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Captivate or IP4?

I was in the same boat deciding between the iPhone 4 and Captivate. Here’s my experience with both. Hopefully it will help someone in making their decision. I’m in the Chicago area and ATT works pretty well for me. I won’t go into details about numbers or front facing cameras because you’ve already read about that. I really didn’t want an iPhone. I had a 3G when it first came out and had nothing but problems.
Screen: First off, both screens look great. It’s like being at Best Buy comparing tv’s. Side by side they all look a little different but once you get it home either one will look great. Ip4 has truer color but the over saturated SC really pops out at you. Even though the screen is only a half inch bigger, the border around it makes it appear bigger yet. Ip4 was easier for me to see in direct sunlight. Touchscreen responsiveness and scrolling smoothness is awesome on both. I liked the SC better.
Buttons: I like the physical buttons on the Ip4. They have a definite feel to them and are in the right location or the location that I’m use to. I got use to the SC buttons but hated the mini usb connector coming out of the top. When using a car charger or syncing to a computer it’s always in the way. Whose dumb idea was that? The buttons on the bottom of the screen SUCK. They go off after a few seconds and you have to hunt and tap around until the screen gives the desired response. Again, after a while you begin to get use to them.
Battery: When I got my SC home, battery life was terrible. About 6 hrs. of moderate use and it was dead. That gradually improved and by the second week, the battery lasted all day with 25% to spare. Since I charge it every night anyway, it wasn’t a problem. Ip4 lasts several days but again, I charge every night.
Apps: I don’t really care about how many thousand apps one has over another. Who needs 800 tip calculators anyway? I probably use about 50. Android has a free app called Missed Reminder that you can set to ring/vibrate if you don’t hear a call, text etc. (Just like my Razor V3 had). Ip4 word, excel, pdf documants right out of the box. With Android I used a free app called Quick Office that opened about 80% of these documents. Sometimes I’d get an error message and couldn’t view the file.
Email: I use Hotmail and Ip4 works great and is very fast. I had nothing but problems with the SC’s email. When I first setup my Hotmail it retrieved my mail although very slowly. I could read messages but if there was pictures or attachments the pinwheel would spin (loading) sometimes 10-15 minutes before loading all or sometimes part of the message. I tried having Gmail fetch my Hotmail which was much faster but most of the time the attachments were blank and showed up as 0 kbts. I was able to view my mail & attachments correctly if I went through the browser but that was kind of convoluted way to get it done. I even tried K-9 mail which did not help. I spoke with Samsung, posted questions on this forum as well as speaking with ATT customer service. The best solution they could come up with was to clear the cache. Their final comments were that some phones are better at email than others. I had the phone replaced but still had the same results.
Keyboard: Ip4 keyboard has bigger buttons than the SC’s keyboard so it’s a little easier for me however I think SC’s swype keyboard is the best. Once I learned how to use it I’d never use anything else. The SC’s Speak to text is cool too. As long as you speak clearly, it’s pretty accurate. Great for texting and driving as long as you’re not checking for mistakes. (My bad).
Browser: Both browsers are great and to me, they seem very similar. IP4 does not support flash. On the SC you can zoom way in on text, double tap and it word wraps to the screen so you don’t have to zig zag through the message to read it. Nice.
Wi-fi: With the SC I can be 20 feet from my wireless router and I’m showing poor signal strength. With the IP4 not only do I show a strong signal, I can pick up three of my neighbors as well.
Phone/Data: Both phones have been in cases since they left the store. Call quality is good on both phones. The SC sounds a little tinny but clear. Several times I’ve had the SC echo when I speak into it. Had to reboot it and it was fine. SC has dropped quite a few calls, more than I’m use to. Often when connected to a land line so I know it’s not the other party. Phone can be lying on a table and signal fluctuates between 5 bars and 0. At 0, sometimes calls connect, sometimes they fail. IP4 has only dropped two calls so far (3 weeks) in known dead areas.
Misc: Haven’t really had any problems with the IP4 so far. With the SC I haven’t had the random shutdown issue I’ve been hearing about. I have had the phone freeze a few times while ringing and not been able to answer a call. Had the call drop while removing it from my pocket (many times). I tried removing it by the edges, front and back, etc. I’ve had the phone pocket dial and even had my alarms deleted. I don’t know how because the phone is locked and there are several steps required to do this. I also get a lot of connection error and network error messages while I have a wi-fi or full 3g signal. In my photo’s app, all of my album art shows up as an individual photo album. I have to scroll through hundreds of albums to get to my Pictures. (Maybe I’m just missing something). I’m sure the gps issue will be fixed but It’s been six weeks. You’d think Samsung would have been all over that. It’s just some weather apps, golf apps etc. rely on gps information.
Conclusion: I love the way you can customize the SC. Between the widgets and live wallpapers it can look really cool. I like customizing; I don’t like messing with something just to get it to work correctly. I think the SC is very promising but right now it’s just to buggy for me. Everyone talks about how the Froyo update will fix everything but its all speculation. At first ATT said it was coming out the beginning of August. Then it was September. Now they claim they may not even release it and wait for Gingerbread. They can’t even send out a fix for the gps. I don’t think there’s a smartphone out that does everything. I’ve returned the SC and hopefully in the future when it’s a little more refined I’ll give android another try. As of right now I would have to recommend the IP4 by a longshot.

I can relate to some of your issues. I have both phones and each have + & -.. Overall I like the captivate more because I can do a lot more with it. For resale value the iphone always wins.

If you embed your album are as MP3 tags you won't see it. If you transfer it over as jpg files in the album folder then it gets indexed as normal picture would.
As for connection errors - I don't have that at all. I have only had one dropped call where my iPhone would drop them all the time and sometimes require 4 or 5 attempts to reconnect. You may have a bad antenna on your phone with your wifi issues too.
I lived with the iPhone 3G for 18 months before i got copy/paste and some other missing features - I figure Samsung will fix us up at some point too.
As for the mini USB cable socket - Samsung has home and car docks that set the phone horizontal, so then the plug is in a good place. Let's face it, no location is good for everybody. The bottom port on the phone was terrible for car use (for me) because I would plug the phone charger into a dash socket and then the phone was upside down when laying on the seat - yes i could buy a mount to hold it upright, but with the Samsung, the top port works for me.

Connection error may be a bit of a fluke, bad timing maybe. I didn't experience any dropped call for several days then att started doing updates in my area, 3g finally this month. My iphone 4 friend had the same issues I did for a matter of weeks now both are better. I admit the iphone is a beautiful product but I disagree about the screen, I have never seen a screen where the colors look truer to me than a galaxy s. For me I'll never give up android, so apple implemented folders, big deal I hated the iphone3g and I hate Ios4 even more. I have no icons folders or shortcuts on my home screen, just a few widgets. I use ADW launcher and use swipe up to launch the contacts, long press search to launch navigation, and home on home screen to launch phone. And I use widget locker to go to the phone, text, camera, or email. I could never fumble through pages and pages of icons for phone functions. Just because its a touchscreen it doesn't need more steps than a traditional phone. I wasn't to pick it up and call. Not pickup, unlock, press icon, press tab for number pad, call. Apples interface need work. On android I can make my own interface. I like icon screens to allow icons to be put where I want not bumped up next to other icons. I need to scan the screen too much with my eyes before I can find the right icon and a phone should be more natural than that. On paper the iphone is fantastic but in my hand android wins hands down.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

It's just a phone. Just pick one and get a new one in one and half years.

That was extremely painful to read. If you really want other people to actually read this you should space it out properly.

mwxiao said:
It's just a phone. Just pick one and get a new one in one and half years.
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I couldn't agree more. If the phone is really bad, then you have 30 days to return it. If not, then something better will be along in 12-18 months.

tonyb81 said:
That was extremely painful to read. If you really want other people to actually read this you should space it out properly.
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+1, it's like he swyped the thing in a few secs lol.
I have to agree with the battery, the Wi-Fi has to be the biggest power drainer and I would have thought it was optimised for power saving. To be honest everybody is trying to be like the iPhone if you think about it for a minute. But I'm still for Android, live without so many restrictions .

DJNgoma said:
+1, it's like he swyped the thing in a few secs lol.
I have to agree with the battery, the Wi-Fi has to be the biggest power drainer and I would have thought it was optimised for power saving. To be honest everybody is trying to be like the iPhone if you think about it for a minute. But I'm still for Android, live without so many restrictions .
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Me or the OP? I have a habit of writing run on sentences and pushing paragraphs together. And I did swype it pretty quick. But the op did write a lot.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

I must have gotten a good phone, because I wasn't experiencing any of the negatives the OP was talking about (as far as the Captivate is concerned). Wifi range is just as good as my father's iPhone 4, never had a dropped call, never pocket dialed, the 4 buttons at the bottom are always responsive, and just about all the other negatives you said.
Plus, I actually like where the USB connection is, very convenient for me. And I haven't used email on here before, so I can't comment on that.

I'm actually on my second Captivate. The first one had the capacitive touch buttons at the bottom that would push themselves. Outside of that, my wifi signal is pretty much on par with my 3GS. The difference being that the indicator shows the reception to be a bit worse, but the through put is much much better.
The call quality and reception on my Captivate is just as good as my 3GS, however, once again it shows the signal is worse. The big difference I've noticed is that I've never dropped a call with the Captivate, and with the iPhone I would drop about every fifth call.

Some of the issue posted here are non-existen for me. You guys need to give android and the phone some time to get use too. Especially if you had the iPhone for the past 3yrs. I get great battery life remember you're in control your phone do not have things running in the background if you really dont need it.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

I would have to say (coming from a 3gs) after downloading and installing the hybrid Rom and seeing what the possibilities are I would definitely say that my captivate blows my gfs ip4 out of the water. Just by switching roms I can see how Samsung and ATT did not do a good job with the firmware. I have better reception. The phone really flies through processes. Like you would expect a phone with top of the line hardware should. and when the devs get a hold of the froyo source I can only imagine how this galaxy s will perform
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App

tonyb81 said:
That was extremely painful to read. If you really want other people to actually read this you should space it out properly.
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+1
Also, I skimmed through your review mate, and you really seem to go on too much about little things as opposed to the core functionality of the phones.
That being said, I have experienced some of your problems to some degree, such as imperfect wifi etc.
1 more thing, doesn't captivate come with inbuilt office program such as thinkfree? Because international i9000 version does (as I have).
p.s. don't mean to sound overly critical, I do respect and thank ya for sharing your experience

i think the battery life on the captivate was poor. exchanged it for an iphone 4, sold it, and going back to the captivate, ironically. i just prefer the android UI.

kluemenadi said:
i think the battery life on the captivate was poor. exchanged it for an iphone 4, sold it, and going back to the captivate, ironically. i just prefer the android UI.
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The battery life on this is better than the aria which was horrid. I admit the 3g I had was better in that department after the upgrade to ios 3.2 or what ever it was. But the battery life on the captivate largely depends on what you are doing, running with it.
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iPhone 4 all the way. I've got a captivate and my friend went the iphone4 route. I've used both phones extensively and its not even close. Iphone 4 smokes the captivate. Unfortunately I'm stuck with it for another 22 months

iPhone 4 all the way. I've got a captivate and my friend went the iphone4 route. I've used both phones extensively and its not even close. Iphone 4 smokes the captivate. Unfortunately I'm stuck with it for another 22 months
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Can you elaborate on how it smokes the Captivate?? I had the iphone 4 and it was good, but the Captivate is just as good or better.
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lost2030 said:
Can you elaborate on how it smokes the Captivate?? I had the iphone 4 and it was good, but the Captivate is just as good or better.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
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It really depends what you use the phone for. Personally, I use it for surfing the web, playing games, email, Music, texting, and GPS. Those things are the most important to me, as I basically live on my phone.
With that said, several of those things the iPhone actually does better. Surfing the web is a toss up. The Captivate has an incredible screen with a size bonus, but the iPhone has MUCH better text fidelity and pixel density. Games are a given here. The iPhone's app store just crushes the marketplace right now. Android is catching up, but Apple has those big name developers throwing good games at them every day. Email goes to the iphone as well. The email apps for the Android are sub par when dealing with certain providers like Yahoo. Apple's isn't flashy, but it does work consistantly. Music... Again iPhone is a superior mp3 player. It's easy to manage your collection and buy music on the fly. When Google Music gets up and running they'll be on a more level playing field. Texting goes to the captivate because of SWYPE. It's frikkin fantastic. Then GPS... We know what's happening here. Just waiting on Samsung to come through with the goods.
I wouldn't say the iPhone smokes there Captivate, but you really have to look at what the majority of people do with their phones. One thing that pisses me off with my Captivate is the ESPN app. What a frikkin' dog. Run it side by side with the iPhone equivalent and it's just a slap in the face. For running on equal hardware, the Android app is slow, unresponsive, and sometimes completely non-functional. On the other side of the coin... I love the customization of the Android device. I love being able to flip between widgets and launchers on a whim.
Oh yeah... And I guess I also make calls too. It's a push here, but I do like the speaker of the iPhone a bit better. The Captivate's speaker quality fluctuated from device to device quite wildly, and my most recent handset has a tinny speaker.

@Divinedark I can only agree to the appstore been better than the marketplace, and its the only thing I'm really missing. Everything else android does the same thing in my opinion or better.
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Worth leaving the iPhone 4 for this phone?

Like it says and I am sure a million people have asked. I have done the research but now I am just looking for others opinions. Would you leave the iPhone 4 for this phone? I am seriously debating it because of the customization options. One thing I like about the iPhone is ease of use. What are your opinions?

I've had the Inspire for about a week now. I switched from the iPhone 4 for the same reasons you are thinking of. But now I'm seriously thinking of switching back. The Inspire is really cool but the battery life sucks and the ringer is barely audible for me. I work in a warehouse and it pretty loud in there but with my iPhone I had no problem hearing it. And it's aggravating to me to have to take my charger with me to work. I use my phone for about a hour and a half surfing the net through out my work night (breaks and lunch), and if I don't charge itwill almost be dead when I get home. On a good note the display is killer and you can customize it to fit your wants and needs. My favorite part of the phone is the weather annimation. My friend at work has the Evo and this was the closest thing to it that AT&T offers. If they could fix the battery and ringer on it it would deffinatly be a keeper for me. But that's just my 2 cents.

I left the iPhone 4 32gig for the inspire 4g. I haven't looked back. Messing around with an iPhone is like child's play compared to the inspire. (Speaking in terms of rooting vs jailbreaking)
I love this phone. Not to mention 4g.....

I left an iPhone4 for the HTC Inspire. The Inspire is on a another level, makes the iPhone look like a go phone. I am having problems with the "4G" in my area. Phone is switching back and forth between service and causing it to not work that well. If AT&T's 4G works well in your area, I say go for it! It takes a few days to get used to Android, but IMO it is superior.

MrEastwood2u said:
I've had the Inspire for about a week now. I switched from the iPhone 4 for the same reasons you are thinking of. But now I'm seriously thinking of switching back. The Inspire is really cool but the battery life sucks and the ringer is barely audible for me. I work in a warehouse and it pretty loud in there but with my iPhone I had no problem hearing it. And it's aggravating to me to have to take my charger with me to work. I use my phone for about a hour and a half surfing the net through out my work night (breaks and lunch), and if I don't charge itwill almost be dead when I get home. On a good note the display is killer and you can customize it to fit your wants and needs. My favorite part of the phone is the weather annimation. My friend at work has the Evo and this was the closest thing to it that AT&T offers. If they could fix the battery and ringer on it it would deffinatly be a keeper for me. But that's just my 2 cents.
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I agree inspire's battery sucks but for me it's OK. With average usage, I could get 12-15 hours per charge. On the other hand, I see people selling 1600mAh battery on ebay for like $11. Not sure if it helps?

I think it depends on what you want. I've been on iOS since the beginning, and I got to the point where I was bored with it. I like the Inspire because I can tinker with it and play with different things. The Sense really helps complete the package. Battery life is a big one. If you have access to power throughout the day, not a big deal. However, having to constantly worry about battery life sucks.
Other things I miss.
- Apps/games. So many more games out there for the iOS.
- Push notifications - Granted, I can use yahoo mail to get my push, but really, I wish there was a good email app for both gmail and yahoo where push would work correctly. Push for facebook. If you use facebook a lot, you'll miss the push notifications. Yes, there is flow and you can work around it, but it's not simple. And half the time, I can't access some pages in flow which directs me to the web version.
- In general, apps on both platform tend to be a little better on the iPhone. ex. Facebook - Can't tag friends in native app. Navigon GPS - Can't have the maps in storage. Yes, I know google maps is there, and it's nice, but it's not quite on the same level.
All in all though, I've already sold my iPhone 4. If the 5 makes some huge strides (and it has to be in the OS, not the hardware) I might switch back. As for now, I'm enjoying my Inspire and it's widgets and integration w/ google. I got an iPod touch for all my iOS games though

Thanks for the responses guys!!! I said the exact same thing to myself, I have my iPod touch for the games I will miss out on hahahaha!!!

Had the 3gs, iphone4 before this inspire. Never looked back. Im with you on the ease of use on the iphones, but because of that not much customization is available. Before my iphones, i had the touchpro, played around with roms and stuff but still not quite satisfied, then went on to apple. My inspire is not rooted/flashed but much more fun and intuitive then the iphones and the winmo. It should be a while before i decide to change again.
Good luck
Sent from my Inspire 4G using XDA Premium App

colbur87 said:
I left the iPhone 4 32gig for the inspire 4g. I haven't looked back. Messing around with an iPhone is like child's play compared to the inspire. (Speaking in terms of rooting vs jailbreaking)
I love this phone. Not to mention 4g.....
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This.
If you enjoy tinkering with your phone, you'll love the inspire/android.
and if you have an ipod touch, I don't see any reason not to switch anyway.

jerseykirby said:
Thanks for the responses guys!!! I said the exact same thing to myself, I have my iPod touch for the games I will miss out on hahahaha!!!
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Yup... I have iPod 3G to satisfy IOS needs while Inspire to satisfy Android needs

jerseykirby said:
Like it says and I am sure a million people have asked. I have done the research but now I am just looking for others opinions. Would you leave the iPhone 4 for this phone? I am seriously debating it because of the customization options. One thing I like about the iPhone is ease of use. What are your opinions?
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Me and my buddy both came from iPhone 4 to Inspire HD (After both buying the Atrix on release day and returning them).
My honest opinion is that I like things about both, I don't find either one a "clear" winner. However I am bored with iOS and Jailbreaking and it is a really nice change of scenary. Android is a lot more fun to play with. The phone itself is great.
With it rooted, overclocked, and rommed the phone runs blazing fast. The stock ringtones/notifications are too quiet but if you download some it can be plenty loud enough. Battery life is perfectly fine depending on the Rom and how you manage it. I have no problems making it through a day with the phone. (6am to 11+pm) but I have made a conscious effort to optimize for battery performance.
If you are going to get in to the root/rom side of things I think you will be very happy with the change.

The iphone 4 is predictable day in and day out.. you know every app works for it and the simplicity in the system is a major buying point..
with that being said.. i find it really boring. I went from the iphone 4 to the inspire 4g and even in its stock form, you cant help but be impressed with the HTC Sense system. For example, the integration of social network and daily agendas was nicely implemented in the form of widgets.
The real reason that i bought the inspire though was the ability to root the phone therefore customizing the phone to my needs, the iphone 4 jailbreak can do it but to a lesser degree. For instance, the battery on the rooted inspire can last a whole day of moderate; without me worrying about bringing a powermat portable charger.

jerseykirby said:
Thanks for the responses guys!!! I said the exact same thing to myself, I have my iPod touch for the games I will miss out on hahahaha!!!
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It's a no brainer if you have a Touch. To be honest, I'm still baffled by people who own both an iPhone and a Touch. My recommendation is to buy the Inspire off contract. Costs $400, the next iPhone will be double on eBay (I save my upgrades for this reason).
Sent from my Desire HD using XDA Premium App

I don't know about the iPhone 4, but last weekend I was showing off the Inspire to some friends who have 3 iPhones in their family and they were all drooling over my phone.
IMHO the only thing the iPhone 4 is better at is the camera.

SO I played with the HTC Arrive today

Training device at the story, had my share of time with it today, checked it all out.
Pretty nice keyboard and tilt mechanism, hardware felt awesome in the hand. Software is definitely behind though, multitasking is a no go, software really isnt there for landscape yet which is a bummer with the keyboard.
Netflix worked great however.
Just posting in case anyone here had planned to switch from the epic, I can answer any questions about it too.
Sorry about the blurriness of a few of the pics, I was in a bit of a rush(the public isn't supposed to be seeing the device yet, so taking pictures isn't exactly easy )

Really would appreciate the pics...

LordLugard said:
Really would appreciate the pics...
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I'll crop and put them up in the first post now.

Its a windows phone isn't it? How is the smoothness of.it.compared to.the.epic?
Sent From My Evo Killer!

musclehead84 said:
Its a windows phone isn't it? How is the smoothness of.it.compared to.the.epic?
Sent From My Evo Killer!
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Pics up.
Oh don't get me wrong, it's very fast, everything loads really quickly.
Sometimes the transitions get annoying when you're just trying to be done with something..it's pretty though.
The worst culprit is the weather in the HTC hub, switching between cities does this whole cloud moving crazy popup thing, it looks pretty cool but takes about 5 seconds and could be very annoying if you're just trying to check the weather in a hurry.
Apps load really quickly, Netflix took about a minute to load up the app and get into a movie on 3g, quality seemed pretty good.
Battery life seemed good, although I had no percentages to work with, it didn't seem to drain that bad.
One thing I noticed though: In the marketplace, larger apps like 3d games can't be downloaded over 3g, it says "Wifi or PC Connection Required"

Really looking to try a WP7 phone, so thanks for this! Did you get a chance to test out the camera, and was the screen any good?
Sent From My Command Center... (aka basement)

flopez76 said:
Really looking to try a WP7 phone, so thanks for this! Did you get a chance to test out the camera, and was the screen any good?
Sent From My Command Center... (aka basement)
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The camera I only took one picture, it seemed pretty clear! I'll try it more tomorrow and let you know.
The screen and type were very crystal clear, it's SLCD and looks absolutely fantastic, not QUITE the Epic but very good.

Also did you have a problem with the screen being 3.6" instead of 4"
Sent From My Command Center... (aka basement)

I'm not a windows fan but that phone doesn't.look to bad. I've never really.played with one before.
Sent From My Evo Killer!

I'm swapping out my HTC Hero for the HTC Arrive on the 20th. Can't wait.

that looks sexy but um yeah.... not into that whole hinge tilt stuff and windows phone 7 is just not hooking me.

I actually really like the tilt feature. It works like a kickstand for the screen so you can use your phone as a desk clock better or watch movies with no hands. I wish there was a tilting android phone.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk

Reminds me of the TP2 keyboard/tilt. That was the best, most responsive keyboard on a phone I've had.
I'd gladly trade my Epic keyboard for an HTC one... you know if it had a 4" SAMOLED screen...

I love the look of this phone it's just like a perfect hardware specs tp2 and that tilt screen is the one and only thing I miss from my tp2, but WP7 can suck it!! If only HTC released this the time the epic was out and had android on it I would of got this!!! I love the speaker on it too, really sexy phone!!
Set From My 3.0.1 Bonsai Epic 4g

god thats one ugly looking phone.

Nice looking phone. The real questions is, can we get Android running on it...

Probably, the question is why bother? It's last years weakest hardware...even after a port the Shift would still kill it performance wise, and don't even try to compare it with the Epic.

Nice looking phone ughly looking wp7.
never leaving android, atlast for now.
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Magic Oreo said:
Nice looking phone ughly looking wp7.
never leaving android, atlast for now.
Sent from my SPH-D700 using XDA Premium App
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Android Trolls have no reason to post. If you are not here with interest in WP7 or the Arrive, then why are you here except to voice your pointless opinion?
Anyway. I also got my hands on an Arrive for a good bit. One thing about the slider, make sure you don't judge it until you remove the clear plastic protector on the back of the screen part of the slider (the back of the screen with the keyboard out). Until that is removed the slider will feel very wobbly, stiff, or overall crappy. Same thing was the case for our Touch Pro 2's.
The overall feel of the phone is really solid and well made, like the TP2 it feels solid but with the metal back and an actual glass screen it feel even higher quality. (Plus I love the way the screen angles off into the 2 grill parts on the top and bottom.)
The OS performed just as expected with performance never showing any sort of hiccup or slowdown. 3G Speed in the area was a bit poor due to it being a highly populated area that Sprint throttles. (Not a problem where I live). It was not a problem for normal use and web browsing but it did take a hit on Netflix playback, downgrading the quality to extremely low but still viewable quality I suppose.
As mentioned earlier/elsewhere, the one thing that is bumming me is the 3G download limit on large apps. I know it is the norm for most of todays phones but with an Unlimited plan, limiting my download size to 20MB is a real bummer. I hope there may be a way around this in due time. Sucks that they expect you to pay for another service while paying for the same type of service? WTF!?
I did not test this part of the phone out though since I did not want to set it up under my live account.
Other parts of mention was the seamless use of Bing search for various things. Unlike on the TP2 where you click on bing, wait a minute, have to quit back out because you forgot to run quick GPS to keep the sat info updated and of course it never automatically updates on its own, back into Bing and waiting another minute, type in what you want to search for (or click on the appropriate button), it searches and gets you what you may want, you click on it, wait a bit to get options, then finally to what you want. If using the Voice Guidance you have to hope it doesn't crash or lock up partway into your trek.
With WP7 it seriously was click button, 3 sec later your there, type or say what you want, it searches for another 2-3 sec, bamn various things related to your search and picking one only takes another 2-3 seconds. Fast, easy, works.
Sure Voice Guidance isn't in Bing for WP7 yet, but it is coming and till then Sprint gets their own Voice Guidance GPS that actually works ok as well.
There is only 1 Problem (Seams to be lightly known) with the phone. Wifi. Similar to the Video Demo I saw of a GSM UK 7 Pro, the wifi would get stuck trying to connect to a network and eventually give up. In the video he mentioned a hard reset fixed this but being as it was not my phone I did not test this. This looks to be a simple HTC bug and I would guess it would be fixed in a side update separate from other updates soon. Still, a bummer seeing how the phone isn't out yet and it's GSM brother has the same issue.
Either way I pre-ordered my phone and plan to enjoy it. The only thing is my upgrade isn't due till June 14th and well, that is a long way away. So I may buy the phone outright and just learn everything I can for a month. It is not that I cannot afford it, I just don't feel like paying $450 for any phone.
$35 to rent the phone for a month isn't a bad deal though. Did this with the HTC EVO. 4G was Awesome, but the Android os, while powerful, just didn't feel finished/polished similar to WM6.5 Roms.
Sure WP7 does lack a few features we have all known and loved on WM6.X and Android, but for what I use the phone for most, paired with the fact that I am getting sick of the phone having weird glitches, lockups, temporary hangs, slowdowns, and overall things either not working or working weirdly, (also on Android for this), WP7 looks for fix that for me. A phone that does all of the features it offers now and does them well. I used to be a huge tweaker for these devices, but after a while, the time it takes to make the phone work 100% takes way too long these days and especially on the old 500mhz chip, it is just not worth the fuss anymore. I have an HD2 to tinker with and use for certain Apps, and a Dell Axim X50v for my other WM entertainment needs.

Thank IM for that post.....Normally I am not one to read long posts but you covered everything that I was curious out.
I have an EVO right now and even though I love it. I loved my Zune HD a lot more. heres to hoping that the arrive lives up to hype I gave it.

[Q] Droid charge, iphone 4 or wait?

I just became elegible to upgrade my phone, I keep hearing things that vz is gonna switch to tiered pricing and would prefer to get locked in before they change things. Really split between those 3 choices, get a charge with it's amazing amoled screen thats larger and customization of android, or go with iphone 4 with it's higher pixel density, built quality and pretty good camera detail, I can always wait for the apple event on the june 6th-10th and risk being closer to tiered pricing.
I looked at dx 2 but I just couldn't get into the whole pentile screen, it just wasn't right for my taste even with a higher resolution.

Get the charge. You can always sell it on craigslist for an iphone 4. Besides iphone sucks lol
Sent From My VooDood Charge

I've used every single iPhone every year since Apple initially release it. It wasn't until last summer (2010) that I got on Android. At first I didn't like it; i thought it was pretty complicated, confusing, and too frustrating to use. I didn't like Android 1.8 that was pushed onto the HTC Hero as well. So I went back to iPhone. A week later, I got the HTC Evo 4G. I started to like Android a bit more, but still used iPhone 4 as my "daily beater," if you know what i mean.
Long story short, I LOVE android now. I never want to use another POS iOS software device again. Android is the way to go, buddy.

Z51 said:
Get the charge. You can always sell it on craigslist for an iphone 4. Besides iphone sucks lol
Sent From My VooDood Charge
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Question: If you buy the Charge on contract, and let's say in 6 months you want something else, you can't sell it because it's ESN will still be tied to your account till the contract is up, correct?

ChaOConnor said:
Question: If you buy the Charge on contract, and let's say in 6 months you want something else, you can't sell it because it's ESN will still be tied to your account till the contract is up, correct?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's tied to your account until you want to change it, but it requires little to no effort. You can either change either online through the verizonwireless.com portal or by calling customer service.
Once you have changed the ESN/IMEI tied to your account to your new phone, you can do whatever you want with the old phone as it is no longer tied to your account.

There is absolutely no comparison between these two phones. The charge does everything better except iTunes and battery life. Faster phone and way faster network = no comparison.

I What?
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk

Syn Ack said:
There is absolutely no comparison between these two phones. The charge does everything better except iTunes and battery life. Faster phone and way faster network = no comparison.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, out of the box, the Charge lags quite a bit. In fact, it's almost to the point where it is unbearable. But the Debloated ED2 solved that problem. There is ZERO lag now.

Android is a hobby, not just a phone, and once you start playing with it, you'll be hooked. iPhone is pretty much a phone for simpletons who just want a smartphone.
The Charge is similar to the iPhone in some minute ways, probably the closest thing to an iPhone on the Android OS. Im trying to sell my iPhone for Verizon now because I just like Android better.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App

im considering going back to my iphone 4, switching back n forth between the charge and thunderbolt right now .... as someone said, there can be quite a bit of lag with the charge, try adding a widget to your homescreen, takes a really long time to load the menu of choices ... i actually like using the tb more than the charge but can't read the screen very well in sunlight, so i use the charge more...
as for the iphone 4, most of the apps are done better than the android version, no idea why but that's the way it looks to me.... a minus for the iphone 4 is lack of voice integration, sometimes i'm too lazy to type a txt msg, so i just speak it when i'm using an android phone... it can be done on iphone 4 but you have to use 2 programs, just a pain in the ass ...
also, i don't have great eyesight anymore so it's hard to read the fonts on the iphone 4 at times, on my charge i've installed bigger system fonts so i can read pretty much everything without wearing glasses
oh yeah, games run better on iphone 4 than the charge... could be because of the smaller screen on the iphone, angry birds seasons can really lag on my charge..
another plus for android is the 'integration' of things like pics... there is an option to share with many different social networks, email, txt, etc... can be done on the iphone but usually have to use a different program....
all in all, it's a tough choice.... the iphone is really easy to use, has some great apps, and is stable for the most part..
the charge has a really nice screen, not the resolution of the iphone, but still looks great ...
too many choices, lol, hope this helps some.

Yea, what everyone else said in comparison between iPhone and Android OS/Charge is spot on.
If you're not ready to settle for a Charge and a bit unwilling to go back to iPhone/iOS, then you can definitely wait for the SGS2. I picked one up from the grey market (expansys) and I am loving it. Definitely one of the best phones i've ever used.

I would love to get a galaxy 2 but I don't think its even mentioned to coming to vz, I would prefer to stay with vz, been with them for years and am content with the service.
It's like having to choose from vanilla and chocolate but preferring strawberry.
Only concern with going with iphone is I might get renewed in a 3g data and not be allowed to switch to a 4g device without going for the new tiered pricing if thats what they have if I want to sell and change the phone. There's also low quality on youtube video unless I go wifi and it would be more complicated getting my own ringtones in it. Then again the iphone 4 is well built, reliable and stupid proof. Might be harder to unbrick an iphone 4.

You'll only receive biased answers asking this sort of question here - especially given your posting in the Charge sub-forum.
Having owned both the iPhone4 and Charge, I can say they are both great devices. The answer really depends on what you want to get out of your phone. The iPhone has far superior battery life, itunes syncing keepings things simple, the browser is far superior to any Android browser, and overall - the phone just works.
With that said, Android/Charge is the better option in my opinion. I love LTE, much prefer the 4.3" SAMOLED screen, and love that I can easily swap things like keyboards, themes, fonts, etc. I also like how google does not try to tell you what you want, much like Apple does.

If you want to lock in unlimited data, why would you lock in unlimited 3G data? The only phones on your list right now to lock in unlimited data should be Thunderbolt, Revolution, and Charge, and I'd say that the Charge is by far the best of the 3.

ellover009 said:
I would love to get a galaxy 2 but I don't think its even mentioned to coming to vz, I would prefer to stay with vz, been with them for years and am content with the service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It seems like it's coming to Verizon under the moniker Function.

PeterDLai said:
It seems like it's coming to Verizon under the moniker Function.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The question is when will it come out? I feel like it's coming out later rather than sooner.

Iphone has great build quality.... but that's it
Apple blows. Get the charge
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App

Anyone played with some nes, snes, and psx emulators on the charge? Can it keep up? Is it true you can use Bluetooth gamepads with android phones and any recommendation on a pad? I played with the xperia phone but was not impressed with the screen.

I got my charge this Sunday. I totally love this thing so far, it's not perfect but I am pretty happy with it. I am coming from a touch pro 2 phone. Only thing I miss from the tp2 is that speaker phone was quite a bit louder, and even output volume through usb jack to cassette deck adapter is not as loud as the tp2.
There's some trade off and most are positive. it's a little wider but it's thinner and a lot lighter, I definitely do not miss the extra weight associated with the tp2 and it's keyboard. Screen is responsive, I have not encountered any slowdown with the exception of flash heavy sites. But then again I am not running too much unnecessary junk on the phone.
Battery is usually 2/3 by the time I get back home or 6/7th if I don't use it much. I ended up getting the dock and it's nice, you can charge the phone and at same time an additional battery in a special compartment, don't even need to charge phone. Low battery, please, I just pull one outta the charger pop it in and put the depleted cell in there.
I wish I could force the camera to orientate itself to portrait instead of assuming your taking landscape pictures.
Programs I loaded so far are Google maps., Beautiful widgets, angry bird rio, psx4droid (got lunar 2, ff7 and crash bandicoot warped working), unEcm and linda manager (lets me browse files).
I still got some work to do, I have avoided getting the ed2 update because it intrudes with rooting. I've been content with the phone so far so I don't know if I will bother rooting and doing some mumbo jumbo with some voodoo kernel thing. ( I'm still new to the lingo, supposedly it helps make the phone faster).
Upgrades I am thinking of doing is maybe flipping my memory card and putting the difference towards a class 10 card, I ordered some phantomskin screen protector, meanwhile I got the anti glare one from vz the day I got it but I think it just makes it glitter a bit.
Rooting and the kernel thing are still under question.
I love the contrast.

iPhone 4S for a day :O

So it turns out I forgot my phone at home today (something that almost never happens) and I snagged my dad's iPhone 4S to stay connected.
This is coming from an Android fanatic (I love my Android dearly), I will cover everything I noticed throughout my day of use.
This phone is a battery hog! The setup was power intensive for sure (GPS, wifi, and 3G data on, screen brightness 100% auto), but I barely made it through the day. Started off with 69% at 7:30am. Went all the way down to 10% by 5pm, with not too much usage (a little light web browsing and a few phone calls). You can physically see the percentage go down with every minute you keep the screen on. And the phone gets pretty warm with the slightest of use.
Call quality is exceptional. Voices sound very clear and deep, even in noisy environments.
I miss my physical keyboard I really don't know how some users can switch away from the physical keyboard. The problem is, it takes up so much space that you find yourself browsing around on such a small portion of the screen sometimes. It also doesn't get out of the way on demand, which is annoying. And editing anything is a real pain, especially because there's no trackpad to precision movements. Essentially you have to hold and use the magnifying glass to get around and edit text. Auto correct is very annoying when trying to type custom words.
iOS lags! It's just not as noticeable and in much fewer places vs android, but it will lag if you try to scroll fast through facebook posts. I actually prefer the scroll in android more than iOS. It has less weight and scrolls for longer with less flicks.
Screen is terrifically bright. No problem seeing it, even outside. Albeit a little smaller than I'm used to, it's a superb screen.
Voice mail is complicated and Siri kept activating every time I listened to voice mail. I don't know why. On top of that, voice mails play through speakerphone by default. Which means everyone can listen in on my private messages
I don't like the fact that there are no navigation buttons except for the physical home button. I like to have a dedicated button for going back and home.
iOS doesn't thread applications the same way Android does. If you click on something from one app (such as a link) a new app opens. But there's no way to go back to the old app without multitasking your way back. You can't simply press back like in Android.
I miss the fact that there aren't any widgets.
The iPhone sorely needs a notification light. I found myself waking the phone all the time just to see if anything was going on.
Design is great. Phone feels more solid than any phone I've ever owned. You pick it up and you instantly know you're holding a high end device. But I was so scared of dropping it all the time. Glass is not forgiving when dropped (no wonder nearly everyone has a case on their iPhones)
I will update this review as I see fit.
It's my honest opinion of my experience.
Feel free to chime in (NOT troll). We should be past that stage by now, seriously...

Just a quick note. If you jailbreak the iPhone, you can install Widgets, but even then they're no match for Android ones. Apple just targetted a different audience I guess
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app

pijiman said:
Just a quick note. If you jailbreak the iPhone, you can install Widgets, but even then they're no match for Android ones. Apple just targetted a different audience I guess
Sent from my GT-I9100 using xda app-developers app
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah I have a jail broken iPOD and you really have to watch what tweaks you install or it can really bog the system down. And even after it was jailbroken I still have the "oh I miss my Android" feeling everytime the iPOD is in my hands. It was slow before and after the jailbreak, playing swamp people was laggy and made it a stove top with the burner on high. The battery lasts for me but I don't do much but facetime with my daughter. I love electronics no matter who makes it as long as its a worthy device and I think all iDEVICES are dumb phones with a pretty touch interface and a halfway decent camera. But this is all my opinion. I will never go back to an iPHONE either, I had the 3G and man it wasn't what I wanted in a smartphone at all
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using Tapatalk 2

Just a note the iPhone is for users who don't need the phone for entertainment (mostly anyway) its meant for people that like their phone to be simple and to just "work". Android was meant for users like us who like to tinker and get the best from our phones. Overall, the iPhone and android phones can't be/shouldn't be compared because their meant for to different types of users.
Sent from my myTouch_4G_Slide using Tapatalk 2

I love iOS I'm hoping for a 3.8" iPhone 5. Personally when it comes down to me, I just love phones. Gimme a Blackberry and I'll be happy. Everything can been hacked to work how you see fit. You can even underclock the iPhone! Just need to understand there file system. I've never used a non-jailbroken iOS device. iOS is **** with out a Jailbreak(But again I have this subconsciousness thing about not hacking hack-able things) So it might be OK Stock. I don't hype into "Stolen features". We all know where that leads, in the end it's giving the user what they need. At least company's are trying.
Gimme a bigger iPhone I wan't Final Fantasy built Nativity for my device! I miss these.

gtmaster303 said:
This phone is a battery hog! The setup was power intensive for sure (GPS, wifi, and 3G data on, screen brightness 100% auto), but I barely made it through the day. Started off with 69% at 7:30am. Went all the way down to 10% by 5pm, with not too much usage (a little light web browsing and a few phone calls). You can physically see the percentage go down with every minute you keep the screen on. And the phone gets pretty warm with the slightest of use.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The problem is battery, that's all. They couldn't cram any bigger capacity in there anymore.
It is too small capacity, basically akin to our "original" HTC battery crap, you wouldn't last with our "original" through the day either, yet you won't call Doubleshot a "battery hog", right? (and I'm not defending iFail here, just pointing out facts... I always stay away from any proprietary junk such as _all_ Apple products)
gtmaster303 said:
Call quality is exceptional. Voices sound very clear and deep, even in noisy environments.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Voicecall quality mainly differs by networks and the phone's actual speaker's size, in that order. Anything else plays insignificant role.
To truly compare you must be on the same network, and since you've said it was "exceptional" I assume your Doubleshot's quality was much worse - which would indicate different networks to me.
On the other hand the first iFail had spekaer about twice the size of the one in my Kaiser, therefore on the same network iFail sounded way better than Kaiser... Don't know what are the speaker sizes now in our Doubleshot and latest iCrap, but it is possible it may have larger speaker too (bigger membrane = better)
/edit try this: call iPhone to iPhone on diffrent networks (or any exactly same phone models on 2 different networks). Most likely you WILL hear voice quality difference we did this test long time ago using Rogers and Bell, and difference was very noticable. Just make sure to use really different networks, not just different providers on the same network such as Chatr & Rogers in Canada; I don't know exactly about US, but I know you guys have only 3 or 4 really different networks (and 100 different providers using them lol)
Personally I used to use Rogers and Wind (now almost only Wind) and with my MT4GS same voicecalls (i.e. from my home) over Wind sound cheap and thin, while wwhen on Rogers they sound fuller and louder (or so it sounds).
gtmaster303 said:
I miss my physical keyboard
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, well, those who never used physical keyboard won't know
Friend of mine played with my Doubleshot for whole day and guess what, next wek he already had one too and iCrap posted for sale on howardforums
That's all I have to say about virtual keyboards, lol
gtmaster303 said:
iOS lags!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No sh*t!
Everything lags when underpowered. iFail is an iFail for a reason: everything is "under-something there, except for the look
gtmaster303 said:
Screen is terrifically bright. No problem seeing it, even outside. Albeit a little smaller than I'm used to, it's a superb screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Again, I had only the first iFail (briefly) but from seeing the latest iFails in the sun I saw they aren't readable either. It doesn't matter how bright are they if they can't be read well in the direct sunlight, isn't it pointless?
gtmaster303 said:
On top of that, voice mails play through speakerphone by default. Which means everyone can listen in on my private messages
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Really? Wow. That is some sSerious software "boo!" by the iOS coders :laugh:
gtmaster303 said:
I don't like the fact that there are no navigation buttons except for the physical home button. I like to have a dedicated button for going back and home.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is the same "category" as lack of physical keyboard. Adding buttons would make it look less "exceptional", same goes for keyboard... "ain't gonna happen", ever, iFail must *look well* first - usability is it's distant second priority...
gtmaster303 said:
I miss the fact that there aren't any widgets.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
pijiman said:
Just a quick note. If you jailbreak the iPhone, you can install Widgets, but even then they're no match for Android ones. Apple just targetted a different audience I guess
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not "different audience" at all! Wrong assumption, sorry
THAT is the most serious shortcoming of iOS in general. The notifications ... "subsystem" (or whatever it is called) has always been a problem of any iOS device. Unless Apple will redesign it (read: write new OS from scratch) it won't change, ever. iOS is perfect for iPod, not for devices where constant background infos/notifications should have been shown on screen... (google it!)
Same goes for multitasking, they didn't really solve it but did a major workaround rather, kinda like calling hyperthreading a dual core (again - google it)
gtmaster303 said:
The iPhone sorely needs a notification light. I found myself waking the phone all the time just to see if anything was going on.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Couldn't agree more. I can't imagine who had such DUMB idea to make a PHONE "blind"?! (same goes for some Android phones too - one of my friends constantly wakes up his "blind" LG P-900 just to check if he missed anything, so annoying, lol)
gtmaster303 said:
Design is great. Phone feels more solid than any phone I've ever owned. You pick it up and you instantly know you're holding a high end device. But I was so scared of dropping it all the time. Glass is not forgiving when dropped (no wonder nearly everyone has a case on their iPhones).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
...and that's what I've been always saying: what is the point of buying expensive "good looking" device, if you are going to immediately make it look ygly wrapped in some gel condom or hide it in a case?
It's like buying some art sculpture and then keeping it under some cloth cover clothes so it won't get dusty POINTLESS!
(and yes, I think iPhone looks UGLY when it is wrapped in any protective covers, especially all those popular ugly gel-alike plastic "condoms", and so are any other phones too)
Oh and 1 more case in point: coworker bought iphone because it was "so thin and slick". Guess what: his iphone with that ugly rubbery-gel "wrapper" he covered it with immediately, is thicker than my MT4GS (and ugly!) yet he keep saying his iFail is thinner... lol lol lol
...just my few canadian pennies

I will concur, iOS and Android are for totally different people. They're two different takes on accomplishing the same tasks
Another note, stock alarm app was way too simple in iOS. Almost no settings at all

@OP: very interesting, thanks for the honest feedback! From an experienced Android user