Monday, January 17, 2011

Choosing between Verizon iPhone or Android

I used to have an iPhone. Loved the iPhone as a tech device, but experienced horrible phone service with AT&T! I experienced dropped calls on approximately 75% of my calls, and could never get service inside my home. But at the time, it was the only good smartphone on the market.

When the Motorola Droid became available, I jumped ship and switched over to Verizon. I had numerous calls to AT&T requesting that they waive the Early Termination Fee (ETF) due to the amount of dropped calls I experienced. In the end, AT&T reduced the ETF by 50%, which was a small price to pay for the opportunity to have reliable phone service. And I was able to sell my iPhone to make up for the rest.

Last week Verizon announced that the iPhone 4 would be coming to Verizon on February 10, 2011. This is the news people have been talking about for years! Good timing too because I will be eligible to switch phones (at the subsidized price) in a few months.

My knee jerk reaction was that I'm switching back to the iPhone. But now that I've had a week to think about it, I think that Android is still the better choice. Here are a few reasons why:

Verizon iPhone 4 is only CDMA - Verizon is about to launch new phones for their 4G LTE network. However, Verizon's iPhone 4 is a CDMA phone, meaning that it will use the slower 3G network. Do you really want to be stuck with 3G speeds for the 2-year commitment that the subsidized iPhone 4 will require?

iPhone 5 expected this summer - It is rumored that the iPhone 5 will be released this summer for AT&T and Verizon. If true, then you would spend the next year and a half (2-year contract) drooling over the new iPhone 5 features. And by the time your 2-year contract is complete, you would likely be faced with the same dilemma of whether or not to a few months to wait for the next generation of the iPhone (iPhone 6?).

Android 4G LTE devices launching now! - Personally, I'm looking forward to the Droid BIONIC (Motorola), but Samsung and HTC have some pretty amazing devices launching too.

I have used both the iPhone 3GS and the Motorola Droid extensively. The iPhone used to have a far superior user interface, but Android has been constantly updating it's user experience and I feel that my Droid is now on par with the iPhone user experience. The main concern I have with Android is that there is no globally accepted PC interface for Android to sync music, photos, videos and apps (such as the iPhone has with iTunes), but that may change soon with all the sync and stream features in Android 3.0 Honeycomb.

Conclusion:
If you are set on getting an iPhone, my recommendation would be to wait a few months and see what is just over the horizon. That's a tricky thing to do with tech, because something is always "just over the horizon". But speculation is high that the iPhone 5 will be released this summer. While waiting, check out some of the new 4G LTE Android devices that are launching. You may be pleasantly surprised!

5 comments:

  1. iPhones are over rated. Once the Android market catches up, the writing is on the wall for the hardware.

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