HTC desire vs iphone 4

[Librashavinganotherbiscuit]

My dilemma is in the title! Both cost about the same but I can't work out which is genuinely the better product as I am a little blinded by the Apple marketing machine. Has anyone got any thoughts or owned both phones?

I've just got the HTC Desire. Where are they about the same price? My HTC desire was free and then a £30 a month contract, the iphone would have been £169 or £149 depending if I went for the i4 or the 3gs.

Anyway I really, really like the Desire. I've never had an iphone but did play about with both in the shop. The HTC supports multitasking better and also supports flash. Its quick, battery life is good and there are loads of good apps. I was most worried about the apps but have found a good website called appbrain where I hunt for apps and then when I know what I want I download them via the market on the handset. There's a good range of apps and this is expanding all the time, all the ones I've wanted so far have been free. Oh and you can get Swype which you can't on an iphone. Believe me you need Swype!

There's been a couple of things that I've struggled with and apparantly the HTC isn't as user friendly as the iphone. It took me about 2 hours to work out how to sync my phone with the computer. But I'm not very techno minded, I've found a few forums where people are very helpful and tell me what I need to do.

You can expand the memory very easily on the HTC, Have just ordered a 16gb micro sd card for £25. The battery is removable unlike the iphone. So if you thought you were going to be away from a powwer supply for ages you could take another battery. Also if a better battery is developed then you could buy this and put it in.

Froyo which is a software update is coming any day now to the HTC Desire, its already been rolled out to the Nexus. Android are saying it will make the Desire 450% faster than what it is now.

Thanks for the insight on Froyo - AKA Android v2.2 (I'm 99.99% sure), which was "shown off" at the Google developers conference in San Francisco not long ago (and looked very useful - especially some of the changes that allow linking to a home/ office PC, so you can pass map info to the phone from the main PC, or start download of some App on the phone from the PC... Lots more was on the YouTube video.

Another desire lover here. Also got mine free - loads of good apps, sat nav and maps as standard . . Need to get a bigger memory card though, I want 16 gigs!

DH researched both rather thoroughly and just got the Desire today. (he was an iphone 3g before)

He is already in love with it, it does everything he wants it to do and that's with minimum apps downloaded! ....multi tasking, send music files via email and download them on the phone (he is a composer), listen to music (obv!), watch youtube vids, it supports flash which the iphone doesn't, it records video, takes a good picture, is not tied to things apple related......

Thanks for the info stripey, what is this swype?

HTC all the way. I have a hero which I've had since October. It has never crashed, is rfeally quick & the gps is so accurate. If I go on google maps, it actually shows which bench I'm sat on for example. It's very sturdy, I've dropped it so many times and not a mark on it. I dropped it once screen down on the beach and somehow it managed to land on the biggest pointiest stone, and nothing! I was almost on tears expecting the screen to be ruined, but no. I love it, android is stable and you can actually do more with it than you can with the iphone.

OTOH DP has an iphone. He's on his 5th one. New ones for various reasons - broken from a small drop, a tiny drop of water buggered one up (whereas mine has got wetter and nothing wrong with it), and the software going tits up. The gps is really inaccurate and the whole thing is slow. We're quite sad and have no life and quite often have races. Mine has never lost! It does everything quicker and much more accurately. He hates the iphone with a passion, but the only htc available on o2 when his contract was up for renewal was the hd2 which was windows rather than android, so best avoided as windows os is unstable. He has the 3gs now rather than the 3g he had before and it's not noticably any better or faster except at turning on. He's desperate for his contract to run out so he can get the iphone4, flog it on ebay & buy an unlocked htc.

Oh and the battery lasts longer on the htc.

I think the battery and the flash capabilitiues are going to be the tipping point for me!

You have all provided very useful advice, thank you.

O2 are going to have the desire soon I was told, but I couldn't wait so switched to Orange.

Swype is a new (quicker) way of texting. You swipe your finger from one letter to the next. Very fast. Not avaailable for iphone.

Ooh, I'm off to find swype. Even the normal keyboard though is a lot easier to use on an htc compared to the iphone.

How does it handle music?

I love my HTC desire with every fibre of my being

that is all

We've had a G1, 2 nexuses and a droid/milestone- android all the way!

milestone has a proper keyboard which is fantastic, esp for mning... oh and tabbed browsing- 6 tabs, which makes waiting for pages to download painless.

Android supports flash too...

I think the speaker on the HTC isn't as good as on the iphone. But its easy to drag and drop tunes from itunes onto the phone and the quality is good enough.

Cheryl - Swype is only available as a beta test download at the minute, its not in the market. You'll need to google it to find their website and email them asking to join. Its all free.

ok this is a little bizarre question but thought of it this morning when I woke up! Can you timer controller the ring tones i.e. between 10pm-7am it's on silent and then between 7am-10pm it's a normal ring tone.

Also stripey who did you get your deal from?

Sorry for all these questions you are all being fantastic at helping!

Not sure about the ring tones but I'd have thought so. You can timer control the wifi on/off so I'd have thought you could do the same for the ringer. You'd need an app for it but there's bound to be one.

I got my deal with orange, the panther 30 deal which is unlimited internet (1gb fair usuage policy). I went through mobiles.co.uk as I didn't want an phone direct from Orange. The direct ones come with Orange crap on the phone that can't be deleted, stuff like a monopoly demo and more tat that take up memory. Plus if you go through Quidco you get £70 cash back for every contract phone you get from mobiles.co.uk.

Don't get a HTC desire from Vodafone even indirectly as they have disabled the facility to watch catchup tv and youtube videos.

I have got a widget on the home screen off my phone which allows you to toggle between silent, vibrate and ringer just by pressing it. Really quick to do so no faffing through menus.

FromGirders - O2 already have the desire. Thats the network DH is on.

He is fully testing his GPS/sat nav today on his way to Northampton.

O2 only have 500mb of data a month.

I'd go for the HTC but then I can't see me ever buying a phone I can't carry a spare battery for - a massive disadvantage of the iphone from my point of view.

It depends on the monthly contract skss - they have 500 MB, 750 MB and 1000 MB but only 500 MB on the lowest two monthly amounts.

Some other networks offer 1 GB whatever the monthly cost is.

Odd that Three is offering iPad users 10 GB for 15 quid a month (1 GB costs 7.50 and that's a bit steep, in my view as a contract user might get 15 GB for 7.50 - admittedly after 18 months getting 5 GB for 7.50/month).

You do not want the new iphone! They have built the antenna into the casing. Which is why it loses signal when you pick it up

How does everyone find the battery life on the HTC desire as apparently the battery life on the 4 is a HUGE improvement over the 3GS.

Ooo i am so excited now - i am getting a desire on wed as i had a xperia mini sony ericsson and it was th biggest pile of shoyte going so after 2 weeks orange pretty much agree with me or are just sick of me and are sending me the desire in its place. woo hoo!

I have decided on a desire, now to just find a good deal! Apparently orange have the best 3G coverage.