Comments on: Samsung i7500 vs. HTC Magic

By: A. Jay

A. Jay — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:15:30 +0000

I cannot compare the HTC Magic to the Samsung phone as I only own the Magic (aka HT-03A in Japan), but I am rather disappointed with the phone for several reasons, mainly:
A) Battery life
B) Responsiveness
C) User interface

I should mention that I used an iPod touch before purchasing the HTC Magic in Japan and therefore take the iPod as benchmark which in terms of battery life not fair as it doesn’t have phone capabilities. However, in terms of user interface and responsiveness, the iPod clearly wins.
Android seems immature and the UI is not necessarily intuitive. The touch screen of the Magic is not as sensitive as the IPod’s screen and character input, especially Japanese characters is cumbersome with the standard keyboard. The phone sometimes freezes for a short time, especially it has to refresh the desktop icons.
Finding and connecting to wireless networks also takes longer with the Magic than with the iPod. The form factor of the HTC Magic is certainly better than the iPod or iPhone, but with all the shortcomings, I actuallt regret to have purchased this phone. Lesson learned.

By: Wave

Wave — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:37:44 +0000

Having followed the development of OLED screens for years, I agonized over the choice of the MyTouch (Magic) now or the Samsung i7500 at some indeterminate time in the future. I finally caved in and handed over my greenbacks to T-Mobile. I’m sort of wishing now that I’d waited to compare the two side-by-side. The MyTouch screen is flakey at the edges, making the edge and bottom keys hard to press, although to look at it’s fantastic, very bright and clear. The headphone jack is meaningless, only luddites and those on aircraft are still using wired headphones. On the second day, the 3G connection disappeared, necessitating a reboot (ie, take the battery out). Other than those niggles, it’s good, and it has the possible future advantage of being Google branded. If the 3G connection goes again during the 2 week “buyers remorse” period, it’ll be going back to T-Mobile and I’ll be forced to return to the god-awful Windows Mobile (was a worse piece of software ever written?) until the Samsung arrives.

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:46:51 +0000

I got an htc magic as replacement for my aging sony ericson k750i.
I am delighted with the magic its more than just a phone, infact I never actually make many calls on it because I am sad and have no friends.
What I use it for is downloading apps mainly and browsing the net and it is superb for this purpose.
Google maps is amazing with GPS for finding your way around somewhere when shopping etc.
I have downloaded about 30 apps to the phone so far, most of them free. TV guides,barcode scanners,news,weather,sports,movies,an excellent ebay client etc and quite a few ‘widgits’ to put on my homepage showing memory remaining and stuff.
I have used windows mobile on my PDA for a long time and android is just so smooth and terrific looking when compared to windows mobile.
I am on a Vodafone contract in UK and I get 500 texts,100 mins and unlimited internet and email for £25 a month plus the phone free which I thought was a great deal.

By: bob

bob — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 15:32:37 +0000

just get htc hero. its gna come out soon, has 3.5mm, multitouch, chin (for those who actually like it, i dont care), trackball, a nice ui, more ram (288 compared to 128 by samsung). only other phone im considering is palm pre. it lacks flash and video recoring but those cud be fixed with updates. it has faster processer 600+mhz arm, same color screen as samsung but with more dpi, a physical keyboard, a v nice OS…

By: Aniello Del Sorbo

Aniello Del Sorbo — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:12:16 +0000

I feel I have to say that the Magic from Vodafone and the Samsung one, miss one of the most important hardware for these phones: the RAM.
The HTC Magic from Vodafone only has 198Mb of RAM whilst the Samsung seems to have only 128Mb.

With these amount of RAM none of them will be able to run the upcoming Sense UI.

From this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1YPU1E7fPs
You can see how nice the Sense UI runs on the Rogers’ HTC Magic (that has the full 288Mb of RAM).
I have the Vodafone UK’s HTC Magic nad that very same ROM, well, sucks.
A lot. The Home screen has to reload everytime I switch back from an application and it takes seconds to load. Also, while playing music, the luggishness renders the phone inusable and the audio jumps every now and then while the poor phone tries his best to load the Home screen while keeping the music running.

If you guys plan to get it for being able to run the Sense UI, wait.

Aniello

By: jeffb

jeffb — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 00:49:43 +0000

It’s great that there supposedly will be 18-20 phones available by the end of the year. But the year is half over and what do we have? Not a single new Android phone in the US. I may give my business to the provider who will step up and release something first.

By: mattg

mattg — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 05:36:12 +0000

The HTC trackball actually isn’t very useful for scrolling through long lists (it moves item-by-item, very slowly). It is useful for things where you don’t want your finger to block the screen and where you want precise control over both movement and selection. For example: it’s great for reposition the cursor (where the iPhone uses that magnification loupe). Trying to use the touchscreen to reposition the cursor on G2 has the same problem that the iPhone (in OS v3) has — it’s too easy to accidentally trigger the cut-and-paste menu. The cursor lets you roll around to a precise location.

By: Xenio

Xenio — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:51:53 +0000

Whats the price for magic and I7500 ? This could be a real differetiator

By: Furret

Furret — Thu, 21 May 2009 14:02:42 +0000

@Raymanism: The 5 Mpx camera dependes. G2(T-mobile branded magic) has also 5Mpx, according to the pictures we`ve already seen. And about the software advantage of without google magic, i7500 was also said to have some software touch improvement. Something like Omnia or ultratouch have.

By: Benjuhmen

Benjuhmen — Thu, 21 May 2009 02:36:50 +0000

I can’t choose!! and i can assure all of you i will lose sleep over this! :(

By: Hugh

Hugh — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:14:02 +0000

I want the Memphis! Any updates on that bad boy?

Between these two the Magic looks much better. Is the screen bigger too?

By: Edwin Garcia

Edwin Garcia — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:57:34 +0000

So people say the HTC MAGIC isent coming to the U.S. well if u do ur research u will find out it is. On wikipedia.com if u search HTC MAGIC u will read where it says. “However at the same convention, Google demonstrated a few new features of the Android operating system on an HTC Magic with T-Mobile branding.[10] The T-Mobile branded version of the Magic equipped with T-Mobile USA’s 3G frequency bands was passed by the FCC on March 26, 2009.” [11]

By: Raymanism

Raymanism — Tue, 19 May 2009 11:30:42 +0000

Why was my comment deleted???

By: Flandry

Flandry — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:17:03 +0000

What makes everyone think a smart phone should *not* have a keyboard? Grrr…

Worthless.

By: Ricky

Ricky — Tue, 19 May 2009 05:44:17 +0000

Great pictures! I really love the 3.5mm headphone jack.
My bf wants to get this phone, I wish it had a keyboard. Haha.

When is it out?