Eligible for 3GS in a couple days - contemplating Sprint/Hero

[gnagy]

Right now I have an iPhone 3G but I have very poor reception downstairs which is where I operate my business. I've really abused the hell out of my poor iPhone and I'm not sure if it's the abuse, the antenna in the phone or the poor AT&T network. I am aware the Hero is coming out on the Sprint network in October, which is when I'll be eligible for a 3GS upgrade. I'm tired of getting 20 texts at a time on my iPhone and having to use Skype downstairs (which is more or less a basement) in order to make calls. Even more frustrating is that I can't always have Skype open to listen for calls and the call quality is piss poor (this could be due to the phone though, it's really, really taken a beating). Does Skype for Android run in the background (on WiFi) and listen in for calls and bring them to the foreground when they are incoming?

Next concerns: My iPhone uses a 412MHz processor and 128MB of RAM, I notice that the Hero uses a 528MHz processor. Does it really operate at that speed? The 3GS seems to have a processor that's 800MHz underclocked (for battery I presume) to 600MHz. Both Devices use 256MB of RAM but I am not sure if the Android OS is any better at memory allocation. If I switched I'd be hoping for something that's better than the iPhone which I do need to restart every couple days if things get out of whack. I know the iPhone also has a pretty hardcore 3D GPU in it but I don't really use my phone for games at the moment so I doubt that really matters all too much for me (as long as I have puzzle games I'm happy).

Next to last concern: I really love the iPod app on the iPhone but it seems like the sense UI seems to clone it pretty well. I am also a real iTunes junkie and I have around 25% of my library (most of my favourites) in Apple Lossless. I doubt I could play that on my iPhone and I don't really know if there would be a good tool for managing FLAC for Android on my Macbook Pro - it would really suck to have to manage an independent library for one device but I do have an 80GB iPod 5.5G though I'll admittedly miss the Genius functionality among other things.

Last concern: When the Hero came out I read a Gizmodo review that said it was not quite perfect that the Sense UI was really more sluggish than they thought it'd be. Then I read that this is going to be patched which fixes the biggest gripe about the Hero.

So Android Community, based on what I have posted above do you think I'd be doing myself a favour moving to the Hero. Please keep in mind I'd have to pay a pro-rated ETF to switch and I'm not really concerned about moving to Sprint saving me any money. Or will switching to Android be a hassle do to the integration of using so many Apple products.

Thanks

[Iceberg]

I'm honestly just going to be lazy about things and be kinda short.
The Hero is the fastest and best Android based phone out currently, but there are other Android phones coming out that will beat it.
The touch screen for texting is smaller than an Iphones so that might be bad for you
And the Android platform runs apps in the background, this slows down the phone.

For example: When you use Twitter or AIM on your Iphone and someone contacts you, you don't know it until you open up the app right?
On the Android it will alert you the second someone bugs you.

This causes the phone to slow down.
The 3gs, all I think about of it is the fact it hogs more wifi than the 3g and isn't a 4g network being devoloped on anyway?

As far as apps go I think Apple has some beautiful apps and ones that I want to play around with, where the g1 is .. well in infancy. I've only seen one Skype Client and its a beta but its pretty popular/lot of downloads. But lacks some feature I don't know.

My g1 is pretty touch, I've dropped it a few times and all, I don't know about the Hero, those round edges can't be that tuff :p


And as far as reception goes EVERYONE has an Iphone and EVERYONE is milking At&t's services so I'd imagine the Hero would suffere the same fate as well as every other phone.

I don't know though I'm just giving you a first reply for better ground.

[gnagy]

The Hero in the U.S. is using Sprints CDMA network.

[ren857]

I can't answer your questions but I can make a suggestion: when the hero is released sign up for sprint and try it out before you port your number from at&t. You have 14 days. If you dont like it, you still have your iphone service. If you like it, port your number which will terminate your contract.

[perezinthenet]

back a while ago when i had an iphone i read about a micro cell phone tower thing for att, that you plug into a wifi router and it gives 3g signal, look into it. i think it s called a micro dot

[gnagy]

Microcell huh? Looked it up sounds interesting

[gnagy]

Has no one here used Skype on their Android phone that can comment on my question pertaining to that?

[ImaG]

I'm honestly just going to be lazy about things and be kinda short.
The Hero is the fastest and best Android based phone out currently, but there are other Android phones coming out that will beat it.
The touch screen for texting is smaller than an Iphones so that might be bad for you
And the Android platform runs apps in the background, this slows down the phone.

For example: When you use Twitter or AIM on your Iphone and someone contacts you, you don't know it until you open up the app right?
On the Android it will alert you the second someone bugs you.


The new 3.0 software provides push notifications for AIM and Twitter. The 3Gs is probably the best mobile device there is, but the Hero is very good as well, and Sprints 70$ for unlimited minutes and data make it very attractive.