We all love Cell Phones. Each year more and more people are getting smart phones as a primary device of their choice because these pocket devices are stronger and more feature rich than our first computers that we bought years ago. According to a Recent Nielson Report, 38% of all Americans now own a smart phone, and of those people who bought or upgraded to new phones in the last 6 months, 55% of those upgrades came in the form of a smart phone.
As you can see from the graphic above, another interesting finding is that the Android market share from February 2010 to May of 2011 has grown steadily from 7% to 27, and the platform is now considered by many to be a major contender to the Apple iPhone.
I’ve personally experienced a lot of debate with myself, about which phone is the best phone for me, but in March of 2011 I decided to make the switch from an Apple iPhone 3G to an HTC EVO 4G.
Here is the reason why I switched from iPhone to Evo 4G
1. The network service is cheaper. At the time when I upgraded, I switched carriers from AT&T to sprint, which saved me about $15 / month. The “everything unlimited” plan from AT&T is nice and prices have been coming down, but the simply “everything” plan from sprint is now consistently $116 / month, saving me a lot of money.
2. No need to Sync. With my iPhone, I had to synchronize up my contacts, calendar entries, iTunes music library, apps, and podcast updates every night to get the latest content, but with my EVO 4G, the device automatically synchronizes to my Google account, and one purchased app allows to download and sync up all of my podcasts no matter how large they are over 3G or Wi-Fi.
3. AT&T’s data service is capped at 2GB per month, and if you’re a heavy data user, watching a lot of streaming Netflix and YouTube on your phone like myself, it doesn’t take long to hit that limit. If you go over that limit, you could be slammed with expensive data charges. Ouch!
4. Generally speaking, the apps that I find and download on the Android market are cheaper than the Apple equivalent apps. Case in point: Angry Birds. I’ve gotten addicted to this little game, and it’s become an unbelievable time waster. I’ve downloaded 4 updates to the main game, and I’ve since downloaded Angry Birds Rio, one Rio update, and Angry Birds Seasons. My wife has played most of the same levels, except she’s had to pay $.99 per update, and some versions on the Apple store are going for $1.99.
5. Talking GPS. As a frequent day trip commuter this was one of the bigger features. As much as I loved the pretty little blue ball that Apple gives as a navigation point, the Android Google Maps app gives you clean spoken turn by turn directions, with anywhere you need to go, which is very nice when you’re navigating the downtown streets of a city that you’re not familiar with.
6. You talk, it types. This feature has revolutionized my WordPress Blogging experience. As I drive down the road, as I do for many hours in the day, I listen to podcasts. By turning my car into my own personal University in this way, as I’m driving I’m flooded with Blogging and business ideas, with no good way to document them in that moment, until now. Built into one of the latest versions of the Android OS, is a small button in the bottom left hand corner of the keyboard that looks like a microphone, and when you touch it, you can speak the text that you want to be written down. I most frequently use this with the WordPress app, so that I speak down a title and a few notes for a new blog post idea that I have. I save the draft, of my avchd business video blog post. The latest iPhone the 4S does have Siri, a similar, you talk it searches ability, but it’s not clear how much of a “you talk it types” kind of feature this is.
7. Tethering abilities. There are free apps on the android market that open up the possibility of connecting my Sprint EVO 4G to my macbook pro. Having this ability, combined with the unlimited data abilities essentially allows me to be online anywhere that I have a cell phone signal. I’ve found this ability to be helpful when relaxing in public locations that have no Wi-Fi, but where I still want to be online, such as at our local drive in movie theatre, when my wife and I go to see a double feature and there’s time to kill during boring movies.
8. 4G for whatever reason, Apple has not officially released a 4G version of the iPhone. The latest variation of the phone claims to have very fast data service on the current 3G service that rivals 4G in some areas, but with no current LTE chip built in or no Wi-Max capabilities, it doesn’t meet the specifications of most commonly understood 4G definitions. The Sprint EVO 4G obviously has 4G abilities, even though the service is only available in major cities at this time.
9. Connectivity possibilities. The EVO 4G has a nifty little micro HDMI connection on the bottom of the phone, right next to the micro USB connection that allows me to hook up my phone to my LG 50” 50PS80 HDTV. The connection isn’t perfect. It only allows you to view pictures and videos that can be played in the official video and photo libraries, which unfortunately does not include all of my favorite podcasts, but hey, maybe with a firmware update someday, this ability will be expanded to viewing all video and picture formats, and some day even doing screen mirroring.
10. Expandable storage. The final feature that I consider to be superior about the EVO 4G is the expandable storage. While I wish the phone would have the ability to store data on my first choice of media, a 32GB class 10 SDHC card, unfortunately I’m stuck with micro SDHC. Even so, with this format I’m able to upgrade the storage from 8 to 16 to 32GB of storage or even more as time and storage capacity gets more sophisticated. Compare that to the iPhone, and you would have to buy a whole new device for Hundreds of dollars more to get a similar upgrade in storage abilities.
Overall I’ve been happy with both phones, but considering all of the options, I’m happy that I made the switch to Evo 4G
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