Samsung Wave S8500 (Rogers) or HTC Magic (also known as myTouch 3g)

M

Mitch14

New member
Hello all, I already have an iphone 4 however I'm getting a free phone from rogers for my second line and don't know which to get.

Samsung Wave S8500 or HTC Magic (also known as myTouch 3g) ????

Any comments or help would be appreciated.

Samsung seems physically better but comes with Bada O/S which I have no experience with.

HTC Magic is a slower phone but comes with Android.
 
The Wave S8500 is that much faster and far more spectacular than the HTC Magic. The apps are few on the Wave compared to Android. Much few. But there is such a wide gap between the hardware of the two phones that I would pick the Wave here. You can probably compensate the lack of apps on the Wave by the fact it has a very fast Webkit browser that does HTML5 and access mobile sites with that.
 
Thanks for the response. I liked the Samsung specs but wasn't quite sure about the Bada OS. I basically only need it as a solid, reliable backup phone but wouldn't mind tinkering with it as well. The allure of Android on the HTC Magic got me thinking...

Any other responses or insight are welcome...
 
The HTC Magic is a bit way too obsolete now. To learn Android, there are better phones to start with. The S8500 Wave is simply over a generation ahead in specs.

If you're just going to do texting and calling, the HTC Magic is still a very nice phone, and nothing beats that big trackball pulsing when a call comes in. The pulsing color can even be changed. From an ergonomic point of view, I like the fact it has features so many more modern phones neglect, which is physical call and hangup buttons in the front which is also used to wake the phone.

But in terms of quality, the Wave S8500 is just much faster and responsive (it has the same guts as the Galaxy S). This is a 1GHz Hummingbird chip with 512mb of RAM vs. the Magic's 528Mhz ARM11 chip with 192mb of RAM. The screen on the S8500 is one of the best I've seen in a phone. I feel the screen is better than even the iPhone 4 because its a Super AMOLED, but unlike the Galaxy S, it packs the same resolution as the 4" Galaxy S in a much smaller 3.3" screen. So you get Super AMOLED's supreme color contrast with extreme resolution. The body is nicely finished in metal, unlike other Samsung phones these days. And like I said, it may not have a lot of apps, but it does a very good WebKit browser (the same type Android and iPhone uses). it does also have separate Facebook and Twitter apps. Among the nice apps it has is Layar, which is also a killer app on Android.

The Wave also has a better camera, and better camera software to boot.
 
I went out to the mall today to check out both phones and this is exactly what I heard from the reps. "HTC Magic? That phone is old." The Samsung on the otherhand looked pretty nice, especially since I'm getting it for free. So I am officially Sold!! Samsung Wave it is. Looks like a solid little backup phone.

Once again, thank you for your write up Drillbit!! Rep added!
 
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