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basically two simple questions: what phone did you have before, and what made you decide for the droid charge?
My answer is I had the samsung fascinate, I was pretty mad with samsung, because of the slowness of updates, specially froyo, but the developers made it happened.
I got the charge because I love the Amoled Screen, and the specs are pretty good, in my opinion, better than the thunderbolt, Im not sure if developement on this phone will be as good as the thunderbolt, but as it is right now, I love it, why brake what is not broken?
In the last year or so I've gone through the following to get to my charge:
Blackberry 9630 -> HTC Incredible -> Samsung Fascinate, then got a Samsung Epic 4G to carry alongside -> Samsung Droid Charge
During that time, I've also had lengthy personal experience using a HTC Thunderbolt (two friends have them), a Motorola Droid X (two friends have them), Motorola Droid 2 (three friends have them), Samsung Galaxy Tab 7" (owned), and Motorola Xoom Tablet (owned).
I love my Charge. I'd say the specs are on-par with the Thunderbolt, and while I'd take HTC Sense UI or TouchWiz 4.0 -- I can't stand the washed out look of even the best LCD's on phones on the market right now.
I loved my AMOLED Inc, I really loved my S-AMOLED Fascinate and Epic, and now I really love my S-AMOLED+ Charge.
I had a defective droid x out of the box and replaced it with a Fascinate. I upgraded to the Thunderbolt and it had really bad build quality issues so I ported to att and got an Atrix. The Atrix was awesome but att was the complete opposite. I was lucky to have my phone ring half of the time and ended up having to return it and port back into Verizon. I went to best buy and they said they had the Charge instock and sold it to me 11 days early. This phone has the best screen I have ever seen and amazing battery life. Gps performance is not perfect but overall this is the 4g device to have.
Went from a BB Storm 9530 to the Droid Charge. I have a Galaxy Tab so I knew what I was getting from the droid charge, but the screen is just fantastic! When I saw it in person I knew that was the phone I was going to upgrade to. 4G is great and I just prefer it over the thunderbolt for not only the screen but I have had good expierences with Samsung in the past, and I really didnt like the kick stand on the TB. Just picked it up less than 1 hour ago
burningembers said:
I love my Charge. I'd say the specs are on-par with the Thunderbolt, and while I'd take HTC Sense UI or TouchWiz 4.0 -- I can't stand the washed out look of even the best LCD's on phones on the market right now.
I loved my AMOLED Inc, I really loved my S-AMOLED Fascinate and Epic, and now I really love my S-AMOLED+ Charge.
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Went from a Galaxy S i9000 to a Nexus S to a Thunderbolt, and I agree, other than the iPhone 4 (which I also have) the LCD screens just pale in comparison to SAMOLED. The Thunderbolt does just look "washed out" as you put it.
Still, I'm having a tough time making the leap to a Charge. Not sure why, there's a lot of good about it that calls to me, but a lot of stuff I wish Samsung hadn't done to the phone. That SAMOLED PLUS screen may be the trump card, though...I'm afraid to go actually look at one in person because I know I won't be able to resist.
distortedloop said:
That SAMOLED PLUS screen may be the trump card, though...I'm afraid to go actually look at one in person because I know I won't be able to resist.
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Click to collapse
Yeah I went in to look at it and walked out 300 dollars poorer
Went from verizon iphone, to the bolt, then to the incredible 2, and got the droid charge the day of release. Gotta love the screen and the battery life is Outstanding!!!!!
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
I went from the Samsung Omnia to the Charge, and given the option I would do it over again. I have a friend with the bolt, and the only reason that he doesn't complain about battery life is because he leaves his phone plugged in at work all day
I went with the Charge because I wanted a 4G phone for a wifi hotspot (two laptops and soon to have two tablets), and once I saw the screen on the Charge I couldn't go back.
I had a Samsung Nexus S on T-mobile. I have been wanting to get off of t-mobile for a while since their service is pretty worthless when I am most of the time. I wanted to get back on verizon, but needed a solid phone to replace my beloved Nexus S. The Charge was pretty close so I pulled the trigger. Very happy so far.
I began my Android experience on an HTC Eris and kept it until I got the Charge last Saturday. Although it was rooted running Froyo and overclocked, the Eris was such a piece of $!&#! I cracked the glass on it in January before CES and wanted to wait to see what the manufactures had in store for 2011. Nothing impressed me except the Atrix which obviously is on ATT. Well, I was being stubborn and waiting for the Atrix twin (dual-core, 1GB RAM, etc) to come to Verizon and...well, nothing yet. (You watch, the holy grail of Android phones exceeding the Atrix will be announced next month on Verizon, *rolls eyes*)
The night before the Charge was officially on sale at Verizon, I was flashing a ROM on the Eris when it began to loop. I knew it was probably going to happen, and the trackball didn't fully work which made navigating recovery all but impossible. I'm not skilled on the SDK or ADB so I said forget it and resolved to get the Charge the next morning.
Although I really wanted a more future proof dual-core processor, I am extremely satisfied with what Samsung has come up with here. I mean, this SAMOLED Plus display is AMAZING! Performance has been fine, GPS locks in a semi-quick fashion, camera pictures and video look great, and the physical buttons are a awesome, and battery life has been pretty good.
I don't live in a 4G area (yet) but right after I purchased the phone, I left for Nashville. Once there, the 4G symbol light up (didn't change my plan, just $30 unlimited 3G) and man oh man! Reached speeds up to 23 Mbps down! On a good night, my Comcast dedicated line doesn't get that (pathetic). God bless LTE.
Complaints (#opinion):
Brown and orange color scheme? Seriously, Samsung?
3G seems to be faulty, cuts out often for about 2 mins at a time unless I toggle the data switch off/on. Never had a 3G problem in my area with the Eris.
Verizon's seemingly infinite amount of bloatware.
Power button location.
No LED notification light.
Obviously, no dual-core.
Samsung and their plastic, ugh. It's a little cheap feeling and slippery ($300 phone here and we get slippery plastic?)
--------------
Overall, I'm extremely happy with this device. And once it's rooted, some of those complaints will evaporate.
Moral of the story: it's a great looking, capable phone and if you're due for an upgrade, I would definitely consider it.
Sent from my DROID CHARGE using XDA App
Had every iPhone made before getting the Atrix... coupled with moving to the Bay area I realized how bad AT&T sucks overall. Switched to the G2x from Tmobile and LOVED it, but I had no signal at home which sucked. Now i am sitting pretty with the charge. Ironically I have LTE service at home with it, but no 3G service.
I guess i have a problem that is the first step, admitting it ...
anyway here are the phones i have owned in the last year..
Droid original, iphone 4 on verizon, ported to tmo galaxy S 4g, back to verizon with a droidx, tbolt, back to droidx, back to tbolt, now charge...
so the original droid was awesome except I learned I did not want a keyboard anymore. and the screen size was a bit small.
everyone talked about how great the iphone was so i had to try it to make sure I was not missing out on something great. although my 8 yo daughter has an ipod touch that I can't stand i figured I would keep an open mind. it was good I found that i really enjoyed the front facing camera after spending several months telling people that it was useless. The iphone was a decent phone, however I still can't stand the proprietary connections and software requirements.
galaxy s 4g, what a great phone... the only things i didn't like about this phone was gsm, compared to cdma in the DC area was appauling, no indicator light, no indicator light,
DroidX bought on ebay for $200 a great phone I rooted and had a rom on it before I activated it. great phone i still kep it as my backup.,.. no front facing camera, display is washed out, no 4 g speeds .,.. i find that the 4.3 screen was not too big for me.
Thunderbolt, battery life was horrible on stock.. took it back before root...
droid x again for a month or two untll I read how great the new roms were.
so i bought a used tbolt on ebay for $400. rooted and rom'd it. liked the roms but could not get the battery to last longer than about 4 hours. I decided to remove many apps and turn on the radios and was able to extend the battery life at the expense of usefullness of the phone.
then the charge... this is the phone I think i will be able to keep for a while. I only wish it had the msg indicater light... otherwise I am liking it very much.
Had a Droid Incredible before my Charge. So far I am really missing it aside from when 4G is behaving on my Charge.
I now can upgrade my DROID X to a newer phone.
Is the Verizon Droid Charge worthy as a replacement to Droid X? I keep reading about some of the growing pain on rooting the VDC, which I can understand. Beyond that, despite a better screen, is VDC's hardware close enough in term of its performance specifically on these three major criteria, i.e. GPS antenna, battery life and responsiveness, when you compare it with DX? Or, will I suffer from it due to the noticeable difference in poorer performance of those things? Discuss.
Note that my only reason to even pick VDC is for the 4G speed as I'm quite happy with DX hardware.
You and I are in the same boat. Although I don't have a Charge in my possession, I have decided to get it as an upgrade to my X, and here is why.
I initially got the Xperia Play as an upgrade, and had it for a day, and got rid of it because I didn't like many aspects of it.
That got me looking at an alternative upgrade, so I looked at all the 4g phones. Knowing data tiering is right around the corner, I feel this was a good move on my part. Anyway, after playing with the thunderbolt, Charge, and Revolution, I felt none of the phones were perfect for me, but the Charge was the best. I also feel it is an upgrade over my DX running team black hats Gingerbread.
The camera isn't quite as good as the Thunderbolt. The colors are... off, but resolution is better than the X by a little.
Game speed is faster. While I was at the vzw store looking at the phones, I downloaded Dungeon Defenders and played Deeper Well on insane. Faster than the Droid X by far, and what a wonderful screen!!! Not to freaking mention I was able to download the entire game over 4G faster than I could at home with Comcast/wifi. (20min) That's a freaking bonus right there buddy!
I think it will be a nice upgrade, but I wont know for a week, so ask me again then.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
Its alot better. The possessor is an a new hummingbird so it handles battery better. The screen is super amoled plus. Once you install the lagfix its fast. And finally 4g is 4g
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App
Ted A said:
Note that my only reason to even pick VDC is for the 4G speed as I'm quite happy with DX hardware.
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Click to collapse
If you can go without an upgrade, then I say stick it out for the next best phone. If you need an upgrade but don't necessarily need 4G LTE, go Droid X2, imo. Beast of a phone. I just don't like how it's sans 4G LTE.
Ted A said:
I now can upgrade my DROID X to a newer phone.
Is the Verizon Droid Charge worthy as a replacement to Droid X? I keep reading about some of the growing pain on rooting the VDC, which I can understand. Beyond that, despite a better screen, is VDC's hardware close enough in term of its performance specifically on these three major criteria, i.e. GPS antenna, battery life and responsiveness, when you compare it with DX? Or, will I suffer from it due to the noticeable difference in poorer performance of those things? Discuss.
Note that my only reason to even pick VDC is for the 4G speed as I'm quite happy with DX hardware.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I upgraded from the DX to the DC primarily because I wanted to be grandfathered in to unlimited 4G when they make the change. I chose the DC over the Tbolt because of the battery life and the battery life to me does seem better than my DX.
from a performance stand point, I would not have upgraded just for the hardware originally. I might have waited it out for the Bionic BUT that being said, there is a noticeable difference in the performance of the 2 phones and I for one like the feel of the charge as opposed to the feel of the X.
Though the dev community is just now starting out, I find ROM flashing and such to be so much easier on the Charge, primarily because you don't have to deal with the bootstrapper and all that mess.
Overall, i'd say your decision has to come down to priorities, my priority was 4G unlimited (assuming that VZW will grandfather people in). If you want straight up hardware and performance, possibly hold out to the Bionic or go with the DX2 (I would've have gone with it except I couldn't see the point in getting a new phone that couldn't do 4G). Better battery life IMO go with the DC.
I am extremely happy with with all aspects of the DC over my X.
I have a thunderbolt right now... Im going to get getting rid of my girlfriends iphone so we can lock her in the 4g unlimited plan. She likes my thunderbolt so thats what she will probably get. Now i'm thinking about switching over to the charge but i'm having a hard time. I hate sense but I hate touch wiz even more. I like the fact that the thunderbolt has 2 aosp roms to choose from but the gummy rom I just saw for the charge looks pretty good. Help me decide please!
My contract has been up for a few weeks, I've been researching phones vigorously to find the best one and so far my conclusion is
#1: Samsung Galaxy S2
#2: HTC EVO 4G/3D
#3: Droid Charge
#4: HTC Thunderbolt
Galaxy S2 is a BEAST of a phone, only problem is there is no US release date as of yet, and even worse there is no US Verizon/Sprint/T-Mobile/ATT release date as of yet...
HTC EVO 4G/3D are great phones, I personally didn't look too far into them since they aren't on Verizon but you can look up their specs to see if they are in your ballpark
Droid Charge is my personal phone of choice, i WOULD get the GalaxyS2 but we aren't seeing a release date(it's expected in July-September but I can't wait)
HTC Thunderbolt was an obvious contender if the Charge was on the list but I've heard of a lot of problems with this phone such as rebooting issues, battery issues etc.
so the verdict? Droid Charge if you need/want a phone now, Galaxy S2 if you can wait(I'm not psychic but it's pretty obvious that phone is going to be HUGE, which in turn means great support from the developers & tons of easy root methods)
There's several threads along these lines that you should check out, so skim through the section and read them, even the one about "learning to hate the Charge" or something like that...you'll get plenty of pros and cons and TB vs Charge comments in those, but since I feel like whining about my Charge I'll jump in here. IF you don't read my whole post, at least check out the last paragraph, you might like the idea.
IF, and that's a big IF, the Galaxy S II ever comes to Verizon or ATT with an LTE radio, I'll be all over it once it's rootable, but since you're up against the expiring unlimited data offer, there's just the two to choose from (Charge, Thunderbolt).
I have both, and it's still a tough call for me on which I prefer. So many pluses, and so many minuses on both.
If I had to choose one right this minute to toss away, I think it would be the Charge, though. The Charge has got about the best damn display I've ever seen on a phone. iPhone 4 is sharper, but smaller, and the Charge blows away the iP4 in the contrast and inky blacks department.
The Charge is lighter than the TB, by a very noticeable amount. It's arguably got better battery life, but seriously, you won't be happy with it either. If you're in a spotty 3G area, the Charge seems to have exponentially better battery life than the TB, but in a solid 4G area, they both suck. I haven't spent enough time with both in a solid 3G area to compare yet.
The Charge's screen seems scratch proof without protection. Mine rides naked and has no mars. It fell out of my pocket on the leg press machine the other day and the front hit the metal bar on its way down. No damage to the screen but a small nick in the bezel (which is soft plastic). The Thunderbolt is a scratch magnet- treated mine with kid gloves, but no protection, and it's still somehow managed to get two nasty gouges in the screen.
The Sammies are pretty good at playing any media you throw at them, not so sure about the HTCs.
The Charge's hardware buttons at the bottom are pretty nice; I didn't think I'd like them, but once you get past the cheap plasticky feel, they're a solid competitor to the capacitive ones.
Those are about the only major plusses on the Charge for my usage.
Major minuses include a laggy as heck phone unless you do the voodoo ext4 conversion AND install the Gummy ROM. VooDoo alone, debloating, using different launchers, etc, did not fix the lag on the Charge for me. Gummy seems to have for the most part, but there's still an occasional sluggishness on waking the phone or switching some apps.
The plastic is cheap feeling compared to TB. It's a big issue for some.
There's no kickstand on the Charge. I know I'm not alone in thinking this is one of the coolest, most obvious enhancements to a phone to have. One of the big Android blogs, Android Central I think, made a blog post along those lines just recently.
There's no Gingerbread yet for the Charge, but there is (unofficially, anyways) for the TB.
You mentioned you hate Sense, but with the BAMF Sense 3 ROM I am in love with Sense. It's the slickest thing I've seen on a phone for a launcher and some cool widgets. I've been a CM7 and Launcher Pro guy for all my Androids since the N1 once CM7 became available, but for the TB, I think it will stay Sense on mine for quite a while.
We might see more activity with the Charge development-wise, it's still fairly new, but I believe that by the this time in the phone's life on the TB we had a lot more activity. We don't even have a full and proper ClockWork or Amon Ra recovery for the Charge yet. Imnuts has given us a pretty decent one, but you'll soft-brick (or worse) your Charge if you try to do a Nandroid restore with it, and unless I missed an update, you have to do a battery pull to reboot if you try a factory restore/wipe on it.
All that said, and my overall preference for the TB...why not grab a Charge and play with it for a while in daily use. GET IT AT COSTCO. You'll get locked in with the unlimited data plan, but unlike VZW purchased phones, you get 90 days to test drive the phone itself. 14-day right to cancel on cell plan still applies though. If you just hate the thing, you can go back and get the Thunderbolt, or better yet, by August or end of September when your 90 days is up we'll have some more choices (like maybe that oh-so-sweet Galaxy S II).
Thank you. I just got back home with a new Charge. Gave my girlfriend my thunderbolt. Now im trying to figure out how I root this on a mac?
You're gonna want gummy...the phone's a laggy turd with any variant of stock for me...YMMV.
Use Odin in a VMWare Windows box to flash the Imnuts Clockwork, then use Clockwork to flash the Gummy rom, which is pre-rooted.
There are plenty of tutorials around here on using Odin, so I won't bother explaining, but a good tip get the phone recognized in the Windows box while in download mode is to plug it in in regular mode first, wait for the virtual cd-rom that will open, then run the driver installer (all in the Windows box). Make sure USB debugging is off, or the virtual cd won't open.
You can try flashing Clockwork with Heimdall, but many of us can't get it to work on the Mac with the Charge.
My wife and I just got one. I rooted mine and I don't plan on rooting hers. When I try to go back from Gummy to the last touchwiz crap I want to smash the damn thing. This phone files once you get a good rom on it @ use the voodoo lagfix. My quadrant (doesn't really mean much, but FWIW) was around 800 before and 1700 after. The rom is still not perfect but it is miles ahead of stock.
Ohhh... do you self an favor and use a windows machine to root the thing. It takes half an hour if you know what you are doing.
Thank you. Yes I rooted and flashed gummy already. Huge difference!
It is amazing how much I hated this phone when I got it vs how much I love it after a Voodoo kernel and Gummy
It took me a while to figure it out, but once I got the voodoo kernel on my Charge, I tried the ROMs out and while Gummy is fast, I still think AC's Altered Beast ROM is the best. It might still be in its Alpha stage, but its crazy fast and looks very sexy. Gummy is definitely great right now, but I think once the Altered Beast is finished that will be the ROM to go to. If your looking for speed and looks, Altered Beast is a good way to go.
Also, where as the phone does seem to be made out of a cheaper material, I have also noticed that my screen seems nearly invincible. Plus it looks amazing.
Altered beast looks awesome but I love soap look I don't know if I can leave yummy... haha
cacash89 said:
Also, where as the phone does seem to be made out of a cheaper material, I have also noticed that my screen seems nearly invincible. Plus it looks amazing.
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Click to collapse
Samsung definitely makes a damn good display, both in appearance and durability. I've never scratched a Galaxy S based phone... and I've had four of them.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
edit: edited ***** to both and been to never...sheesh the autocorrect on the phone is bad sometimes.
Went From TB to Charge
After having to many issues with the TB (4 of them) Verizon got me the Charge.
The Development for the TB is awesome and a ton of roms and kernels and themes to keep you busy for months, but I had quite a few reboots and cell issues and was about the same on all models. The Charge has excellent battery life on 3g sense 4g won't be on till July 21st for me. The Thunderbolt was good to with the right rom/kernel combo, but the Charge wins and also wins in the display department. Like another poster said the TB seemed to get dirty/scratched easy don't know why I had cases and screen protectors and never could manage to keep it looking good the Charge has yet to get any marks/ other then a cheap back that will proly wear fast, but then again can be replaced for $10. All in all I love both phones, but when it comes down to it I more then anything want a working phone which thus far seems to be the Charge.
If you're looking for a Verizon LTE phone now, the main thing is to not wait. Get a TB or Charge now and sell it later if you hate it. Its worth locking in the unlimited data before it goes away. I was wavering between all 3 LTE phones, as what I'm really waiting for is a Droid Bionic (in whatever form it finally comes in...) but at this point the unlimited data is more important to me than an extra core and some more memory. SAMOLED and battery life is what swung me from the TB to the Charge, but the TB seems to have a more lively dev community, not to mention much better dev support from HTC than what Samsung provides. Its all a tradeoff...
Hey guys,
Currently have the incredible and love it but I need a bigger screen. Im due for an upgrade and like the charge. Would Anyone who upgraded to it from an incredible be down to post their experiences?
Thanks,
Sent from my 2.3.5 Incredible Obsession
bigsapz said:
Hey guys,
Currently have the incredible and love it but I need a bigger screen. Im due for an upgrade and like the charge. Would Anyone who upgraded to it from an incredible be down to post their experiences?
Thanks,
Sent from my 2.3.5 Incredible Obsession
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It depends on you want. There is not nearly the amount of roms to choose from as there is for the DInc, but the ones we do have are great. If I had an upgrade, and was in your situation, I'd wait for the SGS2 or HTC Vigor. The Charge is a great phone but I wouldn't use an upgrade on it considering what is coming in the near future. Just my opinion though.
I did this in a roundabout way in that I used the Incredible for a year before getting my Charge, but I didn't use an upgrade (one of my kids had the Fascinate, but since he doesn't live in a 4G coverage area, I replaced his Fascinate with my Incredible and appropriated the Charge). I can say that I'm much happier with the phone having gotten it for free than I would be if I had paid for it, but overall quite pleased.
The Charge has has better:
-Battery life (by around 40%)
-Screen (I had both the SLCD and OLED DIncs- SAMOLED+ blows both away)
-Usability (screen size is much better for typing accuracy)
-Multimedia experience- SGX540 trounces the rather dated Adreno200
-Audio quality- especially with Voodoo Sound
-Bootloader design- ODIN mode is great for recovering from ****ups
Things that really don't impact my opinion
-4G is incredible in theory- in practice, Google Music and Netflix could both stream just fine over good old EV-DO RevA, and for anything else I need to download I have home wifi and 25Mbit Comcast Xfinity, so it's still sort of unnecessary. It is cool to be able to say my phone has a faster broadband connection than my home.... I'm regularly seeing 30mbit down/6 up. I'm not using it as a hotspot as I don't feel like either shelling out or risking my service, and I will say that I'm using 3-4x the data on LTE than I did over 3G, with better battery life as previously mentioned.
-Overall usability- the Hummingbird is a tad quicker than the Snapdragon, but overall I always found the DInc to be a quite responsive phone- no problems with either
-Call quality- though the Charge has a dual mic setup, they both sound the same on my end. Hard to find fault with Verizon.
Things that I still have to hand to the Incredible
-I have the Charge in an Otterbox Commuter to protect its incredibly vulnerable back shell. While this gives it a great solid feel in the hand, it also makes it a bit on the difficult side to slide in and out of pockets. The DInc was a very convenient size.
-ROM selection is way better for the DInc- though, let's be honest, I didn't care about anything else once CM7 for DInc was out. Here's hoping it hits the Charge soon.
Final thoughts- rumor has it the Bionic could be out within a week, but even if that's premature it's certainly not more than a month away. The Galaxy S2 and HTC Vigor are also both right around the corner. The Charge is about to be replaced as a flagship model. My approval of it is tempered by the fact that I got it for free. You may want to hold off a bit.
I came from the Droid incredible as well and echo the posts above. The charge is an upgrade but at this point just wait for gs2, vigor, or nexus.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
I came from the Dinc which I treasured. The dev community was awesome for the Dinc but I love eclipse.
Not sure why you would wait for the sgs2, it may not have 4G.
And the Bionic is just a bigger droid 3 with 4G. Of course to each his own, and I personally saw the samoled+ and just had to have it. I could have waited for the bionic or sgs2 but why? Whatever phone you get, im sure you will love. Afterall, they all do just about the same thing.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
I upgraded from the Dinc a couple of months ago and I'm semi happy with my upgrade. The 2 main reasons to upgrade to this phone are the screen and 4G. I guess it depends how important those two things are to you. All the phones coming out in the next couple of months will probably have those two things AND have upgraded processors, RAM, etc. So if I were in your shoes, I would wait a couple of months to see what else is coming out.
I came from the Incredible and am in love with mCharge. Has the hardkey buttons and 4g. Plus the screen it was everything I wanted. Before I got the Charge I was considering waiting on the Bionic but I personally am happy with the choice I made.
Sent from my GummyCHARGED Charge using Tapatalk
MillionManMosh said:
I did this in a roundabout way in that I used the Incredible for a year before getting my Charge, but I didn't use an upgrade (one of my kids had the Fascinate, but since he doesn't live in a 4G coverage area, I replaced his Fascinate with my Incredible and appropriated the Charge). I can say that I'm much happier with the phone having gotten it for free than I would be if I had paid for it, but overall quite pleased.
The Charge has has better:
-Battery life (by around 40%)
-Screen (I had both the SLCD and OLED DIncs- SAMOLED+ blows both away)
-Usability (screen size is much better for typing accuracy)
-Multimedia experience- SGX540 trounces the rather dated Adreno200
-Audio quality- especially with Voodoo Sound
-Bootloader design- ODIN mode is great for recovering from ****ups
Things that really don't impact my opinion
-4G is incredible in theory- in practice, Google Music and Netflix could both stream just fine over good old EV-DO RevA, and for anything else I need to download I have home wifi and 25Mbit Comcast Xfinity, so it's still sort of unnecessary. It is cool to be able to say my phone has a faster broadband connection than my home.... I'm regularly seeing 30mbit down/6 up. I'm not using it as a hotspot as I don't feel like either shelling out or risking my service, and I will say that I'm using 3-4x the data on LTE than I did over 3G, with better battery life as previously mentioned.
-Overall usability- the Hummingbird is a tad quicker than the Snapdragon, but overall I always found the DInc to be a quite responsive phone- no problems with either
-Call quality- though the Charge has a dual mic setup, they both sound the same on my end. Hard to find fault with Verizon.
Things that I still have to hand to the Incredible
-I have the Charge in an Otterbox Commuter to protect its incredibly vulnerable back shell. While this gives it a great solid feel in the hand, it also makes it a bit on the difficult side to slide in and out of pockets. The DInc was a very convenient size.
-ROM selection is way better for the DInc- though, let's be honest, I didn't care about anything else once CM7 for DInc was out. Here's hoping it hits the Charge soon.
Final thoughts- rumor has it the Bionic could be out within a week, but even if that's premature it's certainly not more than a month away. The Galaxy S2 and HTC Vigor are also both right around the corner. The Charge is about to be replaced as a flagship model. My approval of it is tempered by the fact that I got it for free. You may want to hold off a bit.
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Click to collapse
I came from the Incredible as well, and I echo everything this guy said. Although I did pay for the phone instead of free (lucky guy lol) I feel like it was worth it. I still use my Incredible (deactivated, but still works on wifi) just for random games and testing out custom roms because we all know the Inc has some great developers. Charge development is looking great too though and I can't wait to see the likes of CM7, MIUI, etc on this phone. It's not perfect, but if you convert from RFS to EXT4 it's really close.
DINC to Charge
bigsapz said:
Hey guys,
Currently have the incredible and love it but I need a bigger screen. Im due for an upgrade and like the charge. Would Anyone who upgraded to it from an incredible be down to post their experiences?
Thanks,
Sent from my 2.3.5 Incredible Obsession
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I echo all the "good" comments as I came from the DINC a month or so ago. The only thing I miss is the LED that the "DINC used for letting you know it's charging. The Charge experience is a little different than the HTC experience but it just lets you know what else is out there.
I would hold out for the Bionic. I upgraded from Dinc to Charge because Verizon was changing their unlimited tier plans and I was afraid of missing the boat so I used my upgrade to lock myself in. The Charge was the best at the time but if you can wait until the Bionic comes out 9/8-ish I would. Dual core, 4G, 4.3 inch screen plus the ability to use the Motorola dock/laptop thingy (if you're interested) is a def plus. I can't remember RAM and storage specs but I think they beat the Charge as well.
One thing I did notice coming from Dinc to Charge was the snappiness of the ROMs. Once lagfix was enabled though it was pretty hard to distinguish the difference.
wenzer said:
I would hold out for the Bionic. I upgraded from Dinc to Charge because Verizon was changing their unlimited tier plans and I was afraid of missing the boat so I used my upgrade to lock myself in.
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You do realize if you were already on an unlimited data plan, you were locked in?
Anyway to the OP. I came from the Fascinate to the Charge. I got in on the free exchange. The Charge is a great phone. I would say it's a Fascinate 2. I don't think I would have used (wasted) an upgrade on this phone. I think it's best to see what the Bionic, Vigor, SGS2 & iPhone 5 bring to the table. This is especially true when you consider Verizon did away with 1 year contracts.
On a side note, my daughter has a Dinc. She absolutely refuses to upgrade her phone. She says it's simply "Incredible". Lol.
I'm months overdue from getting rid of my Touch Pro 2, and the Charge is one of my top contenders. I was holding out for the Bionic (or rumored Verizon Nexus S), but after researching the X2 and Droid 3 and seeing the Dev community having issues achieving root, I'm now leaning back towards the current single core LTE handsets.
The brief time I've spent looking around, it looks like the battery life is great considering the usual LTE excess drain. Obviously the phone is rootable, there are kernels and roms available, and the dev community seems to be very active with the phone in general.
I haven't specifically seen any mention of overclock ability or "stealth" tethering, but I would have to assume these are all doable considering the kernel and rom availability.
If anybody wouldn't mind sharing some general feedback, I would greatly appreciate it!
* In general, how happy have you been with your Charge, and why?
* Why did you choose it over, say, the LG Revolution?
* Anyone unhappy with their decision to go with the Charge (after-the-fact) over something else, and if so, why?
Thanks again in advance for any comments, they would be much appreciated!
Cheers!
I like my charge. I also came from a TP2 like you. The battery life is decent but the 4g is awesome to have. It flies. I use stealth tethering via wireless tether for root users. The dev community is very active. The main issues I have are bluetooth related. I often have to reboot before I get into my car so I know there will not be bluetooth disconnects. Now that netflix is available I like the phone even more. Also I love swype.
Good luck and smart idea asking the questions that you are asking.
Sent from my VZW SGT running a Gingerbread Sprint Rom
I came to the Charge from the Revolution. I liked the feel of the Revo, it was heavier, felt solid and well made and it was also a much faster phone than the charge out of the box giving me Quadrants in 2k to 22k range. On 4g Speed tests the Charge is faster.
But when I had two Revolutions brick themselves so hard that I could not get into a factory reset, nor anything else in the space of 30 days I had VZW upgrade me to the Charge.
So far the Charge has beena pretty decent phone (considering I've rooted and ROMed it.) Stock I hated it.
I'm using Humble 1.42 as my ROM and I'm happy so far.
Time to upgrade buddy. Humble 1.51 is sick.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
omnia38 said:
Time to upgrade buddy. Humble 1.51 is sick.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using Tapatalk
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**** humble he is nothing but a thief gummy is where it's at.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App
schick79 said:
* In general, how happy have you been with your Charge, and why? Very happy. 4G is lightning fast; the screen is the best out there; I personally find the Samsung TouchWiz UI to be very friendly. Others don't; each to his own. Battery life seems at least as good as any other Android phone; I can get 9-12 hours, which is all I need, unless I'm in a fringe reception area.
* Why did you choose it over, say, the LG Revolution? LG phones generally seem to be more troublesome from what I've read. Plus the screen is greatly inferior.
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Red comments above.
schick79 said:
I'm months overdue from getting rid of my Touch Pro 2, and the Charge is one of my top contenders. I was holding out for the Bionic (or rumored Verizon Nexus S), but after researching the X2 and Droid 3 and seeing the Dev community having issues achieving root, I'm now leaning back towards the current single core LTE handsets.
The brief time I've spent looking around, it looks like the battery life is great considering the usual LTE excess drain. Obviously the phone is rootable, there are kernels and roms available, and the dev community seems to be very active with the phone in general.
I haven't specifically seen any mention of overclock ability or "stealth" tethering, but I would have to assume these are all doable considering the kernel and rom availability.
If anybody wouldn't mind sharing some general feedback, I would greatly appreciate it!
* In general, how happy have you been with your Charge, and why?
* Why did you choose it over, say, the LG Revolution?
* Anyone unhappy with their decision to go with the Charge (after-the-fact) over something else, and if so, why?
Thanks again in advance for any comments, they would be much appreciated!
Cheers!
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Sorry for quoting this long, its hard to look back at posts on your phone. I came from an LG Versa. That phone was complete ****, but I was 13 or 14 and something appealed to me. This is my upgrade. I love it, except for the battery life. We have 2 main custom roms, GummyCharged and Eclipse. (Humble is just a spinoff/kang of GC), and 2-3 kernels - PeanutButtaJellyTime (plus an OC edition, you mentioned you didn't see it), Nameless, and imoseyon's kernel, which you will only find on his Twitter page. "Stealth Tethering" is still available with Wifi Tether Beta3 on Google Code. I chose this over the Tbolt and Revolution because a verizon rep told me this was the 4G phone with the least issues and most positive customer feedback, plus I thought this one had the most support from XDA (the tbolt has a lot too though). My only peeve with this phone is its lack of support from Samsung. We basically have to do everything ourselves because Sammy hasn't given us good source. We don't get TW4 (although we have our attempts at porting it), and GB is FINALLY almost here. The Wolfson DAC is amazing, but the GPS (Yamaha?) leaves something to be desired. But in closing, I love this phone and im glad I got it.
Sent from my Droid Charge running GummyFroyo 1.9.1
kvswim, thanks VERY much for that! Quick question, though (or for anyone else), not actually having an Android phone yet, I have no idea what TW4 or DAC means.
Great to know OC is an option, as well as stealth tethering.
Also appreciate the scoop on the different flavors of roms/kernels/etc.
If I end up going with this phone (which is now far ahead in the lead), that will be the first thing I do upon opening up the box.
Thanks again!
schick79 said:
kvswim, thanks VERY much for that! Quick question, though (or for anyone else), not actually having an Android phone yet, I have no idea what TW4 or DAC means.
Great to know OC is an option, as well as stealth tethering.
Also appreciate the scoop on the different flavors of roms/kernels/etc.
If I end up going with this phone (which is now far ahead in the lead), that will be the first thing I do upon opening up the box.
Thanks again!
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TW4=TouchWiz 4, Sammy's 4th generation of their UI overlay, similar to HTC's Sense or Motorola's Motoblur. We have TW3. Also, the stock theming is HIDEOUS. Poop color EVERYWHERE.
The Wolfson DAC is the audio chipset in most (all?) Samsung Galaxy phones. It is amazing compared to other phones, it's audiophile quality. Plus the EQ and amplifier outputs can be modified with the Voodoo Control app (you can also change Voodoo lagfix in it).
PROTIP on selecting ROMS: If you like the stock feel go with Eclipse. If you like more of an Android Open Source Project (AOSP) feel, use GC. I highly reccommend trying both and seeing what you like more. Also, as of now, Gingerbread is completely up to you, as all we have in GB are leaks and no source (its completely unnoficial). Our Froyo builds are built from official ROMS and source.
Oh yes, we have stuff like MIUI and CM7 and OMFGB in development. Protip: NEVER ask for ETAs.
Sent from my Droid Charge running GummyFroyo 1.9.1
Gotcha, thanks. I do have a Xoom, but considering that's on Honeycomb, I didn't think there would be any relation between it and any phone.
When you said DAC the only thing that came to mind was digital to analog converter, but I didn't think that would be it. Guess I was wrong! That's another huge plus as my phone is always my mp3/flac player.
Will definitely check out all roms if/once I get the phone.
At this point I'm pretty much sold on the Charge as opposed to the Revo or TB, and even the Bionic. However, I am wondering if it's worth waiting a couple weeks until the rumored September release date for the Bionic to see if the price points fall. All things being equal, they should.
Again, thanks for all the help!
I got my charge 2 days ago...via a sweet craigslist deal. Anyways, I'm coming from the THunderbolt. I still haven't rooted the phone yet but the tbolt was perma rooted running a GB rom. Now I know you said LG rev but I'm going to go on a little rant here based on my initial thoughts.
I gotta say, I think the charge is an underrated phone. So far the battery life on the charge is DESTROYING the thunderbolt. The real test will be tomorrow when I'm at work with a poor data signal. I think the phone itself looks great, it is much better in person than you see in pictures. In pictures it looks fat and weird, I think its pretty sleek for a 4.3" LTE phone. Nice metal accents, good form factor, I could've done without the android hardkeys, but I don't mind them.
Samsung phones get knocked for build quality, but my galaxy s when I was on tmobile took a ton of abuse, the screen never scratched and even the "metal" accent trims don't scratch much. Also, I personally like the lighter weight feel of the samsung phones (galaxy, nexus, charge, etc).
Take that in comparison with HTC phones and the thunderbolt... I seroiusly don't know what kind of HTC koolaid people drink but I've never been impressed. The thunderbolt's screen is NOT very scratch resistant, the kickstand peel reaked of sh*t quality, I ended up polishing mine. When I had my nexus one, the power button felt like crap. When I had my HD7, the battery cover squeaked like hell. Like I said, I don't get how HTC gets so much credit.
Moving on to slam HTC more, if you ask me, HTC sense sucks, its so intrusive and blocky to me. Maybe I'm in the minority there but I'm sick of the stupid HTC clock widget, the menus, etc, just isn't my thing I guess. Lets not to mention the messages app in the thunderbolt freezing ALOT. Of course I ditched sense with the AOSP rom I was running but still, initial frustration. People give touchwiz heat, but I really don't mind it.
Reception - I'm getting FAR better 4g connectivity with the charge. I don't know what was up with my tbolt but once I'd drop to 3g or 1x, I could never get back to 4g unless I rebooted. Multiple radios - same issue.
Finally, the screen. Sorry but one of the most rewarding things with a phone is the screen, every time you turn it on, you obviously see it, and with the charge, thats a good thing because the super amoled plus is just excellent. Destroys the thunderbolt and most other phones in general.
Forget quadrant scores (people get wayyyy hung up on QS), dual cores, everything else. At the end of the day, if the aesthetics of the phone are good - size, weight, pocketability, the screen, the device is snappy (and the charge is smooth for me in stock form), and battery life is good, I'm gonna be happy. With all those things into account, I think the charge is a great phone so far and I'm really surprised its kind of slid under the radar and not given credit because people are waiting for the bionic and gs2.
Sorry to do tbolt vs charge since thats not what you're looking for, but as far as general feedback - I think you're going to be happy with the charge, its quite honestly a very nice phone. I'm glad I gave another LTE phone a chance before I lost faith in it.
Thanks Dale, I actually do appreciate the TBolt comparison. It was originally my #1 or #2 pick, so this reaffirms that it is rightfully at the bottom of my list.
It just hit me that Super AMOLED is probably the same as SAMOLED. I saw another article (about a completely different phone, actually) that was raving about SAMOLED. Good to have some additional confirmation on that.
I was originally hung up on Quadrant scores and having that dual core. However, after I thought about it, I'm really not sure how important it is considering what I would use the phone for. I have my Xoom, and that is my real "mobile workhorse" now, so that's the device that I'm more concerned about performance on. The phone will primarily be for web browsing, work e-mail, music, tethering, and that's pretty much it. Any other heavy lifting would probably be done by the Xoom. All that being said, I've pretty much convinced myself I won't miss not having the second core. Plus, I'm sure the battery life is better with only 1 core versus 2.
I'm actually pretty stoked after reading all of this feedback, especially the feedback from people who had another LTE phone. I feel good about going with this phone in the very near future.
Again, thanks to all!
schick79 said:
Thanks Dale, I actually do appreciate the TBolt comparison. It was originally my #1 or #2 pick, so this reaffirms that it is rightfully at the bottom of my list.
It just hit me that Super AMOLED is probably the same as SAMOLED. I saw another article (about a completely different phone, actually) that was raving about SAMOLED. Good to have some additional confirmation on that.
I was originally hung up on Quadrant scores and having that dual core. However, after I thought about it, I'm really not sure how important it is considering what I would use the phone for. I have my Xoom, and that is my real "mobile workhorse" now, so that's the device that I'm more concerned about performance on. The phone will primarily be for web browsing, work e-mail, music, tethering, and that's pretty much it. Any other heavy lifting would probably be done by the Xoom. All that being said, I've pretty much convinced myself I won't miss not having the second core. Plus, I'm sure the battery life is better with only 1 core versus 2.
I'm actually pretty stoked after reading all of this feedback, especially the feedback from people who had another LTE phone. I feel good about going with this phone in the very near future.
Again, thanks to all!
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"Super AMOLED" and "SAMOLED" are the same thing, however the Charges' screen is SAMOLED+ But yeah I think it was pretty solid upgrade for me, I love the screen, 4G is blazing fast, build quality and durability are pretty decent and the included 32gb sd card is plenty of room for music, videos and apps
schick79 said:
I'm months overdue from getting rid of my Touch Pro 2, and the Charge is one of my top contenders. I was holding out for the Bionic (or rumored Verizon Nexus S), but after researching the X2 and Droid 3 and seeing the Dev community having issues achieving root, I'm now leaning back towards the current single core LTE handsets.
The brief time I've spent looking around, it looks like the battery life is great considering the usual LTE excess drain. Obviously the phone is rootable, there are kernels and roms available, and the dev community seems to be very active with the phone in general.
I haven't specifically seen any mention of overclock ability or "stealth" tethering, but I would have to assume these are all doable considering the kernel and rom availability.
If anybody wouldn't mind sharing some general feedback, I would greatly appreciate it!
* In general, how happy have you been with your Charge, and why?
* Why did you choose it over, say, the LG Revolution?
* Anyone unhappy with their decision to go with the Charge (after-the-fact) over something else, and if so, why?
Thanks again in advance for any comments, they would be much appreciated!
Cheers!
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Click to collapse
Dude...
Don't get the Charge.
While it's very true there will alwaya be devices that outperform * it'a safe to say the Charge seemed rushed from development to market probably because they were tapped to do so because of either HTC or Motk dropped the ball...
While rooting can solve the much outdated 2.2 joke made at our expense and even though many people have been forced to look at a front face camera (that takes back assward pics no less) and that isn't working across the board for many video chat users....you are forced to deal with an unrecoverable error such as the laughable RAM, arguably necessity of a notifcation LED, and ****ty build quality Samsung (in this device) exemplifies times 10.
Wait and be patient is the best intelligent decision considering the norm will (soon) be:
4.3-4.5 screen (hd res)
1gb of RAM
16gb internal storage
Up to date operating systems...
That said, I enjoy and dislike my Charge.
It's better than my O.G. DROID.
It takes THE best pictures and video of any phone Verizon offers...period.
Do I enjoy the squeaky hard buttons?
Do I like seeing particles of dust (a la bb storm 9530) ?
Do I enjoy ****ty plastic that easily scratches?
Nope.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App
schick79 said:
I was originally hung up on Quadrant scores and having that dual core. However, after I thought about it, I'm really not sure how important it is considering what I would use the phone for. I have my Xoom, and that is my real "mobile workhorse" now, so that's the device that I'm more concerned about performance on. The phone will primarily be for web browsing, work e-mail, music, tethering, and that's pretty much it. Any other heavy lifting would probably be done by the Xoom. All that being said, I've pretty much convinced myself I won't miss not having the second core. Plus, I'm sure the battery life is better with only 1 core versus 2.
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For what it's worth, running overclocked and undervolted on Froyo Eclipse, my Quadrant scores were 1800-1900, which was about double the original score. Not the best but not terrible. Still had solid battery life, great stability, etc. Definitely glad I got this phone, but that's mainly because I rooted it and fixed so many of the things I didn't like originally. Playing on the EP1Q GummyCharged GBE ROM now and still loving it, just get to use the FFC for video chat.
Honestly, yes there will be VZW devices that out-spec it soon, but I've not found it lacking anything (that couldn't be fixed thanks to the dev community). Very happy with it.
You have the Motorola Bionic and the Galaxy S2 dropping within the month, I'd hold out. Not to say that the Droid Charge isn't good, but, those phones are going to be right around the same price and will smoke the Charge in performance.
The Droid Charge isn't that great. I only got it because I needed something to get in on Unlimited data and the Charge was supposed to get better battery life than the other two LTE phones.
First, the battery life is just OK. Only around 4-5 hours of music streaming.
Second, the 4G reception is incredibly spotty. The phone will drop to 3G for seemingly no reason. Sometimes data cuts out completely or goes to 1x (this is a widespread problem).
Like other Galaxy S phones, this has GPS issues. Sometimes GPS will stop working until you reboot the phones. I've never seen it reports an accuracy of more than 5 meters.
Even after trying the GPS fix posted in the other topic, I was only getting 10-18m accuracy outside with 7-9 satellites in view.
The Super AMOLED+ screen is pretty much amazing though.
It seems like Samsung is decent at hardware but bad at software. And there aren't any ROMs available here that aren't based on Samsung software.
I'd at least wait and see about the Bionic or Nexus Prime.
schick79 said:
* In general, how happy have you been with your Charge, and why?
* Why did you choose it over, say, the LG Revolution?
* Anyone unhappy with their decision to go with the Charge (after-the-fact) over something else, and if so, why?
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Click to collapse
1) I'm VERY happy with my Charge. It's probably because this was my first smartphone but I'm simply blown away by it. Especially considering we have Cyanogen & OMGB/OMFGB coming our way(in-fact, they just got CM working! Not finished, but it's a start)
2) I looked at all the phones that were out and coming out and decided on the Charge. I didn't look into the dev support for other phones I was just looking at specs/reviews to make my decision.
3) Lets get this straight, I am in no way unhappy with my Charge and did not "settle" when picking this phone but in all honesty the Prime/GalaxyS2/Bionic look great and if they were released at the time of me picking out a phone I would have gotten them in that order. Only downside to this phone is the fact that it's not on GB and most likely won't ever get TW4. If you can get around that you'll love this phone. Also, once you see the screen you will never go back to a non Amoled, qHD ain't got **** on this baby!
My wife an I both got charges a couple of months ago. I am rooted and she is stock. When I pick up her phone and mess around with it, I absolutely hate it. I love mine (gummy charged). I don't know how people can use this phone stock.
el_brio said:
My wife an I both got charges a couple of months ago. I am rooted and she is stock. When I pick up her phone and mess around with it, I absolutely hate it. I love mine (gummy charged). I don't know how people can use this phone stock.
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Im almost in the same exact situation and couldnt agree more