
The HTC Desire & Samsung Galaxy S are the two best Android Devices out on the market at the moment, so we decided to put them up against each other to give you an idea of which is better at what. If you have anything you would like to know that isn’t covered in this brief post, leave a comment. So hit the break to get into it.
Desire vs Galaxy S
HTC Desire | Samsung Galaxy S | |
---|---|---|
Battery Life | Pretty bad at first, but as with most batteries, after a few charges it can hold itself up for a full day with non-intensive use. If you have GPS going and like to listen to music, you can kiss your battery goodbye fairly quickly | Not too bad given that it has a larger screen. Intensive use sees it last a bit longer than the Desire but you also have to factor in the extra 100mAh that the battery (1500mAh) has over the Desire (1400mAh). Will stop you from taking photos & listening to music when the phone begins to go flat |
Display | Vivid colouring, but not as deep & clear as the Galaxy S. Very responsive. | Deep & clear colours and text. By far the best display on any Android Device. |
User Interface | Sense UI is the by far the greatest User Interface available on the Android platform. It’s intuitive and brings a whole new layer to Android. Only downside is that it can be quite CPU intensive and slow, even when powered by a 1GHz CPU. | Samsung’s UI is.. sub-par. It doesn’t look at all professional and makes the phone feel kind of comical, which is a complete let down. I also found that it freezes all the time, but this has apparently been fixed by Samsung in an update. |
Speaker | Fairly loud, but not the greatest quality sound. Doesn’t distort when up as loud as it goes. | Also fairly loud, quality is pretty good. Neither of the phones will blow your mind in terms of sound quality |
Carrier Apps | Telstra has managed to pack 19-20 carrier applications on to the Desire, and after a while they will begin to annoy the hell out of you as they get in the way and do nothing but link you to websites. And if you’re connected to WiFi, they won’t even do that. They aren’t removable. | Optus has only put 4 carrier apps on to the Galaxy S and they at least seem to have a use, such as checking how much you’ve spent on your account. They are also no removable. |
Usability | Very usable, pretty quick and easy to get a grasp of. You’ll continue to find new features for the first few weeks as some features are hidden away nicely. | Very simple to get a grasp of, if you’re coming from an iPhone you’ll have no problems what so ever. |
Camera/Video | Can shoot 5MP photos that are quite clear and look brilliant if you size them down a bit. Video is pretty basic, but 720p is coming with the 2.2 update whenever that comes. | Also shoots 5MP photos that are pretty clear (see review). Video can be shot in 720p (see review again) and can look jelly-like when moved quickly. Comes with a front-facing camera for all your video calling needs. Has no camera flash and “night mode” makes photos look very noisy. |
Updates | HTC update their devices usually quite quickly and are willing to tell you when an update is available. 2.2 is expected before Christmas. | Samsung have not been great with updates in the past, such as not telling people if their device can be updated. Updates for the Galaxy S should be available soon. |
CPU/GPU | Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250 @ 1GHz (pdalab) | Samsung-Intrinsity S5PC110 @ 1GHz (pdalab) |
Cost | The Desire will set you back $49/mo on Telstra or $768 outright which is cheaper than the Galaxy S. $729 from MobiCity |
The Galaxy S will also set you back $49/mo on Optus but it’s $839 outright through Telechoice. $829 from MobiCity |