HTC Desire HD or iPhone 4?

The iphone 4 will probably have better audio quality, so if you plan on using decent headphones. It also suffers (last I checked) from white balance issues for indoor shots. HTC will probably be able to run flash content in the browser, though I'm not a personal fan of how Android reflows text. The IPS retina display on the iphone makes reading/watching videos a joy, even with the relatively small screen. (The current Desires use SLCD I believe, which may be slightly inferior) Also I've heard people having trouble with the iphone and bluetooth headsets. 

 

Reviews:

 

http://pocketnow.com/android/htc-desire-hd-review

 

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3794/the-iphone-4-review

Edited by Kirosia - 3/5/11 at 5:43pm

I spent a month owning the Samsung Captivate which was one of the top droids. I took it back for the iPhone 4, and without a doubt made the right decision. Surfing is much easier on the eyes with the retina display. 

I haven't used the HTC, but have been extremely happy with the iPhone4. I preordered and got it the first day it was available. Zero problems, love the Retina Display, and it "feels" plenty fast. I'm sure iPhone5 will have the A5 and more storage, but I'm keepin this one another year or two. It meets all my needs very well and I couldn't be happier with it.

On the other hand, I would not be surprised if the HTC is also a good phone. I had been thinking about switching to Android, but the iPhone4 was so good I stuck with Apple.

Also, I never had a problem with the antenna. Mine has the free case on it, which is nice, but I didn't find it necessary.

Anything android > iphone.

+1 for android. 

 

Though if you don't care for tinkering with things, just get the iphone4 and don't look back. 

With the iPhone, the antenna is better in the iPhone 4 than 3GS.  Other than that, drag and drop in iTunes.  I can understand not liking iTunes if you use Windows, but not if you have a Mac. I know at least on a Mac the audio conversion software I use can dump converted music straight into iTunes into new playlists as appropriate. I get quite a bit of music from places such as HDTracks so this makes life a lot easier.

Video sites will all have iPhone compatible video. Other than that, it's rarely an issue.  Most flash stuff on the web consists of ads. Other than that, sites such as movie sites and online games which you can't play using a phone interface anyway. I honestly don't recall hitting a site from my iPhone that required flash.

Both are nice devices, but each have drawbacks.

 

HTC:

1. may or may not be able to quickly grab Android updates.
2. not as high quality sound output

 

iPhone:

1. smaller screen
2. no Flash

 

For people who don't care about music playback, HTC's 2nd problem is pretty moot. 1 depends on the technical willpower of the user. For iPhone, however, I count 1 as a positive as some of these devices are simply huge - too huge. Flash also isn't a problem for me. I run into Flash sometimes for video, but I'll be damned if that is how I'm going to spend my battery. And, as mentioned, a lot of Flash is just adverts. 

 

Certainly, Flash is a rallying cry, but I'll admit, that after years of mildly ignoring it, I don't get the problem. Without a mouse, Flash games are impossible. Without a mains outlet, Flash eats battery. Without proper coding, it doesn't even run right. 

 

Flash isn't ready for mobiles anyway and not a single phone has proper flash support yet. When it does, fine, that is cool. But, the world may be better off moving on, anyway. This isn't 1999 anymore.

The mobile phone world is going to be different by summer, so there's not much sense in asking now. The iPhone 5 will be out and the latest and greatest Android devices will all be running Android 2.4 with dual core ARM processors and qHD (960x540) screens.

for $2.99 you can download a browser that will do flash. So, kind of a moot point. 

 

 

Umm, if a good camera is important then the Nokia N8 is worth a look. I bought it and it is a superb phone. However, the Symbian OS isn't everybody's cup of tea although you can tweak it quite a bit if you're into that. The Ovi Store is shamed by Apple's App Store experience though. Last but not least is that Nokia will adopt Windows Phone 7 OS so Symbian's days are numbered. Just my 2p. Oh, here's my first shot out of the N8 camera:

 

I had the iPhone 4 from day one, then gave it my girlfriend and bought a Desire HD - A few things I've learnt -

 

I felt for my money I got more from an iPhone, design wise, looks, weight, overall package (but then aren't all apple products)

The iPhone was smooth, noob friendly and very easy to navigate - Hard to mess anything up really

I never had a problem with signal tbh, was always very good

The reason I gave it to my girlfriend, was because I just got bored of it, it became tedious to use, It's not very customizable, e.g themes, etc. You HAVE to have all the icons on the screen all the time...

 

Desire HD -

Feels cheaper and looks cheaper than the iPhone, when it's actually not much cheaper

It sometimes freezes if you overload it and don't soft reset it every few days (apps running etc)

It's harder to use, still pretty easy, but coming from an iPhone it took some getting used to - Sub menus etc

The reason I like this phone as an overall 'phone' better is because it just does more things, it's customizable, themes, colours, live wallpapers, different clocks, you can change menu's around etc, it doesn't feel restricted at all in comparison

The battery life is not as good as the iPhone...at all

 

This all put into play, If my gf wanted to swap phones tomorrow, I'd happily go back to the iPhone 4, I like both phones for different reasons, and they're pretty on par with 'which ones best' - It just depends if you want looks/ease of use - Or a more dense/functionality purchase