I think I have enough play time to make a conclusion.
I've had my DINC since launch day. T
Here are the DINC advantages:
1) Optical trackpad
2) HTC Sense (if you like it)
3) Reliable GPS
4) Doesn't have the bad track record that Samsung has in terms of future & quicker upgrades
Besides the GPS issue on the Galaxy S phones (I've read enough posts/threads to know it is an issue), the Galaxy excels at everything else.
The Galaxy S does so many things so well, I am going to crown it the best multimedia PMP Android phone.
There are little things that make it stand out for me:
I like the 16gb internal storage. Along w/ 32GB. I have 48GB of storage.
God forbid, there are these white earbuds that I have that allow me to pause, skip tracks, answer phone calls and mute sound. I was surprise it worked on the S.
They work as well as the black in-ear noise cancelling buds that came with the Galaxy S. Doubletwist on the DINC with those white earbuds sometimes pause music but never answers a phone for me.
They also threw in a nice feature called 5.1 surround sound for the headphones. BTW, the media player has an option to broadcast to a bluetooth ADP2 car stereo with its new Bluetooth 3.0 chipset.
Someone mentioned that they don't care if the DINC CAN't play 720p files on the phone. That is great for him but I don't want to spend hours re-encoding a video I'll only watch once.
I also like the fact I can download 720p off youtube and play them right away even though my screen is 480p. I'll probably only watch it a few times then delete them. And while I'm on vacation taking videos with my dSLR, I can play those home videos I just shot right then and there.
I don't have to go to the hotel and handbrake those videos to play on the DINC.
Furthermore, I like the fact it streams 720p files from many websites that have mobile optimized HD playback for a hot-selling tablet. Some of these sites have shifted away from Flash and play video in HTML5 and the Galaxy plays them so well.
My company places all their instructional videos on a webserver and this is a good phone to recommend to fellow employees who want to watch those company broadcasts.
I don't even have to copy movies over to a microsdhc card. Everything plays in a cloud.
According to another poster, the DINC will have 720p video recording. Real 720p like the EVO 4G and like what I have now on my OTA leaked DINC.The 720p video that shoots at 10fps to 24 fps with real bad audio.
The Galaxy S shoots great video out of the box and there no "ifs, buts" excuses or false promises of rooted patches to make it work. It is also the only Android phone that shoots h.264. You should see the online petition EVO owners have; wishing they can record in h.264.
Some other notes on the Galaxy S:
1) 24 bit vis 16/18 bit display. It is evident when I put up test photos side-by-side.The screen just pops and is very accurate like the Droid X. No banding.
2) Amazing media players. I had more time to play with it
a) Video plays XVID/DIVX and some WMVs,AVIs. Most of my old divx movies played. There were a few exceptions but most played.
b) You can adjust color tempterature/tones during video playback.
c) You can play videos in a playlist. You can download a bunch of youtube music video and be video dj.
Rockplayer on the DINC is not even a contender.
3) Music player is best on Android. Period. Better than MixZing, better than Doubletwist,btunes.
All of the apps seem to mangle album art and corrupt playlist. This one doesn't have any of those problems. It is a fine piece of software that is to me, bug-free.
a)It has 5.1 surround sound.
b)It has an equalizer.
c)It has surround sound effects -stadium,hall,concert,etc.
d)has a visualizer.
e)Audio output is much clearer and accurate
Finally, Battery life:
The Galaxy's battery life is above average. I believe in the mfg's stated talk, usage time.
I played 2 movies 4 hours and was still at 50%. This is in line with the published specs 7.25 hour of continuous video.
Compared to the DINC. 45 minutes. I guess the video player on the DINC is not fully optimized or decompRessing everything in the CPU.
Now for more real world usage:
After a full charge on both. 8 AM.
30 mintues of GPS, 30 minutes of web surfing.
Background email, both have notifications and wifi on. I don't believe in turning things off. Phones shouldn't work that way.
I played streaming audio from the same source via wifi for 4 hours.
The DINC died in less than 6 hours of total use. DINC died on me at 2pm doing the same thing the Galaxy S was doing.
The Galaxy S is stil at 3/4 full and playing video in the background and photos. By 7pm, The Galaxy S still had a 60-70% charge
I believe I can get 2 full days out of the Galaxy for my use. I may need a top-it-off when I drive to work but that is about it.
I believe I can do this without task killers, shutting off wifi or background notifications.
This is something I've been so accustomed to and now expect from all new phones. The Incredible has horrible battery life.
Suggestions to kill tasks, disable this and that is futile and in my opinion. It shows the major deficiency of the device or badly written software.
I shouldn't have to disable facebook or twitter notifications.
Have in mind, my DINC has the OTA update that IMPROVED battery life. My phone is also rooted. There are no apps loaded or installed besides Astro, FCC speed test and some benchmark apps.
My daily usage requires continual email notifications and occasional SSH into some Unix servers. If this is the culprit for my battery life, then I don't know what to say.
So in this regards, the Galaxys S gets my attention.
Conclusion:
I like the optical trackpad on the DINC. GPS works and I assume there is a fix for the Galaxy.
The Galaxy S is the multimedia Android phone bar none. It does have issues; namely ATT an TouchWhiz.
Performance wise, I see no reason for anyone to upgrade. But if you are in the market for a new phone, I would seriously look at the Galaxy models.
I will try to upgrade to the Verizon version, the FASCINATE.
I will be posting some picture comparisons shots. The Camera on the Galaxy is good. The video recording is leaps and miles above the Incredible.