Comparison of iPhone 4 to HTC Evo

[extorian]

It's good to know what the competition is, so I pulled as many stats from as many reliable sources as I could and did a comparison of the Apple iPhone 4 to the HTC Evo 4G. Both are newly released current generation smart/superphones, so it makes for an interesting comparison.

http://extorian.co.uk/blog/270/compa...nd-htc-evo-4g/

[TheJuan]

great stat chart x
4gspeeds (which really aren't 4g but its more like 4th gen. well save it for another time. but t mo 3.5 speeds r faster) anyways a 4g speed phone with Android 2.1 or 2.2 is still better
now we just need iPhone real life battery test

[extorian]

Yeah, I noted that 4G speeds average 4-6, and 3G average 2 to 4 (but capable of 7.2). There's a lot of overlap there.

Android And Me did a comparison of 3G to 4G on the Evo here: http://androidandme.com/2010/05/news...h-the-htc-evo/

[maflynn]

Being a former iPhone user, I watched the keynote and while there are certainly some things that are excellent with the iPhone. I was a bit underwhelmed. The screen is probably the biggest selling point provided its readable, i.e., not too tiny.

For what ever reason apple seems to have this obsession with gaming. They have in their new OS the game center for stuff, and now they added a gyroscope.

Finally what's with the name, its quite lame - almost as pad as the iPad. I mean android is a cool name but iOS, it doesn't get the juices flowing

[Wonsanim]

Very nice chart great work and very nice website I never have the opportunity to visit I like to check.

[extorian]

The screen is probably the biggest selling point provided its readable, i.e., not too tiny.

I 100% agree. The DPI of the iPhone 4 is outstanding (326dpi), so the screen will look extremely high res. Apple state it's higher than the human retina can perceive when held at 10"-12" and call it their "retina display".

Now a high dot pitch is a good thing, but it's mostly marketing hype.

The iPhone 4 has a DPI of 326, and on phones like the Nexus One, Desire, Incredible, it's 252. Sounds a big difference right? Wrong... When you move things further away from you they appears smaller. So, at a certain distance, a 252DPI display will appear to have the same level of detail as a 326DPI display at a closer distance...

For those of you interested in the calculations (which may be wrong? I'm no expert), a pixel on the iPhone 4 is 0.00307" square and a pixel on the N1 is 0.00397" square. At a distance of 10" the iPhone 4's pixel will have an Angular Size of 0.01759 Degrees.

So, the question is, what distance would you have to hold your N1 at so that it appears to have the same detail as the iPhone 4. If we use our iPhone's pixel angular size of 0.01759 degrees, and the N1s pixel size of 0.00397", we get a distance of 12.931". You can use http://www.1728.com/angsize.htm to check this for yourself.

The bottom line is, in terms of perceived DPI, the N1, Desire, and Incredible, are the same as an iPhone 4 at 10" when they're held at 12.931". All these phones could boast "retina displays" if you held them at 13" or more away from you. Anything further away than that and what you want is a BIGGER screen... like the Evo, Desire, N1, Incredible, etc.

For giggles, measure how far away you hold your phone. I hold my phone about 16" away, so for me an iPhone 4's screen would not look any better than a good Android phone screen. The Android screen would look better as it is bigger.

[bmcclure937]

Awesome stuff Extorian!! Love the solid calculations and proof.