iPhone 4 or Android?

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Thu, 10 Jun 2010 09:46:41 GMT  <== Computers ==> 

I was wowed by Steve Jobs' 2010 WWDC keynote speech introducing iPhone 4. But Google Android phones are getting better and better, so before I march down to the Apple store two weeks from today to upgrade my 2-year-old iPhone 3G, I thought I'd look at a few.

So a couple of nights back I went to the local Verizon store. They had the HTC Hero, HTC Incredible, and Motorola Droid. I didn't like the little buttons on the slide-out Motorola keyboard. I found the Incredible to be OK, if I wasn't familiar with the iPhone, but a little small.

Last night I went to the local Sprint store (about 40 minutes away), and tried the HTC EVO. Same software as the Incredible, but an entirely different experience. The bigger and brighter screen made the EVO a pleasure to use. Fast internet, good camera, very passable built-in speakers for us 21st-century boom box users.

I'm going to sit on it for a little while, but I think I'll end up upgrading my iPhone, even though syncing it to my new Linux laptop is going to be a pain (I can boot it into Windows, but I haven't tried iTunes there yet. iTunes doesn't work in an emulated Vista on my machine). But it's only Apple's drop-dead-gorgeous industrial design and slightly easier to use interface, and the fact that I'm an Apple fanboy, that push me to their camp. Android competes head-to-head on features, and I prefer their openness to Steve Jobs' tight control of the iPhone software ecosystem.

Another thing that at least this one Verizon store needs to learn is that you have to sell your phones. Nobody there even acknowledged my existence, much less helped me with questions. At the Sprint store, on the other hand, a sales guy was with me right away, and he, being a Hero owner who was looking forward to upgrading to an EVO, very knowledgeably answered my questions.

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