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Atrix 4g or Inspire 4g or Nexus s?

C

cannon11

Well-Known Member
I'm getting my first smartphone off contract, So it can't really be the newest or it would end up costing me 400$, plus most of the phones these days have too big of screens anyway for my hands. There have been comparisons of these phones before, but that was when they first came out and now they have been updated, nexus s has jellybean, atrix no longer has motoblur, and inspire has a newer sense .The galaxy s3 mini is supposed to be comming out soon, but If buy that when it's still newer it will be way to expensive yet.
Anyway, I will be using at&t, these seam to be the best options.
Atrix 4g
Inspire 4g
Nexus s

I will list some pros cons what I think, then you guys let me know what you think.

Motorola Atrix 4g-
-Doesn't seem to have the best interface, they did ditch motoblur when gingerbread came out, but still doesn't seem to be anything great.
-Stuck on gingerbread.
-Kinda cool fingerprint scanner
-High resolution screen
-pretty good battery
-Dual core, 1gb of ram but still seems to lag on some stuff.
Will cost me about 140$ used.

Inspire 4g-
-HTC sense seems to be better than motorola's interface, I watched a cool trailer of htc sense and it seemed pretty neat.
-Stuck on gingerbread
-4g onboard storage plus 8gb micro sd included so only 12gb vs 16gb
-Better rear camera than atrix
-Super LCD display vs lcd on atrix, atrix has higher res, but the htc looks nicer to me.
-Not great battery life
-Single core
-No front camera
-High quality metal design
-4.3 inch screen, not sure if good or bad since I have small hands
Will cost me about 160$ used

Nexus S
-Has android jellybean, but this is probably the last update it will get.
-Stock android no skin
-Super AMOLED screen, probably the best of the 3
-Ok battery life, prob. better than the inspire worse than atrix
-Curved Display
-No hd video and only single LED flash
-Single Core
-Cheap plasticy Feel
Will cost me about 160$ used

So which would you pick? Please read through this all.. The inspire high quality design and better back camera and htc sense is nice, atrix dual core and fingerprint reader and better battery life is nice, and nexus s stock android jellybean and super amoled screen is nice. I will only be using wifi so 4g speeds off wifi don't matter.

Which one? You can also reccomend a different one But It has to be about in that price range off contract for at&T and no bigger than 4.3 inch screen.
thanks
 
I have to Inspire and after the update it seems a lot better than 2.2.3 and now it's at 2.3.5 gingerbread. It has Sense 3.0 now to. I would either go between the Nexus S or the Inspire myself. :)
 
does the battery mostly suffer when on 4g data, or just in general, because I would only be using wifi, no data plan outside of that. And has the battery life improved much since the updates?
Also does the inspire have that tv animation when you put it to sleep? I know that came with gingerbread, But I do know that every phone on gingerbread doesn't have the animation, so does this one? Does it also have pattern unlock?
thank you
 
I believe it still has pattern lock and I will check that out and report back for you. It doesn't have the TV animation when I lock it. battery life seems okay and turning the brightness down, turn off GPS, WIFI, data, helps with it. I have had the phone for almost an entire year and I guess the battery life may have degraded slightly. I think if you're on WIFI the battery might fare better than being on data. The nexus S sounds like another good device and I have heard bad things about Motoblur and the clunkyness of it. I could look into the Nexus S for you and if you want I could bbring up a couple more candidates for you. :)
 
hey thanks, metroid.

Not sure If you knew this, but the atrix on gingerbread no longer uses "motoblur" It now uses a un named motorola skin, better than the previous one it had on 2.2. Did you already know this? Does that alter your decision at all? And question- Do you think that jellybean was the last update for the nexus s, or do you think it will get another update (key lime pie)? Is it a 50/50? If you have any more opinion about any of these phones I'd be glad to hear it. If you want to give me a different phone suggestion that is cool, as long as It doesn't cost much more (less than 200$ ) in good condition used, and has no higher than a 4.3 inch screen.
I was considering the s2, but it seems to be selling for 250$ used. I could happen upon one on craigslist, but they never seem to be within a half hour of me.
anyway, thanks.
 
Does it matter to you if it's stuck on GB or is on the latest OS? IMO, I'm pretty sure if the Nexus S JB it might get other updates in the future perhaps. My bad. Yes I did hear that the Atrix no longer has motoblur, but I'm not sure how well it runs without it. Most likely a lot better than before. You can still add a lock pattern on the Inspire and it adds a few cool new features and different screen transition. It also updates the Android Market to Google Play now too. I'm going to keep my eye out for some good phones at your price range. :)
 
What's the difference between the android market and google play? Is it just a revised version? Can I still download all the apps on gingerbread that I could on jellybean as long as the app doesn't need a feature that jellybean has in order to run? Obviously It ybe better to have the latest OS, but i'm not sure if it's a dealbreaker for me.

I think it might go this way-
If I buy used off of ebay, I'll probably get the nexus s, since it's the one i'm leaning the most to, and it's only about 30$ more than the atrix, and about the same as the inspire on ebay.
If I buy new I'd probably go for the atrix since It's on amazon.com for 210$, where as the nexus s and inspire are like 300$ new.
And If I go the craigslist route, The inspire 4g may be an option, as they seem a little more common than the others on CL, but it all depends if the seller is near my area or not. The galaxy s2 could also be an option on craigslist, but craigslist only, because that is the only place I can get it for less than 200$ but it all depends on the location.
If you have any other helpful info you can give it to me, and if you come across somthing in the near future you can tell me also, as I probably won't be getting a phone for a month or so, that way I can also see if the next android OS comes out for the nexus S
thanks again :D
 
My pleasure. The Google Play store is basically an updated Android market I guess you could say. Still the same thing and I don't think it will prevent you from downloading any apps on there. Are you leaning towards the Nexus S for the more current OS or the specs? If I find anything I will let you know. :)
 
I'm using an HTC Inspire and I'm loving it (badabababa)

The Nexus S also seems like a great device, it's got the latest on it at least.

If you're interested in getting technical with android (not that difficult), I would go with the HTC Inspire. The Nexus S and the HTC I4g both has the same amount of development, but the I4g has better specs going it's way.

Since you're going non contract, take a look at a few other phones out there. I know my friends were able to get used HTC Evo 3D's for 150 dollars off craigslist. Check everything to make sure it's working, but other wise you could snag a great high end phone for a pretty rock price.
 
Metroid prime said:
My pleasure. The Google Play store is basically an updated Android market I guess you could say. Still the same thing and I don't think it will prevent you from downloading any apps on there. Are you leaning towards the Nexus S for the more current OS or the specs? If I find anything I will let you know. :)
Click to expand...

Well, for my decision between these 3 phones, I am leaning more toward the nexus s because of the latest OS. If the other two phones had much better specs and were better overall, would probably go with one of them, but these 3 phones aren't that much better than one or another. The curved display is always nice, but these phones seem to be similar performance wise, and the pure android and having at least jellybean kind of pushed the nexus a little further. If the nexus only had gingerbread, then I would be considering the others a little bit more.
But specs and latest version of the OS is important, specs don't matter a ton if it works well on the OS, but the better and more updated I can get it, the better.
 
I hear ya. I'm going to go look at the Nexus S real quick.

EDIT: The Inspire has a better camera than the Nexus S, but the Nexus S has a better battery.
Nexus S has a slightly smaller screen as the Inspire has a 4.3 inch display vs 4.0 inches.
After looking at the two I'd say to go with the Nexus S for now until you find something better if you do.
 
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