iPhone 4 vs Galaxy S evaluation - a month without my iPhone

Image from SmartPhone Envy YouTube video
The iPhone 4 and the Samsung Galaxy S

As some of you know I gave up my iPhone 4 for a month in order to give Android a real trial and see what I think of it. Well the month is now up, so time to commit to an opinion.

If you're interested, here's a great technical comparison of the two on YouTube from SmartPhone Envy:

Part 1 (above) covers the hardware and features, Part 2 covers the user interface in more detail.

I'm less concerned with the specification of the phones and more interested in evaluating how well the phones meet my needs. It's a personal thing - for me, email and photos are the killer apps. I haven't tested everything - no, I haven't even plugged in a pair of headphones to it this month. So here's what I think:

1. Old habits and prior investment
I've had an iPhone for about 3 years now. So of course I'm more familiar with it than an Android phone. About a week after I had the Galaxy S I was raving about it and in love, there were some features I really loved (notifications and Exchange integration in particular) - but that initial infatuation wore off, and by week 2 and onwards, I really wanted my iPhone back. It just seemed quicker and easier to do the tasks I wanted to do on an iPhone. I also have several years of investment (time to evaluate and money) in iPhone apps. Although I have downloaded a few on the Samsung, I couldn't face starting all over again.

2. Unpicking who to blame
iPhone and iOS go hand-in-hand, Samsung Galaxy and Android don't - the hardware and the software are not from the same companies. I hated the Samsung Kies software you use to backup and update the phone, particularly as a Mac user where most of it doesn't work. (It genuinely took me a whole morning to download it and update the firmware, it wouldn't connect, gave errors etc etc). But that isn't Android's fault, that's Samsung's fault. There are also various apps on the phone which Samsung put there and aren't Android. But as a user I don't really care who made what - I assume all Android devices will work pretty much like the Samsung phone, and Kies has tarred my experience of Android forever.

3. Doing stuff with photos
I take a lot of photos, and when I get home I download them, edit and do something with them. As I said above, Kies made connecting up to the phone simply hellish. I found saving all the photos from the phone into my Dropbox and then waiting for them to sync through to my laptop the easiest route. A bit late in the month I discovered you could override the Kies mode and get the phone to present as a USB storage device using the cable - that worked well. I found the camera frustrating - you don't seem to be able to just switch off the phone after taking a photo, you seem to need to have pressed the home button first or you get locked in a cycle where the power button doesn't work. Maybe I'm missing something? I do like the simplicity of the iPhone camera, the Samsung seemed to have an awful lot of choices and options on it. I'm sure some people like that, but wasn't for me.

4. Email (and Exchange)
Android wins here. The Exchange ActiveSync for my work email was spot on. Because it's a Google phone I can also sync up all my Google stuff natively. On my iPhone I can only have one Exchange account, so if I choose work I can't also sync my Google calendar, and I'd rather use my Google calendar so I can't use Exchange - not ideal.

Update 6th Nov: I stand corrected, you can have multiple Exchange accounts on the iPhone, and have been able to for some time - thanks @coordinated.

So what now? Well you can probably tell I haven't been converted. I have decided to try an HTC Windows phone for the next month, last time I tried a Windows phone it was a few years ago, Windows Mobile 6, and I hated it. It actually made my life a little bit worse. Can it do better now? Or will I be posting in great relief in a month's time that I'm going back to my iPhone...?