[HTC Aria General] kopimi:
The HTC Aria is a fantastic phone, I own one and I too purchased it because of the low price tag, and because I'm still locked into a contract with AT&T. Right off the bat, you're going to have to acknowledge that the Android phones AT&T carries arent going to measure up to some of the more expensive phones sold by other carriers, but if you're stuck with AT&T you may as well enjoy your phone right?

The key difference between the Aria and the Captivate is size. The Aria has a somewhat tiny screen, don't get me wrong, its plenty screenspace, its just that Android phones are notorious for their large touch screens. From my experience, the HTC Aria has one of the best touch screens I've ever seen. Its ultra responsive, and typing with the stock keyboard (If you dont want to use Swype) feels natural and easy. The Samsung Captivate is of the Galaxy S line of phones, all of which come with their new AMOLED screens, which, in a nutshell, have fantastic contrast and anti-glare, and blacks that are so deep, you cant distinguish the screen from the phone. It doesnt really sound fantastic, and before I'd seen one in real life I thought it was just another LED gimmick, but they are BEAUTIFUL screens, my father bought the Captivate to smite me for saving up all summer for an Aria (lol), and its a beautiful phone. Typing is easy and the touch screen is very responsive, though for some reason I still think the Aria has a better touch screen.

As far as the processors go, yes, the Aria runs a 600mhz processor, while the Captivate is running the new Snapdragon 1ghz. The thing is, apples to apples, they're phones. The Aria has all the power it needs, its a small phone that only has to draw so many pixels, and calculate so much, so the 600mhz in comparison to bigger processors is absolutely fine, if you're a speedfreak like myself, you may be put off by not having the fastest, sleekest phone, but its amazing nonetheless. The Captivate 1ghz processor is, well, fast lol. It can handle a lot and the phone comes preloaded with Live wallpapers and a beautiful UI from Samsung.

I'm not really sure what else I can say, but really, just buy whichever you can afford. If you dont want to fork over the 500 odd dollars for the Captivate, theres no need to "settle" for the Aria, you can still love it :D

Whichever you buy, they're both amazing phones, so just get whichever one you're comfortable buying.

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Sorry I kind of rambled, as far as you asking what's BAD about the Aria? Nothing really, the speaker sounds fine, I mean yeah, if you try playing a movie off of it, its going to crackle because phones simply cant handle bass very well, but for calling and playing ringtones and notification sounds (i.e., doing everything a phone should) its a high quality speaker. If you want to listen to music or watch movies, the sound is bearable, but you'd probably want to have some headphones just in case. Oh and the Aria doesnt support Live Wallpapers by default, nor does it come loaded with Swype. It also has Wifi Tethering disabled, and loading apps that arent on the market is disabled by AT&T, but you can solve these problems:

By rooting your phone you can:

-WiFi and USB Tethering

-Sideloading apps (non-market apps)

---Swype

---Live Wallpapers

However, sideloading apps is possible if you have a computer, just install the Android SDK and put the app files in the 'tools' directory inside the Android SDK and using the command "adb install filename.apk" to install non-market apps from your computer.