iPhone 3GS, finally used one yesterday.

mrk

mrk

mrk

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Yesterday I had a phone fight with my uncle who brought his iPhone 3GS (32GB) round, I was mighty impressed with how smooth and fast the OS is, how instant it is - now I know Android 1.6 is very fast with Cyanogen's modded roms and BFS updates but the 3GS was something else altogether.

Every time I said "But my phone has this! does yours?" he would go about showing the 3GS had it too ¬_¬

In the end I won on these things:
1: Multitasking
2: A fairly open source OS with excellent dev community and a wider App Market
3: Multiple home screens
4: Homescreen walllpapers (surprised Apple don't have this!)
5: He paid £550 for his sim free, I paid £50 for the Android, also sim free :p
6: Utility apps for rooted Androids (very big plus point IMO)

I do wish some of the cooler iPhone apps make it to Android too though, like Google Earth. There was also one app where he showed me you can watch near DVD quality movies over the air from an online service via 3G or Wifi, he loaded up a movie which started playing within seconds and it was as crisp and clear as a digital broadcast.

So I wonder, will Eclair or Flann have the speedyness of iPhone's OS or will we have to wait for beefier Android hardware perhaps?

I'm thinking the latter...
 
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I do :p

Both Live TV and converted media on SD as well as streaming radio!
 
I won't be moving away from Android ever but I do wish some of the swiftness to go to Android but I guess it's as you say, the Android hardware at present on handsets needs to set up a generation and then it will be be all kinds of win leaving iPhone in the dust :p
 
All Vodafone Magics are sim free aren't they (tested with different sim cards), some have the Vodafone logo at the front, some don't - Vodafone rep said it's complete chance if you get one that doesn't have Vodafone branding on the front and you can't choose one or the other :)

It can multitask with itunes running in the BG but nothing major beyond that. In Android you can minimise as many apps as you want and simply go back to them later. The video payer also remembers last stopped position to resume from etc.
 
Various roms are out using the full 1.6 core making use of the new stuff and performance. It's not out public but it is out for those who have rooted their phones.

This is why Android > * :p
 
GeX said:
ok, didn't know that. My Hero runs the modaco v2.0 rom - i know the 2.2 is out, but hadnt really looked at it.
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:cool:
 
An issue I'd find tedious with the iPhone though is the charging cable, it's not standard USB like on HTC (and Blackberry) phones so you have to carry a cable around with you if you want to charge on the go.

I asked my uncle how long his battery lasts and he said with his type of usage (similar to mine I guess) he gets a few hours!!! By comparison I get a full day and that was with heavy usage!

I guess the 3GS's beefier hardware needs more power but the lack of standardised charging would be a deal breaker I guess.

HTC's Leo looks very interesting though even though it's WinMo!
 
PiKe said:
£50 with a contract though right.
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I just kept my existing contract and added unlimited internet so £24 a month all in + £50 for the phone.

I guess by your responses that there are 2 types of sim free, sim free as in off the shelf not with a contract and sim free as in not locked to a provider or sim card?

This is the latter and comes with no sim, just a packaged phone, but they do send out non Vodafone packaged ones too, like I mentioned above I was told getting a non Vodafone stamped one was purely chance. Don't mind either way though as the phone takes any sim cards and has stock 1.5 Android out the box...although now Donut powered \m/
 
You could call it that I guess but when I got it the phone was not available below a £40 a month contract and they would not budge into a deal until my 2nd call and various mentions of iPhone - they then offered a price of £50 for the handset and half price internet package keeping my existing tariff instead of £100 for the handset and standard internet price on top.

I don't know if it's free now or what but that's not relevant really at present as I got it at launch :p
 
It's no easier to use or harder than the other.

Convenience of not havign to carry a charging cable with you everywhere and not have to rely on Apple apps on your computer to manage backups (Android beams the data to your gmail account if needed) and the constant stream of developer firmware updates that improve things are the main bonus points for Android devices.

Obviously for the latter you do need to have some level of IT knowledge to do it without a lot of faffing I suppose but still, the benefits are endless in the long run :p

Look at how the G1 is still going strong with Donut! Apple are on gen 2 of the iPhone, Android handsets are still in Gen 1 so I suppose in that respect it's not a fair enough comparison yet.
 
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Because the money you're paying is not worth the extras you get on the iPhone - that's my whole point. It's nice but not worth its price nice since there's no sense of freedom with the phone itself, you're tied to Apple and it's not uncommon for apps to vanish off the market if it's not making any money for example or if Apple don't like it it does not get approved.

There are loads of great apps though but I don't want to be locked down to using whatever Apple say or installing iTunes or anything else. I just want to be able to do everything from the phone and sync with my Google account which at present is done superbly with some root enabled apps and the Android SDK tools - the only minus point as per op is that the hardware isn't quite 2nd gen yet.

I firmly believe that once Android handsets are inline generation wise with the iPhone models then that will be the real touchphone war and prices will go down further because the iPhone won't be the fastest phone out then :)
 
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