Galaxy S (Epic, Captivate etc) VS EVO Comparison and thoughts.

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I just got back from the ATT store and did a head to head with the Captivate and my EVO. I had briefly looked at the Vibrant earlier this week but didn't have time to really put it through it's paces. I have a couple more weeks before I have to decide if I keep my EVO and I have been on the fence about keeping it or bringing it back to wait for the Epic.

I figured that I may not be the only one on the fence so here are some of my observations.

For reference, I am fully rooted, running Fresh 1.0.1 and Netarchy's over clocking, under volt, 55 FPS kernel 3.6.4. I was overclocked at 1.152 ghz (on demand 128mhz min) for the duration of the comparison.

SIZE:

I was surprised that the EVO and the Captivate (Galaxy S) were about the same size width and height. I thought the Galaxy S would feel much smaller. Even though the Galaxy was a couple mils thinner and and a couple oz lighter. The way the EVO is tapered at the edges makes me feel that the actual volume of these devices were similar. I would say they are in the same ballpark size wise. The larger screen of the EVO was very obvious. The Evo's screen has 15% larger surface on a device that was about the same size and I liked that.

PERFORMANCE:

1. MENU NAVIGATION: scrolling fluidity appeared to be more or less on par. There were a few times the Galaxy was perhaps slightly smoother with scrolling through menus, but both seemed to stutter occasionally. DRAW

2. BENCHMARKS: Linpack scores were about 7.9 on the EVO and 8.3 on the Galaxy. Obviously the Hummingbird is faster and with Netarchy's custom kernel you can assume that the Snapdragon is optimized for the best possible performance and battery consumption. I imagine once custom kernels come out for the Galaxy, the performance gap will widen. For now, they are pretty close.

Quadrant scores on the EVO was about 560 and the Galaxy was 850. I have gotten higher scores on quadrant with previous kernels. My EVO's previous scores were about 610 on 3.5.1. Netarchy might have dialed back the performance a bit or I might have been on "performance" in Set CPU. Obviously 3D rendering was vastly superior on the Galaxy S, no surprises here.

4. BATTERY LIFE: I ran parallel applications on both devices, running benchmarks, playing games, surfing the web and watching online videos etc etc. I would constitute this as heavy usage. Both displays were set to auto brightness and I would say that the brightness on the screen looked equal to me. Durring this time, the battery on the Galaxy S decreased by 10% and the EVO by 12%. This is not exactly scientific but leads me to believe that the Galaxy has a 20% advantage in power effiency over the EVO. This is despite the fact that the Galaxy is not running an under volted custom kernel. However I was overclocking the EVO. I am not sure if they would be closer if I was running at stock speeds.


I can't wait for the day where I can watch video's and surf for 10-12 hours nonstop so I don't have to think about conserving power.

SCREEN

1. Resolution: The Galaxy was clearly inferior. I discussed this in a previous post. Pentile screen technology deployed n the Galaxy means that true addressable resolution is actually 392x653 not 480x800. This was very noticeable to me in graphics, photos, video and especially text. I hate to say it but Steve Jobs was on to something with his choice of a high resolution TFT. EVO really wins for readability.

2. Saturation and contrast: The Galaxy is superior. It is a matter of preference if you think it looks natural or not but benifits of S-AMOLED were very obvious. Everything was clearly more saturated on the Galaxy.

3. Viewing angle: Galaxy wins again. Deviations from face on viewing produced lower contrast ratios on the EVO's TFT and a kind of greying effect. Viewing angles on the Galaxy were almost 180 degrees with no loss of saturation. Amazing.

4. Brightness: The Maximum brighness setting on the EVO was brighter and more vibrant than the Galaxy S. On minimum brightness the Galaxy was far brighter. I am not sure how these settings relate to power consumption but on Max I prefer the EVO. On minimum the galaxy was still useable in the brightly lit store, the EVO's min setting looked washed out and I wanted to turn it up.

5. White balance: EVO's whites look much better. The Galaxy S' whites look grey or blue this made it feel dirty or dingy to me.

Watching you tube on standard (not HQ) was much more watchable on the EVO than on the Galaxy. This might be a network thing, but resolution, size and even colors looked better on the EVO. I was surprised. HQ on the EVO blew the Galaxy away.


Anyway those are my impressions. I am surprisingly no closer to making a decision. With all the buzz surrounding the S-AMOLED screens I was expecting to be blown away by the Galaxy's display but in reality it was more of a draw. In many ways I felt the EVO's display was superior. If power consumption and processing power were equal I would say EVO. I guess what remains to be seen is how the developer community will embrace these Galaxy S devices and what kinds of perfomance/power enhancements can be applied to the Hummingbird with 45nm. Clearly the EVO has been embraced my the developer community and if Gingerbread can be shoehorned on to the EVO, it will, regardless of HTC's support (Cyanogen for example). I don't want to be left in the cold when Gingerbread arrives.


I will say one thing. The iphone 4's display looks amazing. I have no intrest in owning an iphone because of the limitations of the platform but they really nailed it. I want a device with a 4.3 inch screen, 330 pixel density, TFT white balance and S-AMOLED viewing angles and contrast running android please.

good write-up - seems neutral as far as opinion and also like you took your time. Was looking for a writeup like this, thanks.

Originally Posted by violinbf

I just got back from the ATT store and did a head to head with the Captivate and my EVO. I had briefly looked at the Vibrant earlier this week but didn't have time to really put it through it's paces. I have a couple more weeks before I have to decide if I keep my EVO and I have been on the fence about keeping it or bringing it back to wait for the Epic.

I figured that I may not be the only one on the fence so here are some of my observations.

For reference, I am fully rooted, running Fresh 1.0.1 and Netarchy's over clocking, under volt, 55 FPS kernel 3.6.4. I was overclocked at 1.152 ghz (on demand 128mhz min) for the duration of the comparison.

SIZE:

I was surprised that the EVO and the Captivate (Galaxy S) were about the same size width and height. I thought the Galaxy S would feel much smaller. Even though the Galaxy was a couple mils thinner and and a couple oz lighter. The way the EVO is tapered at the edges makes me feel that the actual volume of these devices were similar. I would say they are in the same ballpark size wise. The larger screen of the EVO was very obvious. The Evo's screen has 15% larger surface on a device that was about the same size and I liked that.

PERFORMANCE:

1. MENU NAVIGATION: scrolling fluidity appeared to be more or less on par. There were a few times the Galaxy was perhaps slightly smoother with scrolling through menus, but both seemed to stutter occasionally. DRAW

2. BENCHMARKS: Linpack scores were about 7.9 on the EVO and 8.3 on the Galaxy. Obviously the Hummingbird is faster and with Netarchy's custom kernel you can assume that the Snapdragon is optimized for the best possible performance and battery consumption. I imagine once custom kernels come out for the Galaxy, the performance gap will widen. For now, they are pretty close.

Quadrant scores on the EVO was about 560 and the Galaxy was 850. I have gotten higher scores on quadrant with previous kernels. My EVO's previous scores were about 610 on 3.5.1. Netarchy might have dialed back the performance a bit or I might have been on "performance" in Set CPU. Obviously 3D rendering was vastly superior on the Galaxy S, no surprises here.

4. BATTERY LIFE: I ran parallel applications on both devices, running benchmarks playing games, surfing the web and watching online videos etc etc. I would constitute this as heavy usage. Both displays were set to auto brightness and I would say that the brightness on the screen looked equal to me. Durring this time, the battery on the Galaxy S decreased by 10% and the EVO by 12%. This is not exactly scientific but leads me to believe that the Galaxy has a 20% advantage in power effiency over the EVO. This is despite the fact that the Galaxy is not running an under volted custom kernel. However I was overclocking the EVO. I am not sure if they would be closer if I was running at stock speeds.


I can't wait for the day where I can watch video's and surf for 10-12 hours nonstop so I don't have to think about conserving power.

SCREEN

1. Resolution: The Galaxy was clearly inferior. I discussed this in a previous post. Pentile screen technology deployed n the Galaxy means that true addressable resolution is actually 392x653 not 480x800. This was very noticeable to me in graphics, photos, video and especially text. I hate to say it but Steve Jobs was on to something with his choice of a high resolution TFT. EVO really wins for readability.

2. Saturation and contrast: The Galaxy is superior. It is a matter of preference if you think it looks natural or not but benifits of S-AMOLED were very obvious. Everything was clearly more saturated on the Galaxy.

3. Viewing angle: Galaxy wins again. Deviations from face on viewing produced lower contrast ratios on the EVO's TFT and a kind of greying effect. Viewing angles on the Galaxy were almost 180 degrees with no loss of saturation. Amazing.

4. Brightness: The Maximum brighness setting on the EVO was brighter and more vibrant than the Galaxy S. On minimum brightness the Galaxy was far brighter. I am not sure how these settings relate to power consumption but on Max I prefer the EVO. On minimum the galaxy was still useable in the brightly lit store, the EVO's min setting looked washed out and I wanted to turn it up.

5. White balance: EVO's whites look much better. The Galaxy S' whites look grey or blue this made it feel dirty or dingy to me.

Watching you tube on standard (not HQ) was much more watchable on the EVO than on the Galaxy. This might be a network thing, but resolution and colors and size looked better on the EVO. I was surprised. HQ on the EVO blew the Galaxy away.


Anyway those are my impressions. I am surprisingly no closer to making a decision. With all the buzz surrounding the S-AMOLED screens I was expecting to be blown away by the Galaxy's display but in reality it was more of a draw. In many ways I felt the EVO's display was superior. If power consumption and processing power were equal I would say EVO. I guess what remains to be seen is how the developer community will embrace these Galaxy S devices and what kinds of perfomance/power enhancements can be applied to the Hummingbird with 45nm. I don't want to be left in the cold when Gingerbread arrives.


I will say one thing. The iphone 4's display looks amazing. I have no intrest in owning an iphone because of the limitations of the platform but they really nailed it. I want a device with a 4.3 inch screen, 330 pixel density, TFT white balance and S-AMOLED viewing angles and contrast running android please.



OK, well, if you actually made it through all that...do you have any thoughts?

Thanks for that detailed comparison post, you'll have to be patient for those specs but no doubt better devices are coming..

The iPhone 4's display is indeed amazing but personally left me wanting a bigger screen (even more so than on the 3gs) & then you would have to accept its platform-network..

I still would like to check out the upcoming Samsung Beam (although I wish it had a faster processor & larger screen, I'm quite curious to see its built-in projector in person).

If you can wait until the end of the year you'll likely have a better idea of the best near-future devices otherwise the EVO with 2.2 is the most appealing to me at present.

BTW, anyone still think official Froyo 2.2 on EVO is going to happen in July?

Originally Posted by SMARTPHONEPC

Thanks for that detailed comparison post, you'll have to be patient for those specs but no doubt better devices are coming..

The iPhone 4's display is indeed amazing but personally left me wanting a bigger screen (even more so than on the 3gs) & then you would have to accept its platform-network..

I still would like to check out the upcoming Samsung Beam (although I wish it had a faster processor & larger screen, I'm quite curious to see its built-in projector in person).

If you can wait until the end of the year you'll likely have a better idea of the best near-future devices otherwise the EVO with 2.2 is the most appealing to me at present.

BTW, anyone still think official Froyo 2.2 on EVO is going to happen in July?

Well, they did release the source fairly quickly (about a month or two after launch, idk exactly since I got my evo a week before the launch), and both sprint and htc said we should have it in july. I guess I'll wait until the 31st to make any solid predictions, but to me the release date is still up in the air.
btw- Great review. Was interested in the galaxy because of its performance but i'd rather have better looking movies than games so the evo's still on top...for now lol.

Originally Posted by SMARTPHONEPC

Thanks for that detailed comparison post, you'll have to be patient for those specs but no doubt better devices are coming..

The iPhone 4's display is indeed amazing but personally left me wanting a bigger screen (even more so than on the 3gs) & then you would have to accept its platform-network..

I still would like to check out the upcoming Samsung Beam (although I wish it had a faster processor & larger screen, I'm quite curious to see its built-in projector in person).

If you can wait until the end of the year you'll likely have a better idea of the best near-future devices otherwise the EVO with 2.2 is the most appealing to me at present.

BTW, anyone still think official Froyo 2.2 on EVO is going to happen in July?

I agree about the iphone's screen size. It is just a little too small for 2010. The clarity however is really compelling. It is the first time I have been able to read text on web pages without zooming. Browsing and reading text is probably what I do the most on my phone, even more than making calls.

The Beam looks cool! I haven't seen that yet. The projector could be really useful for business presentations and also movie watching. No need for a TV or HDMI out when you can just project Avatar on the wall! Contrast and brightness seems a bit low.

I don't now about official Froyo in July. HTC has said before the end of the year. Sense integration will take some time since it permeates Andoid extensively. I have this feeling that the Epic might be released with Froyo in late August early September. Samsung's Touch Wiz seems less pervasive than Sense and Samung seems hellbent on taking down HTC. Samsung has said Froyo will be available on Galaxy S phones in Korea in early August. I will be happy with Cyanogen 6 which should be any day now.

Originally Posted by violinbf

I agree about the iphone's screen size. It is just a little too small for 2010. The clarity however is really compelling. It is the first time I have been able to read text on web pages without zooming. Browsing and reading text is probably what I do the most on my phone, even more than making calls.

The Beam looks cool! I haven't seen that yet. The projector could be really useful for business presentations and also movie watching. No need for a TV or HDMI out when you can just project Avatar on the wall! Contrast and brightness seems a bit low.

I don't now about official Froyo in July. HTC has said before the end of the year. Sense integration will take some time since it permeates Andoid extensively. I have this feeling that the Epic might be released with Froyo in late August early September. Samsung's Touch Wiz seems less pervasive than Sense and Samung seems hellbent on taking down HTC. Samsung has said Froyo will be available on Galaxy S phones in Korea in early August. I will be happy with Cyanogen 6 which should be any day now.

Yeah I hope the iPhone 4 screen will motivate competitors to raise their bar but its awesome text clarity still seems tiny sans zooming regardless of its legibility so I'm hoping for larger screens. I was also disappointed with how weak the iPhone 4 speaker seemed. Didn't seem to compare to the EVO's speaker. The Samsung Beam apparently has "65 decibel" stereo speakers..

Here is a much longer (11 min) Samsung Beam video & I've seen other videos showing off annotated powerpoint slideshows & projection capabilities. Here is the Samsung link for its Beam model. Again I wish they put in a faster processor & larger screen but they claim up to 50" projected (a viewing size of five to 50 inches@1-3 meters) !

I prefer Launcher Pro or even stock 2.2. to Sense or Touchwiz & I hope Cyanogen 6 delivers (EVO has all that inspired dev support that new Samsung devices have yet to materialize which is a significant selling point ATM)

- Let us know what you decide

If I was aware of the Captivate, I would have waited for it instead of switching to spring. It's too late now.

Captivate
+faster cpu and gpu
+better battery life
+much lighter
+thinner
+screen is better in some ways
+16gb internal storage
+AT&T network (what I came from) is better around here
+Might end up selling more Galaxy S phones and hence have better all around support
+bluetooth 3.0

Evo
+4g (although 3g on other carriers is often just as fast)
+kickstand
+better front and rear cameras (but probably not by much)
+great user support community
+larger screen for the real estate

I'd like to see some solid reviews but I would call the Captivate a winner. I mainly bought the evo because it was the first android phone with supposedly a quality camera. Unfortunately, that hasn't proven true. If the camera isn't going to be all that good, I would prefer to have something that is better in most other ways.

Originally Posted by Minjin

If I was aware of the Captivate, I would have waited for it instead of switching to spring. It's too late now.

Evo
+4g (although 3g on other carriers is often just as fast)
+kickstand
+better front and rear cameras (but probably not by much)
+great user support community
+larger screen for the real estate

Please show me a carrier that gets 4 Mbps on 3G.

Even so, that won't be a plus once the Epic is out.... but then that phone alone has its own set of pros and cons.

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Every single one Ive seen has been way way way to blue tint