This might be the droid you’re looking for

Work gave me a HTC Thunderbolt last week. Now that I’ve messed with it enough to be comfortable using it, I feel like I can offer a comparison to the iPhone besides, “Different, bad!”

My iPhone 3Gs is almost two years old now and the Thunderbolt is the newest and bestest. Clearly the hardware is “better” for some definitions of better. In a move sure to make Steve jealous the Thunderbolt, like a lot of new Android phones, has one less physical button than the iPhone. Any other hardware comparisons are pointless because there is no new iPhone available, the iPhone 4 is almost a year old now.

In software, the iPhone still wins with some caveats. IOS is like using a Mac. There’s a consistant look and feel, everything (for the most part) works the same way. Android is more like Windows where every developer does whatever they want. It’s great if you’re a developer but as an Android user I have to spend a few minutes learning the particular foibles of each new app.

Where Android beats Apple is widgets and notification. Notifications are just better on the Android, no question. Apple is falling way behind on notification handling. And then there are the widgets. Apple has widgets in OS X so I don’t understand why they can’t seem to manage them in IOS. The Apple IOS is starting to seem a little stale next to Android.

The integration with Gmail and Google Voice is better on the android. (duh)

Apple still kicks Android’s ass on apps though, and for all its problems (and there are many) the Apple app store is still better than anything available for Android.

If the iPhone didn’t exist I guess I’d be ok with a Thunderbolt running Android. But I wouldn’t be happy with it like I am with the iPhone.

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7 Responses to This might be the droid you’re looking for

  1. SayUncle says:

    Android will catch up on apps since apple had a several year head start. Also, there are a a few other markets out there for more apps.

  2. I’m looking to dump my BB Storm (yes, Alan, I hate it now. ok?) next week and was planning on the Droid X. This might be a better choice. I was reading some reviews that mentioned a short battery life. Any comments on that?

  3. alan says:

    Battery life out of the box is abysmal but that’s because everything is on. All the radios, GPS, active backgrounds, syncing and updates.

    With all that crap turned off I’m getting all day on a charge with mostly no phone calls.

    Although Houston does have Verizon LTE, I don’t have it here and apparently if you don’t have an LTE tower the phone is constantly looking for one. I turned the LTE off and left it on CDMA only and battery life improved a lot. I haven’t tried it yet where there is LTE service to compare.

    After two weeks with it, I’d say battery life is about like any other smartphone. If you don’t make calls or use it much it will go all day on a charge. If you use a lot of data or voice time you’re going to be recharging.

  4. alan says:

    Oh, and it is BLAZING fast. I only have my iPhone 3Gs to compare it to, but page downloads are almost instantaneous, more like a computer with fast Internet service than a cell phone.

  5. Jerry says:

    Does it trace your every step and send it back to Google like the Apple?

  6. alan says:

    Yep. They all do it. Apple isn’t the only one.

  7. Morris says:

    The drop down notification bar is one the best innovations of the lot. Real centralizations of all notifications is such a good idea along with the toggle buttons for turning wifi, bluetooth etc in the same bar.

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