iPhone4 vs HTC Evo 4G

It all started with this: (NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg

The video is hillarious for more than one reason. It almost perfectly makes fun of “apple fanboys” and at the same time shows how… unaware the average consumer is when it comes to buying a smartphone (any piece of technology really). Hopefully you’re aware that there are many more specs to any technology product than they like to show up front. If you’re not aware of this, see the previous post about purchasing a new computer. Often times the hidden specs are actually more important than the main specs that people use to compare products. Smartphones are so feature packed it would be difficult to say that one phone is in fact better than the other (assuming similar specs and from the same phone generation). The more likely outcome of a comparison is that each phone “one ups” the other in different areas. Perhaps one has a superior screen and camera but the other has a faster processor and more memory. Unfortunately it would take me weeks to make full comparisons of every single feature, so I’ll just list some of the main points that people are mistaken about. The most rediculous part of the smartphone “war” is that people tend to insist their phone is “better” or the best phone and that no one elses phone could be better in any area. The only important factor when buying a phone (or anything) should be: Can you easily use the device to do everything you want it to do?

Display

With the release of the iPhone4 and some very impressive new Android phones, such as the HTC Evo and the Droid Incredible, people have lost their minds. People have been blurting out the most absurd statments I think I’ve ever heard, in an attempt to quickly bash anyone who has a smartphone that could be seen as a threat to theirs. Lets take just one line from the above clip, and discuss what makes up a good screen. One of the reasons given for why the Evo is a much better phone and why you would want it over an iPhone4 is because “it has a bigger screen” says the character trying to convince the apple fanboy that other phones are just as good, if not better. Is screen size really whats important to you in a screen? Because if so, you’re saying you’d much rather have a 50″ screen via regular projection than a 40″ LCD 1080p LED backlit HDTV? You’d rather have a 30″ console tube TV instead of a 26″ LCD 1080p LED backlit HDTV? What about things like; resolution, contrast, colors, pixel pitch, brightness, do any of those matter in a modern day display? In my opinion they do.

Lets look at an iPhone4 vs HTC Evo 4G screen spec comparison:

The iPhone4′s retina display is brighter, has a higher density ppi, higher resolution, higher contrast ratio, better/newer LCD technology, and displays both OS and apps using 16.7 million colors compared to the HTC Evo 4G’s 65 thousand colors. The only area in which the HTC Evo 4G’s screen is better is that it is 0.8 inches larger… thats it. You’re swapping all the quality related aspects for 0.8 inches more screen? Here is a small breifing on those specs.

Brightness is primarily important as it’s the main factor is how the screen looks and how useable it is in bright light situations such as outside on a sunny day. It doesn’t mean because the brightness is so high its going to blind you, it can always be turned down. The brightness spec shows what the display is capable of at the maximum setting.

TFT is the “original” LCD screen technology, they’ve been making TFT screens for many years. Odds are if you have an old flat screen monitor, it’s probably a TFT. If you’re wondering if you’ve ever seen an IPS LCD display you probably have. Apple has been using the newer, IPS style LCD’s on their more recent iMac displays and also on those enourmous (and stupidly expensive) Apple cinema displays. IPS doesn’t have that many advantages really, it does have a wider viewing angle which is nice if you’re trying to show something to someone next to you or two people are using the phone at once, for a game or to watch a video. Many people have been incorrectly reporiting on websites that the HTC Evo 4G has an AMOLED screen. That is not true. It is a TFT-LCD. There is a powerful Android phone that has an AMOLED screen, the Droid Incredible, different phone.

PPI (pixels per inch) is a measurement of exactly that. As you know, modern displays are made up of pixels, very small squares that each can display a different color. Pixel pitch is the distance from the center of one pixel to the center of an adjoining pixel. The larger that distance is, the less pixels you can fit in an inch, and the easier it is for your eye to differentiate one pixel from another. This can cause everything to look jagged, especially curved lines and text. One factor that isn’t usually brought up with pixel pitch is that how relevant it can be, is completely dependant on how far the screen is from your eyes. Large TV’s can get away with having larger pixels hence a larger pixel pitch (less PPI) because you’re sitting 10 or 15 feet away. If you were sitting 5 feet away from 2 TV’s one with a pixel pitch of 0.22mm and one with 0.36mm you would be able to see a noticable difference, most notably that you would probably “see the squares!” (pixels) on the TV with the less dense PPI. However if you were sitting 15 feet away you would probably not be able to tell one from the other. Your eye is going to pickup a 0.14mm difference a hell of a lot easier at 5 feet away, whereas it’s not even possible with the naked eye at 15 feet away. Why is this paragraph on tiny insignificant color squares so large for an article about cell phones, why am I talking about TV’s in a cell phone comparison? Because, its your cell phone. It’s not a TV, or a computer monitor, it’s not going to be 15 feet away, it’s not even going to be 10 feet away. In fact I highly doubt you’ll be interacting with your smartphone regularly at even 3 feet away. You’re holding it in your hand while you use it. How long are your arms? Not to mention you’re going to be possibly holding it up to your ear and then bringing it back down to do a few things, then putting it right back up to your ear. The point is, the screen on your phone is going to be closer to your face and hence closer to your eye than any other LCD screen you use. Because of this, the PPI must be extremely dense. At 1 foot away from your eye, it’s pretty easy to spot the pixels and jagged shapes and text on most displays. However at 300+ PPI, even when the phone is 1 foot from your eye it’s nearly impossible for you see any pixels, they’re so small the edges all blend together, appearing as one solid smooth line, rather than small blocks.

Download Speed

The next claim in the video is that the internet speeds are 3 times faster on the Evo 4G compared to the iPhone4. That statement while theoretically true, is false for 90% of the country, unless you live in a massive city where they have 4G service, and even then it’s still not true (keep reading). I am not debating that the cellular modem isn’t better in the Evo, it is better. One of the benefits of the Evo is that once Sprint has upgraded their entire network to 4G you won’t have to buy a new phone. The reason the speeds aren’t faster is because Sprint has only rolled out their 4G network (towers and connections) in the cities below: (as of 7/10/2010)

Atlanta, Georgia
Honolulu, Hawaii
Boise, Idaho
Chicago, Illinois
Kansas city, Kansas
Baltimore, Maryland
Kansas City, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
Charlotte, North Carolina
Greensboro, North Carolina
Raleigh, North Carolina
Las Vegas, Nevada
Portland, Oregon
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Lancaster Pennsylvania
Reading, Pennsylvania
Abilene, Texas
Amarillo, Texas
Austin, Texas
Corpus Christi, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Fort Worth, Texas
Houston, Texas
Killeen, Texas
Lubbok, Texas
Midland, Texas
Odessa, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
Temple, Texas
Waco, Texas
Wichita Falls, Texas
Salt Lake City, Utah
Richmond, Virginia
Bellingham, Washington
Seattle, Washington
Snohomish, Washington
Tacoma, Washington

If you don’t live in one of those 38 cities you don’t have 4G. Your phone can say 4G and be called 4G, it does not magically create 4G towers in your area. Your speeds are the same as everyone elses until your city gets upgraded to 4G coverage. Completely upgrading a network is no easy task, it generally takes 2-5 years the average is somewhere around 3.5 years. I’m fairly certain that 3 or 4 years from now I’ll want a new phone. I don’t need a phone that supports coverage that doesn’t exist yet, when I can wait 3 years, and if my carrier has 4G by then, upgrade to a phone that does support 4G. I found an excellent and thourough testing of Sprints 4G network, which shows download speed, upload speed, and ping all in an easy to read chart with plenty of details and a comparison to other carriers at the same locations. http://androidandme.com/2010/05/news/speed-tests-how-fast-is-sprint-4g-with-the-htc-evo/ Check it out. 3G speeds are advertised up to 2Mbps, 4G speeds are advertised as 3-6 Mbps. They tested the speed in a 4G city with 4G coverage on an HTC Evo 4G and the highest download speed they could get on 4G was still 2 Mbps, the fastest download speed they ever got was 2.14 Mbps and that was on 3G… hmm. I will say however, hats off to Sprint for really kicking off 4G and at least getting a start on it. AT&T has none at all. No service and no devices. If you do have an Evo you’re at least ahead of the game when it comes to 4G. Maybe your city doesn’t have it, but if you’re lucky enough to get it in the next year you can sleep well knowing your phone is ready for it, and won’t require any upgrade to take advantage of it.

Camera

The next claim for why you should get an Evo rather than the iPhone, is because the Evo has a higher mega-pixel camera. That is both completely true and completely irrelivant information. If you don’t believe me ask anyone you know who works with photos; a photographer, a graphic designer, someone who works at a print shop, anyone involved and knowledgeable about picture quality. Mega-pixels have nothing to do with the quality of a picture. Mega-pixels just tell you how many pixels you get in each picture. Capturing more individual pixels = a higher resolution image. If you’re going to be using huge pictures, or taking pictures that you want to print posters of, you need a higher mega pixel camera. The only way that “image quality” comes into play with how many mega-pixels your camera is, would be if you take a picture at the cameras maximum resolution and it wasn’t big enough. When you enlarge a photo past the resolution it was taken at, you lose quality. So if you had an image with a resolution of 600 x 300 and you blew it up to some higher resolution it would look bad. If you’re using your camera to take pictures youre going to post online or print out you don’t need anymore than 5MP. In fact most people have the opposite problem. They shoot pictures at the highest resolution possible on their 6MP or 8MP camera, and the images are massive, then they have to use a program to resize all the pictures to a more reasonable size that will fit on a webpage or easily print for a regular photo. If mega pixels were all you needed for excellent quality do you think this 6MP $43 HP Photosmart M525 camera would take just as good of pictures as this 6MP $1,049.95 Casio Exilim Pro EX-F1? Or perhaps this 10MP $170 Nikon Coolpix S60 will take better quality pictures than this 6MP $599.00 Sony Cybershot DSC-T9/B? Also, while ranting about how much better the 8MP camera on the Evo is, compared to the iPhone’s measly 5MP camera, they typically don’t mention that while both can shoot 720p HD video (same resolution), the iPhone4 shoots at 30fps, and the Evo 4G shoots at 25FPS.

Operating System

Android is a great operating system, it’s flexible, capable, and powerful. It was built fresh from the ground up by what I consider to be the smartest company out there, Google. I have no doubt that it will remain a major player in the phone OS battle for years to come, and will always be one of the best options. Some of the phones that run Android have bleeding edge technology such as the HTC Evo 4G and the Droid Incredible. I can find several things that are better on the newer Android phones. One major advantge they have is the ability to use memory cards and have essentially “unlimited” memory, because you can always swap out cards or buy a bigger memory card.

A lot of people have asked “What makes the iPhone so special? It’s just a smartphone, like any other, and if not tell me why.” Here is my answer. The reason Apple is big and successful now, is the same exact reason they were big and successful in the first place. Apple has never had the upperhand. Apple has never had the fastest, best, most recent hardware available. In fact, typically Apple through its entire timeline has almost always been lagging behind when compared to other machines side by side. Apple mastered one thing, the marrage of software and hardware. Until very recently you couldn’t run Apple’s Mac OS on non-Apple hardware, and you couldn’t run a different OS on Apple’s hardware. The hardware and software were made for eachother. Apple has complete control over the user experience in terms of speed, stability, and how you interact with the machine. They engineered and manufactured the hardware themselves. They also engineered and wrote the OS themselves. Apple products while having a track record of being “behind the curb” have also always had the track record for being extremely stable and reliable.

You can run Microsoft Windows XP on a 300 MHz celeron with 64MB of RAM, you can also run the same OS (win XP) on a quad corei7 3200 MHz with 3500MB of RAM. The user experience, stability, and capabilitys in terms of compatability of software differ GREATLY. The same is true for the Google Android OS. Some of the worst, slowest, most low powered phones run Android OS, also the most powerful phones run Android OS, and everything in between. There are many versions of the Android OS and they come out with a new version pretty frequently. As soon as there is a new phone by some manufacturer that is more powerful than the last, they want to update the OS so it can take full advantage of the new or updated hardware. Does an Android powered phone have an accelerometer chip, a digital compass chip, a 3 axis gyro, GPS chip, 802.11g, 802.11n, bluetooth, 2 cameras, a flash, 1 GHz CPU, 4G, removeable memory, and the ability to run Adobe Flash? The answer: some do, some don’t, some have a few of the features, some have half, some have most. What model and make phone you buy dictates your experience on Android. Did you get a motorola, or an HTC, or something else? You don’t know if your phone is going to run an app or not, and you don’t know how smoothly it’s going to run after you purchase it.

One manufacturer makes the iPhone, Apple. How many different kinds of phones does Apple make? One, the iPhone. When developing their iOS software how many different platforms did they have to take into consideration? One, the iPhone. If you buy an iPhone its going to run iOS4 the same as everyone elses iPhone. Theres no worrying, confusion, or frustration involved. You own an iPhone, therefor you purchase iPhone apps to run on it, and they run. They run in a stable controlled platform with the largest app store in the world.

Just 3 more little things to clear up: 1. The iPhone doesn’t have Adobe Flash. The iPhone will never have Flash. The iPhone doesn’t even need Flash. The only thing I would ever want Flash on my phone for, would be to watch YouTube and Hulu videos. The iPhone has an app for both of those, and the videos play just fine. 2. It has also somehow made it into the inernet rumor web that the iPhone4 doesn’t have multitasking still. That is not true. It has multitasking and it works flawlessly, and doesn’t use nearly as much battery power as Android’s multitasking. Upgrading an older iPhone to iOS4 will not give you multitasking, but the iPhone4 does. 3. The “FaceTime” video chat functionality will work fine over AT&T’s network. There’s nothing wrong with the software, and the hardware fully supports it. The only reason FaceTime is not available via cell signal, is because AT&T hasn’t allowed it yet. They allow streaming video for many other things, including Netflix starting in a month. Once AT&T removes the barrier FaceTime will be available anywhere.

Conclusion

The Android OS isn’t “bad”, neither are the phones it runs on. There are some hardware specs of the HTC Evo 4G and of the Droid Incredible that are better than the iPhone4′s. The user experience should be the deciding factor for which phone you need. The iPhone4 is capable of doing everything I want it to do. If you need that 8PM camera or you live in a city with 4G coverage then by all means get the HTC Evo. Making your decision based on which phone has the best hardware overall will get you nowhere. Decide what’s important to you in a phone and then try out the two different operating systems and see which one feels more comfortable to you. You may find you’d rather use the iOS and have a better quality screen, and sacrifice the extra 3MP on the camera, or that 32GB is enough memory for you for the next two years and you don’t need removable memory cards. Take it from someone who is most definitely not an Apple fan. I hate Apple as a company. I hate that they put $800 worth of generic laptop parts in one solid block of aluminum and then thinks it’s ok to charge $2000 for it. I would much rather be using any flavor of Linux, or Windows7 than Mac OS which really has no advantages. The iPhone is the first thing Apple has done right in many years (since the iPod). It’s remarkable and irreplaceable. Even if you don’t like Apple and hate using a Mac, give the iPhone a try. You may find it’s fast, stable, and runs every app you could ever want it to.

The video below was made by the same person who made the video at the top of the post.

(NSFW) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAOtC9QfXac