Expectations and initial impressions of HTC Desire

I just got my first Android phone yesterday – HTC Desire. I have been using an iPhone 3G for a little more than a year and I like it a lot. But, coming from WinMo 6.1 platform, it was very different, and quite frankly, difficult to use. I always wanted to buy an Android device since the G1 came out. Obviously, I couldn’t do that till today.

Now that I have been a smartphone user from long back, I have some expectations set for my new phone. So, I was playing around with the phone and the OS from yesterday. As it is too early to declare whether it was worth upgrading to over an iPhone or not, I have identified features that might play a significant role in the process.

Things I love about HTC Desire over iPhone:

• First and foremost, it doesn’t need to be jailbroken or unlocked in order to use it. I kinda hate apple for career locking the iPhone. Yes, there I said it. I have seen many enthusiastic users (yes, I am one of them) buying an iPhone only to find out that it contains the latest “baseband” and it cannot be jailbroken/unlocked. I mean, what’s the use spending a lot of money just to find out you got a music player instead of a smartphone. So much for making money, huh Apple?
• Multitasking: Yes, I am aware that it is coming with iPhone OS 4. But, sadly multitasking will not be supported on iPhone 3G. Beside, I am not here to compare iPhone OS and Android, I am comparing two phones that I own and it is a fair comparison. I always wanted to run google talk in the background. I was using IM+ with Push in iPhone but, somehow push is not the same as running the app in background. Let’s see how does it work out.
• Better Camera and Video Recording: You got to accept the fact that iPhone 3G camera sucks. I am delighted to get a far better one with video recording capabilities. Autofocus with face detection, Advanced Settings, Zooming, Geotagging and LED Flash are cherry on top. (I know, too many cherries )
• Useful widgets on home screen: Being a former WinMo user, this is one of those things that went missing when I switched to iPhone. You can’t control what you have on your home screen (for iPhone, lock screen because there is no such thing as home screen). On top of that, it seems that HTC has improved home screens with Sense UI and I am glad that I will not have to open an application to check news/tweets/weather thanks to Sense widgets.
• Notification Tray: Great original android concept. It’s a good thing that I won’t lose any notification like I do in iPhone and goodbye to those annoying Push messages.
• Smart Dialing: Another thing that went missing when I “upgraded” to iPhone from WinMo. I am just too lazy to type whole number or name or when I don’t remember the name.
• Bluetooth: Again, one more feature that went missing when I switched to iPhone. I never used bluetooth on iPhone because It couldn’t perform what I wanted (File/vCard transfers) and I wasn’t interested in what it could perform (Headset).
• Notification LED: It was very convenient to monitor battery charging and notifications on my WinMo because of this. Another thing lost with iPhone. Anyway, not a “must need” feature but nice to have it.

Things I may love about HTC Desire compared to iPhone:

• People (Contacts): iPhone contacts management and sync were nice and all but, what beats phone contacts integration with Google Contacts and Facbook? The linking and splitting of contacts looks nice and how can I forget contact groups? Despite all the excitement, my final verdict is reserved.
• Google Calendar Sync: Automatic syncing with google calendar sounds useful. Never used it before but, I feel I will find it useful.
• Integration to social networks: Ability to upload photos to Picasa/Flicker/Facebook as well as videos to Youtube directly from phone is sweet.
• Adobe Flash: Well, it’s not 2015 yet and most of the websites still use flash to serve content like video and audio. I don’t particularly hate any of them. Flash has contributed so much to the web and I’m sure HTML5 will do the same (or more). Though probably HTML5 will replace flash eventually for audio/video, I simply don’t want to wait for it.
• FM Radio: I never owned a phone with FM radio but, I guess once in a while it’s entertaining to listen to it rather than my library which doesn’t change frequently. But, I am still not happy with the fact that I have to use stereo headset in order to do it. (Update: I get static sound when the handsfree cable is near to my phone) (Update 2: Surprise surprise. I thought it will only work with HTC handsfree kit but it worked with my Head-Direct RE2.)
• OTA Software Updates: Despite the fact that I have never done it, it sounds exciting. Will do that for Froyo update. Who wants to connect the phone to a computer to get latest software update? Then again, not so important for longer run because I will be playing around with different ROMs.
• Lock text message to prevent deletion: Small feature. But, I could use something like that to keep important text messages.
• Pattern-based Screen Lock: iPhone has pin-based lock. But, somehow I feel this is cooler
• Voice recognition: Google voice-to-text is good. I’d say it is 70% accurate for me. Can be helpful on bumpy roads sometimes.

Things I loved on iPhone and are missing here/are not as good:

• Bright Screen: I knew that AMOLED screens are not the best in terms of visibility in sunlight. But, after practically using it outside, I kinda miss the bright iPhone screen. Worse thing is, when set the brightness to “auto”, it doesn’t automatically adjust it to full when in sunlight. I have to do it manually.
• Hardware Ringer/Vibrate switch: I absolutely love it. You can turn your phone silent without even looking at it. Perfect.
• iTunes: I kinda like managing my audio library in iTunes, especially the ratings and play count. Wouldn’t want to lose that now, do we? (Update: Just tried Doubletwist – iTunes for Android which apparently lets me import iTunes playlists. Great, I’m happier now. )
• Keyboard Accuracy: I don’t know if it’s not as accurate as iPhone but, I am having hard time typing on it. I hope it improves with practice.
• Screenshots: iPhone has built-in functionality of taking screenshots without using an app (Wow, that’s the first). I kinda miss it in Android.
• Turning the screen on: This sounds weird but, I have habit of turning the screen of my iPhone by pressing home button rather than power button. (Actually, double press it for music controls ) Anyway, as it seems, I can only bring unlock screen on desire by pressing power button and it’s annoying. I have found a way to overcome it but, it requires rooting. So, no biggie.
• Scratch-resistant screen: I assumed that it’s a standard feature for a high-end touchphone. As it turns out, it isn’t. And I have learnt it the hard way.

So, these are my initial observations and final verdict is still pending. I will post more about “things I may love” and stuff like battery life later.

Update: Added scratch-resistant screen to the missing list.