whats the best option for me in verizon.

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ellover009

[H]ard|Gawd
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Hey guys, thinking of upgrading from my old touch pro 2. I just got a emal telling me I can upgrade my phone, they are many nice choices, but I don't know whats the way to go.
Right now is the thunderbolt, charge, iphone 4, and the x2. They all each have an feature that makes each model special which makes each one special.

Screen wise the charge has a nice amoled plus screen, iphone 4 has a good dpi.

Processor x2 is the only dual core processor of them all.

Ram is about 756 for the thunderbolt, 512 for the others, dunny why they would go 512mb on a dual core phone.

Capacity I think 32gb iphone has the most, the other can be comparable by adding more memory, dx2 comes with the least, about 6gb internal and 8gb mem stick.

Connection the thunderbolt I heard can do data and phone call over 3g, also lte aka 4g the charge missed out on the chipset or something similar so it can only do either one on 3g, x2 is only 3g.

Gps I think on the iphone you have to buy a gps program, on droid you can use google maps, I like the navigation from bing on my win 6.5 phone with turn by turn directions.

Camera, I would guess the iphone 4 has a pretty good low light sensitivity so you get more detail in low light situations, others have 8mp cameras but I have not been impressed too much.

Web browsing I hear the x2 is a beast at handling flash, charge has a bug that makes flash content slow down the browser maybe even locking it up, Iphone has a nice browser but no flash support.

So what do you guys think? each phone has something I like but each has their own flaws. there is also the option of waiting for the iphone 4gs with some minor upgrades, and the droid bionic thats supposed to be a 4g version of the x2 with higher clock speeds on the dual core processors and maybe extra ram. Feels like every day something newer is gonna come out, I am getting a bit tired of the lousy web browsing on the touch pro 2. .
 
Keep in mind that the HTC Thunderbolt and Droid Charge come with 32gb microsd cards pre-installed in them, so they have the same storage as the 32gb iPhone 4.

On the 26th, there are other phones coming as well, such as the LTE LG Revolution and Xperia play and the Droid X2 will be widely available, currently it is only in limited release.
 
nerdydesi said:
Keep in mind that the HTC Thunderbolt and Droid Charge come with 32gb microsd cards pre-installed in them, so they have the same storage as the 32gb iPhone 4.

On the 26th, there are other phones coming as well, such as the LTE LG Revolution and Xperia play and the Droid X2 will be widely available, currently it is only in limited release.
Click to expand...

Indeed, you're gonna have a harder choice on the 26th with all these new phones. But to make things worse (or better, hah) you forgot to mention is the HTC Trophy. It'll be the first WP7 device on Verizon, so you might want to check it out too.

Myself, I'm pretty set on getting the Xperia Play. It's not anything special in terms of hardware outside its game pad, but it'll be significantly better than my Droid still. Biggest selling point for me on it though is Sony seems really dedicated to keeping it updated and they're pretty much encouraging you to unlock its bootloader by giving you instructions on their own website. It's shipping with 2.3.2 and it already has an update coming shortly to update it to 2.3.4, this is awesome considering every other phone on Verizon is still stuck on Froyo (2.2.x) officially. On top of that, there's no custom "skins" so it's straight stock/AOSP Android just like the Nexus phones, so I'm sure that's what's allowing Sony to keep it updated so quickly. The only thing I don't like about this phone right now is that it only has like 400 MBs of internal storage (and some of that is used up with carrier apps) for apps, but I'm able to keep a nice amount of apps on my Droid with almost half as much thanks to SD app installs. Also, it only comes with a 8 GB card, but I plan on swapping that out with the 16 GB that's in my Droid too.

Anyways, sorry to go on about that phone, I'm just excited about it, but I'm sure you're looking for something else in a phone. If the Samsung Galaxy S 2 variant (to be named "Function") on Verizon was due out in the next month or so, I would definitely hold out for that. But I'll bet it'll be July or August at least and I can't wait that long now.. maybe if I don't care much for the Xperia by that time, I can sell it toward the Function unsubsidized.
 
What are you planning on doing most?

If internet, go with a LTE phone. If you go with an 3g phone, you're going to be stuck with that phone for the next 2 years.

From there it really comes down to the Charge, Thunderbolt, or Revolution.

You know how technology is, get it now so you can play and have fun with it. There's always something new coming out. If you keep on putting it off, you're never going to get a new phone.

I'm getting the Charge myself. I can live with the flaws on the flash, just gotta wait for the fixes to come out. That screen is beautiful, at 4.3in no less.
 
Well the lte is not even a factor because I live in a small town and I don't even know If were a low priority. Some of the new lte phones have some bugs. The droid charge has an bug where if it's in a 3g area i'll do 3g then it drops to 1x then it sticks there and sometimes the only way to get back to 3g is to reboot the phone, some reviews mention having to do it multiple times.

About windows mobile I am tempted to skip it this round, their app store was way too overpriced compared to what I could get on my iPod touch, they seem to also bebehind when it comes to phone hardware and try to pass it off as high advanced and I am not sold on the main screen presentation.

Don't get me wrong I like the charge but some of the bugs associated do not impress me. Having to reboot to get back to 3g, the built quality is not the best and it's $100 more than the competition besides the 32gb iPhone. The only thing holding the package together is the screen.
 
I picked up the Charge today after debating between it and the Thunderbolt. Either would be a good choice really but that Charge screen won me over. Compare them while they are fully working in a Verizon store first if you cant decide.

I live in Miami and get LTE, so I also wanted to get unlimited on contract while it is still offered.
 
Thunderbolt you will need to be aware of short battery life, check out the extended battery for it. The Charge is even worse though.

Do you have a preference for interface? I GREATLY prefer htc's interface to Samsung's but others don't feel that way...
 
I don't think interface is too much of an issue since I think there are methods of stripping them. If I had to choose htc sence leads the pack, follow by motorola. My friend is sugesting I wait a little more and maybe get the iphone 4s or wait to see whats coming. Is it true the droid x2 had a pentile pixel layout similar to what samsung was doing with earlier phones?


Question for Ritorix, I want you to try to go to phone arena to see if it wigs out too like the store model, and then try an aftermatket web browser like dolfin, chrome, firefox or something other than installed one to see if it's more of a phone thing or a hardware thing.
 
ellover009 said:
Question for Ritorix, I want you to try to go to phone arena to see if it wigs out too like the store model, and then try an aftermatket web browser like dolfin, chrome, firefox or something other than installed one to see if it's more of a phone thing or a hardware thing.
Click to expand...

I haven't rooted my Charge yet, but I dumped the default browser in about 5 minutes and downloaded the major browsers to see which worked best on this phone. Also using LauncherPro to hide the bloat and Screen Filter to save some battery.

I kept Skyfire and OperaMini. Browser choked on that site, Skyfire choked because it showed the full-screen popup and that might have been what froze up the Browser. Opera was fine and Skyfire was fine after disabling javascript.

The battery will last longer on the Charge than the Tbolt. Tbolt is pretty well known for its battery issues. Charge has an AMOLED screen, so its power use is proportional to the color temperature displayed in addition to the normal affect brightness has on battery. A nice dark color-scheme and avoiding whites should save some power too.
 
Ritorix said:
The battery will last longer on the Charge than the Tbolt. Tbolt is pretty well known for its battery issues. Charge has an AMOLED screen, so its power use is proportional to the color temperature displayed in addition to the normal affect brightness has on battery. A nice dark color-scheme and avoiding whites should save some power too.
Click to expand...

What's your battery life like on a day-to-day basis? I am well aware it depends on what you are doing on a particular day but just in general are you getting a full day's charge on the phone or plugging in before you leave work or what?
 
neural0 said:
What's your battery life like on a day-to-day basis? I am well aware it depends on what you are doing on a particular day but just in general are you getting a full day's charge on the phone or plugging in before you leave work or what?
Click to expand...

I've only had it since Sunday, still conditioning the battery. Hard to say what it will be like after that + tweaking the phone.

This was last afternoon - http://imgur.com/bU0kw
 
LTE is supposed to blanket all 3g areas by 2013. If you want to do web browsing and video streaming and you're not out in the boonies then the only way to go is LTE.

I'd go with the droid x2 or iphone4 if you want a 3g phone, droid X if you want to tweak, iphone if you just want something reliable and comparable to your ipod.
 
Man I'd be nice if the samsung galaxy s2 came to vz soon. The screen of the charge is really nice but I would love if we were getting more competitive samsung devices in the states, dual core, lte and more ram.

Does the charge have 512 mb ram or 312? Or is it just about 312 avaliable and the restfor the o/s?
Were you able to tweak it so that it doesent run so slow with flash websites?
Can you somewhat override the samsung ui with launcher pro to get that vanilla droid interface?
Does it even have enough ram to get by? Any issues with running outta ram?
 
ellover009 said:
Man I'd be nice if the samsung galaxy s2 came to vz soon. The screen of the charge is really nice but I would love if we were getting more competitive samsung devices in the states, dual core, lte and more ram.

Does the charge have 512 mb ram or 312? Or is it just about 312 avaliable and the restfor the o/s?
Were you able to tweak it so that it doesent run so slow with flash websites?
Can you somewhat override the samsung ui with launcher pro to get that vanilla droid interface?
Does it even have enough ram to get by? Any issues with running outta ram?
Click to expand...

It has 512 ram. I'll say it again, what is this obsession with dual core phones?
 
DirtyB said:
It has 512 ram. I'll say it again, what is this obsession with dual core phones?
Click to expand...

[H]Peen!

I'm thinking if one is to lock into a phone for 2 years, one should get the most powerful device out at the time of renewal.
 
The thing about dual core processors is the associated benefit of extra computation power and imagine a smoother phone because it splits the load, specially when the next big update to google os comes. It's also nice to try to get one of the better phones since you are going to be stuck with it for two years since vz killed the 1yr contract thing.
 
This is [H], of course we care about phone speed ;)

Now that I've rooted it, heres some Charge comparison Quadrant scores.
stock (RFS): 963
rooted w/voodoo (EXT4): 1543
 
Honestly, those quadrant scores don't look too great on the Charge. I mean, I get 2500 with my Inspire (same Snapdragon as the Thunderbolt) OC'd to 1.5Ghz.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the difference between synthetic benchmark and real world results, but that just seems low.
 
kirbyrj said:
Honestly, those quadrant scores don't look too great on the Charge. I mean, I get 2500 with my Inspire (same Snapdragon as the Thunderbolt) OC'd to 1.5Ghz.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the difference between synthetic benchmark and real world results, but that just seems low.
Click to expand...

Well yeah the Charge is only running a single core @ 1Ghz. It's not winning any speed awards, unless you live near 4G.
 
well I went to the store yesterday and got to play with a few of the phones.

Droid charge was very nice, asked the store guy about the browser issue, he told me to try installing opera mini. Tried it and it was the only browser able to run full website of ign without going bonkers, tried the dolphin hd browser and it was messed up pinch to zoom. Screen is awesome, but it feels like it could have benefited from more pixels or going with a slightly smaller 3' screen to have a better pixel density. Camera was a bit lazy to focus.

They had the windows mobile 7, it was snappy but I was not in love how little customization it had. Lost interest really fast.

Tried the droid x2, the screen looked really nice with a fewer extra pixels but it just felt like the original droid x, the only thing it did nicer was that with it's extra muscle it actually worked the best for ign. I think they made a mistake making it look exactly the same as the original because it was too much deja bu. The screen was the least responsive of the bunch.

Played with the revolution lg phone, I really liked it, solid built, most stock looking android phone, the screen looked pretty good, came with good wallpapers, a lot better than the few that come with the charge. I am not a fan of the bing integration.

I tried the iphone 4, the pixel density is just amazing, and the camera is pretty good. Wish they had a good free gps program, have been happy with ms bing on windows mobile 6.5 for a gps with turn by turn voice command. It didn't like the ign website.


Just a quick question for Ritorix.
After rooting your phone does the extra power help with surfing the web so that it doesn't stutter on full sites like ign and phone arena? Have you noticed any other improvements after rooting? Is rooting the phone hard?

I think I am leaning towards the charge, iphone 4 and last spot for dx2

Wish I knew when the next dual core amoled samsung phone was coming out, droid bionic and iphone 4s. Still afraid of getting stuck when they move to tiered pricing. tempted to get something and maybe flipping it to put towards a newer phone in the future.
 
ellover009 said:
Played with the revolution lg phone, I really liked it, solid built, most stock looking android phone, the screen looked pretty good, came with good wallpapers, a lot better than the few that come with the charge. I am not a fan of the bing integration.
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You hated on the droidx and charge screen but said the revolution's screen looks pretty good? That screen looked awful when I saw it, looks like a phone from 2007.
 
DirtyB said:
You hated on the droidx and charge screen but said the revolution's screen looks pretty good? That screen looked awful when I saw it, looks like a phone from 2007.
Click to expand...

This whole thing is my personal opinion on those phones, I found the revolutions screen inviting and non offensive, I guess it helps that they aren't trying to be as flashy as the other ones.

On the dx2 I just don't like pentile screens, they make letters harder to read and give icons sharp edges, the dx2 can also have a ghosting effect with the icons, it also didn't feel any faster than the dx 1 with the exeption of the web browsing..

I do like the screen on the charge the best, but I think with a little more resolution it would be a slam dunk against the retina display. The pixel density is that great so it makes it harder to choose, pixel density or amazing colors on the amoled plus.

I also tried the sony xperia phone, buttons were nice, games played nice, digital joysticks were a hit or miss. I think unless they start a strong line up in games they are set to fail. I'd be nice to be able to rig up the controls to run emulators with it, maybe if playstation offered some classics like final fanstasy.
 
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ellover009 said:
I tried the iphone 4, the pixel density is just amazing, and the camera is pretty good. Wish they had a good free gps program, have been happy with ms bing on windows mobile 6.5 for a gps with turn by turn voice command. It didn't like the ign website.
Click to expand...


there are numerous free turn by turn GPS apps in the itunes store. The best one ive found is the free one from mapquest and yes it does have turn by turn with voice.
 
i was at the mall today and played with the phones some more. I narrowed down to charge, iphone 4 and waiting. For some reason pentile is not my cup of tea so the x2 is off the list. The revolution is too average.
after playing with the charge the iphone felt a bit on the small side. Pixel density is amazing, I was not amazed with the iphone more because I have an itouch even if it's an first gen I have experience with the menus.
 
I think the iPhone is the best choice on Verizon if u don't want to tinker with your phone.
 
ellover009 said:
Just a quick question for Ritorix.
After rooting your phone does the extra power help with surfing the web so that it doesn't stutter on full sites like ign and phone arena? Have you noticed any other improvements after rooting? Is rooting the phone hard?
Click to expand...

I rooted with Odin. Havent noticed a power difference really, but it is snappier. There is a ton of info on how to root it @ xda devs.

edit: ign.com loads and runs poorly in opera mini, but runs with just a bit of lag in skyfire. m.ign.com loaded by default and I would just stick with that if I ever went there.
 
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ellover009 said:
I wonder if the lag is a hardware or software issue.
Click to expand...

It's a software issue because android doesn't have hardware acceleration. But this is supposedly going to be fixed in the next revision.
 
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