Help wean me off the iPhone
I decided that I fancied a change from the iPhone last week, so went out and bought a HTC Desire as it seemed to be the one people were raving about.
Now it's almost 3 days later and I'll admit, i'm struggling with finding the attraction people have with it.
The last time I used an android handset was the old G1, which was a bit clunky, i'm running froyo on the desire and it's really rapid which is a huge improvement. However there are a few things I just can't help feel i'm either missing out on something obvious, or android has a long way to go to catch-up with the iPhone?
My main complaints, and I really am hoping someone has a solution
*) Battery life is awful compared to the iPhone, I can barely get 6 hours out of it, and thats without playing any games or movies, just messing about with wifi on, browsing and phone calls. I've installed the advanced task killer to kill background stuff, but hasnt made a difference. Also tried a battery calibration fix from xdadevelopers forum, made no difference.
*) The keyboard is unusable, keys are just either too small, or the iPhone was better at picking what key my fat fingers wanted to press and got it right more often than not. Simply not the case with this.
*) Exchange synchronization. The default HTC exchange app is awful, I've tried visdata roadsynch which worked much better but still was a bit fiddly (like not integrating with a widget on desktop to let me know I had new mail) and touchdown which wouldn't connect to my exchange server.
*) Camera, it's awful compared to the iPhone4 cam, i've tried a few camera apps (I miss hipstamatic soo much) to improve matters, but nothing's grabbing me.
There's a few other niggles like the weather app has a very limited list of cities in there whereas iPhone even had Pwllheli. I hated the browser but then I discovered dolphinHD which is excellent.
So please, if someone can offer some advice to stop me going back to iPhone (didn't sell my iPhone4 yet, just incase :p), i'd very much appreciate it. Oh and yes, i've rooted it and installed a custom rom already (Leedroid's 2.1 (froyo) rom).
Thanks in advance
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Cant you change the weather location to "my current location"?
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Yes, but that changes when it notices i've moved out of area so it's no good for me having a "home" weather report :)
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
oh i see....i do actually find it pointless having a my current location anyway as looking out of the window produces nigh on the same results and usually more precise.;)
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Switch on iphone.
Sell Htc Desire.
All solved. :)
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Oops...
HTC Desire HD and it's Release Date!
If on contract and under 14 days (although I hear the Desire is a pretty decent phone) send it back and wait a couple of days!
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
a lot of people seem to have issues with battery, it can sometimes be down to a dodgy app. If you are on android 2.2 (froyo), task killers no longer work and using them can just make battery life even worse.
There are keyboard alternatives, although I dont have any problems, it may just be the fat its slightly different to what you are used to. I think there are alternatives, or try reconfiguring it.
I think, at the end of the day you are used to the top end iphone and android isnt as polished yet, its probably 'as good' (some plusses and negatives), If you have no problems with the iphone, stick with it. Im sure someone coming the other way will miss some things and wonder what the fuss was.
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DejaVu
Oops...
HTC Desire HD and it's
Release Date!
If on contract and under 14 days (although I hear the Desire is a pretty decent phone) send it back and wait a couple of days!
Tbh, the desireHD just doesn't seem to offer much more over the desire apart a slightly bigger screen and more megapixels, the remaining specs look identical?
Quote:
Originally Posted by
{{909}}
a lot of people seem to have issues with battery, it can sometimes be down to a dodgy app. If you are on android 2.2 (froyo), task killers no longer work and using them can just make battery life even worse.
There are keyboard alternatives, although I dont have any problems, it may just be the fat its slightly different to what you are used to. I think there are alternatives, or try reconfiguring it.
I think, at the end of the day you are used to the top end iphone and android isnt as polished yet, its probably 'as good' (some plusses and negatives), If you have no problems with the iphone, stick with it. Im sure someone coming the other way will miss some things and wonder what the fuss was.
After posting I stumbled on a video of swype keyboard which looks damn impressive so I'll try that one out. But cheers for the tip on task killer, I'll stop that and see if batter life improves.
Thanks
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
I've changed from the LeeDroid ROM as I wasn't too keen on the latest update and i've moved over to a basic Android ROM without HTC Sense and i find it much better. I've still got a weather widget just non of the other crap. If i'm messing around with the phone all day it still lasts until I go to bed. If i'm not using it I can get 2 full days out of it quite easily and that's without the battery conditioning.
Even 720p recording work's fine on this ROM but it was too jerky on the LeeDroid ROM. I'd def try a few more ROM's before you give up on it :cool2:
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Thanks livesey, I guess I should try out some different roms as well then, I just figured Leedroid was one of the better ones with HTC Sense, whereas the non-sense android droms i'd seen would certainly have made my transition from the lovely polished iOS4 to android a whole lot harder :)
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Quote:
the desireHD just doesn't seem to offer much more over the desire apart a slightly bigger screen and more megapixels, the remaining specs look identical?
I agree, naturally its a "higher spec model" but its not worth a stand alone upgrade imo. You should have bought the samsung galaxy s, an all round beeter performer than both of your previous buys. Froyo will help re battery life, amongst other things. I'm waiting for a stock 2.2 before i root/partition etc.
Quote:
After posting I stumbled on a video of swype keyboard which looks damn impressive so I'll try that one out. But cheers for the tip on task killer, I'll stop that and see if batter life improves.
I use swype all the time now, its so much quicker and uncannily accurate, once you have used it you wont look back. All this on that 4" loveliness, get your fat fingers around that. :)
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
You know, that's a vaild point, I didn't think that of course the 4" screen will mean bigger keyboard buttons for fat fingers, point well made mate.
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
I've got to give a huge thanks to livesey for his help. I took off the LEEdroid I had on there and flashed a pretty basic (DeFroST_4.9) rom. There's no HTC sense, so it looks even more unpolished than before, but it makes a huge difference to performance.
Doesn't fix all my niggles, but certainly makes it feel better, thanks mate :great:
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
I dont know as I need sense really, its just the concept of it really impresses me and I feel happier knowing its there....somehow.
I manage a day on my battery now, which is 3 hours listening to the radio and about 30 mins browsing hte net and general texts and email checking throughout the day/when the boss isnt looking. I have to admit the battery life is a pain in the ass after using my old Sony Ericsson mobile that would last 3 days of radio and mp3 abuse, but thats the tax of having a smartphone I guess.
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
Quote:
Originally Posted by
_Belial
swype = awesomeness :)
just put this on my desire, bloody awesome stuff
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
its a htc, they look nice.....when being sold lol, get the i phone back out, you know nothing touches it
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
It must be said, the iphone is a real tough act to follow. But I'm a gadget geek and need my fix :)
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
For me one of the biggest things about the HTC Desire is that it wedges PERFECTLY in a gap on my dashboard which makes it perfect for the car. Google navigation is really quite good and I can have Spotify running in the background playing through my stereo.
Anyone who hasn't tried a ROM without HTC Sense should give it a go. The menu's don't look as slick but the phone runs so much better and you can download a widget to replace the missing sense one's for free if you look around :)
Re: Help wean me off the iPhone
I use the latest leedroid rom, not got any problems with it at all. I use Swiftkey keyboard which is I think very good.
I get 2-3 days battery life as I don't have data on or wifi on all the time, I just flick one or the other on when I need to, it all helps. I stopped using Advanced task Killer before I went to 2.2 as it just seemed to do nothing more than eat the battery, once that once gone my battery life increased immensely. Task killers may kill apps that are running, but they soon restart which uses more power to restart an app than it does to leave it running (so I read on xda), makes sense I reckon.
I talk on it for around an hour to two or so a day, stream radio in the morning for approx 20 minutes (using wifi), check email around a dozen times a day (using wifi/data, mostly data), web browse for approx 20 minutes a day, don't do much texting. Browse the market for whatever for approx 10 minutes a day and install any updates (again via wifi). It's turned on for 15-16 hours a day. I don't think that's too bad really.
What's wrong with the camera?