Do you volunteer? Volunteering is a great way to give back to your community and to help others who are less fortunate. It can be fun and it can be challenging, but it’s always rewarding. So why don’t more of us do it?

Most of are stretched pretty thin as it is, and it’s easy to say that we’re too busy, or that we’ll volunteer when things quiet down, or when we’re in a better spot financially. But finding a way to volunteer doesn’t have to be as difficult as we keep telling ourselves, and you certainly don’t have to be a full-time volunteer to make a real difference.

There is always someone who needs help in your community; it’s just a matter of looking around and putting yourself out there. You can choose a non-profit group that you’re passionate about, and commit to helping them in any way you can. Or pick something you’re good at, and offer your services to a group or cause you can relate to. Find out what it is you’re passionate about, and you’ll probably find that it becomes easy to make the time.

Volunteers are a vital part of our community, now more than ever. By dedicating yourself to just a few short hours a month, you’ll be helping your community immensely, and the effects will be far-reaching. You’ll be making a difference in your community while bettering the lives of those around you, as well as yourself.

And that’s what life and living is all about.

Howard K Hill

As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. To help with this initiative you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contact Howard K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog.

photo by mmlolek

• date:Wednesday, November 17, 2010
  time:7:00 PM to 8:30
  PMvenue:Yale-New Haven Hospital Institute for Excellence Auditorium
  address:300 George Street, New Haven New Haven, CT 06501 View map

The Yale-New Haven Hospital Auxiliary will sponsor a free community health education lecture, entitled “Feet, Forks and the Fate of Families: Nutrition Advice from the Expert,” featuring David Katz, MD, MPH, on Wednesday, November 17. The lecture begins at 7 pm at Yale-New Haven Hospital’s Institute for Excellence Auditorium, 300 George Street, New Haven. Free parking is available in the College Street Parking Lot at the corner of George and College Streets, as well as the Air Rights Garage. To register, call 203-688-2000 or online at www.ynhh.org (click on “Calendar & Events.”)

As always Howard K. Hill Funeral Services is proud of our community and families that we are honored to serve. To help with this initiative you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contact Howard K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog.

source:http://www.americantowns.com

The 2010 Vendor Application is now available online.
Join us for our 6th Connecticut Garlic & Harvest Festival
on October 9-10, 2010 in Bethlehem, CT.

Thank you to all of our patrons and vendors for making last year’s event a success! Check out some photos from 2009!

Greetings fellow garlic fans! We would like invite you to join us for our Sixth Annual Connecticut Garlic & Harvest Festival. It will be held on October 9-10, 2010 at the Bethlehem Fairgrounds on Route 61 in Bethlehem, Connecticut (just north of town). Visit our garlic cooking demonstrations, stay for a live band performance, and learn how to grow garlic at our informative lectures. Many garlic dips, spreads, cheeses, and oils will be available for purchase from our diverse garlic specialty food vendors - most offering FREE samples to try before you buy! Stop by our produce stands for fresh garlic and a variety of other fall produce. When you’re hungry, venture over to our food court.  Homemade roasted garlic sausage with peppers and onions, garlic marinated steak sandwiches, garlic roast pork sandwiches, deep fried garlic, andgarlic ice cream are just some of the items you’ll find at our food court! Bring the kids for some fun with our rides and games! We hope that you will join us in 2010!

When: October 9 & 10, 2010 - 10AM to 5PM
Where: Bethlehem Fairgrounds in Bethlehem, CT (directions)
Admission: Adults $6 - Seniors $5 - Children (under 12) $1

Sorry. No dogs allowed at the fairgrounds.

"As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contact Howard K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at:http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/"

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HOSTED BY
FOXWOODS RESORT CASINO

MORE THAN 40 CELEBRATED CHEFS AND WINE & SPIRITS EXPERTS LIVE AT FOXWOODS

NOVEMBER 5-7, 2010

“As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contactHoward K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at:http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/”

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August ended with investors ducking for cover as the economy revealed unmistakable signs of slowing.

Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief executive of bond fund giant Pimco, places the risk of a double-dip recession at 25 percent, and economists such as Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius have raised concerns about deflation.

"As summer draws to a close, nervousness across the credit market only seems to grow," noted Credit Derivatives Research analyst Byron Douglass.

One troubling sign: "Over the past month, an incredible 90 percent of investment-grade credit spreads widened," Douglass said. That means bond investors are nervous that a weaker economy could weigh on companies. So investors aren’t willing to take a chance on corporate bonds unless they get paid more to take the risk.

Safety seekers, meanwhile, have poured money into gold and U.S. Treasurys despite yields close to record lows of 2.04 percent during the market panic of December 2008.

Unemployment remains high. On Friday, the government cut its estimate of second-quarter GDP growth to an annualized 1.6 percent, which was better than forecast but still not a good sign. Are things as bleak as they seem?

The Troubling Case

"Although the economy may still be growing, investors have become especially fretful about the adequacy of growth several months from now," said Moody’s economist John Lonski.

Regional manufacturing surveys done by five Federal Reserve banks, he said, "hint of meager jobs growth and price deflation risks. And employment income warns of slower growth for consumer spending."

Although The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index Tuesday inched up from a five-year low in July, Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein said consumers are as glum as they were a year ago, and he doesn’t see that changing soon because jobs haven’t materialized, and on an inflation-adjusted basis, pay has declined.

Even if the economy is able to grow slowly, it might not be pleasant for stock investors. With the economy suddenly acting much weaker than earlier this year, companies could disappoint investors, and analysts’ earnings estimates are coming down, a trend that often causes stock prices to fall.

The adjustment has just begun. For example, Deutsche Bank economist Joseph LaVorgna noted that recent durable goods orders were so weak he cut his forecast for capital spending in half, to 5 percent from 10 percent.

Meanwhile, the FDIC announced Tuesday that 10 percent of banks are at risk of failing. And bond strategist Jim Bianco, president of Bianco Research, said problems will not be resolved until banks write down the values of homes and real estate that aren’t worth what’s on the books.

A Happier Scenario

The optimists see slow growth ahead, nothing better than that, but nothing worse.

Tuesday’s Case-Shiller housing number was embraced because it showed home prices rising more than forecasted, up 4.2 percent in June. But economists were leery, noting that the June survey had the benefit of homebuyers rushing to get the $8,000 tax credit.

More recent information on a 4 million plunge in home sales in July still points to a depression in housing, said Trim Tabs founder Charles Biderman. The one optimistic number Biderman has found lately is a 3.8 percent year-over-year rise in employees withholding income taxes over the last three weeks. That could point to more people working.

Further, analysts such as RW Baird strategist Bruce Bittles are comforted by the Federal Reserve’s apparent willingness to keep taking unusual actions to bolster the economy. And Lonski notes that a surge in home refinancing should lift consumer spending during the rest of the year.

As for the economy, Wells Fargo Capital Management strategist Jim Paulsen thinks people are too negative. He agrees that economic indicators have been weak but notes that "every recovery has an ebb and flow."

"The first soft patch we hit, people went right back to expecting a depression or a double dip," he said. Yet, he noted manufacturing isn’t in such bad shape because it slowed from a relatively high level.

"You get the impression this is the worst recovery ever," but he said it’s not unlike the banking and real estate-led recession of the early 1990s. "And we did recover."

"As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contactHoward K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at:http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/"

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We are open Sunday, Monday, Thursday 11-5, and Friday and Saturday 11-6

September 12th — Celebration of CT Farms

Sunset Meadow Vineyards participating in the Celebration of CT Farms Sunday, September 12th at Laurel Ridge Farm in Litchfield.Click here for more information

September 16th — “Celebrate Connecticut” to Benefit the Harold Leever Regional Cancer Center

Thursday, September 16th from 5 – 8 pm. Click here for more information

September 25th — SMV Scarecrow Contest

We are still accepting entries for our Scarecrow Contest to benefit the Ronald McDonald House of CT.
Make a scarecrow and bring it to Sunset Meadow Vineyards by September 25th.
Judging by the staff of Ronald McDonald House takes place on 9/25/10. Winner need not be present to claim prize.
Three Great Prizes to be awarded:
    Warner Theatre Tickets to show of your choice
    Gift Certificate for fine dining at LaCupola Ristorante in Litchfield, Ct
    SMV gift pack
Please join in and help out this worthwhile organization. For entry form, click here.

September 25th-26th — Sunset Meadow Vineyards Harvest Festival

Saturday, September 25th 12-6 / Sunday, September 26th 12 – 5
Join us for a day in the Litchfield Hills at PEAK FOLIAGE
Tickets are $15 at the door / $12.50 advance / $10 Designated Driver / FREE children under 5
Your Day Ticket Includes: FREE SMV Tote Bag, FREE Glass of Wine, Hayrides through 40 acres of vineyards & panoramic views, Wine production tours, Grape Stomp, Contests and Wine Seminars
We will also be host to many food vendors, artisans and crafters. There will be live music throughout the weekend
Call 860 201-4654 for more information.

BUY TICKETS ONLINE

SMV Music Calendar

Live outdoor music performances at the vineyard weather permitting. Indoors if necessary.
Sept 12th — Brazilian Jazz returns with the Jerrod Cattey Trio from 2 – 5
Sept. 25th & 26th — Fall Harvest Fest Music Performances
        Saturday: Jerrod Cattey Trio from 12:30 – 3:30pm
        Albert DelRio from 3:30 – 6:00 pm
        Sunday: The Groove from 2 – 5

Local Photographer to Display Work at Sunset Meadow Vineyards

Amy Astrauskas of Goshen displays prints of her original film photography in the Vista Room of Sunset Meadow Vineyards. This lost art is captured by the keen eye of this inspiring artist whose works are now available for purchase. Please stop by the vineyard Thursdays thru Mondays from 11 – 5 throughout the fall to view and/or purchase these one-of-a- kind prints.

Ice Wine

Sunset Meadow Vineyards is excited to announce the release of MIDNIGHT ICE, our 1st vintage of true Ice Wine. Limited Production.

Sunset Meadow Vineyards Named a 2010 Editors’ Choice by Yankee Magazine

Sunset Meadow Vineyards has been recognized as a 2010 Editors’ Choice in Yankee Magazine’s Travel Guide to New England, on newsstands now. This designation is awarded by Yankee’s editors and contributors, who name select restaurants, lodgings, and attractions in New England to the exclusive list.

http://www.yankeemagazine.com

Order Our Award Winning Wines TODAY!

Gift Cards and Custom Baskets are Available!
Gift wrapping is available on wines at no extra cost.
Click here for an order form

"As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contactHoward K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at:http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/"

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October 9-11 / 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

In the crisp New England air, enjoy unforgettable clam chowder and other fresh seafood specialties, along with seasonal desserts and beer, wine and apple cider. Stroll through our village and enjoy live music. Bring the kids to enjoy a "clammy" art project and story time in the Children’s Museum. Or, climb aboard our steamboat Sabino for leaf-peeping from the water.

Support for Chowderfest provided by Shipyard Brewing Company.

Cost for chowder and other items is in addition to Museum admission. .

New this Year!

Tug boats Theodore Too and Pegasus will be docked along waterfront and open to museum visitors.

Canadian character tug Theodore Too, based on a popular children’s TV show; "Theodore" will be open all day for our museum visitors to board and talk with the crew. Theodore may also run two trips during the day for paying customers. Coast Guard logistics are being worked out for this right now. Rides would be an additional paid experience.

1907 Standard Oil tug Pegasus which has been restored and is now a platform for educational programs. Pegasus will be open to visitors for two large blocks of time each morning and afternoon. Up to 30 visitors at a time can be on board at one time, exploring the wheelhouse, engine room, and deck.

"As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contact Howard K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at:http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/"

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You know, father-son relationships go through some weird, whiplash-inducing mutations. Dads and their XY-chromosomed offspring can veer from unblinking admiration to angst-filled rebellion to cranky competition, all while living under the same roof. In celebration of Father’s Day, we’ve cooked up a quick guide of games that can strengthen ties, impart lessons, and maybe even diffuse some tensions between the men of the household. Prepare to button-mash your way to better male bonding.

1. LEGO games by Travellers’ Tales ("LEGO Star Wars," "LEGO Batman," "LEGO Indiana Jones")
These games serve up a double whammy of fun for pops and sons: Dad gets to revisit the adventure icons of his youth, and junior learns all about them for the first time. As a bonus, lots of the characters in these games, Batman and Robin, Obi-Wan and Anakin, Indy and the elder Dr. Jones, have great father/son (or mentor/protege) relationships that show how inspiring good paternal influence can be. Breaking up enemies into little plastic bits? That’s just a bonus.

2. "Portal"
Cut your son some slack: Lectures about deductive reasoning, spatial awareness and pattern recognition all sound horribly boring in an academic context. But, put them in a game as funny and singularly clever as "Portal" and he’ll hardly realize he’s honing those skills. Though it’s put forth as the story of a female test subject’s attempt to escape from a high-tech weapons testing facility, "Portal’s" really a series of brain-bending teleportation puzzles. It’s single-player only, but the battle of wits against scheming computer mistress GlaDOS provides a great opportunity for you and your heir apparent to put your heads together for victory. "Portal’s" also incredibly well-written, and the reward at the end of the game will doubtless create a great shared moment.

3. "BioShock"
Perhaps the most chilling and instructive example of nature vs. nurture in videogames, this 2007 first-person classic serves as a cautionary tale of what goes wrong when fathers and sons don’t have healthy relationships. Fighting to survive in a broken underwater utopia torn apart by genetic manipulation and civil war, players encounter themes like moral responsibility and free will. The sober, mature plot makes it only really appropriate for teenagers and older, but the moody environments and incremental sense of empowerment will keep even the most blase man-child engaged until the final credits.

4. "Left 4 Dead"
Your son may already be playing tons of multiplayer first-person shooters online, but no game drives home the importance of teamwork and altruism like Valve’s zombie-horror best-seller. If you don’t take care of your buddies and vice versa in "Left 4 Dead," then eventually it’s lights out for everybody. If even more camaraderie is what you’re after, team up with your dad or son in the Versus mode and wreak havoc on another team as superpowered zombies.

5. "Burnout Paradise"
Dads who take their paternal duties seriously know that it’s their responsibility to pass on the sacred art of trash-talking to their little princes. Having your son tell you to eat his dust after executing a high-speed takedown in Criterion’s crash-focused racer might just bring manly tears to your eyes. Countless free updates have delivered tons of new features and vehicles to Paradise City’s streets, so there’s enough action to keep you both playing for hours on end. Best of all, you won’t have to worry about the car insurance.

6. "The Bigs 2"
Even the best baseball games can drag on for hours, but "The Bigs 2" offers the most fun parts of America’s favorite pastime in spectacular over-the-top fashion. Heck, it even makes fielding feel fun. "The Bigs 2’s" best feature is Home Run Pinball, where you’ll be able to demolish locales like Times Square, the Las Vegas Strip and downtown Tokyo with burly, architecture-wrecking homers. Suddenly, the sound of breaking glass needn’t be accompanied by the words "wasn’t me."

 
7. "Rock Band"
Nothing tends to symbolize generation gaps better than changing musical trends. But when you think about it, musical-performance simulators like "Rock Band" or "Guitar Hero World Tour" can actually bridge those gaps by showing the old man or young whippersnapper how good those Beatles, Pixies or Beach Boys tracks really are.

8. "Boom Blox Bash Party"
The supercute animals in the "Boom Blox" franchise may not seem terribly guy-friendly, but the sequel to last year’s topple-tastic Wii game features the ability to create and share your own levels. Father and son can have the joy of destroying something the other built, without all that pesky therapy afterward. "Bash Party" offers new co-op play modes, too, in case you feel like working together for a change.

9. "Punch-Out!!"
If your kid’s eyes glaze over when you wax rhapsodically about the videogames of yore, then sit him in front of the new version of Nintendo’s hallowed arcade boxing game. Chances are that your son, like you did years ago, will identify with Little Mac in a big way and glom onto the David/Goliath vibe that underpins the game. If taking down Glass Joe, Von Kaiser and the game’s other international pugilists all by yourself gets tiresome, you can fight each other in the game’s all-new multiplayer mode. Either way, you’ll both wind up kings of the ring.

10. "Fallout 3"
The driving motivation in Bethesda’s monumentally successful role-playing game is a search for the nameless hero’s father. As you roam the post-nuclear wasteland of Washington, D.C., the game pits you against marauding gangs, irradiated ghouls and mutated animals. All along, you’ll feel like you’re single-handedly keeping the flickering flame of hope alive in the Wasteland. "Fallout 3’s" overall tone may be bleak, but many of the characters just need to know that someone’s looking out for them. That poignant note should resonate with most male family members, whether they’re a dad or a son.

For more videogame news and information, visit http://www.crispygamer.com.

As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contact Howard K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at:http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/

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What better way to wrap up summer than enjoying fresh, local seafood and some water-related activities.

And the 3rd annual Fish & Ships Labor Day Weekend Seafood Festival at Mystic Seaport Saturday through Monday is the ideal event for just that.

"It’s a great way to celebrate the official end of summer," Seaport spokeman Michael O’Farrell said over the phone last week. "We’ve put this event together as a way to come (into the historic site) and enjoy some good eats and good drink in the process."

Coastal Gourmet, the Seaport’s official food service provider, will serve seafood from local docks, and there will be dishes for landlubbers, as well, like burgers and pulled pork sandwiches. A selection of beverages, draft beer and wine will also be served.

Special activities will take place throughout the weekend, including fishing demonstrations alongside the 1921 fishing schooner L.A. Dunton.

"It’s a Tall Ship, a National Historic landmark, so we can utilize it for its original purpose, which was a fishing vessel," O’Farrell said. "One of the things folks will see and learn about is how the fishermen worked off the Dunton."

A Seaport demonstration crew will recreate the early 1900s fishing technique of going out in smaller boats off the Dunton and setting lines for their catch.

"People cannot only just climb aboard (the Dunton), but they can also learn a little bit about what life was like, and how the guys who were working on it spent their day and made their living," O’Farrell said.

To that end, the demonstrators will also break into sea shanties while tending the lines, he said.

"The sea shanties were basically work songs," O’Farrell said. "So if you and I are hauling on a line, it’s a lot easier if we’re working together with the cadence of the song."

There also will be waterfront explorations in the Mystic River, off the Museum’s Australia Beach.

"This is a cool thing for the younger kids," O’Farrell said. "Most of the kids will be wearing shorts, but if they’re wearing pants, they roll them up and wade into the river, run their net through the water and see what they catch. There’s always some form of life that comes up and our interpreters can help them understand what it is and its role in the ecosystem."

Visitors will also be able to take in games of 19th-century baseball.

"We focus on the original way that baseball was played, so there’s no gloves. Just a bat and ball," O’Farrell said."

Maritime music also will be performed throughout the weekend.

"Sea shanty singers will sing different songs of the sea and explain what their purposes were and how important music was to life aboard a vessell."

Kids will be able to create their own wooden toy boat and take part in the museum’s first "Parade of the Fleet" on the Village Green.

"Once they build it, we’re going to have the kids marching along the Green and holding up their proud piece of workmanship," O’Farrell said.

Like most of the events at the Seaport, the toy-boat building is fun and educational, he said.

"We like to teach kids without them really knowing it," O’Farrell said. "So we can give them something fun and educational at the same time, and it makes mom and dad happy."

Mystic Seaport is at 75 Greenmanville Ave., Mystic. Saturday-Monday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. $24 adults; $15 ages 6-17; 5, under free. Second-day admission free with ticket validation. Cost of food, drinks the Toy Boat Workshop is additional. www.mysticseaport.org

As always we are proud of our community and families we are honored to serve. If you have any questions about our services or are in need please feel free to contact Howard K Funeral Home to know everything you need to know about funerals and funeral services. Howard K. Hill Funeral Services has had the privilege of serving families in communities such as Suffield CT, Meriden CT, Hartford CT, New Haven CT, Bloomfield CT, Windsor CT and Hamden CT. We would like the honor to serve you too. Call us at (203) 551-9639 or visit our blog at:http://connecticutfuneralhomeblog.com/

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We pit Apple’s iPhone 4 against Samsung’s Captivate and HTC’s Evo 4G to see which smartphone delivers the best bang for $200.

The summer of the smartphone is upon us. With the arrival of a new messiah phone from Cupertino (Apple iPhone 4, $200 on AT&T), the very first 4G phone in the U.S. (HTC Evo 4G, $200 on Sprint), and the fastest Android device on the market (Samsung Captivate, $200 on AT&T), smartphone buyers have never faced a better slate of options – or a more confusing one.

While it’s tough to go wrong with any of these Herculean challengers, one must naturally reign supreme. We’ve pitted all three head-to-head in the most important feature categories to see which phone should call your pocket home.

Display

Winner: Apple iPhone 4

The screens on all three phones equate to big, bigger and biggest, with 3.5 inches on the iPhone, 4.0 on the Captivate and 4.3 on the Evo 4G. So how does the smallest one win?

It’s not all about diagonal span. Both the Evo 4G and Samsung Captivate offer fewer pixels (800 x 480) than the iPhone 4, which quadrupled pixels from the original iPhone to an unheard of 960 x 640. The Captivate also uses an OLED screen. While it looks more vibrant inside, it also washes out easily in the sun, and whites swing toward an unnatural blue. While the bigger size of the Evo 4G and Samsung Captivate might be superior for watching movies, we’re evaluating phones, not media players. The iPhone’s outdoor livability and ultra-sharp text – something you’ll be looking at a lot of – make it the most practical of the three.

Connectivity

Winner: Evo 4G

With both the Captivate and iPhone 4 sharing AT&T’s infamously hobbled 3Gnetwork, and the Evo wearing its first-4G-phone-in-America pin, this one’s a no-brainer. Besides the sheer speed, it’s also the only one that can double as a Wi-Firouter to share connectivity with other devices.

For what it’s worth, the second-place winner between the AT&T phones is just as easy to peg. Reception on the iPhone 4 sucks. Despite all the numbers Steve Jobs packed into a PowerPoint presentation to claim there was no problem with the iPhone 4 antenna (while simultaneously announcing a way to rectify the non-problem), the collective complaints of thousands of iPhone 4 users still speaks otherwise. Frequent dropped calls and notoriously poor reception make the iPhone 4 far inferior to the Captivate for making calls.

Rear Camera

Winner: Apple iPhone 4

The 8-megapixel camera on the Evo 4G has more resolution than both the 5-megapixel iPhone 4 and 5-megapixel Captivate, and more manual search controls, too. But that’s only one part of the story. The iPhone 4 takes better pictures than either competitor.

Credit goes to Apple’s backside-illuminated CMOS sensor, which moves the metal traces typically found on top of the chip to the back, blocking less light and improving overall image quality. Subjectively, photos from the iPhone 4 look brighter with richer color. Both Computerworld and Macworld ran the iPhone 4 head to head with the Evo 4G and found it took better shots, and our own real-life testing showed that the iPhone 4 trounced the Captivate on image quality.

Videoconferencing

Winner: iPhone 4

Front-facing cameras still remain a novelty in the smartphone world, but both the iPhone 4 and HTC Evo 4G offer them, while the Captivate owners are left out in the cold. At a technical level, the Evo 4G yet again offers more resolution: 1.3 megapixels to just 0.3 megapixels (VGA resolution) on the iPhone 4. But as we’ve learned from the previous category, that number isn’t everything.

Bandwidth severely limits the resolution you’re actually able to send over your phone when videoconferencing, so the Evo 4G can’t actually make use of all the resolution it has on tap unless it’s shooting video to record. With image quality nearly level, we give credit to the iPhone 4 for Facetime, which lets users initiate calls from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 using regular phone numbers – no usernames or logging in needed.

Battery Life

Winner: Draw between Apple iPhone 4 and Samsung Captivate

HTC’s Evo 4G immediately gets booted from the running here. The same 4G speeds that give it killer connectivity also kill the battery in a hurry, leaving it first to run out of gas when these three phones hit the road.

Playing it by the numbers doesn’t lead to any clear-cut conclusion between the remaining contenders. Samsung rates the Captivate for five hours and 50 minutes of talk time and 340 hours of standby, while Apple rates the iPhone for seven hours of chatting and 300 hours of standby, making the Captivate the standby champ and iPhone 4 the king of talk time. While we’re inclined to favor talk time over standby, battery life seemed to play out roughly equally on these two in our real-life tests, so we’re calling it a draw.

Portability

Winner: Samsung Captivate

Clearly, the paperweight Evo 4G is a nonstarter here, but finding the winner among the two phones left standing isn’t easy.

At 2.5 inches wide and 0.39 inches thick, the Captivate fills the hand a bit more than the 2.31-inch-wide iPhone (less than the width of #2 pencil), and measures 0.02 inches thicker, too (roughly the same height as five sheets of printer paper stacked up). Fortunately, it’s also 0.22 inches shorter and weighs only 4.5 ounces to the iPhone’s 4.8 ounces. Which is really more important? We would prefer the shorter, lighter phone, especially when the extra flab it puts on in other dimensions is almost too small to measure.

Speed

Winner: Draw between Apple iPhone 4 and Samsung Captivate

All three phones have processors running 1GHz, but which one actually gets the job done fastest? If only there was an easy answer.

Here’s the technical nitty gritty: The so-called A4 system-on-a-chip in the iPhone 4 actually uses an Apple-tailored version of the same ARM Cortex A8 found in the Samsung Captivate. In other words, they share the same silicon bloodline. The Evo 4G’s 1GHz Snapdragon chip, while quick, doesn’t quite run in the same pack as the A8-powered phones.

Which one delivers the best real-life performance? It depends what you’re doing. In our Web browser tests, the iPhone 4 toasted the Captivate over the same AT&T 3G connection, but in others, including Wi-Fi tests by PocketNow andTechnoBuffalo, the Captivate won. In other tests between common apps, both phones are hit or miss. For instance, the iPhone seems to open Google Maps faster, while the Captivate seems to open its camera app faster. In practical terms, they’re about as close as two smartphones come. Things to keep in mind: The iPhone 4 still will not display Flash, so websites will naturally load more quickly. And if you happen to be in a 4G zone, the HTC EVO 4G can load web pages in no time either.

Storage

Winner: Samsung Captivate

For $200, both the iPhone 4 and Captivate deliver 16GB of internal storage, while the Evo 4G comes with only 8GB, putting it out of the running right from the start.

The Captivate manages to stretch far beyond the iPhone 4 with the inclusion of a microSD slot. Besides lending flexibility (you can upgrade when you need the space, rather than guessing whether you will when you buy the phone), it’s also cheaper. While it will cost another $100 to get to 32GB of total storage on the iPhone 4, you can nab a 16GB microSD card and put the Captivate on par for under $40. Even better, it can expand up to a total of 48GB by adding a 32GB microSD card, a level of storage the iPhone 4 can’t touch.

Overall Winner: Apple iPhone 4

The Evo 4G made an impressive showing as the very first 4G phone back in June, but as you can see, it doesn’t hold up nearly as well under the microscope in other categories – at least when stacked against the best other smartphones in the world. The real fight here is between the iPhone 4 and Samsung Captivate.

Had Apple’s overly clever antenna design not blown up in its face and rattled the foundation of the company’s glitch-free reputation, the iPhone 4 would be a standout winner between the two. Instead, the Captivate’s larger storage capacity, gorgeous OLED screen, rock-solid connectivity and relative parity on many other fronts bring it as close to toppling the Cupertino giant as any Android device has likely ever come. But not quite enough to call it an iPhone killer.

In breaking the apparent tie between the two devices (three iPhone wins, three Captivate wins, and two draws), we had to consider a number of other factors that should influence any smartphone buyer. The iPhone 4 has a significantly larger app library (225,000 to 70,000), a more solid feel, an endless array of third-party accessories, and historically, regular OS updates from Apple. (The two-year-old iPhone 3G can still run iOS 4, while Samsung’s first Android device, the Galaxy i7500, received such poor support that it inspired over 7,000 signatures on apetition, and remains stuck at Android 1.6.) Taking all these factors into account, the iPhone 4 remains a best buy, but with a sticky asterisk next to it: Buyers who live in areas with poor coverage – or who use their phones for business and can’t simply cuss at dropped calls and call back – should gravitate towards the Captivate’s better reception

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