Probably still my MP3 player?Purchased a unit of HTC Aria just 2 weeks ago. Went with the Digi plan. For a 2 year data plan, you can get the phone for RM799. I decided to go for this plan at that time due to fact that I thought I will YouTube a lot. But more on this later.
I actually wanted to get the iPhone, but it was not easy to shop for this as DiGi stores were always out of stock. After a couple of times of asking, and from some other research done, I decided Android phones were also very good. iPhone4 is still tops in terms of display technology, Apple AppsStore choices, and ease of use. My original 2nd choice was the HTC Legend which was also available from DiGi. Legend has AMOLED screen and a stylish brushed aluminium body. Consumers are so much more tech savvy these days, and being a great alternative to iPhone, HTC Legend was also out of stock in all DiGi and HTC stores I visited. So I settled for the next in line model from HTC, called Aria.
Aria is a slim build phone, running on the Google Android OS ver 2.1 Eclair. HTC Sense is included on top of the Android platform, improving some of the UI experience. Upon launching, you'll see the familiar HTC calendar as your home screen.
Hail Android!
Contacts are also easily linked between your phone contacts, GMail contacts and Facebook. This makes browsing through all your friend and family info a joy. It does mean you have to do your linking homework before this really comes to life. I was keen to sync my contacts and calendar with my office laptop Outlook, but I could not. Current version of HTC sync software only supports Outlook 2010 32 bit, and I am on 64 bit. I was quite pissed when I discovered this after frustrating troubleshooting. I worked around by exporting my contacts to GMail, which the phone auto syncs with.
Android apps are obtained from Android Market, which is almost always FOC. Popular apps which you are familiar with iPhone almost always has an Android counterpart, so that's cool. Angry Birds was my first download, and it was the full version FOC. The slim build design means the battery is quite small, so is not lasting if you play lots of games or use lots of internet. I did feel the phone tends to get warm after heavy gaming.
AGPS is also available, but I've yet to try loading the Papago maps into the phone. The connectivity to internet via mobile network also seems buggy, as if there is no network available, the phone goes into "Turning on internet... connecting...." mode forever. During which, you cannot cancel the attempt, so that wasn't great.
My main use is occasional gaming, reading RSS feeds from Engadget, comic strips, YouTube, Facebook reading. And for this purposes, the phone is excellent. It fits easily into my pants pocket, even with the casing attached. Most of my iPhone4 mates slip the phone into their shirt pocket, which sounds like a bend-over-drop-out risk. But it's all about habit, which can be trained.
I am happy with the phone, and do not miss iPhone4 too badly. Let's see any new developments in 2011.
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