After being shown the HTC Desire by a friend over dinner, I was rather impressed by the speed of the device. Eventually, the temptation was too great and I managed to get myself one through work.

Previously, I owned an iPhone 3G on the Optus network here in Australia. After approximately 14 months of use, it left little to be desired. heh, i used a pun. It became sluggish, unresponsive at times and in general it was quite slow on the Optus network.

A few months ago, I met up with a friend for dinner and he pulled out his HTC Desire, placed it on the table at the restaurant which promptly grabbed my interest. I asked if I could have a play with it and that proved to be a dangerous move. I was impressed with the speed of the device and how quickly everything loaded on the Optus network.

With the iPhone 4 slowly approaching, I was left pondering which direction I should go in. Sit patiently and wait for the iPhone 4 to arrive or venture in a different direction and try the Desire? Well, I guess the decision was apparent.. I chose the Desire and I was lucky enough to score one through the company I work for.

So, what do I think of the Desire?
Well, I quite love it. In a nutshell..

The Android platform took a few days of getting used to, but is quite user friendly like the iPhone OS is. I like the way notifications are handled, you simply swipe your thumb down on the menubar (similar to SBSettings) and you get a list of what’s happening or has happened. You can add a simple widget which controls the toggling of WiFi/Bluetooth/GPS amongst other settings.

The display is vibrant and crisp. The touch input is very similar to the iPhone, so it’s quite easy to adapt.

One thing I absolutely love is the browsing and download/upload speeds this phone offers. 99% of the time it uses HSDPA to send and receive data, so it’s very quick.

Battery wise, I get a day out of it, sometimes two depending on how much I use the phone.

Life after the iPhone
Do I miss the iPhone? Well, to a certain degree I do. I like the GUI of the iPhone as it is similar to Mac OS X, even more so when it’s Jailbroken and has custom App icons used.

I purchased quite a few applications during the period I owned an iPhone and the quality and level of these applications are generally far better than those on the Android platform. However, in saying that I haven’t really found the necessity for similar applications since moving to the Desire.

Another thing I also miss is the ability of using the iPhone as an iPod for when I do my workouts in the afternoons. Apart from these two things, I can’t say I really miss much more of the iPhone.

Filed in Android