[General Topics] h-fox:
To be honest, I don't know where to put this thread, let me know If it's needed to be moved to somewhere else.

Detailed real-life comparison: HTC Desire HD vs Samsung Galaxy S I9000 vs Samsung Galaxy S Plus I9001.

Since I was unable to find a proper comparison of HTC Desire HD, Samsung i9001 Galaxy S Plus and Samsung Galaxy S i9000 anywhere at the internet, I've made my own review for other users which have a dilemma which phone should they buy. And yes, these phones are quite old, but their price is still pretty high and feaures are pretty decent even nowadays.

Unlike other reviews, this is a review with a different approach. This review is based entirely on the real-life experiences, not the benchmarks and other stuff for geeks usually seen in reviews. The specs won't be mentioned here as that's something that can be found at any mobile phone website.

So, here goes the comparison between:

-	HTC Desire HD (further noted as DHD) – Official Android 2.3.5.

-	Samsung Galaxy S Plus i9001 (further noted as SGS+) - Official Android 2.3.5.

-	Samsung Galaxy S i9001 (further noted as SGS) - Official Android 2.3.5.

You may note that SGS and SGS+ are for most of the time mentioned together, since they share most of their internal components.

IN SHORT:

There are a lot of areas where one phone has an advantage over the other two.

If you want a good 720p HD video clip, front camera, AMOLED screen and a loud loudspeaker, avoid DHD.

If you want a camera flash, lots of RAM, good Wi-Fi range and flawless GPS, avoid SGS and SGS+ . Essentially, SGS+ is an SGS with faster processor, effectively a tad more RAM and a weaker GPU.

KEEP READING FOR A DETAILED COMPARISON

SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Generally, all three behave well and fast if used properly.

SGS+ is generally the fastest when it comes to interface because of its superior 1.4 GHz processor but sometimes there is a noticeable lag in animations, browsing and other stuff since it doesn't have much RAM for its screen resolution (screen res. 800x480, 512 MB overall, 352 MB user accessible, average of 180 MB can get free). Also, for some reason, after pressing the lock button (or home button), the phone doesn't awake instantly, there is a 1 second gap. Also, sudden closes of apps can be experienced, and home screen reloads frequently after an exit from a heavy app due to low RAM.

SGS is the fastest when it comes to heavy graphical stuff because of its PowerVR SGX540 GPU, like live wallpapers, animations, 3D rendering etc, but sometimes there is a noticeable lag when it comes to loading heavy content in browser (like Flash), or a RAM-heavy application because effectively, SGS has a tad less RAM than SGS+ even though they are the same according to specs (screen res. 800x480, 512 MB overall, 329 MB user accessible, average of 160 MB can get free). Also, sudden closes of apps can be experienced, and home screen reloads frequently after an exit from a heavy app due to low RAM.

DHD is the most stable of the three overall, because it has a lot of RAM (screen res. 800x480, 768 MB overall, 600 MB user accessible, average of 350 MB can get free). It lags the least out of three, and it's the least buggy. SGS+ has more bugs, but SGS has the most.

BUILD QUALITY

DHD body is almost entirely made of metal, except the two covers (battery and cards covers/lids) and LED flash cover which are made of plastic with a pleasant rubber finish, so the overall quality is very good. The bad part of this is the aforementioned two lids. The cards lid at the bottom of the phone (SIM card and memory card lid) has small metal connectors for mobile network on it, which act as a connection between it and the motherboard. If you remove the lid while the phone is turned on, network signal will decrease dramatically. The same thing goes for the battery lid, it also has mettal connectors (I think it's for battery) which acts as a connection between it and motherboard. It's highly advised to proceed gentle (no need to be too gentle, though) when removing these lids as they could get wiggly with time (although if that happens, it can be fixed quite easily with no extra expenses).

SGS and SGS+ share effectively the same shell, so they are reviewed i the same paragraph. The only difference between them is that the chrome is a a tad brighter on SGS+, the Google mark at the back cover is gone on SGS+ and the dot pattern at the back cover is little different. Despite it's entirely made out of plastic, SGS and SGS+ are well built phones and far sturdier than the look might suggest. These phones can survive quite a few falls (well, not as DHD though, but it's still good) The bad thing about it is that the chrome part peels off quite easily with the use and in order to avoid that, the additional carrying pouch or some other kind of protection is necessary. Another thing that some people might mind is that the whole glossy body is a fingerprint magnet.

DISPLAY

SGS and SGS+ have the same Super AMOLED (or SAMOLED) screen, while DHD has an LCD. Both of them have their pros and cons.

Super AMOLED has a lively and a bit oversaturated (and unrealistic) colors, as well as infinitely deep blacks. People who prefer that will consider SAMOLED as a gift from the sky, since it's capable to make the most washed out image look like a beauty. However, this type of screen has a few waknesses that crawl out after quite some time of use. First, it generally shows traces of wear before an LCD. It is made of organic matters, every pixel is for itself, so every pixel 'gets older' for itself, which sometimes result in some incossintencies regarding the color shades, and a burn-in. Let's stop at a burn-in part for a bit. Burn-in only happens after about 1,5 or 2 years of usage (this can vary a lot). If someone doesn't know what burn-in is, then just Google it. In short, it is an image persistency. For example, if you try to play some full-screen game, you could be able to notice a ghost of a notification bar (because notification bar is on the screen for most of the time). In other words, if some pixels are showing the same content most of the time, it'll get burned in. In order to avoid this, try not to get the notification bar to be on the screen all time. Sunlight legibility is commendable, even though it uses weaker light than LCD, its low reflectiveness more than makes up for that. Viewing angles are incredible and there is almost no color shifting except at most extreme angles.

LCD screen of DHD has quite clean, crisp and realistic-looking colors. It doesn't posess blacks even nearly as deep as SAMOLED but it's still good enough. Viewing angles are above average. Color gradients are much more consistent than on SAMOLED. Sunlight legibility is good, not as SAMOLED, but still good since its stronger light makes up for higher reflectiveness. This kind of screen has a weakness, after quite some time of use, 1-2 green pixels closer to sides can appear, but that's still not something that could be a deal breaker.

BATTERY LIFE

Even though the DHD has the largest screen and the weakest battery here (4.3“ LCD ,1230mAh), compared to SGS (4“ Super AMOLED, 1500 mAh) and SGS+ (4“ Super AMOLED, 1650 mAh, not too noticeable difference of SGS), the average battery life of all three is about equal. The reason of that is mostly in the the screens. Even though it's mentioned that Super AMOLED display consumes less energy than an LCD , that works only if there is mostly black color on the screen for most of the time. In most other cases, Super AMOLED consumes the battery faster than an LCD, especially when the browsing is involved because of the white color. That's why the batteries of SGS and SGS+ last about the same as DHD.

TELEPHONY

All three phones had trouble-free signal reception, and overall all three are quite close. While all three are quite loud, DHD has just a tad cleaner in-call sound at than SGS and SGS+.

AUDIO

As far as loudspeakers are concerned, SGS and SGS+ have an identical loudspeaker which is miles ahead of one in DHD.

Loudspeaker of SGS and SGS+ is quite loud, clean and deep, so missing a call is highly unlikely.

On the other hand, the one in DHD is a disappointment (this is a weak spot of almost all other HTC phones as well), too high pitched and quiet, bass is literally non-existent, and It can happen that you miss a call.

When a pair of earphones is plugged in, all three devices are on par. The sound is excellent for the most of users, but if you're a demanding audiophile, you should look elsewhere.

WLAN (Wi-Fi)

All three devices are fast when they're close to the router, but if they are a bit away from the router, the differences can be clearly seen. Needless, to say, speed decreases accordingly with increase of Wi-Fi range.

Wi-Fi range is a weak spot of SGS and SGS+. SGS has just a hair better wi-fi range than SGS+, but overall, both of them are below average in that aspect.

On the other hand, DHD had no issues with Wi-Fi range, where SGS and SGS+ had only one bar, DHD had 2 bars (even 3 sometimes) with no problems. Where DHD has only 1 bar, SGS and SGS+ can't even get the signal in most of cases, even if they do get it, opening any page is almost impossible. However, DHD isn't perfect, but it's very close to it. The reason for it is the death grip when you put your finger on a certain place around the battery lid, but that shouldn't be something to be worried about since the death grip can be easily avoided. While in death grip, wi-fi signal drops by 1 or 2 bars but even at that, it's still better than on SGS ans SGS+.

GPS

DHD takes an absolute victory here. GPS lock was relatively fast and the phone was ready to go in short time frame. SGS and SGS+ have shown bad performance here.

While SGS+ is slightly faster (or less slow) at locking than SGS, both of them fared poor here. Locking the GPS is very slow on bith devices, it takes an eternity and it can be done only by driving in a vehicle for a while (while on foot, it's almost always impossible to get a lock). Good side of the coin here is, when it finally locks the GPS signal, it's quite accurate, consistent and signal doesn't get dropped.

CAMERA

In short, DHD makes better photos, SGS and SGS+ make better videos.

Camera of DHD captures an average details for an 8 Mpix and on the faraway shots (e.q. landscape) there is a bit of blurring at the left side of image, while the right side is fine. Shots with objects closer than that are better and blurr-free. DHD is also equipped with Dual-LED flash, and it quite helps out with nightshots.

SGS and SGS+ have the same camera unit, so their results are literally the same. It captures the images of 5 Mpix and it doesn't have an LED flash. Shots are solid for a 5 Mpix unit, but still wouldn't rank near the top of 5 Mpix league.

As for the video recording, SGS and SGS+ can record 720p videos of a high quality and low noise levels, with a consistent 30 fps. The only bad thing is that they don't have an autofocus of any sort in video mode. Unlike DHD, these two both have front camera too.

DHD can also record 720p videos, but the result is way worse than what SGS and SGS+ put up. The main issue here is the framerate, it greatly depends on amount of light. The camera can achieve the specified 30 fps only if there is a lot of daylight. If you move even slightly out of good light you'll notice a considerable drop in framerate, to even 12 fps at times. This can be partially fixed if ISO is set to 800, contrast to -2 and exposure to -2. LED flash works in video mode too. The only thing that goes for DHD in this comparison is the presence of autofocus in video mode.

GAMING

Desire HD excells at games that require a lot of RAM, alhtough there could be some hiccups with newest games because of old GPU and low processor clockspeed. SGS+ with the same GPU somewhat makes up for it with faster processor, although there could be some hiccups with newer games because it has relatively low RAM memory. On the other hand, SGS is a lot better than SGS+ and DHD at games that have high graphic requirements, although there could be some hiccups with newer games because it has relatively low RAM memory.