Task Switching - The Android Way

Android is, at least by today’s definition, a multitasking smartphone OS. Unless you force an app closed (or run out of memory) everything you open on the phone remains resident in memory until you restart the phone.

Switching between apps on Android is done very well. Just hold down the home button and you’ll see a window of the 6 most recently used apps. Tap the app you want to switch to and boom, you’re there. This process ends up being faster than on an iPhone because there’s no double tapping of any physical buttons before selecting your app; just press once and hold, then press one more time. It’s nice and quick.

Unfortunately there’s no way to close an app from the task switcher although there are many options in the Android market if you want something a bit more robust. Taskpanel for example is a task manager app that you can configure to kill all non-whitelisted background apps each time your phone is put to sleep. Ah the joys of Android.

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  • DaveGirard - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    you're missing the iPhone 4 in the battery life and there is only one phone in the H.264 page.

    And I think you need to set your white point properly for the iPhone 4 pics. Saying that's the best picture you can produce is not accurate.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    The iPhone 4 review is next, and the white balance was actually a problem for the iPhone 4 - regardless of where I tapped to sample the white balance pretty much came out that way.

    More on this tomorrow...

    Take care,
    Anand
  • SandmanWN - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    "The size of the screen is really what sets the EVO 4G apart from the competition, and honestly I couldn’t think of a better phone for browsing the web. Loading full websites is a pleasure and the screen is large enough where you can actually read a lot of content, even while zoomed in. I’d be willing to go as far as to say that it is almost too small for the ideal web browsing experience."

    This whole paragraph is confusing and contradicting. You say you couldn't think of a better phone for web browsing. Then say you you can read a lot even while zoomed in, which I think you meant to say out there. Then you contradict the first sentence and say it is almost too small for web browsing.

    I think that paragraph needs a mulligan.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    I've cleared it up a bit :)
  • tipoo - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    It would be great if you could include Evo 4G benchies in the iPhone 4 review.
  • rf40928 - Friday, July 2, 2010 - link

    Yeah, I guess u saw the Evo benchmarks.

    I have an Evo and Im considering a Iphone 4 ( my cousin got one )..

    I posted above the following: ... funny how the Iphone 4 review that Anand did proves Iphone 4 on a "slower" 3g network is consistantly faster then the Evo on a 4G network when it comes to the web .. I guess 4G's Peak performance is theoretically better.. but are Sprints 4G average 4g Speed numbers better then ATT's avg 3g speeds?? ..it would seem not.."
  • yibrushn - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    Sorry just gotta make 2 corrections. The front camera is 1.3 mp and the screen is TFT not AMOLED.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    Fixed and fixed :)

    Hmm that was actually a bit confusing, Sprint lists it as an OLED screen and it is very similar to the OLEDs we've used in terms of color calibration but all the data I can find points to a TFT display.
  • DigitalFreak - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    I thought the screen thing might have been a typo, until I saw there was an entire paragraph describing the "AMOLED" screen. :-/
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Monday, June 28, 2010 - link

    That was absolutely my bad. HTC appears to have calibrated the screen to mimic the other OLEDs, it's overly red. Combine that with the OLED listing here http://shopamerica.htc.com/cell-phones/productdeta... and it resulted in my mistake. I was wondering why viewing angle was so bad for OLED, I should've been more careful in my research there instead of just making an assumption. I will be more careful in the future.

    Thanks again for catching the error early on.

    Take care,
    Anand

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