* Posts by AsciiSmoke

1 publicly visible post • joined 19 Apr 2010

HTC Desire

AsciiSmoke
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An alternative viewpoint

I've had my Desire a week now and although I'm getting used to it's strange little nuances I'm still bitterly disappointed by the lack of attention to detail by the OS and, to some extent, the hardware.

I've come from using an iPhone 3G and being bored of Apple and they're lazy hardware iterations I decided to jump ship and look elsewhere for my next gen device. Granted the screen and speed of the Desire is a welcome step forward for me but in terms of software I feel like I've gone back to the bad old days of using a Nokia.

I'm not going to write a full review here, or list the good points, they're well documented but the following bad things didn't come up in any reviews (at least before I bought mine) and would have put me off buying:

* The mail app doesn't support folders so I can't categorise my email which is just plain ridiculous. People have been complaining on code.google.com about this since sep 2008 and Google wont even give them the time of day. The thread I was reading must have had at least 500 comments pleading for at least a comment from Google.

* Why the hell is there a separate app for just GMail, that's just pointless repetition. Most people don't have the option to abandon their existing email accounts and it's not like Gmail polls pop3 accounts often enough to be able to use forwarding. If nothing else, at least make this app be able to properly support external pop3 and imap accounts.

* The Optical joystick is ridiculously over sensitive and can't be disabled. Can't I just have the button and not the pointless eye that I keep catching?

* Placing your cursor in a text box is hellish, I know Google can't copy Apple's little spy-glass but they desperately need something better than trying to hit the one pixel between the last letter in a text box and the edge of the box. Maybe just allow me to run my finger along the box to move the cursor. Seriously; anyone who's got a Desire, try using the browser to google for a long search term and then try to remove the last word. you're a better man than me if you don't want to snap your phone in half before you give up and just type the whole damned thing again).

* The 'all apps' list is just that, all your apps, in alphabetical order. No ability to sort, create folders or make the list tidy in anyway, so my list currently exists of game, game, ebook reader, file manager, game, app, app, etc, etc. UGLY, and lots and lots and lots of scrolling every bloody time!

* No Divx / Xvid support. There are 3rd party apps but they're really bad, I created a video that was the screen's native res and tried playing on yxflash and it stuttered all the way when reading from my class 6 sdhc card.

* The app store expects you to put your card details in every time, even though it uses Google Checkout. Why the hell can't I just use my Checkout account? If it was this fiddly to buy apps on iPhone the app store would never have made any money.

* Considering how amazing the screen is, why the hell does the tinny little speaker sound like listing to someone else's earbud from across the room. the iPhone's little speaker was never great but at least you could comfortably watch iPlayer for more than a few minutes without wanting to stuff cotton wool in your ears. And my £50 Sennheisers hiss when connected.

* Lastly, the 3G signal is pants, There's several places in my day where I used to use 3G for browsing or checking email on my iPhone, now I can only get signal in one of them and only in a pretty specific spot (read: standing still in the middle of a field, if I walk 10 steps I'm back to gprs).

Don't waste your money, Android is NOT ready for the big-time yet, and from the anecdotal evidence I've read from other users Google seem to treat it as a beta and can't be bothered to respond when real users are desperate to have a dialogue about their issues. The desires hardware is great but lacking is a couple of crucial areas and HTC have already followed it up with a better alternative, the Incredible.

Ascii