I was using a HTC desire on Android about 3 years ago and loved the phone. It was my first smartphone and I was hooked. I got rid though as it shipped with something ridiculous like 512mb of internal storage so I kept having to delete files as the phone kept filling up. As all HTC offerings were equally poor in terms of memory back then I went to the dark side and bought an iphone 4.
To be honest, I was an Apple hater back then and bought the phone somewhat reluctantly but I couldnt help but grow to love it. Ok so everything is maybe a little too structured and restrictive at times, but with that comes simplicity. I want a new song on my phone.... I just went on to itunes and bought it. 10 seconds later I had it, I loved that.
So when my contract was up at the beginning of September this year I was dead set on the iphone 5 and duly waited several weeks for the release. Then it was released and I was disappointed to be honest. Yes it is a good phone, but then why wouldnt it be. It is an evolution of the iphone 4 and 4s. That is probably the biggest problem though, it is more like an iphone 4s mk2 than an entirely new phone. I found it all very underwhelming, apart from the price that is! The price of approx £250 for the handset and a £40 a month contract for 2 years is way OTT for a phone that isnt much better than what I already had.
So I started looking at Android handsets again, but had similar worries to you. How would I get on with Android? What about all my photos? What about all my music in itunes?
On all of the above there is no need to worry. Both HTC and Samsung have sync applications now to ease the pain of transferring files but as I havent downloaded them to my laptop yet then I just connected my phone to my laptop and did it the old fashioned way. I chose the option to use my phone as an external storage device and it opened up the file directories in windows on my laptop. With itunes also open I just located the music file for my HTC on the laptop, opened it up and dragged all my music files into it from itunes. Simple... And it is exactly the same for any photos you may want to transfer over, it is completely painless!
So how do I feel now I have been using the handset for a couple of weeks? It took a while to become accustomised. I have to admit that in the first couple of days I kept putting the sim back into the iphone to do certain tasks, but that soon stopped once I found the equivalent app on Google Play. Now I love it!
The Google Play market has improved massively over the last 3 years. When I was using it with my HTC Desire Angry Birds was as good as gaming got. Then I went to iphone and was blown away by the games from Electronic Arts etc. So I was a little anxious to see what Android had to offer this time round.... If I am honest, its not quite at the same level as the App Store - yet - but it is hugely improved on its position from 3 years ago and it is now breathing down the App Stores neck. In some ways it is already better, I prefer the layout of Google Play. The one area it still lacks slightly is that 2 apps that I had on my iphone still arent available on Android. To put that into perspective though I had about 100 apps so we are talking about 2% that I had on the iphone that I dont have on my new HTC One X. The slightly annoying thing is that one of the two apps was the Santander mobile banking app which I used almost daily so was pretty hacked off that this wasnt available. I have since discovered though that the Santander website is mobile optimised and displays exactly the same as the iphone app did so no big deal....
And so what of the phones themselves? If I was going to Android I wanted the best. So that meant HTC One X or Samsung Galaxy S3. I did hundreds of hours (literlly) of research over a few weeks and narrowed it down to the two handsets above. I went into my local T Mobile shop to check both out and at that time was favouring the S3 slightly, purely down to a slightly higher capacity battery. That might sound trivial, but on smartphones we all know that the battery issue can be far from trivial.
When I got into the shop though everything changed. The S3 is a fantastic phone, but it looks like it has been made from recycled Quality Street wrappers. Why Samsung would make a phone that is sooo good and make it look soooo cheap and tacky is beyond me. It also felt cheap in the hand. So then I picked up the HTC One X.... If I am honest, it still doesnt have the feel of an aluminium and glass iphone as it is still made of plastic, but it at least feels like quality plastic. It has the velvety feel to it and just feels like a better constructed piece of hardware. That is probably helped by it being a single piece unit like the iphone, so there is no removable battery and consequently no removeable back cover. Once upon a time that would have concerned me, but having come from an iphone then I am used to it so couldnt care less.
So I bought the HTC One X for a lot less money than the iphone 5, on a cheaper monthly tariff than the iphone 5, and feel that I have more phone than I would have done if I had gone for the iphone 5. So am I 100% happy?
No, but only because HTC have just announced the HTC One X+ which has double the storage at 64gb instead of 32gb and a higher capacity battery..... Damn damn damn, my phone isnt yet out of nappies and they have brought out an upgrade! To be fair though, the software improvements are being rolled out to the One X so the only thing I am missing out on is the extra 32gb of storage and the better battery, but the 32gb I have should be more than enough as I got by fine with 16gb on the iphone 4 and the battery I have sees me through the day so although more would be nice then I dont need it.
So in summary, if you go back to Android I think you will find it very different from the service you left behind several years ago and I dont think you will be disappointed. As for handsets then it is obviously a personal preference, but for my the HTC One X is the better overall package than the S3.