Android First Impressions

Posted by on Feb 5, 2011 in Android, Mobile, UI | No Comments

HTC IncredibleI’ve been a longtime Apple user, so it was something of a surprise to my friends (and, honestly, to myself) that I recently got an Android phone (especially with the iPhone coming to Verizon this month). But for work reasons I ended up with an HTC Incredible. The reasons I went with the Incredible over other Android phones is because of HTC’s reputation for attention to detail in the UI, and they have a good track record for updating the OS on a timely basis.

Anyway, my initial reactions after using it for the past two weeks are that it’s fast and the UI is better than I expected. It has most of the major apps you’d want to have, and most recent iPhone apps are available for Android, too, though many apps do lack the polish that iOS apps have. Still, the Android OS is very cool. Widgets are pretty useful (vs. having static buttons to apps); unfortunately you can’t have too much widget action without adversely affecting battery life. Initially I didn’t like the multiple buttons on the phone (home, menu, back, search) since I was accustomed to a single home button on the iPod touch & iPad, but I have gotten used to them (and even rely on the back button).

What don’t I like?

  1. It doesn’t sync nicely with my Mac. If you use Google for everything you’ll be fine, but otherwise it’s kind of a pain to sync from my Mac to Google to phone. My contacts are set up now, but I still don’t have my iCal calendars synced.
  2. The email app is merely OK. Compared to Apple’s really good mobile mail app, it’s annoying. Luckily I don’t use my phone for mail very much, and the Android mail app will likely keep it that way.
  3. Taking screen shots on the phone — something I need to do for my job — is clunky. Turns out you can’t on an unrooted phone, so I need a desktop app to take screenshots. Probably not an issue for typical people, but an annoyance for me.

Overall I think the Android is a very good mobile OS and so far I do like the Incredible. But if I had a choice between an iPhone and an Android phone, I would definitely choose the iPhone.