because in my opinion it's mainly a religious war between adherents of one company vs another. As a regular user I don't really see much difference except one -- no decent Google apps on iPhone. Since Google integration, especially Google Voice and Gmail, are an advantage for Android, and Apple blocks those Google features from iPhone, there is a real world advantage to the more open platform. Maybe. After all since Google owns Android, even if it weren't open it would probably have those Google apps I depend on.
9. Can start using immediately. iPhone requires you to download and install iTunes on a computer to even activate the phone. This can be a lengthy and annoying process. Evo works out of the box.
10. Flash support. I had originally said this was a wash because for the first few months I owned this phone, I never found any websites where the Android Flash support actually worked. Since then I have found several, usually imbedded videoes on news sites, so this is starting to show as an Android advantage so I moved it here
Where the iPhone is better
1. Music: The iPod music player and iTunes store are better than the DoubleTwist app and Amazon app store, though as I use DoubleTwist more and learn its capabilities, the gap is narrowing. DoubleTwist is a significant improvement over the basic Android music player and it tries to make the experience better on Android by importing your iTunes library, but it's much slower and has several bugs and limitations. Hopefully it will be improved as time goes on but for now there are several areas where it is deficient:
- DoubleTwist finds and uses all the .mp3 files in your system, and it doesn't discriminate. So you can be shuffling songs on DoubleTwist and it mixes in voicemail messages, podcasts, etc. Anything that's an .mp3 file. It's pretty annoying to be rocking out in a song shuffle and then you get an old voicemail message or a 1 hour podcast mixed in! Note: this problem is not as bad now that I've installed a separate podcast catcher program (see below) that keeps the podcasts separate. Still happens with voicemail and other sound files though.
- on the iPod player, you can pick an artist and have all that artists' songs listed and played with one command, regardless of which album a song is on. DoubleTwist only does the listing by album, so if I have 2-3 songs per album for an artist (which I often do), I can't list all that artist's songs. I can play all of an artist's songs by pressing on and holding down the name of the artist, but there is still no way to list all of an artist's songs.
- iTunes store is much easier for navigation and exploring albums, artists, etc. On the Amazon .mp3 store I can see the average user rating of an album or a song, but there's no way to view the actual reviews!
- iTunes does a better job with podcasts. For podcasts on Android, it's necessary to load a separate podcatcher, and I use Google Listen. It's pretty good, but not as good as iTunes built-in support.
2. The iOS devices are "walk up and use" friendly. Except for the requirement to download and install iTunes first. I did a lot more work over the last two weeks to get my Evo configured to work the way I want it to. And in more cases than on Android, the iPhone "just works."
3. It's easy to get screen shots on iOS devices, and requires a convoluted procedure on Android that includes installing an software development kit and being plugged into a PC. This may be a minor consideration, but it's why you probably won't be seeing any Evo screen shots on this blog.
4. The iPhone build quality is better. All the connectors are solid. I was googling to figure out what kind of connector the Evo has (it's micro-USB) and I found instead a bunch of reports of the charging port breaking, and Sprint refusing to fix them under warranty. Considering this phone hasn't been out that long and I have a 2 year contract this is a concern. The iPhone charging port may be proprietary, but it's strong and durable.
5. The iPhone has better PC integration and backup. I'm still surprised to see that there is no PC client to help manage and back up the Evo. With iTunes you can completely back up an iPhone, reset it to factory defaults (or replace it with another) and then completely restore it as if nothing had happened (except for wifi passwords, those don't back up for some reason). On the Evo the data is stored on an SD card which is removable, so data can easily be moved but there's no way to back up the whole system in one swell foop, including settings and apps in phone memory.
6. Web Browsing. Even though there are about 10 browsers to choose from on Android, none of them are as good as Safari on iOS. It does everything well. Of the Android browsers, they all have strengths and weaknesses but none of them works as well as Safari. I find I have to keep at least two browsers available on my Android phone, Opera mini for most of my browsing, and the default browser for the few sites Opera can't handle. Opera is pretty close to all I need but every once in a while I find a site where it just can't handle the sign-in forms and have to switch to the default browser to use them. And neither browser supports pinch zoom like Safari, as there are only a couple of sizes to choose from. And I have yet to find a browser on Android that handles java hover menus, while Safari does it with aplomb.
7. iPhone is smaller and lighter. This is simply the flip side of the Evo advantage of a bigger phone
8. iPhone battery life is better. I guess after three years and with restricted multitasking, Apple has figured out the battery puzzle. But brand new, the Evo can barely get through a day without a charge. It can, but by the time I get it home at night, it needs to be plugged in. This might be more of a problem as the battery gets older (but at least I can replace it on the Evo!). I don't think I really do much more battery intensive stuff with the Evo than I did with my iOS device, for example I don't talk that much on it, mainly using data and music playing.
Where it's a wash
1. App selection. There is only one app on the iPhone that I really wish was nearly as good on Android, and that's ForeFlight. But I use ForeFlight mostly on an iPad anyway. Except for that I haven't found apps lacking at all on Android like I feared I would.
Conclusion
I'm happy with the Evo and would have been just as happy with an iPhone4. The tie breaker is the network. It's worth any Evo disadvantages to stay on Sprint.
