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iPhone 4 vs. HTC Thunderbolt Part 2

2011-03-24
what is the good word everybody I'm known from TechnoBuffalo this is the Apple iPhone 4 this is the HTC Thunderbolt both phones are available on Verizon although this is the III AT&T version of the iPhone 4 the Thunderbolt is the biggest baddest new kid on the block it's got LTE it's got an 8 megapixel camera on the back 1.3 megapixel camera on the front it's got Android it's got HTC Sense it's got a kickstand the iPhone 4 still perhaps the most popular smartphone in America maybe in the world if you're looking at individual model still it's not the whole platform either way it's still the one people want to know well that's missing the Thunderbolt is it better than the iPhone let's find out I'm gonna get you you pardon the pun but it really is apples and oranges here you know it's it's Android 2.2 its iOS version for right now and HTC cents on the on the thunderbolt there are some pre-installed verizon apps and and they're not removable out of the box which is too bad it's always nice to have the option to remove everything and also there's no 4G on/off switch there's no toggle switch for the LTE network on the the Thunder will have the box you can you know if you're if you're so inclined to know what you're doing you can download a third-party one and that's about as well because it's nice to have that manual control toggle LTE off if you're not wanting to use it but both devices have Wi-Fi built in they have optional mobile hotspot capabilities the Thunderbolt supports a few more devices you can support up to eight devices on the thunderbolts mobile Wi-Fi mobile Wi-Fi mobile hotspot app whereas iPhone is limited to five devices and then of course the LTE network versus this is a 3G only device in AT&T we'll get into that a little more in just a second but otherwise you know it's really a matter of do you prefer androids approach or Apple's approach so with Android you've got the widgets you've got all the customization you ready you've got HTC Sense on here with some of the built-in stuff friends Stream and their new scenes thing or you can easily personalize you know everything all at once or you can go feature by feature that kind of thing you've got the ability to add widgets to your home screens and add more widgets you can use live wallpapers you know all that stuff that Android users know and love and like to poke in the eyes of their iPhone toting friends or frenemies as it were you've got some stuff built in here slacker radios built in too and Wiki there's some other stuff built in out of the box here on the Thunderbolt and then the the iPhone you know with the iPhone you've just got that that grid of icons design you know you can you can do folders now which you couldn't do before you know but that's several months old now at this point anyway so basically you know it's just a very different approach to how you want to how you want to do your computing or your mobile computing I should say your smartphone experience and then of course the ecosystems you know Apple we don't need to get into that here but iTunes and all that stuff on the Apple side and then with the Android it's a little more kind of piecemeal in terms of you know do you want to get your music from Amazon or where are you getting it and how are you dealing with syncing your medias but you know using doubleTwist or something like that there's no official sync app for Android all that kind of stuff but that gets into the the platforms and the ecosystems and you know it's too much to compare right here but but obviously you know the big difference Android users some of the interests may stay away from Thunderbolt because it is an HTC Sense device and not you know stock Android but again you know it's kind of to you I personally am a fan of HTC Sense I really like what they've done I think it makes it a little bit more elegant and easy to use but that's just me and a lot of that is you know aesthetics and personal taste so to talk about the network's for a brief second you can see in here the the 4G LTE icon lit up and the testing on this device has been been really fast if you saw my unboxing video I tried running speed test on the Thunderbolt and since that I found out that speed test the developers have a fix on the way because it just can't handle the way the Thunderbolt does data buffering and the results were basically useless but the device is very very fast on Verizon's LTE network I'm entering a URL on Android on the on the thunderbolt rather you've got the HTC keyboard we've also got other options the keyboard replacements you can install the swipe system which is become very popular recently that sort of thing on the iPhone you've got the Apple keyboard and that's it unless you want to get into jailbreaking which we're not really going to cover here both keyboards work well HCC's keyboard has generally been my favorite of the Android keyboards but I haven't been you know I haven't especially in the last couple months tried out all of the keyboard replacements that are out there but generally speaking I like the HTC keyboard I also like the the big the big 4.3 display for typing and when you turn the phones and into wide screen mode to type with two thumbs you know as I as I often like to in this way you really get a lot of room here on the thunderbolt which is nice again you know iPhone certainly works well millions of users you know wouldn't use it otherwise unless you know you're an Android fanboy calling yeah that what they're sheep but anyway you know it certainly it works fine but this is a case where that extra real estate I mean you can see just how much physically larger you know the the keyboard on Thunderbolt you know vertically takes up you know would take up two-thirds of the iPhone screen there so and then you've got the predictive text system HTC spirit of predictive Texas text system which I have always really liked I don't think that TechnoBuffalo is in is in the dictionary hair off to customize that I'll have to learn how to type it's hard to type with one finger one I'm camera so let's go TechnoBuffalo calm and then I'm gonna go ahead and also type in TechnoBuffalo calm on the iPhone now both of these phones right now are connected to Wi-Fi it's the same Wi-Fi network so this is kind of a rough a rough test of how quickly the devices can load and render the page not scientific at all but let's try it one two three go so a little bit faster there on the thunderbolt except the yeah that doesn't count will see do another another test because the iPhone was loading up the full version of the page not the mobile version so let's try this again alright so here's a mistake a little test this is very unscientific but I'm gonna load up the same website on both devices true hope calm I'm not using TechnoBuffalo because technical buffalo has a mobile theme that I was automatically loading on one device and not the other so that's not fair but both devices connected to Wi-Fi it's the same Wi-Fi network they're both loaded up to go to true hope calm and it's just gonna be kind of an unscientific test of how quickly the devices can load and render the same webpage you've got the Apple crust a for processor in the iPhone 4 you've got a qualcomm it's a single core but it's the newer generation of qualcomm single core processors in the Thunderbolt so here we go on the scientific test one two three go so loading up and the Thunderbolt got the early lead see they're rendering the page is a little bit differently kind of interesting its neck and neck here Thunderbolt is the winner again unscientific but the iPhone now they haven't done so the Thunderbolt rendered the page out faster than the iPhone did roughly the same page a different a different ad loaded up I'm also curious to see yep so Thunderbolt also loaded up the the flash based media player there to watch that video and same video here on the iPhone used to have an empty space that's like one of those one of those ads right so we'll hit play and we'll see if it actually plays yep and I can go fullscreen can go full sprinter no whoops oh wow so unscientifically then the Thunderbolt rented out that that same the true hoop comm blog faster on Thunderbolt than on the iPhone 4 that was over the same Wi-Fi network in terms of data cut cellular data Thunderbolt Just Blaze it's the the Verizon LTE network if you follow TechnoBuffalo you don't want to hear me talk about this again probably but out here in the San Francisco area and Oakland and the surrounding area where it's turned on and everywhere else I've heard reports from Nordstrom not it's just very very very fast that being said been having some issues actually over the past couple of days with the the network dropping out not sure if it first showed up and the the mobile hotspot app was not just kind of stopped working on the Thunderbolt and then noticing it yesterday I also have a Rison pantech USB 4G modem that I was using at my laptop notice some issues with that been hearing some complaints from people down at CTIA in Orlando this week that the the network not working well down there either so you know we'll have to see what the deal is with that but when it when it's been working the LTE network network literally added some head-to-head tests and it was like five times as fast as the inspire 4G on 80 which is AT&T s so-called 4G phone very similar to the Thunderbolt in fact so there you go so if you're you know if you're in an LTE area assuming they get whatever these little bugs are worked out the Thunderbolt just blows doors off just very very fast again you know kind of head-to-head it really it just boils down to what you want if you're looking for raw specs you know except for the display resolution Thunderbolt you know seemingly faster with that web render test the cameras are higher resolution the network is faster if you're in LTE area it's got more memory pre-installed it's got a kickstand but experience wise it really boils down to to what you prefer both are high quality devices they both work very well in general you know do you want Android do you want i phone buying advice wise if you're in the market for an iPhone if you can wait wait a few months till June when everybody expects iPhone 5 to be announced I think it'll be worth the wait I personally think we're gonna see 4G version an LTE version for Verizon and some sort of 4G for AT&T but we'll see if you're on Verizon and you want an Android phone if you're in an LTE market this is the way to go even if you're not it's a quality device Droid Bionic with a dual core chipset coming out soon you know and then some rumors about some new HTC's although I don't know if you're gonna head to Verizon right away with the qHD super high res display but otherwise I mean this thing's a beast it works really well again just these these issues being worked out with the LTE network or something in the device apparently because I was having that at that hotspot problem but there you go both you know both really good I personally prefer the I don't know why I turn it that way I personally prefer the way that I Oh s works so I would go with iPhone myself but that's just subjective I also like the smaller form factor but you know if it's hard to argue with the 4G man it is blazing fast when it's working right so there you go hope that helps it's kind of a throwdown it's kind of a buffalo fight can we call it that I don't know whatever you wanna call it head-to-head the Thunderbolt the iPhone 4 which would you choose that's really what matters right much much more on both these devices everything coming out of CTA this week and whatever is next 4G 5g AT&T buying t-mobile what Sprint going to do what's Verizon gonna do all that stuff we got you covered on TechnoBuffalo comm so next time my name is Noah thanks for watching we'll see you later
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