Unfortunately, I had to discontinue my T-Mobile plan. My work decided to stop paying for T-Mobile and wanted me to switch to Verizon. Roughly a week after that happened (while I was still shopping for a new device) I LOST (might have been stolen, don't know for sure) my N900... *cry*.

The N900 was the best device I've ever owned.

I received the HTC Incredible in the mail yesterday. It has some nice features, and overall is a pretty good device, but after 1 day, I am already pining for my N900 again.

Below is a quick rundown of what I like and don't like about the Incredible and how it compares to the N900 in various categories. Please keep in my mind that this is my first Android device so I'm still a bit of a novice with that OS.

For those who don't know, the HTC Incredible is a new snapdragon device on Verizon in the USA. It is very similar to the Nexus One, except for the fact that it has a better camera.

Look and feel - HTC Incredible
The HTC Incredible is definitely a slicker looking device than the N900. It is nice and thin and has a solid feel to it. Of course, I wouldn't mind if it were thicker and had a physical keayboard!

The OLED screen is pretty good. The colors are bright and "pop" pretty well. However, even though it is the same resolution as the N900, it doesn't look quite as sharp when reading text on web pages. It seems like there is a very slight blur when you look at it closely.

Touch screen - Tie.
The capacitive touch screen is the best I've tried, including the iphone. Overall it is very sensitive. The virtual keyboard works well for a virtual keyboard (I prefer a physical keyboard). In comparison to the N900, there are some things I like the capacitive screen for and some things that the resistive screen is good for. I think the resistive screen is still a bit more precise, but for things like panning, etc where you have to move long distances across the screen, the capacitive touch seems to work better.


OS - Maemo is best.

1. OS speed - I'm going to call this a tie with Maemo. Android with the snapdragon processor seems a bit faster, but then again, we are talking about more powerful hardware.

2. Usability - This is a hard one, but I like Maemo a bit better. I'm still getting used to Android, but everything seems pretty mazelike. In Maemo, everything is easy to get to, and keyboard shortcuts make certain tasks more efficient. I do like the home screen that HTC sense provides (a ui layer that sits on top of Android). It gives thumbnail of each of your 7 screens all on one page, so it is easy to get to the one you want.

3. Task Manager - I like Maemo's way here too. There is no task manager in Android... you have to install a 3rd party task killer. I know Android is supposed to handle this for me, but it just bugs me that I can't kill apps without launching a 3rd party program. I found myself wishing for fn+backspace on several occasions, not just for killing apps, but to switch apps as well. As far as I can tell, you have to go back to the program icon to restart whatever application you were running. I know Steve Jobs says no task manager is better, but sorry, I just don't buy it.

4. Application installation - On the other hand, installing apps is cake. The Incredible/Android is easily better here. I never run into dependency errors, like I did occasionally on the N900, and I never have to type aptget -install or dpkg or anything like that. I also found that the repositories were frequently having issues on the N900. Most times they would work ok, but occasionally they'd be down or fairly slow (maybe this was just the "in development" repos, but still...

Web browsing - N900 wins easily.
Don't get me wrong, the browsing on HTC Incredible is pretty good. I'd say that it falls somewhere in between the Iphone and the Mozilla based browser on the N900. It has pinch to zoom, but the problem is that it reformats the text every time you zoom, and sometimes this causes your zoom to miss, so you have to pan over after you zoom. I like how the in the N900 it maintains the exact ratios and formatting when you zoom in. I find that pinch to zoom is a little faster than swirly zoom, but not as precise. Flash works in this browser, but not real well. I'd say flash on the N900 is a little more mature. Also, I often get mobile site versions, even though I have the load mobile site when available option unchecked. Finally, like I mentioned earlier, text seems slightly fuzzier on the incredible. I don't know a better way to describe it.

Battery life - Incredible wins, but not by a lot.
Battery life is bad in both devices, but my experience so far is that I get slightly better battery life with the Incredible. As far I'm concerned, poor battery life is to be expected with small, powerful hardware. You can't have everything.

The phone part - N900 wins.
Ok personally, I think one thing actually makes the HTC Incredible a little better, the fact that the Incredible works really well with Ford's SYNC. Since most people don't have that system though, I'm going to give this one to the N900. Call quality is high on both devices, but the N900 has Skype integration, which I love.


Navigation - HTC wins this one.
There is free voice-guided navigation out of the box.


Applications - HTC Incredible/Android wins easily.
There is an app store with 25k apps and lots of choices. I can easily get paid content as well as free content. I liked all the free goodies on the N900, but choices are so abundant on the Android that I have to give this to the other team.


There are lot of other things I could judge, but frankly, I'm not experienced enough with the Incredible to judge them fairly. I don't use exchange, for example, so I can't review that. I am not yet familiar enough with the contact manager to judge that fairly either.

Overall though, the HTC Incredible is probably the best device I've used other than the N900. As far as the N900 goes, I hope Nokia keeps working hard on that OS and allows other manufacturers to use it too. I'd like to see it grow. From what I've seen of Meego, it looks like things are going in the right direction. Someday I'll probably get myself a Meego phone, maybe after this Incredible is retired...

Disclaimer: I know nothing. Expect me to be wrong about every point. Thanks.