Verizon: Gonna stop the madness and order today

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texuspete00

Supreme [H]ardness
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Alright, so I been facing this phone choice thing like it's getting married.
HTC Incredible, Droid X, Samsung fascinate.

It will be my first smart phone. I am leaning incredible, with its small size, and HTC reputation, even if it seems so June (google results not my opinion).

I should say I love a keyboard, but the Droid 2 dropped out of the running. It's KB isn't so hot. Amazing my feature phone, LG Voyager, still blows away physical smart phone keyboards including the epic, but I imagine the keyboard half is just filled with too much cpu ram etc to do it anymore. Keep it mind I guess, I never been on a touch screen only phone.

The Droid X seemed a little big to me. Maybe I need to ask them to let me put it in my pocket, without being chained to the table. Is it still hard to root? Because I hear it's easy on the incredible, and Sense is much nicer even if I chose not too. This is my biggest conundrum, since it seems to be the Verizon "it" phone.

I love the size of the incredible. So I hear the samsung fascinate is a nice middle ground with it's 4" screen, right in the middle of the 3.7 incredible and 4.3 X. The reviews don't quite stack up, and I hear it's loaded with verizon bloatware. Is it easy to root and fix this? I kept gravitating to it, mostly because it had swype preinstalled, and I wanted to check out how it worked considering I been a keyboard lover.

The incredible, I worry it's smaller screen may hinder swype and hunt and peck because of it's small size, but I can't really evaluate swype at the store. Skin wise It did seem easy to use, but apparently it rapes battery, maybe because of it's smaller size.

I dunno, I'm unsure of the behmoth, and am reluctant to go with a phone (SF), that some say is great and others moan about. Any thoughts? Is it time for me to just suck it up and go with my gut?
 
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I was in the same boat as you, first smart phone and all. I chose the droid 2 global and have been quite pleased. Size was a factor as well as battery life, and the d2g has the fastest stock processor out. Features are google instead of bing/verizon crap, swype is nice, size reasonable, navigation works really well, charges fast, just works. Pretty sure d2 will beat the inc in run time. YMMV but I've been very happy with my choice.
 
Auraka said:
I was in the same boat as you, first smart phone and all. I chose the droid 2 global and have been quite pleased. Size was a factor as well as battery life, and the d2g has the fastest stock processor out. Features are google instead of bing/verizon crap, swype is nice, size reasonable, navigation works really well, charges fast, just works. Pretty sure d2 will beat the inc in run time. YMMV but I've been very happy with my choice.
Click to expand...

This, I got the Droid X and it didnt work out for me, then the Droid 2 Global. Perfect phone except the wide spread battery issues. I even have the damn extended battery and guess what it doesnt even help, although I think it is defective because I get less time with it then my damn stock battery. But I highly recommended the D2G feels solid and it works.
 
I didn't care for the Fasincates overly hyped and saturated colors. Yeah, they do look real good until you realize that the color balance is totally inaccurate on photo's and you can easily see blue tinge on white backgrounds. I had the screens side by side with a Droid X and it was a night and day difference for me, not to mention the larger screen on the X. My Droid X is my first smartphone and I farking love the damn thing after I did a bunch of research and trial testing at the VZW store. Droidforums.net are an excellent source of info for android based phones, Droids especially. After years of poo pooing the idea of using/paying for a smartphone, I dunno what I do without one now, and thats only after owning one a month!


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For what it's worth, I came from a LG Voyager too, so I know how sweet that keyboard was (freaking huge). But I got a Droid last year shortly after it came out and it was a little awkward for a day or so, but I picked up on it extremely fast and have no real qualms with it. I have really small hands too though. Even though I use Swype for most of my SMS/IMing, I still need my keyboard for gaming (via Game Gripper) and long messages like posting on here and e-mail.

But I really wish LG would come out with the enV Pro because that thing looks sweet ergonomically. But as you can see, they apparently canceled it because it was too cheap/gimped, which is garbage. It would have been a low/mid range smart phone too.. prolly a downgrade from my Droid. *Shakes fist at LG*
 
I also came from a LG voyager and went to the Incredible. You get used to the touch screen kb real quick and you'll realize that you can actually type FASTER on the software kb than a hardware kb. The INC is the best size out of all the phones you mentioned and it's made by HTC, not a shitty company like moto who puts the WORST UI on their phones. Seriously, the UI on moto phones is horrible compared to sense.

I would go to the INC just for sense alone.
 
Hopefully I can offer an enlightened opinion.
1st, the most hacker friendly phone is hands-down the Incredible. UnrEVOked is your root solution and comes well supported. There are a wide selection of ROM's available that are easy to install.
I owned the Incredible since launch day and just traded it for a Droid X last week. So why did I trade? I wanted the big screen and a battery that didn't struggle to make it through the day. The Droid X is a joy to use and looks better than the EVO screen. The Ninja Blur or whatever they call it is craptastic and not nearly as nice as Sense or vanilla Android, but thanks to Android you can make it what you like. I found myself using Launcher Pro on my Incredible anyway, so didn't see Sense as a must have feature.
I rooted my Droid X and removed CityID and some other bloatware then installed wireless tether. Everything else works fine enough and thanks to Lanucher Pro I enjoy using it. Going off initial impressions, the Droid X is not the choice for you if you don't want a wide variety of custom ROM's or if you want a sleek and small phone.
The Incredible not only offers a variety of ROM's from Vanilla to Sense but also has many other ROM's available as well like; MIUI, Acer LiquidE, Dell Streak, and so on.

In my opinion, you can't go wrong with either selection between the three phones you listed. They all have their drawbacks, but they all have different strengths. Look at the strengths and see if any of the drawbacks are deal breakers for you. If not, then make your choice and stick with it. You will be happy with it. I do miss my Incredible but not the small screen and poor battery life. I came home from an 8 hour shift at work yesterday with 70% battery life still! The best I could do on my Incredible was 60% and that was with a custom ROM, extended battery, and battery optimized kernel. The norm was 40% with everything stock.
BTW, my wife got a Droid 2 for the keyboard and I must say that it's a big improvement over the original Droid and the Droid Pro looks like a nice keyboard phone as well. Just say...
The options keep expanding so don't get to much in a bind over it, they all work extremely well and you can always be certain that there is a better phone just over the horizon.

EDIT: Noticed earlier I said TRADED...no money was exchanged and we are both happy with the trade. The owner of the Droid X wasn't happy with the size but loves the Incredible's form factor, Sense, and doesn't mind swapping batteries to get through the day.
 
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i have a droid x and i love it.. the blur on it is very crappy.. slows the thing down.. i've rooted my phone and loaded a blurless rom on it.. and runs much smoother and faster. Loading a custom rom on the droid x can be a pain.. and if you really call it a custom rom... i convinced a guy at work to get the samsung fascinate and he loves it.
 
+1 to HaX
If I had found a Fascinate owner I would have traded for it over the X. I would just have to root, de-bing, and enjoy lol.
In the end I'm very happy with my X, it will hold me over till a nice LTE device is released.
 
The Incredible's battery life is absolutely atrocious until you install custom rom that is better optimized. With everything stock, it could barely last a day of light use.
 
HaX said:
i have a droid x and i love it.. the blur on it is very crappy.. slows the thing down.. i've rooted my phone and loaded a blurless rom on it.. and runs much smoother and faster. Loading a custom rom on the droid x can be a pain.. and if you really call it a custom rom... i convinced a guy at work to get the samsung fascinate and he loves it.
Click to expand...

I wanna try rooting but im to scared to void my warrantee or brick a $600 phone so I think im just gonna leave it alone. The stock GUI works just fine IMO, but im not as anal as other people are
 
Freezebyte said:
I wanna try rooting but im to scared to void my warrantee or brick a $600 phone so I think im just gonna leave it alone. The stock GUI works just fine IMO, but im not as anal as other people are
Click to expand...

Except you don't have to root to get rid of some blur aspects. Launcher Pro is awesome and serves as a great Home replacement. It's free and in the Android Market.
 
it's not that hard to root the droidx... just download z4root app from xda ... the one on marketplace didnt work for me. It's a one-click method to root your phone and should only take either a couple secs to a min .. if it seems like it froze on ya.. just try turn
ing off ur phone and turning it back on.. that or pull the battery.. i dont think this root method can brick your phone.. i think loading custom roms or doing a full sbf flash can brick your phone.. i think most people get stuck on the motorola M screen.. in that case .. i think the stock android recovery mode will fix that.. could be wrong

some helpful things:

Droid X Recovery Mode = Hold Home + Power until exclamation point , then press search button.. then you can do a factory reset.

Droid X Bootloader = Hold down Camera Button + Volume Down + Power.. and should get you into bootloader. Bootloader should be what your going for if you do the SBF.

These are when your phones is turned off btw
 
I prefer droid X over incredible for features/size but sense ui is infinitely better then Motorola's crap.
 
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