I recently decided to bite the bullet and get a smart phone. For the past 2 years I’ve been making do with my Samsung Intensity (dumb phone) and my iPod touch. But, I was getting tired of carrying around a phone, an iPod touch, and a camera everywhere. Plus, I just really wanted a smart phone.
So after weeks of reading every review I could find and all the user reviews on Verizon (fyi – everyone either loves or hates their phone), I narrowed it down to the Samsung Charge, HTC Incredible or the Droid X2. But then, not a day after I purchased a new Hobo International plum colored wallet, Verizon announced the release of the plum colored HTC Rhyme. It was fate.
From what I read, it sounded perfect – smaller form factor (for my dainty woman hands), cool docking station/speaker, better battery life, smooth interface, etc. etc. etc. So the day after it came out, I got it.
At first I loved it – it was very snappy, call quality was great, I had access to tons of cool apps, It was super easy to use and very, very customizable. But there were a few things I didn’t like.
The phone came with a light up charm – a rope-type thing that plugs into the phone, which you can thread to hang out your purse. The charm lights up when you receive a call or text. I never used it. It also came with plum colored, no-tangle headphones. Those suckers were huge, though. No matter what size covers I put on them, I couldn’t get them to stay in my ears. Then there was the issue with the mail app. The native mail app does not recognize when emails are opened on a different device. Emails you open on your laptop still show as unread on the phone. It drove me nuts, so I switched to the Gmail app, but it didn’t integrate as well with the other features of the phone (like the notification bar).
All off this I could have lived with, but then I started playing with the camera. As I mentioned at the outset, a main reason I wanted a smart phone was so I would always have a good camera on me. Well, the Rhyme’s camera was excellent in every way except for color quality. All the pictures had a reddish tint to them. No matter how I adjusted the white balance, I couldn’t get colors to appear true. See this web album for sample shots.
As I was lamenting the bad color quality, Apple announced the release of the iPhone 4s. Everyone I know that has an iPhone loves it and loves the camera. I knew it would be a sure thing from a photo quality perspective, and I was already familiar with the setup and features from my iPod Touch (which I loved).
I traded in my Rhyme and pre-ordered the iPhone. And I love it. The pictures are beautiful, the mail app works as it should, the battery life has been great, I love Siri (when she works), and the phone just feels good to hold – nice and solid. Of course, it lacks the customization of an Android device, and getting pictures and music on and off the phone is more complicated – no more simple drag and drop. We are primarily a Linux household, but my husband has my laptop dual-booted, so I can boot into Windows if I have to, and for the iPhone, I have to, which is unfortunate as my laptop has something wrong with it and likes to overheat when I have it in Windows. Besides that, though, it’s great. Here’s a sample pic for you.
Overall, I’m really happy with the iPhone 4s. The HTC Rhyme would have been almost perfect, however, if not for the camera issue. If you are trying to decide between the two and have any questions, ask away in the comments!