

HTC Incredible vs. Nexus One - tortilla
http://whalesalad.com/blog/incredible-vs-nexus-one/

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robbed
I really liked this sentence: "It feels a lot like desktop Linux: unpolished,
but covered in gloss."

~~~
ericz
When my friends try to get me to switch to Ubuntu I always have a hard time
describing why I dont wanto. It's hard to pinpoint when looking at all the
individual components of the Ubuntu desktop but this sentence really sums it
up well.

On the flip side, I recently tested a full restart of 10.04 from Ubuntu
desktop to Ubuntu desktop. took exactly 14 seconds. Incredible.

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kylec
I'm definitely not a fan of HTC's Sense UI. I'd read glowing reviews about it
(Engadget, Android Central) so when I went to try out the Incredible myself I
was quite shocked at how much I was put off by Sense. Some of their changes
are good - I like the phone button at the bottom of the home screen, but
they've gone and messed with the UI of practically every program on the device
- and I'm not a fan of their "improvements". From the dialer to the car panel
to the clock - the Nexus One's UI is, IMHO, much better looking and
functioning.

The frustrating thing is that I'm actually seriously considering getting the
device, as Google decided to pull the Verizon Nexus One. But I just know that
I won't be as happy with it as I would have been with the Nexus One.

~~~
RK
I was under the impression that you could "turn off" Sense and run the native
GUI.

~~~
kylec
It's possible to disable Sense on older HTC phones (like the Eris), but not on
the Incredible. Apparently HTC even stripped out the files needed to support
the stock UI from the ROM.

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orangecat
Another factor that's important to me is that the Nexus One is virtually
guaranteed to get Android updates as soon as they're released, while with the
Incredible you'll be waiting on Verizon and HTC.

~~~
whalesalad
Yeah, that was huge for me in the list of deciding factors. In my last
paragraph I discuss all of them, and that was definitely important. It took
Verizon forever to get 2.1 on the Droid, and they left all their other devices
out in the cold.

That's the sad thing about wireless companies... they just don't care. They're
focused on gaining customers and do that with new devices, not updates to old
ones.

Google is independent from all of that, and they actually seem to care about
their users :)

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jbarciauskas
It's funny, I had the exact opposite reaction. The Sense UI feels much more
polished and mature than the default Android UI which feels utilitarian and
raw.

Some elements of the Sense UI I prefer:

Keyboard

FriendStream

Weather widget

Favorites widget

Exchange Calendar (!)

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krschultz
I have a nit to pick with the situation (not the article).

He likes the phone, but he doesn't like the Android "distro" on it. Why can't
this be swapped?

That would be basically advantage #1 of open source, I can understand if HTC
doesn't want to let everyone else use their Sense UI onto other phones if it
is a proprietary advantage, but shouldn't you be allowed to run the vanilla
Android on any Android phone? Or am I missing something here?

~~~
hoprocker
A good point that I'd be interested in hearing some advice about. It goes
without saying that the OS on a phone is tailored to be small and compatible
with the hardware present, but what about the UI? Anybody have experience
hacking their mobile UIs?

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rbranson
Clearly HTC has once again completely screwed up the UX that the OS designers
have worked hard to create. I'm glad they didn't decide to do it with the G1
that's been in my pocket for the last 18 months. I just wish the physical
keyboard version of the Nexus One would come out so I could replace this very
slow G1.

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markbao
Good review. I personally prefer the HTC keyboard. Whereas I couldn't stand
typing on the Android 2.1 stock keyboard, the HTC_IME keyboard pictured is
great.

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dave1619
Interesting article. Has anybody switched from an iPhone to a HTC Incredible?
What's the experience been like?

~~~
martythemaniak
I switched to the Nexus One (the Incredible's brother) and it's been great.
Like multitasking (which iPhone users now agree is a good thing), openness and
flexibility aren't just throw-around buzzwords, they actually add a lot to the
user-experience. Sharing pics from the camera, having your contacts
automatically kept in-sync, having widgets on the homescreen, using Locale to
automatically manage your settings etc etc.

Interestingly, there now seem to be almost as many android users at the office
as there are iphone users, which is notable as almost everyone has has an
iphone.

