Touch screen smartphones are going to dominate the consumer market with their friendly UI, innovative games, true HTML browsing and general rich media capabilities. The market has now hit a point where there are 3 incredible touch screen devices aimed directly at prosumers. The HTC Dream G1, the iPhone 3G and the BlackBerry Storm. Of course there are more touch screen phones like the Instinct and the HTC Touch Diamond, but the 3 phones I have chosen are direct competitors. It’s an exciting time because no matter how the market divides itself, rest assured the smartphone consumer market will explode over the next few years. The questions I would like to answer are: what phone is best for who and why?
Table of Contents
1. The HTC Dream G1
2. The BlackBerry Storm
3. The iPhone 3G
4. HTC Dream G1 Specs
5. BlackBerry Storm Specs
6. iPhone 3G Specs
The HTC Dream G1
The first device I’ll be looking at is the HTC Dream G1. This Google imbued phone has the hardware and user interface to make for an awesome phone. If open source turns out to be everything we hope it will, a strong developers community will surface bringing this phone from great to amazing. The fact that it has a QWERTY keyboard is also really helpful and sets it apart from the other touch screen devices. Obviously one of the biggest drawbacks with touch screen phones is the difficulty in typing. The HTC Dream has eliminated this. Watch the demo to see the superior OS in action.
Demo Video
Summary
This phone is perfect for the well-educated prosumer. Due to the rich nature of the OS, the phone has a great potential that is wasted on a less informed market, but provides a great new open world for the experienced user. This phone will be especially powerful for developers to own. I’m expecting a huge surge in the developers community to push the phone to its limits. The Android Market will surely be a hotspot for apps that the Apple community may not be able to keep up with. The device will launch on T-Mobile October 20th, and will retail for $200 on a 2 year contract.
I guess I just felt that 2 devices from the same manufacturer would show some bias I don’t really have.
But it is for sure a device worthy of attention!
Lets hope that happens!
Why Apple went with AT & T is beyond me. So I returned this to the Apple store after 20 days of use, and told them I would never buy a product from them again.
So now I am waiting patiently to try two other phones:
Blackberry Storm and the HTC Touch HD.
I expect the HTC HD will be available sometime in early 2009 through sprint - who has a great network, and of course Verizon has a great network so the Storm should work well.
IPhone has so much potential, but the bottom line is that if you cannot even have a decent conversation on it what’s the point?
Don’t know why so many people with the iPhone have trouble.
Q - Will the Storm have a trackball?
BTW (and in response to Off Topic), vote for Obama if you want the country to turn around and head in a much better direction then where we’re headed now (and will likely continue under McCain).
Being tethered to the T-Mobile network is also a weak point for the HTC device. T-Mobile is almost a non-entity here in New Hampshire, where you lose their signal about half a mile off the highway. I need a device that makes me reachable when I’m skiing, traveling, etc. Even AT&T has lots of coverage problems up north, which is why I don’t have an iPhone.
I’m far from the only one who is limited to Verizon for coverage purposes, but maybe HTC will release a CDMA version of this thing once Verizon’s network becomes open in December 2008. More competition for devices is good.
don;t post your political views on a technology forum! and the BB storm doesn’t connect to Wi-Fi hotspots.
iPhone, G1, blackberry bold, and blackberry storm
The Blackberry storm seems to win in most categories.