Comments on: HTC Desire vs iPhone 4 vs Palm Pre Plus

By: Graham

Graham — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 12:44:11 +0000

@ Peter
“(Android) Operating System – wonderfully open, and horribly “unfinished” (hard to explain what I mean).”

I know exactly what you mean. Of course that is part of the appeal to some. I am running a modified 2.1 kernel with bits of 2.2 grafted on to it. It’s fun trying to optimise it. On the other hand a mate of mine has an Android device and hates it. He finds it confusing and frustrating and wishes he could take it back. I’d probably have recommended an iPhone to him if he had asked.

I’d love to have a play around with a Pre but unfortunately have never even seen one in the wild.

Good review.

By: jah

jah — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:27:19 +0000

I wonder if the first BT problem you had was related to the antenna of the Iphone 4; others have mentioned poorer BT performance with BT headsets when compared to the 3GS.

By: Peter (PDA-247)

Peter (PDA-247) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:02:51 +0000

eep – it’s all on the front page! I was thinking just the “summaries” there. – or maybe it’s deliberate?
Not to worry – Shaun, for some reason I can’t edit other peoples posts anyway

Peter.

By: gavinfabl

gavinfabl — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:34:34 +0000

Lovely review Peter.

The locked down Apple approach creates a simple to use user experience and I love it.

Google would be second, closely windows mobile and then web os. If Palm made better hardware I would move it up a lot.

By: jah

jah — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 07:06:33 +0000

On the subject of text entry. I only have the original Palm Pre but I don’t find the Desire keyboard to be that difficult to use. The only other point I would make is that the battery life of the HTC varies a lot depending on what auto syncs have been set up. The original Palm Pre has very poor battery life.

By: Eliyahu Ben-Haim

Eliyahu Ben-Haim — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 06:52:19 +0000

I am probably not qualified to comment but here goes anyway.

I have a Desire – my first really smart phone and I’m just getting to know it and not yet become a power user.

Why did I buy the Desire? Or why didn’t I buy the Pre or Iphone 4?

I didn’t buy the Pre (I am a long time Palm user – the PDA’s not the Treo’s), and I have had a great affection for the company and the ground breaking work they did.
Mostly I didn’t get the Pre because the reviews on 24/7 seemed more negative than positive. (24/7 is my main smartphone site, though I’m now on Android boards too.)
Also the Pre was shackled to a company and not even available in my country.

Iphone: On principle I am offended by the control that Apple has taken on their mobile products. Am I “cutting my nose off etc”? Maybe but that is how I feel. Send the phone back to change a battery? More than ridiculous – in the political world you’d call it fascism. Though they can be “jail broken”, they too are linked to providers though all the providers in my country carry them.

Desire: Mostly I am very pleased with it. I live in a country with bright, hot sun more than half the year. Yes the screen is very washed out in direct sunlight but I find it still readable and my eyesight is not the best. In other lighting conditions the screen is brilliant – bright, vivid and just nice to look at. The Desire is not available in my country but I bought an unlocked, unbranded one in UK (Clove) and my local SIM works fine. Mostly I haven’t been able to find 3G SIMs when traveling but I certainly can swap out my SIM for a local one. The WiFi will still work.
The Android boards are very helpful (maybe other too), in solving problems and I appreciate that.

The fact that the OS is open, it is not shackled to a provider, I can change my own battery (I don’t think I will be swapping sd cards very often – waiting for 32 GB to come down in price) is a big plus – it makes me feel that the phone in mine – not just rented from Apple.

I did appreciate your review – excellent actually but I guess I wanted to say that there are aspects to owning a device that go beyond pure physical, OS issues.

Looking forward to your next in depth review.