HTC EVO vs Samsung Moment

Speed

The EVO is fast. Damn fast. The Android delays and pauses that were noticeable on the Moment are all but gone now. Not only that but it loads MUCH faster. This was a surprise as it uses the same Sprint 3G. Is this from the faster processor or the "enhanced data" surcharge (aka the "4G tax" or the "EVO fee") enabling more bandwidth?

Size

The EVO is larger but maybe a little thinner without the case. I like the larger size and have always felt phones were getting too small. Especially with "smart phones" the most important feature is the screen and bigger is always better.

Screen

The screen is awesome on the EVO and so BIG. It doesn't seem as bright or crisp as the LED display on the Moment but it is excellent and I have no complaints.

Keys and Buttons

The Moment has the slider keyboard and the EVO does not. I read where people who gave up their keyboards find they like the virtual keyboards better after a while but I am not there yet.

The EVO also has only 3 external buttons: up/dn volume and power. The four navigation buttons are fixed touch keys on the screen glass. There are NO phone buttons (the green and red buttons for making and ending a call). In general I like dedicated buttons and I wish the EVO had more. On the other hand the navigation buttons are fine as touch keys.

I like the dedicated power button on the EVO. It really bugged me that the Moment used the red END or "stop" button turn the power on.

The lack of call buttons doesn't seem to be a big deal. The usability of the EVO is a lot better than the Moment and I have quickly acclimated to the lack of the buttons.

The Moment had a dedicated shutter button for the camera. It even had the "half press" to focus feature that most cameras have. I like that but again, it is easier than I expected to get used to the soft key. I was initially concerned that with the button on one side of the screen that self pictures would be hard. Instead I found that if I turned the phone upside down to use the other hand that it automatically flipped the image that it saved. Nice!

Camera

Or I should say cameras since the EVO not only has the front facing 8 (!!) megapixel camera but another 1 Mp camera on the screen side to use for self portraits or video calls. The Moment has a single 3.2 megapixel camera and they both have LED flash (EVO uses 2 LEDs). I haven't compared them critically but the 3.2 on the Moment took perfectly good pictures and think 8 Mp might be overkill and make unnecessarily large files. I can probably change this in a setting but I haven't looked yet.

The most obvious advantage of the EVO is again the speed. The camera opens and is ready in about a second instead of the several annoying seconds that the Moment often took. Video on the EVO is responsive and played back smoother than the Moment.

Wifi

About the same except with the Moment I rarely used wifi for fear of triggering the UAoD bug. Not sure but I think the EVO gives me more signal bars but I don't know if that means there is really more signal or just displayed differently.

Bluetooth

On the Moment the bluetooth always seemed a bit flakey. I could usually use it OK for music with my Motorola S9 headphones but it was seriously unreliable in making connections with my car. And when it did connect the audio was not very good.

So far the EVO easily syncs with my devices and using it in the car is flawless with better audio.


Phone

Yes, sometimes I use my Android devices as a telephone! The audio for handset calls are comparable but the speaker phone on the EVO is much better. Almost as good as the Nextel phones I used to use. The user interface is a little different but it seems to work much better than the Moment and it doesn't have those really annoying post-call periods of non responsiveness.


Sense UI

I was a little skeptical of the idea of non stock UI and I still haven't figured out how best to arrange it but I think I like the Sense better. It is certainly snazzier with more features but I am not sure which are Sense features and which are Froyo 2.2. It also seems to have different themes or styles I can save so that could be a big win if I make different versions for different use (normal, geocaching, work, etc).

There is one thing that is annoying me now and that is the in the clock app that comes stock on the main screen. It has a lot of nice features built in that would otherwise take separate apps like world clock, stopwatch and alarms. But in the list of cities it came with Detroit selected and while I can add more cities and make Boston my "home" I can't remove Detroit which it calls "current". What does that mean and how do I nuke Detroit? (No offense to people who live there intended).

Oh yeh, Froyo allows you to use LED camera flash as a flashlight. How cool is that?

Battery

The Moment was horrible on battery life. The CL14 upgrade fixed a lot of that and I upgraded my assessment to "poor". Like all Android phones so far the battery seems to be a weak point but the EVO has a 25% bigger battery and maybe uses 10% more power for a net win. So far I find I can just about get a full day of normal use on it instead of about a half a day on the Moment.



Other

Kickstand on the EVO is cool but with the silicone case it seems to be right on the edge of balancing before tipping back.

The EVO has a different set of built in ringtones and doesn't include my favorites. I had that problem too moving from the Motorola V950 where my favorite ringtone, "circus" was not available anywhere else.