Review of the HTC Aria on AT&T
Today I decided that my iPhone 3G just wasn't cutting it with iOS4. Not only did Apply severely limit the features for the 3G (which I now understand why) but the battery life was just terrible. I was down to charging it overnight every night and generally half way through the day having to put a charge on it again, which is alright when I am in the office, as I normally just left it plugged in, but on the weekends when my goal is normally to get out of the house as much as possible it just wouldn't work. So I went to the AT&T store and played with both phones for well over an hour and asked way too many questions to the clerk, that I believe some were over his head. I was very interested to hear though that many AT&T employees actually recommended the Aria over the iPhone 4, especially for a developer that 1) doesn't run on a mac and B) doesn't want to pay a small fortune to run on a mac and join the Apple Developer community.
So the HTC Aria is a really nice little phone. It is small enough that you feel like you are actually carrying a phone again, but not to small that you can't do or see anything on it. The preloaded apps are also pretty nice. You have your email client, calendar, and your usual AT&T apps (Mobile Banking, MobiTV, etc), but it also comes with some other nice apps like Peep, a pretty nice mobile Twitter client; Facebook; and FriendStream, an app to get notifications from Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr.
One thing that is really nice about the Android OS is that you can set your own Scenes, which are organization of your apps on the 7 home screens you have. It is a really nice feature if you have a set of apps that you use during the work for work and a separate set of apps that you use during the weekend. It is a nice feature to keep your work life and your personal life separate. I personally don't foresee myself using the feature too much, but it is a nice one to have.
Another nice feature is that they separated Gmail into it's own app separate from the traditional email app. This is one feature that seems small, but I am really excited about. My biggest problem with the iPhone, was that Gmail showed up terribly in the Mail app. I love using label in Gmail rather than folders, and the iPhone mail app just didn't organize it well enough. I found myself seeing new email come in and going to the mobile website to read the email.
The phone and video camera aren't as good as the iPhone 4, but they still are pretty good. I have never been one to take many pictures with my phone, but I may find myself doing it more now with the 5 megapixel camera that is built in to the Aria.
The battery life on the Aria so far surpasses the iPhone by well a lot. I don't have experience with how the iPhone 4's battery is, but as far as what I have heard about the 3GS and my own 3G the Aria so far has been running all day with me constantly using it, like a kid with their new toy, and the battery is showing 75% battery life.
Tech Specs (As taken from the back of the box)
Android™ phone Specifications
- Talk time: 6 hours
- Standby time: 15.5 days
- 3.2" HVGA multi-touch display
- 512 MB Flash ROM / 384 MB SDRAM
- TTY compatible
- 600 MHz processor
Email & Internet Features:
- Access your personal and corporate e-mail
- View Adobe® PDF documents
- Browse the Web with a full Mobile Browser
Organizer Features
- Address Book, Calendar, Calculator, and Alarm
Android™ phone Features
- Android™ 2.1
- HTC Sense™
- Dual band UMTS/HSDPA (850/1900 MHz), Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) worldphone
- Stereo Bluetooth® 2.1, Wi-Fi® (802.11b/g)
- 5.0 MP camera with auto-focus and video
- Internal GPS for turn-by-turn driving directions with AT&T Navigator (sold separately)
- Accelerometer and ecompass
