Deciding Between an iPhone and a Samsung SCH-i760

Monday, January 07 2008 - Blog

Boy was I excited when I won an Apple iPhone at the Telligent Christmas party!  On the stage to claim my prize, I proudly announced "Now I can be part of the club!".  Several of my coworkers, including but not limited to Rob Howard, Scott Watermasysk, and Jose Lema have iPhones and love them.  At Dave and Buster's during the CSDC weekend in October I watched Jose interact with his iPhone, dragging and scrolling with his fingers, along with taking photos of Scott enjoying his fruity drink.  At the time I had a 2+ year old lower-end LG phone, one which did not even have a camera, and I had some serious phone envy.

My position as Program Manager, responsible for some Microsoft developer sites such as www.asp.net, keeps me busy with email, and with such a large and popular site, there are occasionally issues that come up during non-business hours which need to be addressed.  So I have long lusted after a Blackberry or some other SmartPhone which would allow me to stay connected yet not quite chained to the desk.  When I started using my old LG more in the house, I realized that I had intermittent reception problems; occasionally there would be periods where I could not hear the person on the other end of the phone, yet they could still hear me.

Growing tired of the reception issues, and in need of a smarter phone, I started researching what was on the market.  The phone that really appealed to me was the Nokia N95, yet unfortunately this is not a phone which carrier's in the US are offering; it'd be up to me to buy it at a premium price, unlock it, and do whatever needed to be done to get it working.  Another phone which appealed to me was the AT&T Tilt, but after examining the total cost of ownership, and not being thrilled about jumping ship from Verizon, I decided that was out.  That left me with Verizon's phones.  My husband ultimately decided that an LG Voyager would serve his needs well, and I found that phone easy and fun to use.  But I eventually decided on a Samsung SCH-i760.

The Samsung worked fairly well, although I had never used Windows Mobile 6.0 Professional and needed to become familiar with it.  When I won the iPhone, I had to decide yet again.   These factors weighed into my decision between the iPhone and the Samsung:

  • Didn’t relish the thought of having to send out the iPhone for a battery replacement (and I relish the thought of soldering myself even less)
  • Not sure that I’d use the iPhone’s mp3 player much.
  • iPhone doesn’t take expansion cards (although at 8 GB it exceeds my 4 GB MicroSD card for the Samsung).
  • iPhone only works on the EDGE network currently, and I am used to EVDO speed
  • iPhone does not have a hardware keyboard, voice dialing, or video recording
  • Neither the iPhone nor the Samsung have GPS.  If the iPhone had it I would have leaned more in that direction.  I am notorious for making wrong turns.
  • This Samsung is my first experience with Windows Mobile, and WM6 Pro is pretty decent.  I like how it syncs email, contacts, appointments.
  • Unsure of what AT&T is like, afraid of being stuck for 2 years
  • Rest of family would be remaining with Verizon - can't afford to terminate contracts and pay connection fees for 4 phones.
  • iPhone should be coming out with a phone that will work on the Verizon network this year

After I made the final decision on my own, I found these reviews on the PhoneArena.com website, which confirmed for me that I made the right choice based on my needs and habits:


Now, the iPhone wins in the sexiness category, hands-down.  And its web browser and email reader are much nicer than what comes with Windows Mobile.  But I mostly use my cell for business calls, business email, and SMS messages, so I decided to keep the Samsung SCH-i760 (until the next-gen iPhone comes out, at least).

Anyone want to buy a never-used, still-shrinkwrapped iPhone? :-)

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avatar #1 Robert McLaws wrote on January 07, 2008 at 3:37 AM

Terri,

Download http://www.pointui.com, you'll get the best of both worlds! I've been using it for a week, and I love it.

admin avatar #2 Terri Morton wrote on January 07, 2008 at 8:36 AM

Thanks so much for the suggestion, Robert! That's an application I've seen mentioned in the blogosphere, but didn't know what it was. And with all of the noise about Apple both at Telligent and elsewhere recently I somehow took it as an application for the MacBook Pro. I'll definitely check it out. :-)

avatar #3 Scott Dockendorf wrote on January 07, 2008 at 9:03 AM

Nice review. I contemplated the move for a little while myself, but love the thought of being able to tether the laptop with the EVDO network. :) Thanks to Chris Norman, I bought PDANet and it works like a champ (however, tethering is built into Windows Mobile 6, if I am not mistaken).

I'm intrigued by that phone. You mentioned that the iPhone does not have GPS. Does the Samsung?

admin avatar #4 Terri Morton wrote on January 07, 2008 at 9:53 AM

No, the Samsung SCH-i760 does not have GPS (I should have been clearer there so I edited the post to make it so). And that is the *one* thing I am truly missing given the travel I do on occasion. If the iPhone had GPS I would have been more likely to swing in that direction. We do have a TomTom for home; the GPS on the phone would be useful for when I am out-of-town or accidentally stuck without the TomTom.

avatar #5 Karthik Hariharan wrote on January 07, 2008 at 10:24 AM

I love my AT&T Tilt. I hacked it a bit to get a few things I wanted working well and save on the battery life, but afterwards its been a fantastic phone.

However the biggest thing I wish I had from the iPhone was its mobile browser. It probably has the best mobile browsing experience out there.

Much as I love my Tilt, I'd gladly trade it for a 3G iPhone when theyh come out nexin June.

avatar #6 Derek wrote on February 13, 2008 at 10:27 PM

Had the orginal blackjack. Save yourself a bunch of headaches and get the blackjack II. It has GPS in it. The only thing it lacks is wifi. Tilt was my second choice but very pleased with the blackjack II after 4 repairs and unresolved issues on the first release.

avatar #7 Hammer wrote on April 01, 2008 at 10:27 AM

I'm confused by your comment that the i760 doesn't have GPS because I just bought one yesterday and it does have GPS. It even has a setting you can change to use GPS for 911 only or always.

Also, if you check out the installed Picsel Browser I think you'll find you web browsing experience will be quite amazing. Every website looks exactly as it does on the PC and you can scroll by sliding the page on the screen and zoom in and out just like on the iPhone.

admin avatar #8 Terri Morton wrote on April 01, 2008 at 10:58 AM

Hi Hammer, if you look at Samsung's specifications page, they say there is no AGPS on the SCH-i760. Also, in their FAQs for this phone, they say "The built-in GPS feature of the phone supports Emergency 911 only. This is so that in case of emergency, you can be located by emergency services. There is no support for the use of 3rd party GPS devices at this time, nor do we have information about future development in this area."

I'll have to check out the Picsel Browser. I had no idea what that was, thanks!

avatar #9 Jive Dig wrote on July 30, 2008 at 9:58 PM

you sell that iphone yet?

admin avatar #10 Terri Morton wrote on July 30, 2008 at 10:11 PM

Yes, I sold it on eBay a couple of months ago. :-)

avatar #11 Adfodo Charger wrote on August 25, 2008 at 6:54 PM

If I had to choose between the iphone and the samsung I'd probably pic the samsung because of the speed. With the new 3G iphone although I'd pick that over the samsung. You don't really need SD cards if you have 8GB of memory which is plenty.

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