My First Week with Aria

A little while ago, a friend of mine asked her Facebook friends to help her choose between the iPhone on AT&T and an Android phone on T-Mobile.  One of the responses, predictably, went something like, "iPhone. There is no alternative."

That's just silly.  Just at the level of market share, RIM (the Blackberry folk) has long been the most popular smartphone in the US, and worldwide Symbian (the Nokia folk) crushes all competition.  And while Apple is making gains — it will be especially interesting to see post-iPhone 4 numbers — they have a long ways to go before they enter the "only alternative" category (even more so considering that Android has been gaining market share even more quickly than Apple).

Unfortunately, as recently as three weeks ago, my friend's friend's comment was true — that is, there was indeed no real alternative — if applied to AT&T network.  (Sure, there was the Motorola Backflip, but that was universally dismissed in pretty much all the reviews I read.)  And, since I'm pretty much stuck with AT&T — as far as I can tell, it has the only acceptable reception where I live — I thought I was going to end up with a iPhone.

I'm not an Apple hater, really.  Though the quasi-religious fervor of the hard-core fanboy/girl is fairly annoying, I was an evangelical Christian when I was younger and probably deserve a taste of that medicine.  But, as I understand it, the iPhone is in fact easier, and the ecosystem of apps and media is untouched (even if Steve Jobs comes across as a bit paternal at times). 

Nonetheless, I didn't want an iPhone.  I'm a Google guy, using them for pretty much everything — personal and school mail, contacts, calendar, and so on. I wanted Android if only because it's been designed to work seamlessly with other products in the Google-verse. 

It was thus at the moment of deepest despair — when I had to decide if I should take a cheaper old version of the iPhone or pony up (and wait) for the new one — that AT&T released the HTC Aria.

A week later, I couldn't be happier.

It isn't perfect; just today I ran into some trouble sending pictures in an MMS message, and I have managed to crash the thing a few times.  And apps come without much by way of explanation — Latitude? Footsteps? Competing clocks and weather, etc.? — but I'm now pretty much in the driver's seat, with efficient ways to accomplish all the things I really want to do, and the potential to do a lot of things I don't yet know I want to do.

And it's beautiful.  It's smaller than the iPhone, and almost hilariously smaller than the EVO, which I saw side-by-side with the Aria on a YouTube video review of the phones. But I like the size; it fits comfortably in my pocket and, more important, in my relatively small hands.  It's light, yet still feels solid.  And the screen, while not iPhone 4 quality, is nonetheless beautiful.  (I wish I could take a picture of it, but my several attempts have come up pretty short...).

I've never had an iPhone, so I'm not qualified to compare the two. My sense, from friends and pundits on various podcasts, is that iPhone is probably a bit more intuitive, and thus easier to get used to.  I would recommend it to most of my friends, especially to the less geeky ones.  But I'm in love with my Aria — a great alternative, in my book, whether you just want Google integration or are actually opposed, quasi-religiously, to Apple's closed system.