The HTC EVO 4G is the latest Android ’superphone’, launching on Spring in 2 weeks. Google gave everyone at Google I/O one for free, and I’m fortunate that my friend Frankie G sold it to me (he wasn’t ready to switch to Sprint).
Here are some impressions after using it the past few days. Keep in mind that I’ve used iPhones for the past 3 yrs and this is my first real use of Android.
First, the good:
- The screen is huge and bright
- Integration with Google services is great. Love Google Voice and Gmail.
- Mobile hotspot is great (and just what I need for my wifi iPad)
- Sprint 3G is fast, and calls have been been loud and clear
- The one app I’ve found that beautifies things is Slide Screen…but I hear it’s not compatible with Froyo.
- Playing Pandora in the background while doing other things is great. But iPhone OS 4 will have this, too.
Now, the longer list of not-so-good:
- Unlocking the phone is not easy. On iPhone, it’s thumb-press + thumb-swipe. Very quick. On the Evo, you use your index finger to press power (on the top right) then swipe down at the bottom of the screen with your thumb. And because the phone is so long, you can’t do it in a smooth motion.
- Multi-touch is not nearly as smooth as on iPhone
- The battery is bad – usually 1/3 sapped by noon, on life support by early evening. I ordered extra charging cables for cheap on ebay.
- The user experience is jarring. When apps launch they pop open instantly, whereas on iPhone they animate and open towards you, creating a smoother transition. Also when you rotate the phone it switches instantly rather than smoothly.
- The fonts, icons and widgets are all butt-ugly.
- The camcorder takes 720p video, but the quality is really grainy. Classic case of adding a feature just to one-up the competition.
- Android Market is pretty barren, and the games are also lame. There are SO many great iPhone apps that simply don’t exist for Android.
- Typing is difficult. Sometimes when I type fast, the cursor gets moved to the middle of the word so I end up typing over myself – a major bug.
- There’s a giant void in figuring out how to get my content sync’d from my computer (yeah I know about doubletwist). With iTunes it’s so much easier.
- Lots of duplication of effort: you can use either the HTC home screen or the Android one. There’s a Sprint Navigation app and a Google one. There’s a Gmail client and a regular Mail app.
- It feels like using Windows CE back in the day: managing your data on external storage, navigating folder hierarchies with file managers, killing tasks with task managers, managing ‘default applications’ to launch.
- Don’t click “manage applications” in settings unless you have 5 minutes to wait.
- Like with CE phones, you’re dealing with 3 companies (Google, HTC and Sprint) trying to do different parts of the user experience, a recipe for disaster.
- There’s a bunch of pre-installed Sprint crapware, like a NASCAR and football app. Sprint TV is horrible, and Sprint Zone is just pointless. Basically, Sprint needs to just sell the phone and service and stay out of the user experience. They suck at it.
- The integration of Facebook and Twitter is confusing. You give the phone your credentials, but it doesn’t tell you when/where the integration happens.
Granted, Froyo (2.2) is coming soon and I should reserve my final judgement til then. But I’m pretty sure that I’ll either end up with the iPhone 4G or going the cheapo route with a basic prepaid phone + iPad + Mifi.
The consensus of the rumor mill is that Apple will introduce a tablet product in Q1 ‘10. Tt’s supposedly corroborated by asian component manufacturers and publishing companies, some of whom have already publicly demo’d their ‘tablet ready’ content (Time, Wired, Conde Nast).
Though I don’t doubt the rumors, I’m curious how Apple would overcome these obstacles:
- What’s the tagline for why you need it? The iPod was “100 songs in your pocket”. The iPhone was “a phone, the best iPod ever, and an internet communicator” all in one. How do you convince someone who owns an iPhone and a laptop that they need to spend ~$700 on a tablet?
- How would you type on it? the iPhone’s virtual keyboard only works b/c the iPhone is 2″ wide and your thumbs can reach all the keys. It wouldn’t work on an 8″ wide tablet, especially when it’s turned landscape at 10″ wide.
- How do you prop it up? I can’t imagine any Apple product ever having a fold-out kickstand, but it would almost be a necessity.
- Extended display functionality: if you have an 8-10″ tablet connected to your computer for sync, surely it will do something besides say “sync in progress.”
- Battery/Screen: if it’s to be an e-reader, it has to compete with the e-ink screen technology that’s used in devices like the Kindle. They have great readability and battery life, but the downside is that it’s greyscale only. There’s no way the Apple tablet would be greyscale, so the screen has to be both vivid & bright for movies/games, yet also readable and low-power for reading.
- iPhone apps: would existing apps need to be re-written for the high resolution screen? Or could you run multiple existing apps at the current size, and be able to drag them around?
- Connectivity: it’d have to tether with your existing AT&T iPhone data plan. If you don’t have an iPhone, it’d have to be an additional AT&T/Verizon plan.
- And finally, Content. The iPod was a great device, but only took off after the iTunes Store provided songs. The iPhone is a great device, but only took off after Apps were available. The tablet will be a great device, but will only take off when…iTunes LP, magazines, newspapers, comics, and dare I say, books, are sold through the iTunes Store.
Despite all the hurdles, I think all the lofty expectations come from the fact that Apple is the only company that could pull it off.
i fell for the marketing myth around speaker systems: that bigger is better.
our living room was outfitted with a 7 speaker system with surround receiver (an Onkyo HT-SR800). this little thing:
and my computer room had the Logitech Z-5500, which was merely this:
yet i found myself constantly underwhelmed with the sound quality from both systems. plus, it’s yet another thing to turn on & off, and yet another remote control to deal with in order to turn the volume up & down. on top of that, i’m constantly cycling through the different surround sound profiles (“Theater!”, “Stadium!”, “Opera House!”, “Bathroom!”) trying to get the best sound for what’s playing. i needed a simple, elegant solution.
then i saw the light that is the Audioengine A2:
what’s so great about it?
- they’re bookshelf sized speakers
- they’re self-powered (no need for an amp or receiver)
- they accept 2 input sources (in my computer room it’s my imac & ps3. the living room is just the mac mini)
- you don’t have to turn them on/off
- the volume is controlled by the source system
- they’re dead silent when no sound is playing
- backed by what seems to be a great company and a 3yr warranty (fully transferable and you don’t even have to register for it)
- they sound great
it’s a bit spendy at $200, but psst…they sell refurbs on ebay for $150 (and free shipping).
i look forward to selling about 100 pounds worth of speakers on craigslist.
i picked up a deal on a ps3 slim on craigslist ($280, no tax, for a brand new system with a game). i’ve had an xbox 360 since it came out, but hardly ever use it. rock band is great for parties, but otherwise it just collects dust. nothing’s excited me on the xbox since Halo 1.
initial thoughts on the ps3:
- user interface is way sleeker and more refined than xbox. i still get lost & confused in the xbox UI.
- the word ’sleeker’ also befits the hardware, which is *way* quieter than the xbox. the ps3 is almost silent, while the xbox is like running a big fan in the room.
- yet another sign of refinement: the ps3 power unit is *inside*, so it uses a regular 2 pronged power cable. the xbox, on the other hand, has a mongo power brick (about 2lbs?) and a 3-pronged power cable. i literally feel guilty running the xbox, because it feels like it’s sucking up so much juice.
now that Sony has *finally* lowered prices on the ps3, i’m hoping the platform will gain a lot more traction. they did announce that 1M have sold since the slim went on sale.
here’s a snapshot of the gadgets and gear our household is using right now. might be fun to look back on it in a few years and have a good laugh:
- my work laptop: 15″ Macbook Pro (Late ‘08, 5,1), 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M/9600M GT, 80GB Intel X25-M SSD, Snow Leopard 10.6.1, WinXP on boot camp
- my phone: iPhone 3GS 32GB
- the wifey’s laptop: 13″ Macbook Air, 1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 80GB HD, Snow Leopard 10.6.1
- the wifey’s phone: iPhone 3G 16GB
- shared digital camera: Canon PowerShot SD960IS, 12.1MP, 720p video
the man room setup:
- 24″ imac, 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD, SuperDrive
- 42″ PANASONIC Plasma TV TH-C42FD18
- 2ng generation Drobo, 2.5TB
- Logitech Z-5500 speakers
the living room setup:
- mac mini, 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD
- Samsung LN37A450 37″ LCD TV
just upgraded with 2 x 1.5TB samsung drives from newegg for $100 each.
before:
after 
i recently got the Canon PowerShot SD960IS. i first heard about it when @gruber linked to this review from @cabel. so far, i’m loving it. top features:
- 12 megapixel pics that look great
- 720p h264 video with stabilization
- looks really nice and is small & pocketable
- turns on and shoots pics really fast!
it’s replaced a bunch of old devices:
- an old canon optura 400 minidv camcorder: who wants to have to import dv video over firewire when you can record straight to 720p h264?
- my trusty sony dsc-w1 5mp digital camera: bought it 5 years ago, and after several burning man’s it was on it’s last legs
- the flip mino hd i just bought a few months ago: nice device, but the video is really jerky…and the sd960is captures the same quality video with stabilization
- a year old Canon Powershot SD750 7mp digital camera that I gave to Amo for her birthday last year.
we only need 1 digital camera, especially since she has her iPhone 3G (2mp pics) and soon i’ll have my iPhone 3G S (3mp pics + VGA video).
seems like most people have a Best Buy story. mine is actually a pretty positive experience.
let me preface this with my opinion about BB: they’re a total ripoff, and whenever possible I try to buy from Amazon (which is usually about 20% cheaper with no tax and free shipping). but sometimes you just want to bring something home immediately…such was the case 2.5 yrs ago when we moved to SF and I needed a new HDTV. i bought an open-box 42″ Westinghouse 1080p LCD TV. i also uncharacteristically bought the ripoff extended warranty for $250, in the hopes that it might pay off in the future…
so we actually really enjoyed the Westinghouse a lot. it was great. one extremely minor annoyance was that every month or so, it wouldn’t turn on and you just had to unplug the power and plug it back in. I called in the warranty service on it, and after about 2 months of Geek Squad failing to fix it, they finally approved a replacement (woohoo!).
unfortunately, they only approve a replacement for a similarly spec’d model, not for the amount originally paid. so I paid like $1600 for it, but a similar model today runs $800. with tax, I got $880 in store credit to buy a replacement.
in using the Westy, i also learned that 1080p is too high of a resolution to run the mac mini from the couch – you can’t read a thing. we always down-res’d to 720p, and in fact 720p movies look just like 1080p to me. so this time around I bought another open box item (one of the few ways to avoid being ripped off even more) 37″ Samsung 720p LCD TV – for only $530! The TV is great and we don’t even notice the lower resolution & smaller size. And I’ve got like $280 left on the gift card.
all in all, spending the $250 for the extended warranty paid off, but only because i got lucky and was able to swing a replacement unit out of them. i wouldn’t buy any big ticket items from them again in the future.
our car was broken into, and they took our gps…so we’re in the market for a new one. the Garmin Nuvi’s seem to be among the best models, but as a consumer you’re just bombarded with 30 different models and no apparent differentiation between them. how would i know which models to compare from this list?
[fwiw, i decided on the nuvi 360.]
contrast this with Apple: if I want a Mac, it’s fairly obvious what’s different about each model:
similarly for iPod:
