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HTC Touch HD Owners in the United States Help Out Us Wannabees

To those of you who've been brave enough to import the Touch HD, please enlighten the rest of us who are on the fence. I think we all know that the major issue is the lack of 3G for us in the states. Does EDGE work well enough for day to day mobile browsing? Is the lack of faster data speed a big enough minus to advise others against importing the phone? Are there other pitfalls that we may not be aware of at this point? Thanks for any information you guys can offer to the rest of us who may be considering buying The Touch HD for use with TMobile, AT&T, etc.

better wait
I am one of the people hesitating too. However I know I hate the EDGE speeds compared to the 3G network. In the my office the 3G reception is marginal and with my current HTC Trinity I change the E and H nets all day long.
What I hate about the E:
1. The phone is much more slow. by much I mean MUCH. browsing the internet on E speeds is amazingly slow.
2. If you happen to have the phone in a cradle like I do, and happen to have amplified speakers of the cheap kind , the one without magnetic protection, like most people will add to their office PC, spending few bucks, you will note how much interference is created by the phone while on the E network. Amazingly loud noise. While on the H network - quiet.
3. A co-worker of mine bought the Diamond before the US 3G version showed up. 3 months later the US version came out. It is different hardware so he will NEVER be on 3G with his over $500 investment.
4. I have consulted a reseller of the HD touch and he told me the chipset of the current HD touch will not support the US 3G frequency. it isn't that there will be a firmware or software tweak.
As much as I am eager to put put my hands on a new HD, I am waiting. If spending $850 will buy me a downgrade to EDGE networks, as good as reception is for me (Edge is working in a very nice coverage for me with AT&T in CA) I rather be patient. Either thee will be a US version, or maybe another phone. HTC already came up with 4G phone and Wimax support one, so I am sure they are not going to neglect the US market for long.
I personally believe as soon as they will finish milking the European market with 850 Euro per unit, it will have to appear here supporting US nets.

yeah...
I have one... cost me $710 shipped to me in two days from clove.
Edge is slower. 3G is faster.. some places more than twice as fast.
Depends on what you want... i absolutely love the phone... still having fun tweaking the heck out of it... the screen is to die for.. everyone wants to know what kind of phone it is.. i use slingplayer to watch shows at 350K on edge no problem... thats my highest bandwdith consumption piece. Side by side... my wifes iphone opens cnn in about 4 seconds less than my phone does it... i can give up 4 seconds for the goodness that is the Touch HD... really I can.. like i said.. some people will care more than others... me, Id do it all over again

Huge Dilemma: Have to choose new carrier>

My current situation is as follows:
I was on Alltel, then Verizon bought it. The location in which the account originated from (Orangeburg, SC area) is being divested and sold to some no-name company. In the process, even though we are on "Verizon" service, I have 1-2 bars.. constantly.
Now, the move is happening, our account is ending because we are refusing service, as we have no service.
The other two people on the account have already moved to AT&T, because that was their only choice as they live out in nowhere. Whereas, I'm in a semi-populated city, Charleston SC.
Heres my problem..
I want, or at least I think I do, the HTC Incredible.. It could be two weeks before its out.. two months, who the hell knows..
I wouldn't mind an iPhone, but the lack of user customization kills me.. the whole "loyalty" to apple blows and it probably wont be long till the next ver of iPhone is released (they found deeper in the iPad OS "iPhone 3.2" and "3.3"..).
I could even go with Sprint for the Evo 4g.. but, no I'm good..
Will Verizon allow me to sign a contract and honor a phone deal for a phone that isn't even out yet, for something they can't even price me for?
If I have no choice but to get an iPhone, do I just grab a simple 3G (I could care less about picture messaging) since a new one is around the corner.. or is the 3GS really that much better?
Help.. I'm at a wall.
I'm currently rockin an Touch Pro, but I need something with some power to it.

[Q] Inspire with Edge

Hello chaps,
Liking the site redesign - clearly been a while since I was last here!
I recently purchased a lovely, shiny new HTC Inspire off a friend. Beautiful bit of kit and the first time I've ever owned a "state of the art" device, so I was clearly pretty excited. I knew that I wouldn't be able to use it with T-Mob, even if I rooted it, due to the UTMS (3+G) frequency bands being incompatible. No problem, I thought, I'm not contracted to T-Mob, I'll just go get a rolling contract from AT&T. Easy right?
Well no. Because I'm a dirty foreigner, they won't give me a rolling contract without a $500 fee, which basically rules them out. Which means I have a lovely piece of kit I will never be able to use in the US
I was about to sell the device, painful as the prospect is, on eBay. But I thought I might try one last thing - living on T-Mob with just EDGE. Of course, it's not going to give me the full experience but might be good enough for my purposes (email, widget sync, light browsing). I don't stream Pandora or watch Youtube on my phone. Will EDGE be enough for me? Is it a pervasive ("always-on") connection or will I be looking at long delays between pull events?
Thanks!

Alexandicity said:
Hello chaps,
Liking the site redesign - clearly been a while since I was last here!
I recently purchased a lovely, shiny new HTC Inspire off a friend. Beautiful bit of kit and the first time I've ever owned a "state of the art" device, so I was clearly pretty excited. I knew that I wouldn't be able to use it with T-Mob, even if I rooted it, due to the UTMS (3+G) frequency bands being incompatible. No problem, I thought, I'm not contracted to T-Mob, I'll just go get a rolling contract from AT&T. Easy right?
Well no. Because I'm a dirty foreigner, they won't give me a rolling contract without a $500 fee, which basically rules them out. Which means I have a lovely piece of kit I will never be able to use in the US
I was about to sell the device, painful as the prospect is, on eBay. But I thought I might try one last thing - living on T-Mob with just EDGE. Of course, it's not going to give me the full experience but might be good enough for my purposes (email, widget sync, light browsing). I don't stream Pandora or watch Youtube on my phone. Will EDGE be enough for me? Is it a pervasive ("always-on") connection or will I be looking at long delays between pull events?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For what you want edge is fine. You really only need 3g when watching videos or streaming music. The internet will be a bit slower.

Thanks klquicksall, good to hear. It occurs to me there's one more data use I have and that's maps. These will clearly go a little slower but any idea if the experience will be unusably awful or just a little laggy?

Alexandicity said:
Thanks klquicksall, good to hear. It occurs to me there's one more data use I have and that's maps. These will clearly go a little slower but any idea if the experience will be unusably awful or just a little laggy?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
you should download the 2g/3g control from the market and test it on your current or a friends phone that has 3g and see how slow it is.

I have read where some have had success using at&t phones with the prepaid voice/data/messaging plans from Walmart-straight talk. Don't know if it really works or just bs but worth looking into.

Newter - that could be a very good option if it works. Seems they recently switched from CDMA to GSM, which would be nice; the unlimited plan would be dirt cheap if they'll let me hit up GBs of data (I think they're not expecting smartphones on that plan!). One thing I expect will be that I won't be able to port my number, which is a bummer but I might use this opportunity to move to Google Voice..
I'll go talk to them about it tomorrow afternoon and see what they can do.

Alexandicity said:
Hello chaps,
Liking the site redesign - clearly been a while since I was last here!
I recently purchased a lovely, shiny new HTC Inspire off a friend. Beautiful bit of kit and the first time I've ever owned a "state of the art" device, so I was clearly pretty excited. I knew that I wouldn't be able to use it with T-Mob, even if I rooted it, due to the UTMS (3+G) frequency bands being incompatible. No problem, I thought, I'm not contracted to T-Mob, I'll just go get a rolling contract from AT&T. Easy right?
Well no. Because I'm a dirty foreigner, they won't give me a rolling contract without a $500 fee, which basically rules them out. Which means I have a lovely piece of kit I will never be able to use in the US
I was about to sell the device, painful as the prospect is, on eBay. But I thought I might try one last thing - living on T-Mob with just EDGE. Of course, it's not going to give me the full experience but might be good enough for my purposes (email, widget sync, light browsing). I don't stream Pandora or watch Youtube on my phone. Will EDGE be enough for me? Is it a pervasive ("always-on") connection or will I be looking at long delays between pull events?
Thanks!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
just be warned that when android on EDGE, you may often miss phone calls because the EDGE data connection, during a data trasnfer, kicks phone calls directly to voicemail. so there may be many times when gmail or something else is doing something in the background, and someone tried to call you but you never got the call. just watch out for this. sometimes calls will sneak thru, but lots of times they dont.
you could always manually turn off data though to avoid this.

if there's wifi wherever you are, you may not even notice a difference...just keep it on and use that when you're not out and about. maps will suck, i used to use maps on an intl phone with only edge frequencies with att but it worked decently well if you turn off satellite. worth a shot at least!

Thanks for the advice guys. I unlocked it and am running under t-mob. As expected, only EDGE, but the connection seems robust enough. I set up Wifi which will get me all my heavy stuff and the EDGE does seem sufficient for email, sunc and map-based browsing (takes perhaps 5 seconds to fill a map screen?). On the plus the battery seems to be pretty good!
Roger - are you saying that EDGE usage will block calls? Will that happen all the time EDGE is connected or just when it is active? Or is it an "interference" thing that reduces GSM reception when EDGE is transmitting?

Alexandicity said:
Thanks for the advice guys. I unlocked it and am running under t-mob. As expected, only EDGE, but the connection seems robust enough. I set up Wifi which will get me all my heavy stuff and the EDGE does seem sufficient for email, sunc and map-based browsing (takes perhaps 5 seconds to fill a map screen?). On the plus the battery seems to be pretty good!
Roger - are you saying that EDGE usage will block calls? Will that happen all the time EDGE is connected or just when it is active? Or is it an "interference" thing that reduces GSM reception when EDGE is transmitting?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
it will only block a call if data is actively being transmitted at that particular moment. an idle EDGE connection will let calls come thru no problem. just something to be aware of, as lots of times data is transmitting in the background, i.e. gmail is updating, or receiving an email, the market is checking for updates, etc.

I used a T Mobile exclusive phone, the HTC Dream / G1 for close to a year and never had issues with turn by turn Navigation unless I had less than stellar coverage from at&t.
Like others have mentioned, if you are like me and use mainly WiFi than you're not really missing much.
This is an incredible device, and with the ROM choices from it just being released a little more than a month ago is a great sign of amazing things to come.
On another note I myself enable GSM only to save battery life as well when I know I won't be needing it. Just an FYI.
Sent from my customized to the teeth HTC Inspire4G

1x today has taught me how much I don’t care about 4G

Aside from being pissed by the 1x at the top of the screen I was able to do everything I wanted to do. Sent text messages all day on Google Talk and Skype, downloaded the Amazon free app of the day (business calendar) in about 40 seconds. Updated a few other apps in about a min., received and responded to multiple emails all day long, uploaded a pic to facebook with no problems, And made calls... All on 1x!
Well there is a much bigger difference between 1x and 3G than there is between 3G and 4G…. So why would I ever sacrifice battery life on this device for that difference?
Crazy!
Unless you are using your phone for internet access for your PC via tether… I think everyone is just wasting battery life for nothing.

Then you bought the wrong phone. Better luck next time.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk

Dbagjones said:
Then you bought the wrong phone. Better luck next time.
Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
I did not buy the wrong phone at all!! I love the speed of the phone for running the apps. I love the screen, the 8MP cam, the great front facing cam. I bought this phone because it could run the Android OS very fast and smooth. Not at all for 4G.
Are you telling me you bought this phone just for the 4G???? If that’s the case I think I bought the phone for much better reasons than you did!

HawkStream said:
I did not buy the wrong phone at all!! I love the speed of the phone for running the apps. I love the screen, the 8MP cam, the great front facing cam. I bought this phone because it could run the Android OS very fast and smooth. Not at all for 4G.
Are you telling me you bought this phone just for the 4G???? If that’s the case I think I bought the phone for much better reasons than you did!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1
Love How Stable and Hackable HTC Phones are. Good Size screen, More Ram for Multi Tasking, Front Camera, Kickstand. This thing is a Beast Overclocked. Im Not in a 4g City bit when I go out of town (Which I do Often) 4G Is just Icing on the Cake.

HawkStream said:
I did not buy the wrong phone at all!! I love the speed of the phone for running the apps. I love the screen, the 8MP cam, the great front facing cam. I bought this phone because it could run the Android OS very fast and smooth. Not at all for 4G.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There are plenty of better phones out there as far as performance and features go. The Thunderbolt is an inefficient beast; in the class of smartphones, it's metaphorically similar to the 17" Desktop Replacement laptop. In other words, it's big, heavy, and very power-hungry, relative to other members of its device class.
If you had waited until the May or June launch of the Samsung phones with the Tegra 2 dual core SoC with Nvidia graphics, that thing will absolutely blow your socks off, and probably also ship with Android 2.3 or 2.4 if it's out by then. Why buy a phone still using the old PowerVR SGX core if you are crazy about graphics performance, when the SGX is just a few months away from being eclipsed by Tegra 2 phones?
HawkStream said:
Are you telling me you bought this phone just for the 4G???? If that’s the case I think I bought the phone for much better reasons than you did!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's the first LTE smartphone to market. Ever. Period. In the whole world. And you're telling me you bought it because it's fast? Pssh -- as far as the non-networked components go, it's basically no better than a Droid 2. It's the last model to use 2009-2010 era SoC, and the only reason it doesn't use something more cutting-edge is because the brand new chips are still being debugged and tested, and they needed a phone out in March.
The Thunderbolt has a separate radio chip for the CDMA/EvDO and the LTE. This is highly suboptimal from both a power standpoint and size/weight. Qualcomm says they can probably have chips available by early 2012 that offer both traditional CDMA, voice, and LTE in a single integrated circuit, which would also probably use smaller fabrication process technology for even less power consumption and weight. The Thunderbolt is a "hack" as far as smartphones are concerned; it's very unusual for any kind of phone to have two radios in it (even if it supports more than one radio protocol, they're usually supported together on a single chip). The phone was rushed, hence why they couldn't wait for Qualcomm to get their integrated LTE+CDMA chip together.
You can rip the Thunderbolt apart this way by looking under the hood and pointing out its many limitations and flaws. The only thing that stands out -- the only killer feature that sets this apart from the Droid 2 or any other 2010 Android-based 3G phone -- is the LTE. If not for the LTE, the Thunderbolt is just a power-hungry, heavy version of the Droid 2 (or Droid X, I guess, since it lacks a hardware keyboard too).
Since Verizon locks you in to a two year contract, you should really be planning ahead a bit unless you have $600 - $750 to sink on a retail smartphone. If you had waited for just a few more months to get the more killer "core specs" (CPU, GPU, RAM) on the phones coming out in the latter half of 2011, you would be getting the first round of the next generation of the CPU/GPU bump. And since that's what you seem to value (moreso than the bandwidth), that's probably what you should have waited for.
Now you're stuck with a phone (as am I) that will have significantly underpowered specs by the time the two year term is up -- it's entirely possible that new Android apps and games written in Q1 2013 (the last stretch of your 2 year term) will not run at all on your Thunderbolt, or lag so badly that they're unusable, because they are tuned to run on e.g. the Tegra 2 or later dual core platforms.
But I don't play games on my phone, so that doesn't matter to me. The LTE is why I value this phone so much and bought it, and since I don't exercise the CPU/GPU as highly as cellphone gamers, it probably won't matter a lick to me that in early 2013 I won't be able to play Angry Birds 3 on my Thunderbolt. I'll be satisfied that I got a full two years worth of fast LTE service, and that's what's important to me.
So just saying, if you don't care about the extra bandwidth, you made a fairly bad choice. The other aspects of the Thunderbolt are gonna be obsolete pretty quick because the non-network parts of the phone are built around a late 2009 platform, so unless you want to shell out retail when Tegra 2 phones hit, you might come to regret your purchase in about a year.
In comparison to graphics cards, it'd be like buying a Nvidia GTX 280 (supporting DirectX 10.1) a month before the Fermi cards hit the shelves (supporting DirectX 11).

Yeah guys, this was a 4G phone first and foremost. The screen, processor and ram are all average. Actually the screen is already outdated with QHD screens out. Not to mention the phone is a heavy beast with a tiny battery. Don't get me wrong I love the TB, It looks great and is fairly powerful, but the main reason I bought it was to have 4G. Now I can get rid of my cable modem. But to the point of the OP, when not tethering it actually works great with just 1x or 3G
If I didn't care about 4g I would have waited for a dual core, qhd device to come out. I wanted the Bionic which has all of the above, but they keep pushing it out amid massive development problems.

I cant download roms on the fly with Rom Manager, or update CM7-alpha while im out of the house on 1x.. thats really the only thing I saw

allquixotic said:
It's the first LTE smartphone to market. Ever. Period. In the whole world.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
uhm...no. MetroPCS beat Verizon to the punch on that one.

HawkStream said:
Aside from being pissed by the 1x at the top of the screen I was able to do everything I wanted to do. Sent text messages all day on Google Talk and Skype, downloaded the Amazon free app of the day (business calendar) in about 40 seconds. Updated a few other apps in about a min., received and responded to multiple emails all day long, uploaded a pic to facebook with no problems, And made calls... All on 1x!
Well there is a much bigger difference between 1x and 3G than there is between 3G and 4G…. So why would I ever sacrifice battery life on this device for that difference?
Crazy!
Unless you are using your phone for internet access for your PC via tether… I think everyone is just wasting battery life for nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So sell your Thunderbolt, get a RAZR, it seems that should suit you fine. Plus then you don't have to worry about battery life.
Your post today has taught me how much I don't care about what you say.

1X for a day made me have the exact opposite realization. I live in a 4G area and I am getting so spoiled by the lighting fast speeds (sometimes faster than my home broadband connection). When I had 1X, I couldn't send MMS, browsing the web was painfully slow and it was generally all around a miserable experience.

Wasn't able to steam anything at all. No AudioGalaxy, YouTube, Hulu, other Flash content. Web browsing was ridiculously slow. Downloading and installing updates was painful.
I have missed my LTE. Sorry you don't use your phone to its full capacity but some people do. I'd rather my phone not be limited to the speed of the network. If you're cool with it, congrats.

drumz0rz said:
1X for a day made me have the exact opposite realization. I live in a 4G area and I am getting so spoiled by the lighting fast speeds (sometimes faster than my home broadband connection). When I had 1X, I couldn't send MMS, browsing the web was painfully slow and it was generally all around a miserable experience.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So agreed! Even when I got it to go onto 3G I still was like "Ughhhhhh!" Yeah, 3G is decent, but 4G is incredible. If >10X faster doesn't make a difference to you, maybe this isn't the phone for you. I noticed the difference all day. Sure, it doesn't take that long to download an app on 3G, maybe 30 seconds to 2 minutes, but you can't tell me that waiting 2 minutes is the same experience as it happening virtually instantly. On my phone, I want things happening quickly. I wanna be able to get it out and get to what I wanted to do quickly so I'm not just standing there waiting on my phone on the sidewalk. I mean, come on, with 4G most things are practically instant -- 3G there's always some waiting. If waiting is something that's okay, maybe conventional ovens are just as good as microwaves and cable internet is just as good as fiber optic, etc.

HawkStream said:
Unless you are using your phone for internet access for your PC via tether… I think everyone is just wasting battery life for nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't tell; is this a troll thread?
Having a 4G thunderbolt without 4G connection was the least enjoyment i've ever got out of this phone.
I've literally been twitching from the withdrawal.
4G is a night and day difference from 3G, no questions asked.

I used Wifi at Home and Work, so I was unimpacted.
And to the one guy with the long story, true this is a 2009-2010 phone, and I ONLY bought it to lock myself into cheap 4G/LTE pricing before it gets out of control and data caps, etc...
...but unless gaming is your thing, the Thunderbolt will do 90-95% of everything you need for at least the next two years. Sure I was holding out for the Galaxy SII, and I will probably sell the TB and buy a Dual Core phone off contract with the money that I make, but that is not even an issue at this point because this phone does EVERYTHING I need.

Eddog4DROID said:
I used Wifi at Home and Work, so I was unimpacted.
And to the one guy with the long story, true this is a 2009-2010 phone, and I ONLY bought it to lock myself into cheap 4G/LTE pricing before it gets out of control and data caps, etc...
...but unless gaming is your thing, the Thunderbolt will do 90-95% of everything you need for at least the next two years. Sure I was holding out for the Galaxy SII, and I will probably sell the TB and buy a Dual Core phone off contract with the money that I make, but that is not even an issue at this point because this phone does EVERYTHING I need.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I love my TB, i haven't even gotten to use 4G yet and i love it compared to my Eris. I think 3G is fast enough now that I have a phone that can handle using it lol. Also every Android phone will be obsolete after a year, this forum is proof that the hardware cannot keep up with the advancements in technology. I agree with you on selling my TB to get a phone with a Dual Core or a nicer video card but this phone gets me through the day and more using "Mobile Network" only when i need it because you don't need that sh!t on to text or call. Everyone that complains this thing is a heavy beast you are a retard imo, its a F'n phone its in your pocket and you don't feel it 95% of the day. When you hold a phone its usually for just over a minute maximum. If your holding off on the purchase of a phone because of weight you are a dumbass.

WOW at this thread lol espcially wow at the guy who said 1x was fine. I know personally I do tons of stuff that require the internet. Facebook/twitter/youtube/email/browsing. All that sucked on 1x it was like being on 56k I could only do one thing at a time and on top of that it did it slowly. Now my 4G is back I can surf the net pop over to facebook and twitter and still stream music/youtube with out missing a beat. 4G is serious

allquixotic said:
It's the first LTE smartphone to market. Ever. Period. In the whole world.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope...
PJnc284 said:
uhm...no. MetroPCS beat Verizon to the punch on that one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1, this is exactly what I was thinking when I read that post.

Turns out that I did care. My home WiFi happened to crap out the day before. While I did what I could to fix it, it became a lower priority with this phone. D'oh!
As to the larger issue of why buy this phone, I will chime in. Until VZW recently turned on LTE where I live, I thought it was going to be at least a year out. I was wrong. I had planned on buying a Dinc 2, as I loved my Dinc, and it would hold me out until LTE was where I was, and by then i'd have a number of choices.
Why I bought the Tbolt 2 weeks ago: 4G locked in at this price for at least 2 years. Can't predict the future, but this matters to me. Next: developer support. I don't like Moto, and devs really do an amazing job with HTC phones. I worried that the Dinc 2 would get no (or less) love. The LG and Sammy phones may turn out to be great but they are not released yet, and who knows what kind of dev support there will be.
Lastly, the sooner I upgraded (I was sitting on an early upgrade for almost a year), the sooner I can upgrade to the next or next next gen phone.
Phone has a bug or two, but no regrets at all (already rooted), and as I said I had thought my rooted Dinc was awesome.

Get a droid incredible
sent from planet snarf

Everyone has a butthole and everyone think theirs is more special than the other person but you shouldn't go around flaunting your asshole and telling others theirs should be like yours.

How happy are you with your Droid Charge?

I'm up for a contract renewal with Verizon next Tuesday, a week from today. I currently have a Droid Eris and want to get rid of it as soon as possible! One of the phones I am considering is the Charge. I am also looking at the Xperia Play and the Droid X2. Basically the choice is going to come down to Dual Core vs 4G (I currently AM in a 4G area) vs. taking the cheap way out (Play is free online) and getting the added bonus of the game pad.
I am trying to gather information from people who have used the phone for a few months, rather than reviewers who generally only test phones fore a few days or even hours.
I am mainly concerned about battery life and general performance (lag between button presses in actions such as opening the keyboard, pressing buttons on the keyboard, opening apps, switching home screens, etc.)
My daily tasks include:
Facebook-probably checked about 5 or so times per day, or more often if I get a notification
Email- approximately 10-15 emails per day from 2 seperate google mail accounts
Weather- generally checked in the morning and evening, but with weather alerts ON and having the temperature indicator on screen refreshed at a decent interval would be nice
Texting- approximately 50-60 texts per day. keyboard MUST be responsive while texting, this is the single most annoying thing on my current phone
Phone Calls- About 30 minutes per day in a relatively strong signal area
Web Browsing / Pulse News- About 20-30 minutes per day
Music Listening - about an hour a day
Youtube / Music Videos - 20-30 minutes per day
And probably around 30 minutes up to an hour (on a heavy day) of gaming
All this on 4g, and I would prefer NOT to have to turn 4G on and off, but I am curious how much of a power savings that gives.
Would it be reasonable to expect the Charge to last through this type of usage with a single charge? Most of the gaming and video viewing is done when I get home anyway, so plugging in wouldn't be a huge deal, but it would be nice to make it through a whole day.
Also, are there any applications that feel limited without a dual core processor? I was originally looking at the Droid Bionic, but the price on that is a little steep.
What is the picture/video quality like on both the front and rear facing camera?
Is Netflix available for the Charge?
What is the support supposed to be like for the Charge? (Will it be updated past gingerbread?)
And in general, are there any nitpicky or buggy aspects of the device that should be known before choosing it?

the charge is a great phone and has great developers but i would suggest you get the droid bionic which is suppose to be release this Thursday. also the bionic is suppose to be worth 300 which is how much the droid charge currently cost's. it might drop in price when the bionic comes out, but i doubt it

Though I am not sold on the Bionic being all that it might be, you can have the best of both worlds with it, dual core and 4G.
that being said, the Charge is fantastic, some complain about this and that, and they may have legit complaints, but in a solid 4G area I think you will find it fits the bill rather well. I am in a 4G area and I have no drops of any kind, battery life is really good and overall just very nice.
The picture quality is very nice. I believe it is a 5 MP on the back and 1.3 on the front. The standard card is lacking if you want to record video in HD (why ship it with a crappy card samsung?!?!?) but normal video is good.
I never had a dual core phone, but with the Charge I havent come up against anything that has been laggy or wouldnt run.
I think Netflix is supported now on the charge, but check me on that.
One thing about Samsung and Verizon, the updates take FOREVER. We will get GB more sooner than later, but do not expect ICS until the turn of the year (even though it is out in October). Even that may be optimistic. if you are into rooting and ROMs, I am sure that we have a few good ones coming down the pike once we get a final on GB, include the possibility of CM7.
One thing that should not be overlooked is the 4G. It is HUGE and hellafast. You will wonder how you got along without it
From the phones you mentioned, I would go with the Charge or the X2.

I suggest the bionic as well. I use to have an evo 3d with Sprint before I moved to Verizon with the charge. I thought man if I had this phone with Verizon with 4g id have the best phone possible. That phone with its dual core never showed any signs of lag whatsoever. I switched to Verizon for better coverage and faster 4g. I love my charge but I do wish it was a dual core so the bionic is what id go with. Or u can wait until hopefully the nexus prime comes out....
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA Premium App

I love my charge.
As far as the bionic goes you know thats going to be a battery hog.
I am very happy on where the devs are going on this device couldn't be happier.

If you can deal with the screen, I recommend the Bionic. The SAMOLED+ is really the only thing the Charge has going for it.

Kyledoo said:
I am mainly concerned about battery life and general performance (lag between button presses in actions such as opening the keyboard, pressing buttons on the keyboard, opening apps, switching home screens, etc.)
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There was some lag when I first got it, mainly when switching tasks, returning to home screen etc. Rooting and modifying the phone has improved this tremendously. Also, running the latest stock leak of Gingerbread appears to have fixed these issues as well. It's really a pretty quick phone when "optimized". Just as a meaningless benchmark, overclocked to 1300 and 1400 Mhz I was getting Quadrant scores similar (if not a bit faster) than a stock HTC Thunderbolt.
Kyledoo said:
All this on 4g, and I would prefer NOT to have to turn 4G on and off, but I am curious how much of a power savings that gives.
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Massively. Wifi and 3G sip power compared to 4G.
Kyledoo said:
Would it be reasonable to expect the Charge to last through this type of usage with a single charge? Most of the gaming and video viewing is done when I get home anyway, so plugging in wouldn't be a huge deal, but it would be nice to make it through a whole day.
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If you're at home, I'd use wifi when you can. If not, I doubt you could get through everything you listed while on 4G all on one charge. Streaming video, rendering in the games, plus all the screen on time, plus the 4G...I think you'd be pushing it.
As far as battery, it's really dependent (for me) on 2 things: network signal and method of data. When I'm at work, I have about 1 bar and it's constantly searching. The battery will drain from this within 6-8 hours usually (with wifi on as well). When I'm at home with full service (and on wifi) I can pretty easily get through the weekend one one charge (with moderate use).
Kyledoo said:
Also, are there any applications that feel limited without a dual core processor? I was originally looking at the Droid Bionic, but the price on that is a little steep.
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Maybe some emulators would perform better, I was playing Zelda: Ocarina of Time and it did have a bit of slowdown with the panning camera. Other than graphically intensive things like that, I dunno...
Kyledoo said:
What is the picture/video quality like on both the front and rear facing camera?
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Like a high resolution camera phone? I dunno. Still not a replacement for a good camera but it works in a pinch.
Kyledoo said:
Is Netflix available for the Charge?
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Yes
Kyledoo said:
What is the support supposed to be like for the Charge? (Will it be updated past gingerbread?)
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Yes
Kyledoo said:
And in general, are there any nitpicky or buggy aspects of the device that should be known before choosing it?
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Stock filesystem is RFS which is not "ideal", but you can convert this to the quicker EXT4 filesystem, which helps to reduce lag. The latest Gingerbread leak is RFS though and performance is still much better than Froyo.

I am very happy i thought the evoke was great but this phone is superior i love everything about it
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I have a coworker who is up for renewal and we have been discussing what she should do. Verizon is dropping at least 4 new phones within the next month.
The Boinic comes out Sept 8,
HTC Vigor on Oct 6,
LG Revolution 2 on Oct 20, and
Samsung Droid Prime sometime in Oct.
I would considering holding out past the Bionic and picking up the next flagship Samsung phone that is dropping next month. It should be the first Icecream Sandwich Android phone and will likely be dual core/4g.
I say hold out for the greatest so that you won't be stuck with 6 month old technology (Boinic and Charge) as soon as you use your technology update.

I had the Fascinate and have been on the Droid Charge for a while now. I have been extremely happy with it.
I believe the Charge has the best screen you can get. Period.
Battery life: That is going to vary. I think it will hold up, but if it doesn't there is a pretty handy dock with an extra battery available.
I didn't use my phone a lot last night. From 6pm to 6am this morning used 25% of my battery. During that time, my phone performed a complete backup and a couple other automated operations I have scheduled. It also sync's data at that time. I also used my phone a little bit, but by far the most power was used by the backup operation which is processor and storage card intensive.
So, I'm pretty happy with this... 25% in 12 hours means that with light to moderate usage I'd have 50% used in 24 hours.
As for the menus / responsiveness of the phone. I was okay with it. I would have liked it to be a little snappier, but I wasn't annoyed by the time it took to bring up most things. I did switch over to the Go Launcher to replace the default home screen because it was far more customizable and it was a little snappier that way.
Of course, yesterday, I did just flash my phone with the leaked GingerBread build since it has been reported as being pretty stable... so that battery life I mentioned is on GingerBread and not on Froyo. The GingerBread TW Launcher (home screen) is better, but I still switched back to Go Launcher because it gave so many more choices / controls over how it behaves and how it works.
JuiceDefender has not been working very well on the Droid Charge, but it seems like the developers are finally working on fixing it for the Droid Charge, so that should help. You'll get a lot better battery life if you let JuiceDefender turn off your radios / data when you don't need it.

Charge is a great phone. You can start to find cheap deals on it if you upgrade online now too. There will always be something better a few months down the line. So upgrade to something a little older for free or close to it or upgrade to something brand new for $200-300.
The choice is all yours.
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quarky42 said:
I had the Fascinate and have been on the Droid Charge for a while now. I have been extremely happy with it.
I believe the Charge has the best screen you can get. Period.
.
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I agree.
I was very happy with my Liberty ROM DroidX & was waiting on the Bionic. Recently however, I fell in love with the awesome screen in the Charge & decided to buy one (it had dropped to under $200 on Amazon).
I turned on the new Charge & on the very first boot I flashed it to Gummycharge 1.9.1 & I absolutely LOVE the thing. I was still planning on replacing it with a dual core 4G phone when they became available, but at this point I like the Charge & that screen so much I don't think I will do that.
I have found that by far the best battery saving tip is to lock it in on 3G except when you are actively using 4G. Where I work, my phone was constantly switching back & forth between the two which absolutely KILLED the battery life.
With setting it to 3G & lowering the screen brightness to 18% except when I'm out in the sun, my battery life is just fine.
One thing I really don't like in the design of the Bionic is the way all Motorola screens are kinda tall & skinny compared to the Charge/iphone etc that have a little wider side to side design which helps when reading web pages etc.
~John

I meant to add that the price of the Charge is $120 on Wirefly with free shipping. It is not worth the $300 that Verizon is asking for it. Of course, I have had very good luck with taking in the best offers and asking a salesperson to do their best to beat those offers. I tell them that I would rather do business with them directly, but I need them to try and beat these deals that I have online. Sometimes you get someone that isn't interested in putting in the effort or you get a stubborn manager who won't budge... but it is worth a try.
Otherwise, just buy it on Wirefly that way and wait the 2-3 days that FedEx takes to deliver it to you. $180 can sure buy a few days of waiting.

I had the fascinate and got the free upgrade to the charge. If the charge was designed like the fascinate it would definitely top my list. I love the screen on the charge, but thats it's main pull. If i had went to the store and picked out my 4g phone (at the time only option was charge, thunderbolt and revolution) i would have picked the thunderbolt. My favorite phone ive ever owned was an EVO 4g which i had for about 3 weeks but sprint sucked.
That being said im not dissatisfied with my Charge, but things could be better.

quarky42 said:
I meant to add that the price of the Charge is $120 on Wirefly with free shipping. It is not worth the $300 that Verizon is asking for it. Of course, I have had very good luck with taking in the best offers and asking a salesperson to do their best to beat those offers. I tell them that I would rather do business with them directly, but I need them to try and beat these deals that I have online. Sometimes you get someone that isn't interested in putting in the effort or you get a stubborn manager who won't budge... but it is worth a try.
Otherwise, just buy it on Wirefly that way and wait the 2-3 days that FedEx takes to deliver it to you. $180 can sure buy a few days of waiting.
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Most places (verizon included) will not match wirefly's price. They claim that it's because with wirefly you are essentially signing a second contract, that you will keep your phone for at least 6 months before cancelling. If you break that, they charge you a $300 ETF on top of what verizon charges. They can sell the phone cheaper because they know for sure they will either get $300 from the customer or whatever the commission from verizon is.

foister82 said:
Most places (verizon included) will not match wirefly's price. They claim that it's because with wirefly you are essentially signing a second contract, that you will keep your phone for at least 6 months before cancelling. If you break that, they charge you a $300 ETF on top of what verizon charges. They can sell the phone cheaper because they know for sure they will either get $300 from the customer or whatever the commission from verizon is.
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All I can attest to is my first hand experience. I bought my Fascinate and my wife's Droid2 for LESS than what Wirefly and Amazon were advertising by taking the printouts into Verizon and telling them that I would rather do business directly with Verizon, but I needed their help in beating these prices. The salesperson talked with his manager and they made it happen. It was through a combination of service credits, instant discounts, and a mail in rebate, but the fact was my final price was far less than what was advertised elsewhere.
Oh, and I bought my Fascinate back in September of last year... the day they launched. I hadn't even heard about the Fascinate before that day. I had decided to buy an Android phone and was researching what was out there and it happened to be available so I priced it out. I didn't realize until later that it was the launch day for that device.
If you get a sales rep that doesn't want your business, kindly take your business elsewhere.

foister82 said:
If i had went to the store and picked out my 4g phone (at the time only option was charge, thunderbolt and revolution) i would have picked the Thunderbolt
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Not disagreeing, but wondering why you would prefer the t-bolt to the Charge??
I had a t-bolt for a couple weeks (a Verizon rep loaned it to me) and I hated it. I had the choice of either one when I bought my Charge and I prefer the Charge hands down.
I actually liked my old Liberty ROM DroidX better than the t-bolt except for the lack of 4g
~John

I love my Charge. It is a great all around phone with an amazing screen. The bionic is out tomorrow, so definately check that out as well.

Isn't there an htc phone coming out soon for Verizon? I believe its supposed to have dual core, 4g, a gig of ram, etch. Its going to replace the thunderbolt. But u would be losing the super amoled plus... which I happen to love on the charge.
Oh and htc phones are better suppported by developers. I learned the hard way after leaving the EVO for my charge.
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Things I love:
Super AMOLED screen. It's only 800x480, but it doesn't matter, still second to none (or the iPhone)
4g. It's super fast and luckily in alot of places I frequent in NJ.
32GB memory. Thoughful
Things I hate:
Touchwiz. Die please, thank good for LauncherPro.
Single Core Processor. For a phone this expensive...come on. I'm sure gingerbread will speed things up thought, it's not a major concern. Fast enough I guess.
Battery Life. I guess I'm used to my LG Thrive (ATT Optimus One), but it's pretty weak, no real difference between 3g and 4g use from my observations.
Gets hot. Plug it in to charge (no pun intended) and play angy birds...ouch.
Connectivity. 3g is bad with data drop outs, too bad I'm 3g at home . 4g works nearly flawlessly and is impressively fast.
Free RAM. 80MB after a reboot? Come on!!! To be fair, about 150 after I kill all the bloatware, but still, my Optimus One had more than that, like 100mb more!
I just feel for a flagship phone it skimped on some expectations I had...
I'd give the phone a 7/10, with MAJOR points added for the screen.