08-12-2009, 04:14 AM
Alright, I'll admit it. I really wanted an iPhone. But, AT&T was just too much more money. My plan with T-Mobile: unlimited minutes, inc. long distance and roaming, $49.99/month, data plan for unlimited web access and 400 text messages, $24.99 - total - $75/month plus some taxes. AT&T's charge for the same thing is over $135/month. So that really settled it.
Here's my impressions, so far. OK, first, I've never had an iPhone, but I have an iPod Touch so I'm familiar with the OS. I'm pretty impressed by Android. When you first fire it up it links up to your gmail account and imports all your contacts, plus it put all the info from my SIM card into the directory. Very easy start up procedure. 3G web speed is way faster than WiFi on my iPod Touch, and everything else seems to work just fine. Probably similar to the 3G iPhone's performance I'd guess.
The Google maps alone is worth the price for me, since I drive cab. I can throw away my Thomas Guide. The traffic function is very impressive and really useful during rush hour (I'm sure its the same for the iPhone, too, but it is a Google product). It gives you the option of using GPS, which claims more battery usage, or it locates the nearest cell phone tower to give you a position. I've been using the second option, which is the default setting, and its fine for my purposes.
There's a ton of free and minimal cost app's available, but I have only downloaded a few that I find useful, like internet radio, a couple different calendars, a different music player, a better touch keyboard, a shortcut to Wikipedia without launching the browser, etc. There seems to be multiple options for all these and one can spend a lot of time sifting through them. The browser is from Firefox and works well but I'm not crazy about the way it handles bookmarks. There are some free apps that supposedly do bookmarks better but I haven't tried any out yet. The iPhone has the lead on apps but since Android is open source and has been around for a year or so (?) there seems to be a lot of options and more coming all the time. Way more than I need.
Physically the My Touch is somewhat smaller than the iPhone, but the screen is nearly the same. Its easy to carry around and I don't feel like the slightly smaller screen is a deficit. The touch screen feels just like the one on my iPod except it doesn't use the two fingered commands. The battery is great - really lasts a long time. I've always had 30 or 40% left after playing around with it all day. In the morning it charges back up in a half hour or so. The back pops off for easy access to the battery as well as the SIM and SD card which is interchangeable (this easy access to everything is a very nice feature). It charges through its single USB port. I had no trouble booting up the SD on my iMac. You can drag and drop files on it, like mp3's, photos, etc, and get them in to the phone that way. Not sure if it will play Apple Lossless files -I'd guess not - but I won't be using it to play music, anyway (I use my iPod Touch for that). The music player is really barebones - no EQ, etc. There's several other freeware players that are better than the stock one. It has a 3 megapixel camera that takes pretty good pix, but is lacking even the most basic controls, like digital zoom, contrast/exposure, etc. Someone will eventually come up with a better app, I suppose. It does video as well, but I haven't tried that yet.
They are clearly going after AT&T and Apple with this phone. The packaging and presentation are right out of the Apple playbook. It comes with a rather nice hard case with two compartments, foam pockets and elastic straps and it zips up neatly. I'm using it to carry around my iPod Touch and all the adapters and cords I need to run it in the car. Thanks, TMob.
Gotta say, for the money, its a pretty sweet deal. Your opinions will vary....
Here's my impressions, so far. OK, first, I've never had an iPhone, but I have an iPod Touch so I'm familiar with the OS. I'm pretty impressed by Android. When you first fire it up it links up to your gmail account and imports all your contacts, plus it put all the info from my SIM card into the directory. Very easy start up procedure. 3G web speed is way faster than WiFi on my iPod Touch, and everything else seems to work just fine. Probably similar to the 3G iPhone's performance I'd guess.
The Google maps alone is worth the price for me, since I drive cab. I can throw away my Thomas Guide. The traffic function is very impressive and really useful during rush hour (I'm sure its the same for the iPhone, too, but it is a Google product). It gives you the option of using GPS, which claims more battery usage, or it locates the nearest cell phone tower to give you a position. I've been using the second option, which is the default setting, and its fine for my purposes.
There's a ton of free and minimal cost app's available, but I have only downloaded a few that I find useful, like internet radio, a couple different calendars, a different music player, a better touch keyboard, a shortcut to Wikipedia without launching the browser, etc. There seems to be multiple options for all these and one can spend a lot of time sifting through them. The browser is from Firefox and works well but I'm not crazy about the way it handles bookmarks. There are some free apps that supposedly do bookmarks better but I haven't tried any out yet. The iPhone has the lead on apps but since Android is open source and has been around for a year or so (?) there seems to be a lot of options and more coming all the time. Way more than I need.
Physically the My Touch is somewhat smaller than the iPhone, but the screen is nearly the same. Its easy to carry around and I don't feel like the slightly smaller screen is a deficit. The touch screen feels just like the one on my iPod except it doesn't use the two fingered commands. The battery is great - really lasts a long time. I've always had 30 or 40% left after playing around with it all day. In the morning it charges back up in a half hour or so. The back pops off for easy access to the battery as well as the SIM and SD card which is interchangeable (this easy access to everything is a very nice feature). It charges through its single USB port. I had no trouble booting up the SD on my iMac. You can drag and drop files on it, like mp3's, photos, etc, and get them in to the phone that way. Not sure if it will play Apple Lossless files -I'd guess not - but I won't be using it to play music, anyway (I use my iPod Touch for that). The music player is really barebones - no EQ, etc. There's several other freeware players that are better than the stock one. It has a 3 megapixel camera that takes pretty good pix, but is lacking even the most basic controls, like digital zoom, contrast/exposure, etc. Someone will eventually come up with a better app, I suppose. It does video as well, but I haven't tried that yet.
They are clearly going after AT&T and Apple with this phone. The packaging and presentation are right out of the Apple playbook. It comes with a rather nice hard case with two compartments, foam pockets and elastic straps and it zips up neatly. I'm using it to carry around my iPod Touch and all the adapters and cords I need to run it in the car. Thanks, TMob.
Gotta say, for the money, its a pretty sweet deal. Your opinions will vary....
