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Memory & Processor

I'm thinking about getting either the Thunderbolt or the Droid X2. My question is when it comes to performance which one will be better? (Data connection speeds aside) I know that the X2 isn't out yet so you can't really compare but when it comes to hardware is a phone with a Tegra 2 dual core processor and less RAM likely to perform better than a 1Ghz 2nd gen. processor and more RAM?
For those of you who have had the Droid X, did the motoblur interface slow it down alot compared to HTC's sense interface? Do you think there will be a noticeable enough performance difference to really make one device stand out versus the other or will it be simply a matter of 3G vs 4G (and battery)?

Well obviously raw CPU speed has the DX2 trumping the TBolt.
RAM is not so important, since the Android OS will typically only have about 500-600MB that it can actually allocate, depending on the ROM you're on (whether it is stock, custom Froyo, custom Gingerbread, etc.) So having 512MB on the DX2 is not deal-breaker there. Same for the Tbolt and its 768MB. I'm running Das BAMF 1.6.3, and the OS has access to 597MB of the phone's total 768MB.
Storage is also something to consider. The TBolt ships with a 32GB card, which alone is easily $50 or $60. So technically your $249 phone is really a $199 phone, you're just "forced" to buy a 32GB card, if you want to look at it that way. You get a mere 2GB card with the DX2, so you'll have to spring for the extra non-onboard storage if you want it.
DX2 wins with size and sleekness, but it's personal preference. For example, I like my TBolt with its extended battery waaaay more than I did my Nexus One. I like a phone with some ass behind it.
I can't say anything about a stock DX2's battery, but bear in mind the TBolt on stock everything is horrific. Like 3-6 hours. It becomes normal if you spring for the extended battery and load up a custom ROM/kernel though. Mine can go more than a day, sometimes near 2 days if it just sits idle.
TBolt wins in data future-proofness, with its LTE radio for 4G. The DX2 will be stuck at 3G, and you'll be signing a 2 year contract on that more than likely, right? Frankly, this would be a deal breaker for me. It may not be for you. 1.5-2Mb on 3G vs 15-22Mb on 4G is a pretty big difference, and 3G will seem worse and worse as more 4G rollouts happen. And Verizon's pushing out a good many 4G markets. I'd equate it to still using dialup at home when residential DSL started booming.
Also, the DX2 has micro HDMI output. The Tbolt has nothing for external display.
TL;DR - Each has pros/cons, it's up to you to weigh each one and decide yourself. Your phone, your choice; we can't say what you'll like.

RAM is not so important, since the Android OS will typically only have about 500-600MB that it can actually allocate, depending on the ROM you're on (whether it is stock, custom Froyo, custom Gingerbread, etc.) So having 512MB on the DX2 is not deal-breaker there. Same for the Tbolt and its 768MB. I'm running Das BAMF 1.6.3, and the OS has access to 597MB of the phone's total 768MB.
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This is very helpful.
Storage is also something to consider. The TBolt ships with a 32GB card, which alone is easily $50 or $60. So technically your $249 phone is really a $199 phone, you're just "forced" to buy a 32GB card, if you want to look at it that way. You get a mere 2GB card with the DX2, so you'll have to spring for the extra non-onboard storage if you want it.
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I'll actually be upgrading and extending my contract with VZW so my discounted price brings the thunderbolt to 209. If the DX2 is discounted that may be even more incentive for me to move in that direction as well. We'll see...
I can't say anything about a stock DX2's battery, but bear in mind the TBolt on stock everything is horrific. Like 3-6 hours. It becomes normal if you spring for the extended battery and load up a custom ROM/kernel though. Mine can go more than a day, sometimes near 2 days if it just sits idle.
TBolt wins in data future-proofness, with its LTE radio for 4G. The DX2 will be stuck at 3G, and you'll be signing a 2 year contract on that more than likely, right? Frankly, this would be a deal breaker for me. It may not be for you. 1.5-2Mb on 3G vs 15-22Mb on 4G is a pretty big difference, and 3G will seem worse and worse as more 4G rollouts happen. And Verizon's pushing out a good many 4G markets. I'd equate it to still using dialup at home when residential DSL started booming.
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This bothers me quite a bit.. that I'd have to root just to get a decent custom ROM/kernel to save some battery. I'd almost rather wait another 2 years untill VZW perfects their 4G network and there are more phones to chose from... almost.. 4g is not in my area right now but will be before EOY. Data connection will be a factor. Thunderbolt still wins this side of the argument for me.. Thanks for your advice, it helped!

coolpoete said:
This bothers me quite a bit.. that I'd have to root just to get a decent custom ROM/kernel to save some battery. I'd almost rather wait another 2 years untill VZW perfects their 4G network and there are more phones to chose from... almost.. 4g is not in my area right now but will be before EOY. Data connection will be a factor. Thunderbolt still wins this side of the argument for me.. Thanks for your advice, it helped!
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Such are the woes of a Round 1 device. The TBolt is the first phone on Verizon with true 4G. Right now, a relatively weak stock battery, LTE radio, and Froyo bogged down with bloatware/Sense UI are huge battery drains. That said, even simple mods help the battery greatly. AOSP (stock) and Gingerbread is hands down the best Android experience one may have. At one point, I had the stock battery and CyanogenMod7's pre-alpha (2.3.3 gingerbread). The ROM alone, with no custom kernel or overclocking/undervolting, nearly doubled my battery life. But 8 hours is still not great.
Glad I could help. Enjoy whichever you pick.

Also keep in mind that the dx2 will more than likely have a locked bootloader (not confirmed, just assumed) so custom kernels would be out of the question. MOTO blur is THE WORST oem UI there is, hands down. I love sense myself. It's smooth and has awesome widgets.
Also as stated above, if the tbolt has a 1ghz processor and the battery life sucks that bad, id hate to see how fast a dual core would suck a battery dry.
4g was definitely a deal breaker for me. By are going to turn it on in my area very soon and I'm super excited about it.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt

orkillakilla said:
Also keep in mind that the dx2 will more than likely have a locked bootloader (not confirmed, just assumed) so custom kernels would be out of the question. MOTO blur is THE WORST oem UI there is, hands down. I love sense myself. It's smooth and has awesome widgets.
Also as stated above, if the tbolt has a 1ghz processor and the battery life sucks that bad, id hate to see how fast a dual core would suck a battery dry.
4g was definitely a deal breaker for me. By are going to turn it on in my area very soon and I'm super excited about it.
Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt
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Touchwiz is much worse.. and before I rooted my battery on stock wasn't TOO horrible.. would get a day on moderate usage
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA Premium App

These other guys getting crappy life must never put there phone down.. I went 12 hours with 25 percent battery life left. With about 2 hours of talk time and some 4g usage. I'm stock btw.
Sent from my ADR6400L using XDA App

I would be willing to be a lot of money that the X2 is going to have a locked bootloader, which means it'll impossible to try and tweak some things. The Thunderbolt may have issues with battery life, but that improves GREATLY with custom ROM's and kernels (and/or extended batteries), and those are improving greatly every day. The T-Bolt has a phenomenal dev community that has been workin' their asses off to get stable ROM's and kernels for all of us. I highly doubt the X2 will be supported as well by the community, considering the general distaste for Motorola around here.

[Q] Charge or Droid X2

The Motorola Droid X2 comes out the 26th in stores. Anyone have any advice. I was thinking of switching out my Droid Charge for one. But its only 3g but it benchmarks around 2500 stock.
Sent from my Droid Charge using XDA premium

Keighles said:
The Motorola Droid X2 comes out the 26th in stores. Anyone have any advice. I was thinking of switching out my Droid Charge for one. But its only 3g but it benchmarks around 2500 stock.
Sent from my Droid Charge using XDA premium
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I went Charge to be able to be grandfathered into the unlimited 4g data plan when they switch to tiered only. With launcherpro, I think the charge is plenty fast. Also, the screen is ridiculous.
But that is my rationale for going the Charge route. I came from the Droid X.

I'd rather have faster data connection than quadrant score, but thats just me.

We, the company I work with, already have them (x2's) in the stores. I played around with one for a little while on saturday and was pretty impressed with it. The QHD screen is definitely an improvement over the normal lcd. Text was very clear and crisp. Performance wise, I was also pretty happy with it. I played around with a few apps and definitely noticed the snappy and quick response, even a tad more noticeable then my charge.
That being said. I would still have my charge for multiple reason. One, I'm not big gamer. So, the extra power of the DC processor want be missed for long. It's also, as we all know, the same body as the original X. I very much disliked that design. It was uncomfortable to hold and talk on for any length of time. It was enough for me to take back my X, I had it the first day it came out last year, and swap it for the Fascinate. I've had my fascinate ever since and haven't looked back. I did, however, miss that big nice 4.3 screen, 8mp camera. So, in comes the charge. It's all the greatness that the fascinate has offered, great hardware. The New SuperAmoled+ screen is wonderful, and the new camera is back on spec of the performance I got from the X camera. Plus, it's 4G and we are suppose to have 4G next month, if all goes well.

Thanks for the input ...I believe I will keep what I have now. This is a real nice phone. Coming from the fascinate I am already used to Samsung hardware and really like the 4g and the screen.
Sent from my Droid Charge using XDA premium

ShotgunSam said:
I'd rather have faster data connection than quadrant score, but thats just me.
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Yep, and that gorgeous screen

Any1 upgrade from Incredible?

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
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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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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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Click to collapse
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.

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
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

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.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium

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.
Sent from my SCH-I510 using XDA App

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.

Thinking of getting the charge

Currently I have a droid Bionic, but hate how laggy it is, how is the droid charge, should i trade my bionic for the charge?

Charge is a bit of a step backwards at this point. I would seriously consider the Nexus, just so you don't feel like you're getting an outdated phone. Nexus is smooth, much easier to tinker with (no locked bootloader BS), and will have Google's and XDA's support for quite a while.

If you are trading than I would take a shot at the charge. I've had many android phones on 3 diff carriers. This charge is a very good phone. Great screen, hdmi out and good gps. Only downfall is the 512mb ram.
with the tweakstock rom I am in no hurry to use my upgrade yet.
Hope that helps
Sent from my SCH-I510 using xda premium

The Charge can also be quite laggy... So if you're upgrading, buy a Nexus. If you're trading on craigslist or with a friend, I say go for it. The charge is better than the Bionic in almost every way IMO.
Sent from my Gummy Charged GBE 2.1 using XDA App

The Bionic is a dual-core 1GHz phone with 1GB of memory.
The Charge is a single-core 1GHz phone with 384MB of memory.
As far as speed alone goes, the Bionic is still one of the better Android phones out right now. The only Verizon Android devices that are truly faster are the Nexus, RAZR, and Rezound.

I want to trade because of the lag and the data connection. Plus I heard the camera on the charge is better.I'm trying to trade on craigslist, I don't have an upgrade coming up till next year. I had a thunderbolt then got the bionic. I rather have my tbolt than the bionic

Alright, the Charge is incredible. Throw on Tweakstock/Eclipse, PBJ kernel and the V6 supercharger and your phone will be perfect. I was using a friends Bionic in class a few weeks ago and the first thing I noticed was how bad the screen was. Super Amoled Plus is the best you can get right now, and with Supercurio working on Voodoo Screen Tuning it makes this phones screen look HD.
I'd say the Nexus, Razr and Rezound are the only phones that are better than the Charge at the moment. I'd get the Nexus because of how easily the phone can be tinkered with and how much the developers support it(both Google and XDA/Rootz/etc...). Unfortunately the Nexus has an inferior camera, 32gb built in memory(that means no SD card) and a 2 year old GPU. Aside from that the phone is awesome. None of those downsides would deter me from trading. If I could I would trade for the Nexus right now. Doesnt matter if I had the Charge/Bionic/Razr/Rezound, the Nexus is superior.

Th3demolitionman said:
I want to trade because of the lag and the data connection. Plus I heard the camera on the charge is better.I'm trying to trade on craigslist, I don't have an upgrade coming up till next year. I had a thunderbolt then got the bionic. I rather have my tbolt than the bionic
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There's obviously something wrong with your phone if your Thunderbolt was less laggy than your Bionic is. The Bionic should be significantly faster, given it has twice the memory and cores.
Can you get a replacement for the Bionic from Verizon? If not, did you at least flash a new ROM/kernel?
If you're dead set on switching, I highly recommend an HTC Rezound. I think it has the best specs overall: true 720p screen, better GPU, etc.

I'm on my 3rd bionic, this one is rooted and on liberty Tom and using launcher pro. People in my town wont trade a rezound for a bionic and I'm even thinking of getting a iPhone but no lick either