Desire HD or Desire Z?

I Dropped My Yop

I am looking to get my first smart-phone and I am torn between the Desire Z and the Desire HD. As I have no experience whatsoever with any kind of smart-phone, this is proving to be a very hard decision.

To my understanding, the main differences are

• screen size
• cpu speed
• RAM
• camera resolution and flash
• physical keyboard
• battery life
• weight

So the questions I have are:

1. To my knowledge, both have the same CPU, with the Z underclocked to 800Mhz (or something to that effect). If so, why is the Z under-clocked. Is the difference noticeable? Is there any disadvantage to over-clocking the Z?
2. Is the difference in RAM noticeable? Is the Z likely to have issues due to low memory in the future?
3. How useful in reality is the physical keyboard. Why would you use it over the touch-screen one seeing as they are really good now? Is it worth sacrificing the extra power of the HD for it?

I've held both and don't mind the extra weight of the Z, nor the size of the HD.
While I'd probably prefer the bigger screen of the HD, the Z seems sufficiently big itself.
The camera differences aren't an issue unless there's a huge improvement in quality in the HD.
I'm always around power sources so the battery performance isn't an issue really.

So what it all boils down to is: Physical Keyboard vs Higher Spec
I'd be willing to sacrifice a small bit of performance for the keyboard if I knew I'd actually use it, but I've no idea if I would. If there is a huge difference in performance, then I'd be even less likely to go for the Z.

I'm a pretty heavy internet user, on email, facebook, forums etc a lot, which makes me think the physical keyboard would be useful, but like I said, in reality it could be just as handy to use the virtual one.

So, anyone want to advise please


edit: for example, how hard would it be to make this post (including format and symbols etc) on the HD vs Z?

AlmightyCushion

I have a physical keyboard on my n900 and I love it. Much better than any touch screen keyboard I've used.

Bluefoam

The physical keyboard does two things:

It frees up screen real estate. This is a big advantage if you are doing allot of browsing etc.
It makes typing long messages much more comfortable.

The Z is a quick device in its own right.

syklops

I made this decision yesterday and it didnt take me very long. I went for the Z. It will be a work phone and I may need to ssh into servers, so the physical keyboard will be a huge benefit.

I have used touch screen before, and I know they have improved greatly since then, but even in a moving car they can be awkward to type on.

I would imagine the reason it has been under-clocked is to save on battery life. Still at 800mhz its a pretty powerful device. Dont quote me on this in 5 years, but 800Mhz should be enough for most people.

Is this your first phone with a touch screen?

If so I'd recommend borrowing a mates phone for an evening and see how you find it. Its all very well tapping it a few times in a shop, but spend a few hours with it and see do you get tired of it. With my last touchscreen, I found I sent a lot less text messages, because typing them on the touch screen was a nuisance.

fmul9798

I believe there is little or no difference in CPU - the Z uses a newer generation of the CPU, so there's essentially little or no difference as regards raw power (think someone posted the actual benchmarks?). I expect the newer CPU would also be slightly more efficient, and perhaps even be more open to overclocking - who knows.
I held both the HD and Z in my hand - I went with the Z. Concern with the HD was the screen size and its impact on battery life. I did miss the physical keyboard too on my Hero. I didn't care about the X megapixel camera etc. The Z is heavier no doubt. Size-wise it's actually not bad at all - nicely rounded and very solid build. The hinge has no wobble on mind - hopefully it will stay that way. It is certainly heavy compared to other phones, but compare the weight to the HD - it's only 16g heavier apparently. Obviously the base Desire is the lightest...

Desire HD 123 x 68 x 11.8mm - 164g
Desire Z: 119 x 60.4 x 14.16 - 180g

The Z is excellent for landscape browsing with physical keyboard - not losing most of the screen to the virtual keyboard makes such a difference. For regular use, I continue to just pull it out of my pocket and use the touch keyboard same as I would have done with my HTC Hero.

For me it was no contest - the Z won.
Something I didn't actually know until after I bought it was that the Desire Z will also do 720p HD video recording...

Again nothing compares to actually holding both in your hand. I was surprised how bulky the HD felt to be honest - the Z was thicker and slightly heavier, but felt better in my hands.
This (sometimes poor quality) will give you an idea of the size - I'm sure there are better videos/photos out there comparing the sizes.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/15/htc-desire-family-portrait-video/

Hope that helps you little...

Yep, that was me with the benchmarks. It was 34MFLOPS with the Desire-Z and ~35MFLOPS with the last generation 1GHz CPU in the Desire. The Z has a much better media processor too.

I like connectbot for my SSHing needs, it also supports key based authentication which is great.

How Soon Is Now

So what your all saying dont bother with the desire hd now?? and get the z. This wouldnt have something to do with the fact its impossible to actually get a desire would it?

artvandulet

angerfist2009 wrote: »

So what your all saying dont bother with the desire hd now?? and get the z. This wouldnt have something to do with the fact its impossible to actually get a desire would it?

I went with the Z too. Its the better phone in my opinion. Best phone I've ever had in fact. Add a poll to your thread and see what others think.
If you can, try out a working phone on each model, side by side, for a few mins. Thats what I did and thats what confirmed my initial choice.

How Soon Is Now

artvandulet wrote: »

I went with the Z too. Its the better phone in my opinion. Best phone I've ever had in fact. Add a poll to your thread and see what others think.
If you can, try out a working phone on each model, side by side, for a few mins. Thats what I did and thats what confirmed my initial choice.

If i could find somewhere that has both in stock at same time that i wont get it bitten out of my hand lol i would. Unfortunatly we dont seem to have this luxury just now and i cant see it happening for a while.

artvandulet

I didnt realise there was a stock shortage. The 2nd Meteor branch I rang last week had both in stock. Might have been lucky. Btw, I couldnt try out both in the shop. The person I was with had a HD.

How Soon Is Now

Rang three different meteor shops and carphone warehouse local to me in Dublin this week all had no idea when where getting in the HD.

I Dropped My Yop

Hmm, so far the poll is showing more in favour of the Z, which is kind of surprising since the HD seemed to the higher profile of the two.

I'm kind of leaning towards getting the Z myself, and seeing as there's availability issues with the HD, I think I'll stop delaying the inevitable and get a Z