Welcome to my definite article, my personal experience longer than 3 months (and not a 3 minutes review off YouTube) and not sponsored by any tech companies which would affect the results; my ultimate non-technical guide to why the hell I have switched from an iPhone 4 (iOS 4.x) to a Samsung Captivate (Android OS 2.2). Because, make no mistake, you have to be a little crazy to make this kind of switch. So, don’t worry this review will be short.
First off – Design
That’s easy, iPhone 4 wins. Why? The Captivate is made of plastic except for the flimsy battery plate made of light metal at the back, whereas the iPhone 4 is sheeted with a thick front and rear glass so it is a lot sturdier and it’s metal contour is prettier than the plastic Captivate.
Second – Features
The very reason why I wanted the Samsung Captivate is for its awesome AMOLED 4″ screen. It really is a thing of beauty the first time you see it. Resolution may not be as high as the iPhone 4 retina display but, nonetheless, it is quite sharp and 0.5″ bigger than iPhone. I also wanted to be able to mess around with various settings – Android does give you more tweak access under the hood – which is nice, of course. However, the iPhone may not be as tweakable as Android, but what Apple does with iPhone is it bring the same philosophy of all other products they make: Simplicity, elegance and works great right out of the box. Yes, Android (2.2) does all what the iPhone does… just not as simple, as smooth and as great as iPhone 4.
3rd – Performance
The Samsung Captivate running Android Froyo 2.2 performs decently on the Captivate. I am not sure about other Android devices but on my phone the performance is alright. Still, a lot of the operations can be a lot more clunky. But to be fair, I am mostly talking about apps which both platform run; these run much better on the iPhone. Example of some popular apps are Facebook, Twitter and the Web browser – These 3 are my favourite apps and I want them running smoooooth!
4- Battery Life
This one is simple: The iPhone 4 battery life blows away the Samsung Captivate’s by a mile. No contest. I can’t get a full day on my Captivate like I used to on iPhone 4.
5- Value
Rogers Wireless currently has the Captivate listed at $49 on a three year contract and the iPhone 4 at $159. My advice? Well unless you’re a tech nerd and love tweaking shit, bigger screen, perhaps you might wanna go for the Captivate. But if you want a device that work smoother but with limited tweakable options, then that’s obviously the iPhone 4.
List of stuff that annoys me about Samsung Captivate
- Android OS not as refined as iOS… by a mile
- Built-in mail and Sms apps are shit, totaly
- A matter of fact, pretty much all of the built-in apps sucks
- Unable to uninstall built-in apps
- TW app launcher is weak
- WIFI connection doesn’t always turn on when enabled
- Weak battery life
- The Facebook app is shitty compared to its iPhone cousin
- Google Browser not as smooth and responsive as Safari on iPhone
List of stuff that annoys me about Apple iPhone 4
- Small screen made me switch to the Captivate, no joke
- Not as customizable as Android
- Everybody has one, including people that annoy me!
- No file manager
Look, this is just MY observations but if you have never had an iPhone and use Android instead that you have no clue what you’re missing. The again, not everyone likes Apple products. Put it this way, the iPhone is like a Mercedes-Benz and Android is a Honda Civic. The Civic is not a bad car, far from it, but the Mercedes is a few notch higher.
So, all Android fanboys, yes this review is biased perhaps. But I have used both devices for months and I prefer the iPhone. That’s my choice. If you don’t think so than that’s your beef. Write your comments and convince me otherwise.
June 4th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Agree totally. It’s like a Chinese watch. Looks like the real thing but just isn’t.
June 6th, 2011 at 9:38 pm
Yep. Google should be ashamed. Or at least try to improve and for better.
June 9th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Install Darky’s ROM 9.5 with the Dark Core 1.4 kernel and the battery will easily last 1 day with heavy use.
November 11th, 2011 at 7:50 am
you’re a stupid motherfucker. iphones doesnt need to modify kernel to avoid battery drain. fucking idiot go to kill urself.
December 20th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
I think that was a completely reasonable reply. Go to kill urself indeed. Do you have an e-book of your bold and clever comments that I could buy?
June 10th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Darky’s ROM 9.5 with the Dark Core 1.4 kernel….okay man I’ll give that a shot
August 28th, 2011 at 1:19 am
Android OS not as refined as iOS… by a mile
-matter of opinion. that being said, it’s a lot easier to refine when you shave off functionality and remove features.
Built-in mail and Sms apps are shit, literally
-you clearly don’t quite get the use of “literally”. I doubt those apps are “literally” lumps of feces on your phone. you mean “figuratively”
A matter of fact, pretty much all of the built-in apps sucks
-depends on the phone, depends on the provider.
Unable to uninstall built-in apps
-wrong. just plain untrue.
TW app launcher is weak
-???
WIFI connection doesn’t always turn on when enabled
-your inability to touch buttons is your own problem, not android’s
Weak battery life
-again, depends on the phone.
The Facebook app is shitty compared to its iPhone cousin
-i beg to differ
Google Browser not as smooth and responsive as Safari on iPhone
-see above.
For your next experiment, why don’t you compare Androids strengths versus iOS’ weaknesses, rather than vice versa?
August 28th, 2011 at 9:31 am
@ musicandminds, thanks for you comment!
I ain’t going to start this exercise of why *I think* Android is inferior to iOS again. I think it is and that’s that. Plus, there is no use trying to convince Apple-haters of anything – We’re both in different universes :)
And, you didn’t convince me at all of anything anyway, other than, well, that you prefer Android! You can easily uninstalled built-in apps? WIFI works great on the Captivate? SHOW ME.
But thanks for pointing out my English is not always on par. I am French after all and try to do my best, hehe.
October 8th, 2011 at 9:53 am
Just got a Android phone for free and played a week with it. I’m used to iOS too, but not phonewise, but iPod wise. I came to the conclusion that both major mobile platforms suck. Here is why:
- A normal computer OS is a basic system to set up to your personal needs and want to be as invisible and unobtrusive as possible. Mobile OS-es arent. They are a portal for sales. Either sales by App store, or sales by consuming your data bundle as fast as possible
- Sign-up mayem: Everything needs an account and signup. On a PC you just bought a program and started to use it. With mobiles, this is impossible. No manual transfer of an app to your phone. Forget it
- Endless data harvesting. Lot of mobile apps are location based. OK if it has a purpose, but at least half of the programs I used don’t do anything usefull with the location. And if you turn on GPS, but decide to leave the internet connection down, the programs won’t work. So what is the real need? To know your location, or to share a crapload of personal data without having any idea.
- (With Android) No uninstall of apps you don’t like, and all apps stay running as long as Android likes. Facebook harvested 300kb of data in 3 days, yet I did not sign up to facebook anywhere in my life, nor started the app.
- It is all about consuming. Creation is totally limited. The lack of keyboard makes the email app totally bothersome: you CAN read what you receive, but it results in that you 1) read e-mail all the day and 2) forget to reply. As the mails get marked read, replying is often forgotten, just because typing on a mobile sucks big time. I tried to remove my email account, but it resulted in closing all Outlook like components: my contacts were gone too, and my calender got empty again. Mail sucks on a mobile, but the Calender is one of the only handy things on your handy.
- The nature of Apps. Apps is the web being crippled. You have to consume websites the way an App wants, and you have to install updates over and over again. You have nothing to say over ads, over data harvesting, over looks, over plugins. With Firefox with adblock, a hosts filter, CSS overrides and a good RSS reader you can consume everything that is Apped, but much better, faster, on a bigger screen and without all those crazy acounts.
So I put my SIM with big dataplan in an old Nokia 3310. I use it for calls now.
From my short smart phone experience I know I want the following:
- A phone that does regular and Skype calls.
- A phone that syncs my calender
- A very portable photo/video camera/memo recorder
- A portable wireless network for working on the real thing: a lightweight notebook
That is all a phone has to do. Android/iPhone wants to do 10 times as much, 90% of which I don’t like and can’t turn off.
October 10th, 2011 at 11:28 pm
just owned the HTC EVO 4g running android whatever for 2 weeks. I was very excited to see what the iphones compedator could do, when after two weeks I realized it is simple. Any smart, unbiased person will agree that apples iOS and iPhone is far superior, hands down. Android is flawed and unintuitive, and this is being typed on an Android phone by an unbiased customer. Don’t be ridiculous! Android had a shot and missed it hard, that’s too bad.
Musicandminds: I can actually honestly say, you are a moron, and I feel pretty bad for you. Good luck in the future, I’ve known “people” like you……
October 13th, 2011 at 7:03 pm
Android will lose the smart phone war for the same reasons Linux is losing the desktop war. It’s simply not user friendly for the non-geeks. Cute idea but if you are serious, stick with Apple. You’ll be glad you did.
October 13th, 2011 at 11:14 pm
I don’t think Android is going anywhere. They have a pretty big fanbase. And, the release of the iPhone 4S didn’t quite blow anyone away, including myself. But, yeah, the new iOS 5.0 is looking solid… Now where’s my iPhone 5 with a 4.5″ screen??!
October 19th, 2011 at 2:01 am
Yeah, its trully suck os. Never trust this os, its good at first and worse all the rest. Totally sucks
October 21st, 2011 at 6:32 am
Android is a total piece of crap (I found this article by Googling “Android sucks” in my frustration with dealing with my phone) – I can’t believe the reviewers speak so highly of it. As a former coder, I can’t believe how poorly it works. As somebody who knows a few Googlers, I can’t believe they can be proud of this product.
November 3rd, 2011 at 7:05 pm
Kay a few things.
Have you tried any other android phone? Perhaps an android priced closer to the iPhone? Like the Nexus line of phones or one not using a manufacturer UI?
‘vanilla’ or stock android is a pleasing experience, and higher end androids with dual core processors are far smoother to me than my old iPhone3G. I’ve since been using my Nexus One and will be getting the Nexus Galaxy when it comes out. Me, while in the desktop space I’m an enthusiast and geek, on my phone I just use it as a phone, browse the web, play a game or two, and watch youtube videos. I haven’t had a single negative experience with my phone save for the Weather Channel App.
Which wants to eat your battery. My battery life doubled after uninstalling the app. Also, Gingerbread fixed the having issues with uninstalling preloaded apps, save for the system applications. Like Messanger and phone. any other apps can be removed. Thats a Nexus for you- and Google brands the Nexus line as the phones to compete with iPhones, the rest of the android phones you might have varied experiences on. Might be faster, might be slower. Battery life just depends. But that is the nature of android.
Choice.
And a man who chooses against choice chooses against will, and therefore chooses against that which makes him sentient. Tis a thought.
Oh and Android will fail? That explains why there are twice as many active android phones than iPhones in the world.
November 12th, 2011 at 12:29 am
@Vulpes There are twice or more as many users of Windows, does it mean it’s better than Linux or Mac? Mmh…please…
December 6th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Windows over OSX any day… Linux/BSD blows them both away. OSX’ toddler-interface reminds me of MS BOB and you can’t get shit done on it. Right out of the box the terminal lacks core functionality, the ‘package manager’ (or app store… whatever fancy word apple gives it) is a joke, decent software for mac is sparse, unless you compile BSD source on it, and that will give you shitloads of dependency problems. The hybrid kernel is just as friggin’ stable as the Fukushima reactor. It’s just one huge heap of FAIL
December 25th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
+1 to everything you said, except comments on the Fukushima reactor. I was living in Japan at the time (work), and believe me when I say that if an earthquake and tsunami of that magnitude happened in any other country with a nuclear reactor, it’d be much worse.
Waiting for the day I can install a truly open OS (Linux or NetBSD based, preferably) on any smartphone I buy, just like how I buy Macbooks and purify them by purging OSX and installing true FreeBSD.
November 19th, 2011 at 10:22 am
Android is for uneducated people and poor people use and iOS is for knowledgeable people and rich people use. So all those uneducated android fans try to bad mouth on iOS. Do you know why Apple Fanboy don’t really care? Cause most of them are rich people and they don’t give a fuck for those poor people. Android Suck anyway.
December 1st, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Apple sukks my big balls. androids tougher,faster,cooler, have more choises, and they make the worlds toughest phone gzone commando. P.s. iphone is borring as fuck. Just watch ther commercials. It sais im borring by an android. Ha rich and knowledgable people suck a dick. Chode fuckrson
December 20th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
Dude, do you pay any attention at all to that little red line that I’m sure must appear beneath nearly every single word you type? It means what you just typed isn’t a word. Android, Apple, whatever. You, sir, are a retard.
November 21st, 2011 at 5:53 pm
I’ve had 3 different android phones and I’ve come to realize this about them. Android is a sloppy OS and the only thing a user can do is spend the money to buy one that can actually run fast enough to handle it….either way you’re still stuck with a subpar OS. I’ve given google more than enough time, but they just don’t seem to get it…..
December 1st, 2011 at 11:53 pm
Why the hell would you have a phone made of a glass front. Go to youtube a type drop test for samsung and iphone. Android wins.
December 20th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
Another genius reply. Do you have your own tech review column? Maybe in the newsletter for the group home you live in?
December 21st, 2011 at 9:03 am
apple kiss my ass…u should learn how to improve your standard with comparing to android otherwise fuck off…
December 21st, 2011 at 4:32 pm
awwwwee so sweet, thanks!
December 25th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
Both platforms suck balls!! Yes, iOS is more polished and smoother (saves a lot of processor when you don’t have true multitasking) and Android is an open platform (though it’s performance doesn’t come close to showing how fast Linux can really run)….
The day people started thinking they needed an “app ecosystem” is the day mobile computing fucked itslf in the face. I’ll be waiting for a truly open platform. Currently the abandoned Meego Harmattan project is the best around in terms of code clenliness, open standards and structure, but too bad Nokia’s new corrupt CEO signed a deal with Microsoft. Meego still rocks, but I’m waiting for the day I can take any phone and install whatever open source OS I want, complete with repositories (fuck app stores and marketplaces).
January 2nd, 2012 at 2:10 am
This was just a whole big pile of DUMB.
Ironically, wordpress for iOS BLOWS, while the Android version rocks. Ditto dropbox.
iOS people are ‘simple’ so they like simple things that barely work correctly I guess.
January 2nd, 2012 at 8:22 am
Thank you for dropping by and sharing your thoughts
February 4th, 2012 at 5:38 pm
I thought this was a comparison of ios vs android. Not a phone vs phone.
February 5th, 2012 at 8:26 am
Yes, sorry for disappointing you sir. Does it really matter though?
February 5th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Obviously. A phone is not its OS.
February 5th, 2012 at 7:20 pm
But, yeah I guess Android does run on a gazillion devices out there. But still. In order to compare both platform you still need hardware. And I’m pretty sure all android phones run similarly, no? And this was written nearly 9 months ago, when the Captivate was hot.
February 11th, 2012 at 4:06 pm
YOU SUCK COCK MOTHERFUCKER !!!!!!! ANDROID RULEZZZ AND IOS SUCKS ASS FROM A STRAW WITH PISS AND SHIT EVERYWHERE
February 11th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Oh dear so much hostility.