The smartphone changed my life. This hyper-constructed, relentless little piece of plastic will forever manipulate my daily habits. Thanks to my Blackberry, I feel the constant need to have my e-mails and the web at my fingertips. Good or bad, I’m addicted and there’s no turning back.
In a few weeks, I will be unlocked from a two-year cell phone contract and will no longer be confined behind the bars of my Blackberry. Don’t get me wrong, my basic, and somewhat beat up Blackberry served me well, but I feel as if I only dipped my toes in the capabilities of smartphones. With the recent buzz around Google’s Android platform and Apple’s iPhone 4 now available on Verizon, I think I’m ready for some change.
When it comes to these new smartphones, I am clueless. So before I sign away my cell-phone life to another two-year contract or make any rash decisions, I did some research on the technical specifics on three different smartphones. The EVO from Sprint, the Droid X from Verizon and the iPhone 4 go head-to-head in the chart below. From price to capacity, the chart maps out the best smartphone. Depending on your specific needs and price commitments, a favorite will differ from person to person.
| EVO 4G | Droid X | iPhone 4 | |
| Manufacturer | HTC | Motorola | Apple |
| Price | $199.99 with mail-in rebate and requires new line or eligible upgrade with a 2 yr. contract | $199.99 with mail-in rebate and requires 2yr. contract | $199.99 (16 GB) $299.99 (32 GB) Requires 2yr. Contract activation |
| Data Plan | Sprint’s Everything Data Plans (unlimited text web and calling to any mobile in America) starts at $69.99/month. For the EVO a premium data add-on is required for an additional $10/month |
Verizon’s Unlimited Data Plan for email and web is $29.99/month in addition to monthly talk and messaging plans | AT&T’s Data Pro plan is 2 GB of data for $25/month on top of monthly talk and messaging plans — Verizon data plan and specifics yet to be publicly announced. |
| Talk Time | 6 hours | 8 hours | 7 hours |
| Battery | 1500 mAh | 1540 mAHLi-Ion | 1420 mAh |
| Dimensions/ Weight | 4.8 x 2.6 x 0.5 inches; 6.0 ounces | 5.02 x 2.57 x 0.39 inches; 5.47 ounces | 4.5x 2.31x 0.37 inches; 4.8 ounces |
| Networks | CDMA 800/1900 MHz EVDO Rev. A WiMAX 2. 5 to 2.7GHz; 802.16e |
CDMA 1X 800/1900 EVDO rev. A |
AT&T: GSM/ EDGE (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz) Verizon: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A (800 1900 MHz) |
| Operating System | Android 2.1 | Android 2.1 | iOS 4.2 |
| Display | 4.3-inch; WVGA resolution Capacitive Multi-touch Screen | 4.3-inch; WVGA (480 x 854) Multi-touch screen | 3.5-inch widescreen Multi-Touch display |
| Camera | 8.0 megapixel with Auto Focus and 2x LED Flash 1.3 megapixel fixed focus front facing camera |
8.0 megapixel fast mechanical shutter (1/1000 sec) Auto-focus touch-to-focus LED flash face recognition panoramic mode cropping rotating and Geo Tagging |
5.0 megapixel still camera tap to focus video or stills LED flash Photo and video geotagging |
| Video Capabilites | HD (720p) quality video | HD (720p) up to 24 fps capture; up to 30 fps playback |
HD (720p) up to 30 frames per second with audio |
| Internal Memory | 1GB ROM/ 512MB RAM | 512MB RAM | 512MB RAM |
| Memory Card | microSD™ 8GB included in device | 8 GB Internal memory 16 GB microSD pre-installed |
Not applicable |
| WLAN | 802.11 b/g | 802.11 n | 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi (802.11n 2.4GHz only) |
| Bluetooth | 2.1 + EDR | 2.1 + EDR | 2.1 + EDR |
| GPS | GPS/aGPS | GPS/aGPS | GPS/aGPS |
| Value-add | HDMI out WiMax mobile Wi-Fi router Friend Stream HTC Sync HTC Sense Amazon MP3 |
Integrated Google Exchange Myspace and Twitter Push email support: Gmail Exchange Yahoo Unified Google Calendar and corporate calendar Advanced speech recognition Skpe mobile capable and visual voice-mail capable |
Integrated email FaceTime Retina Display Multitasking HD Video Recording and Editing Voice control Maps and compass iMovie iBooks iTunes store Accessibility Find My Phone AirPrint AirPlay iPod Photos and Gamecenter |
Although for me, decision time is still a few weeks away; I’m completely in awe of the new features and can’t wait to get my hands on another little piece of genius.
My Creative Economy 