New Android user + HTC desire question

[boogerbro]

Hi guys, I am new to this place.

I am an iPhone user and have been using it for more than an year.
I am kind of bored with the UI for the iPhone OS and I wish to switch to some other phone.

What is so good about Android that I should be buying it? I have seen some stuff on youtube and it really does appeal to me but I wish to come across an honest opinion from a regular user.

What is the app store like and how professional/good are the applications?

What are the exclusive features which a user won't find in an iPhone?

Talking about the phone now, which phone should I prefer?
I'm in the UK and Google Nexus One is still not available.

Is HTC desire a suitable choice?
I'll check out the other forums for other info.

Thanks guys
Regards

Kartik Thapar

[toshiba777]

First welcome to AC forum and second Excellent Choice

[Shaniese]

Thanks for the reply.

[GOODNIGHT MOON]

From the UK here too. The HTC Desire is the best phone available in the UK right now. For use in the UK, the Desire is even better than the N1, and arguably is anyway (they're pretty equal). I did a comparison of the HTC Desire versus the iPhone 3GS on my blog here if you want to see how it compares to your existing phone: http://extorian.co.uk/blog/?p=101

I searched for a few threads on here that are from people like yourself, check them out as I believe they will help give you the information you're looking for...

http://rabroad.com/forums/f7/why-android-33565/

http://rabroad.com/forums/f7/why-android-the-answer-33667/

http://rabroad.com/forums/f7/iphone-user-thinking-about-going-android-33931/

http://rabroad.com/forums/f7/iphone-apps-vs-android-apps-33885/

Interestingly, the above threads are all quite recent. It seems people are moving from iPhone to the Android in droves. With that in mind, you might find the graph on another of my blog posts interesting. It shows how Android is becoming the preferred choice for people buying new phones, where most other OSes, including the iPhone, is dropping: http://extorian.co.uk/blog/?p=31

[Red Eagle]

I was in a similar situation (except - I have not previously had an iphone). My current phone is a 10 year old Sony Ericson - no where near a smart phone and has a battery falling out of it.

I took a look at the iphone, but my principles swayed me away from it. Closed platform, closed store, and not as tweak able as android.

I like you took a look at the N1 and the Desire. I went with the Desire, few reasons:

Hardware buttons: I like hardware buttons - more responsive. My friend has a Moto Milestone (EU Droid i think) and the bottons seem slow at times.
Sense UI: I kinda like it on first impressions, not actually ran it. I read somewhere that you could disable it if you didn't want it. Which makes it a choice.
No trackball.

I think there is very little inbetween them. Also it was easier to get the Desire here in the UK that it was the N1, though I don't think its too difficult to get the N1 anyway.

[mrs dee]

For once I was confused what N1 really was but I'm pretty sure it has been referred to as Nexus One if I'm not wrong.
Thanks a lot. That is a load of information in your post and I'll definitely check that out.
Thanks again.



Yes, that is one of the several reasons I won't be holding myself for the Nexus One.
How do you find HTC desire?

I have used an HTC before and the device wasn't that good. So is the hardware reliable and what is the HTC sense UI that has been referred in many tutorials and reviews?

Thanks a lot.

[Janaaa]

Also bear in mind you can turn SenseUI off if you don't like it. So you get the choice of two UIs with the Desire.

I agree about the hardware buttons. Many people have complained about the N1's touch-screen buttons at the bottom of the screen. My G1's screen is un-sensitive around the edges too.

No trackball... so no notification light in it... but the Desire does have an optical trackball which is supposedly the way forward for trackballs.

The Desire has better band coverage for Europe, especially for 3G.

You don't get noise cancellation with the Desire, but if you've never had a phone with it before you won't miss it.

OS updates may be slower with the Desire too, as it seems to take HTC a while to upgrade SenseUI along with the OS.

Which network are you thinking of getting the Desire on? I noticed on T-Mobile you can get a Desire for free on a 2 year ?35/m contract, or ?10/m for ?160ish 2 years, or ?15/m ?160ish for 18m.

[iTROLL {T}]

Yep - N1 is just short for Nexus One. Sorry, should avoid "in-terms" with people unfamiliar with Android.

[mj4life96]

No worries at all.

My contract with O2 runs off on the 27th of July. I know I'm kind of hurrying it up but I may buy the phone before my contract runs off.

I'm planning to get the phone from Vodafone. I don't have a bad experience with O2 but the call drops have always been there and I don't know whether it was O2 or O2+iPhone. I think I'm gonna leave O2 and go for Vodafone.

Btw, I don't trust T-Mobile.

[Ana Dale]

I've only ever used a T-Mobile G1, which is an HTC Dream. It's lasted very well and been very reliable. That's just me though. I know of people who have had problems, but the same applies to every model of phone by every manufacturer.

The SenseUI is.... well.... see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Htc_sense

In short, HTC looked at the way people actually use their phone, and created a user interface (UI) based on that research. The idea is it looks prettier, and you can find and select the stuff you want quicker. It adds some eye-candy, such as their own widgets that look very pretty. All of this is optional of course.

One of the main features is the "Friend Stream", which combines "updates" from a variety of sources (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr) and shows you them in a pretty stream of messages. This allows you to see all your social networking in one place. Again, all this is optional.

SenseUI is also known as HTC Sense, and can also be found on Windows Mobile phones. One minor advantage here is that if you later decide you want a WinMo phone, or want to come from a WinMo phone to Android, you will be familiar with the interface.

Some people don't like SenseUI and prefer the normal Android interface (which is also pretty good). It's possible to turn it off by killing the process and telling your phone to use the normal Android Home process instead. There's some threads on here about how to do that.

Hey - here's a question... how do you turn SenseUI back on?