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Am I giving the "iPhone" a fair chance?

DoNoHarm

DoNoHarm

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 8, 2008
1,138
46
Maine
Hey people,

So I've been using my latest gen 32GB ipod touch as a skype phone for the past few months. I am now ready to get a smartphone and I am choosing between the iPhone 3GS and Google Nexus One. I ordered the Google Nexus One and I will be comparing it to the 32GB ipod touch I already own to make my decision.

Is this a fair comparison? I mean obviously the ipod touch isn't a phone, but other than the ability to make and receive calls or access the network on 3G, is there something more to the iPhone that I can't see on the ipod touch? If I account for that difference, will this be a fair comparison? Thanks.
 
That's a good question.
I'm not sure about the speed of the iPod Touch but since you have the 32GB it is the faster one.
Even though you are comparing an iPod to a phone there really isn't that much of a difference as the iPhone will only add things like a camera, phone, text messaging and probably a few other things I can't think of.

It will depend on your overall need and requirement for a phone and I think that it is still going to be down to personal opinion as to which device you choose.
Having just moved from my iPhone 3GS to a Nexus One I can say that personally I don't think there's much between them.

There are pros and cons for both devices which honestly to me, weigh them up as equal phones and I am happy to keep both of them and be able to do pretty much the same things on both that I require.
The plus side to my Nexus One is that literally nobody I know has one, has ever heard of it and everyone thinks its cool because its the 'Google Phone'

Let us know what you think when the Nexus One arrives and I hope you're able to make your decision.
 
kAoTiX said:
That's a good question.
I'm not sure about the speed of the iPod Touch but since you have the 32GB it is the faster one.
Click to expand...

The 32GB/64GB iPod touch 3G is actually even faster than the 3GS itself.
 
I think that your still won't get the full iPhone experience. For instance if your on a train u won't be able to hop on the AppStore and download a game or even music. But on the nexus one u will be able to go onto the AppStore... Umm. I also think that u want get to really experience how easy it is to type on the iPhone. You won't get to experience text messaging on the iPod.
My roommate has an iPod touch and then bought a droid. He hates the way the iPod touches virtual keyboard and that's because he never really has to use it and learn it..

I personally think that it's an unfair comparison
 
student_trap said:
how does the 3gs compare to the speed of the 2g ipod touch?
Click to expand...

The 3gs is faster than the 2g ipod touch. I have a 16g 2g ipod touch which I had before I bought my 3gs. I've run informal speed tests with app start ups and the like, the 3gs is noticeably faster w/o fail.
 
gigapocket1 said:
I think that your still won't get the full iPhone experience. For instance if your on a train u won't be able to hop on the AppStore and download a game or even music. But on the nexus one u will be able to go onto the AppStore... Umm. I also think that u want get to really experience how easy it is to type on the iPhone. You won't get to experience text messaging on the iPod.
My roommate has an iPod touch and then bought a droid. He hates the way the iPod touches virtual keyboard and that's because he never really has to use it and learn it..

I personally think that it's an unfair comparison
Click to expand...

This guy speaks the truth. Compare a phone to a phone. It would be like comparing iPhone to Zune HD if you wanted to know how Windows Phone 7 Series is. I mean sure, you'll get the gist but not a good enough experience to warrant an accurate decision.
 
You know guys, I thought he made it pertty clear that he understands the differences and can keep those seperate in his mind. He's not gonna walk outside and say "Oh no! I don't get 3G signal on my iPod!" or something like that.

And can someone tell me why typing long e-mails on an iPod can't prepare you for typing short text messages on a phone? Its it really all that different?

OP - I think everyone is overreacting. You know the differences (3G, camera, phone) so the answer to your question is yes, it's safe to compare the iPod to an iPhone outside of those things.

The BIGGEST difference is the extra weight between the 2. Take your Nexus to an Apple store and play with it and an iPhone and see how they both feel in your hand.
 
Has anyone mentioned the two big one absent from the touch? GPS and Compass.
These two combined make for some great apps when it comes to finding things in your area. From my brief experience of a 3Gs next to a 2G Touch the iPhone was faster at loading big apps and webpages (over wi-fi of course).

A little thing.. . . . But on the 3Gs you get a battery% indicator not available on the ipods or the 3G. Looking at other peoples iPhone 3G I have no idea how they would accurately guess the battery left just from the tiny battery symbol itself.

You also get voice commands. Not used by most but I do find myself using it in the car with my headphones in. It works pretty damn well. Certainly when compared to my last experience of voice commands on a pc 10 years ago.
 
I would say that it's not a fair comparison.

I for one have both an iPod Touch and an iPhone. They are completely different. Sure, they are technically the same, but they really aren't. I use to take my iPod Touch to school and I would just listen to music, or play a few games. Now with my iPhone, I'm listening to music, surfing the web, checking emails, basically doing everything that the iPhone allows you to do. I use my iPod Touch at home more then I do my iPhone because I rather not kill my iPhone battery messing around when I can do the same on my iPod Touch.

Just the different apps that the iPhone has, is just amazing. I've been out with my girlfriend, not knowing what restaurant to go too.. Well I just bust out the iPhone and load 'Yelp' (An application) Tells you everything around you. You couldn't do that with an iPod Touch unless you were in a WiFi area.

If you want to make a fair comparison, you have to test out each phone, while on the go... And see which one you like better.
 
I think you will get a reasonable idea of the differences, but no, I don't think it's totally a fair comparison. Part of what makes the iPhone so special is the tight integration of all of the different tools - the phone, ipod, camera, gps, compass, 3g, accelerometer, etc. Since you are missing several of those key items, you won't really have an idea of how useful the iPhone is. Several of my co-workers have the Touch, and think it is fantastic until we are on the road and its my iPhone giving us directions, looking up phone numbers or places to eat, taking quick pictures and emailing them right off, etc. etc.
 
Financially writing this from my google nexus 1 action not writing so much is i'm speaking i'm gonna let google tried translate what i'm speaking into the phone right now 9 cfbe

translation is correct you should be able to figure out which parts are correct and which parts are incorrect the keyboard sucks i really like iphone keyboard better hopefully this speech to text feature will make up for it but will see what it ends up looking like

OK now back to using the keyboard. I find thatit makes more errors but has a more aggressive auto correct. Feature..
 
It is not a fair comparrison because one of the huge perks of the iPhone over even the iTouch is the ability to backup all your important data using iTunes, which an iTouch user really never needs to do. Or being able to use iPhoto to import pictures directly to the PC then see where each photo was taken on google maps and finally upload then to facebook. etc.
 
Not a fair comparison.
What makes a smartphone a smartphone is the way you are able to interact between the devices many features and applications. As others have mentioned, the phone adds quite a bit more (phone, SMS, mms, camera, gps, compass). You will inevitably be comparing the overall experience of a full featured smartphone to a device with half the features.
The only way to get a better comparison would be to restrict the Nexus to only what the iPod Touch can do.
 
Plutonius said:
I would wait until this summer to choose.
Click to expand...

I know! I wish I could but I need a smartphone now.

So far, here are the advantages for each device:

IPHONE:
more accurate touch screen
skype app
more game apps
better cooking apps
better news apps
stability
better media player
synch easily with my Macbook Pro
macbook pro loyalty
design sexiness
je ne sais qois - I don't know what it is, but there's something about the overall package that the google phone doesen't match


GOOGLE NEXUS ONE:
better integration with google services
better camera
google voice
gps directions
voice command text fields are better
free cloud infrastructure
google sky - incredible!!!!
google goggles
phone quality - second noise canceling ability
customizability
multitasking
headphones - great pair out of the box
speaker - listening to pandora on it now

I originally had the screen as a pro for google too. If you have them side by side, the google really looks brighter. but from what I understand, the color gamut isn't as good, so I'm going to leave screen as up in the air.

I hope my experience is helpful for others. My early post with the text to speech translation was before I learned to talk in a way that the software understans. Basically you enunciate and pace your words.

While I still have not made my decision, I have gone from "definately returning" the device to "I think I will keep it". There's definately a learning curve.
 
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