Galaxy S2 or HTC Sensation or another iPhone?

[KaptRoger]

Hello Folks,

I currently have an iPhone 3GS which is ok but not brilliant by any means. My contract is up for renewal soon, and as 3 people in my family have HTC andriod phones which seem really good I thought that I might replace my iPhone with something Android if possible.

Having looked about a bit I have whittled the list down to these (in order of current preference):

Samsung Galaxy S2
HTC Sensation
iPhone 4
iPhone 5

The last two are only there really because the iPhone is ok. The 4, as far as I can see is only incrementally better than my 3GS, and the 5 which might be due in November is probably going to be better but still not trail blazing.

Most phones do most phone type things quiet well (being able to bluetooth contacts to people would be nice - I remember being able to do that once), my main criteria is........gapless music playback. I know that previously Android could not do it, but I understand that that is a thing of the past. I want my Pink Floyd, Genesis, Live albums, Classical, etc to have gaps when they only existed in the original recording. This sort of means having a database of tracks, which indicates which ones have gaps at the end and which don't - I think.

So in peoples' opinions which should it be? S2 or Sensation or.....well lets not go there.

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[Bazar6]

Yea you won't find many people here praising the iPhone lol...
I'm not a huge fan of Samsung, but the SuperAMOLED screen is superb and I'm a big fan of Gorilla Glass (have it on my Xoom). But I don't like them because of their untimely updates to Android. That whole ordeal with 2.2.1 (I think that was the android version people were having problems with) made me not want to deal with them.

I have a Thunderbolt, and have liked HTC more and more since upgrading to this (from a Moto Droid). But I think for Android either of these devices would be good. Have you gone in to a store and played with both of them? Seen how they react and feel? Because my opinion is exactly that, and my be much different than yours or anyone elses.

[KaptRoger]

Thanks for the reply. Yes I have been to a store and was able to compare them side by side. The S2 felt a tad quicker, and the screen was certainly brighter (but oddly the Sensation's screen seem clearer). The S2 seemed to also have the apps installed that I liked already - but this really isn't important as they can be installed afterwards.

Any comments on the music side of things?

[Bazar6]

I haven't had any problems with the music part you talked about in your OP, but I don't think I completely understand. You want gapless playback in your songs: you're referring to the gap between the end of one song and the beginning of the next? The stock Music app on my Tbolt plays right thru, maybe half second delay because it was doing it's little animation on the screen to change the cover art. Streaming music definitely will have gaps, especially with apps like Pandora and Music (beta) from Google.

[KaptRoger]

I'm afraid so....no gap if there wasn't a gap in the first place. iTunes/iPod/iPhone can do it....surely a technologically superior solution like Android can do it to. I accept it might require an app, which might cost me some money. I know that through some previous research Android after 2.2 has the functionality in the OS, but it appears that most of the media players that come native with the phones don't. When I ask people, I normally get the response "why do you want that?". Its not musical purism, just that most of the music I listen to have few gaps and it is annoying to be presented with a pause when there shouldn't be one.

:-/

[Bazar6]

No I definitely understand and can see why you want it. I have live concerts on my devices and they do hit that gap as well, even tho on the comp they do not. I try to tune it out tho. iTunes is able to do that and more, fades and cross-overs too. I'm sure there's an app out there (or one that could be developed) that has that ability, but I have not come across one. And sometimes apps are definitely worth the few pennies charged for it.

[furbearingmammal]

iPhone = good hardware, unique software, extremely large number of apps, extremely limited in customization, excellent reliability.
HTC = crappy battery life, so-so hardware reliability.
Samsung = excellent reliability, build quality, good battery, reputation for VERY slow updates.

[KaptRoger]

iPhone = good hardware, unique software, extremely large number of apps, extremely limited in customization, excellent reliability.
HTC = crappy battery life, so-so hardware reliability.
Samsung = excellent reliability, build quality, good battery, reputation for VERY slow updates.

I've heard about the slow update releases for Samsung - but if the original release is ok then perhaps that's not such an issue. I had an iPhone 3G and suffered the abominal update to iOS4. Got a 3GS as soon as I could (all I could afford at the time) and that made it sort of ok. So updates can be bad....

However, thanks for the comment. One point for Samsung.

Cheers

[furbearingmammal]

Just breaking it down for you. I left out HTC's memory leak problem and the developer community behind both, improving on what the OEMs gave us, at the cost of a warranty.

[titanoman]

Power-amp (android market, 5 bucks) has all the gapless, cross-fading (12 band eq also) and everything in between you could ask for. The best stereo system in the world.

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