This is the Thrilla-in-Manila of the smartphone world. The HTC Incredible and the iPhone are the two heavyweights of the mobile world, the smartphone world and they are facing off, hardware to hardware. So let us dispense with the introductions and just “Git-it-On!”
Appearance
Beauty is only skin deep and looks aren’t everything, so they say. Nevertheless, when it comes to the device that will you will spend most of your time being seen in public with and using, you might think otherwise. So which is better looking, HTC Incredible or iPhone? Is it really just a matter of taste or is there something more to it? Some may prefer the iPhone’s rounded profile, but over-all the HTC Incredible is sleeker and shows off its design better.The iPhone is very nice, but the HTC Incredible just looks more advanced, like its about to do something and that can be a winning factor by itself, while the iPhone looks like its waiting for you to do something. Overall it is a tie here but personal preferences and artistic considerations would lead in the direction of the HTC Incredible.
Display
HTC incredible by a one punch knock-out! Why? Well, just look at the stats: iPhone has a 3.5 inch 480 X 320, HTC Incredible with a 3.7 inch 480 X 800. There is a technical consideration here in that the iPhone used an LCD screen while HTC Incredible has an AMOLED screen. In theory this would mean that the iPhone would be brighter but in practice the AMOLED wins on several points. The only negative is that in bright daylight the HTC seems to suffer with a somewhat bleached out screen.
CPU Power
This is the power driving the entire smartphone package. The coolness factor of all those yummy apps is lost if you have to suffer with a “click-n-wait” or an “app lag” due to a powerless power factor. The HTC Incredible wins here by a long shot with a fierce 1GHz Snapdragon against the iPhones 600MHz Arm Cortex A8, which is kind of old school. The only thing that keeps the iPhone in the game is a dedicated GPU or Graphics Processing Unit, which helps with gaming and other graphics heavy work, but it still does not help with the actual unit performance.
Camera
With Augmented Reality breaking over the horizon, the camera on your smartphone should be one of the best available. Otherwise, whatever augmented reality apps you have might not work so well. HTC Incredible wins again by a one punch knockout in round one! IPhone, with no flash (LED or otherwise…) and no manual controls flakes out in the face of the HTC Incredible’s 8 megapixel with dual LED flash camera complete with full manual settings and editing controls. Plus, it shoots video at a higher resolution equal to its display. Sorry Steve, your fighter choked here.
Battery
Well, the iPhone takes it by a technical knockout. The reason here is that while they both boast about the same for usage time at about 5 hours, the HTC Incredible only produces 150 minutes of stand-by time to the iPhone’s 300. Ok, one out of 4 isn’t bad, right? In actual use they will perform almost the same but the Apple’s iPhone will last longer waiting to be used.
Memory
This one goes to the iPhone as well with the reason being that for now, the cost of adding the memory needed to bring an HTC Incredible to the same level as an iPhone 32GB would add about $100.00 to the Incredible’s cost factor. Keep in mind though, that in future you will have the option of many cards (with lower prices) and larger cards (as they develop). This is not so with the iPhone, you are stuck with the memory you have because there is no expansion allowed. Some of you will think “So, I’ll just buy a new one!” and others “I’m going to be using this for a long time.” It just depends on how practical you are.
Software
This is a judgment call made by personal preference factors. With OS 4.0 coming out for the Apple iPhone, multi-tasking is finally a reality. Nevertheless, the Sense UI is very, very hard to beat, no matter what Apple’s iPhone developers can throw at it. Open Source aside, the design of the Sense UI (over Android or Windows 7) is a clear winner, which makes the normal usage of the phone much better and easier to do, even for the tech savvy-less. For now, this goes to HTC.
And the Winner is…!
HTC Incredible by a big margin. There are several things that emerge here. The HTC Incredible’s design is totally user experience oriented and optimized for that experience. Not just concerning the Sense UI but the lightweight-ness, the hand feel and the hardware quality makes this a better, more fun type of a smartphone to use. Yes, Apple has three times the number of apps, but you don’t really need 140,000 of them, do you? Some might argue about the factor of choice, but then again, others might argue about the user experience and open platform. Just a few is all you will ever use, so the device that you use them on is more important. Go HTC!
Apple: iPhone Full Technical Specifications
Verizon: HTC Incredible Tech Specifications
