Was gonna say - is the power vr gpu of major benefit in terms of games, I'm thinking I can get things like Monkey island / emulators just playing about etc.
Would probably be looking at a 24 month deal so in 2 years will the HTC be outdated faster than the samsung?
I've read load of people say the samsungs suck a bit in terms of the customisations they make to android..
Well I have had HTC phones since the days of the original Orange SPV, so i'm certainly not too biased either way.
From my perspective, neither HTC's Sense nor Galaxy's "TouchWiz" home applications are particularly brilliant. I know some are obsessed with HTC's Sense, and for my old WinMo phone it was essential, but Android was designed from the ground up as a brilliant touchscreen OS.
I have a few friends with the Desire, and I recognise a few of the HTC widgets, a few are nice, but really nothing that you can't achieve through the market with either very cheap (like £1 cheap) widgets and free things.
I have had my Samsung for 4 days now, and it now has no sign of the Samsung TouchWiz stuff, I have LauncherPro installed, which was free from the market, and am using the Beautiful widgets.
Ultimately Android was designed to be customisable. So while Samsung have messed a bit with the colour schemes, manufacturer customisation was never really an issue for me.
WRT to the GPU. Well if you do a search for "Quake 2 Android" theres a site where someone has ported the quake 2 engine to Android, they have a side by side of it running on the Desire and the Galaxy, the difference is notable. However most games you will see on the market will either use a 2D API or be designed to run even on the much older Android devices too. It's really up to you. I dont think, for example, that the ScummVM program will make much use of the OpenGL capabilities of the PowerVR GPU in the Galaxy, as such its down to raw CPU processing power, which both devices are about the same for.
I have to say though, having compared the screen on my Galaxy to a friends Desire with a standard AMOLED, it's really something quite special, especially outdoors (i.e. you can actually see it! I could never see my Touch HDs LCD screen outside properly).
Again though, if you can have a play, I would.
EDIT: Oh yeah, the Samsung comes with the Swype keyboard as well as the standard Android keyboard, I *think* HTC provide their own too, but Swype is a bit special. Again google video will probably show you more than I can describe.
Edit 2: Also, any phone will be outdated in 24 months really, there will be something much better/faster, no doubt we'll be well into Android 3.0 by then and I have a feeling neither of these devices will see it (though undoubtedly they will be able to run it). But I don't think either will date faster than the other really. Perhaps, for all its plastic feel, the Samsung may weather slightly better as long as its kept in a case, purely because my experience of rubberised phones is that the rubber eventually perishes and flakes off. There isnt't really anything to go "wrong" on the Galaxy, it has one chunky hardware button and two "fake" soft buttons, the Desire has more things to physically go wrong with it. But really, I wouldn't worry too much about it, neither will be cutting edge in any way or form in 24 months, but neither will be obsolete imo.
Edit 3: (scatterbrain tonight it seems), one other minor difference is the lock screen. Both can use the standard Android "join the dots" lock screen ,or Samsung offer a rather nice screen which looks like a plate of glass over your background, which you sweep off the phone to unlock. HTC have their own screen I think where you pull a big bar down to the bottom. Both will be quicker but less secure than the standard Android screen. The Samsung one also creates a "jigsaw" puzzle piece if you have a new sms or email, and you can drag a piece into the empty slot if you wish to go straight there, or just unlock s usual. Again, Google video will show all
