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Considering this phone

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octoberdana

Well-Known Member
I need a mid range smartphone. This is one I'm strongly considering given the $99 sale. I like the 4 inch screen and the amoled technology.

I have some concerns about the build quality, as it reminds me of my Samsung Rogue which I hated. I am not a huge fan of touch wiz either but do like some of the newer features they made to it. I don't really want nor need the physical keyboard so I'm not sure how I feel about packing extra weight for something I won't even use.

A couple of questions:

How is music playback?
Does the GPS lock quickly?
How is battery life?
 
i got the stratosphere to replace 2.5 yo rogue and im very happy with the strat so far (iv had it for about a week now).

1)i dont use the music playback, i have an MP3 player (zune) for that so i cant comment.

2)gps fix is pretty quick its comparable to my high sensitivity handheld gps unit which i use for cycling (of course the fix is faster if you are stationary than it is if you are moving)

3)i have gotten a full day out of it every day, even with downloading new apps and the other typical 'newphoneitus' stuff that you do with it. (about 10-15% left after a 16 hour day, 8am-midnight)

that said i had no problems with my rogue either, not sure what your issue was with the rogue, but it stood up to the abuse that i put it through, and that is no small feat.
 
Got ours at Costco for $19.99 ea., which includes case, plastic screen and car charger. Hard to beat and so far I love the phone.
 
While I really like the stratosphere, if you don't want the keyboard why not look at the charge or incredible 2?
 
cannew said:
Got ours at Costco for $19.99 ea., which includes case, plastic screen and car charger. Hard to beat and so far I love the phone.
Click to expand...

Also did this. Paid $27 total! That's less then I pay at Verizon when I've gotten free phones because of the stupid taxes on full price(in california anyway)
 
3)i have gotten a full day out of it every day, even with downloading new apps and the other typical 'newphoneitus' stuff that you do with it. (about 10-15% left after a 16 hour day, 8am-midnight)

Do you use wifi, CDMA only, or CDMA/LTE for your battery to last about 16 hours?
 
belledee said:
3)i have gotten a full day out of it every day, even with downloading new apps and the other typical 'newphoneitus' stuff that you do with it. (about 10-15% left after a 16 hour day, 8am-midnight)

Do you use wifi, CDMA only, or CDMA/LTE for your battery to last about 16 hours?
Click to expand...


i had not been using wifi at that point since i had good 4g service, and my schools wifi sucks, now that im home and i dont have 4g service i use wifi when im in range and 3g otherwise, and the stats havnt changed much (battery is slightly less now at home bc we have weak coverage)
 
octoberdana said:
I need a mid range smartphone. This is one I'm strongly considering given the $99 sale. I like the 4 inch screen and the amoled technology.

I have some concerns about the build quality, as it reminds me of my Samsung Rogue which I hated. I am not a huge fan of touch wiz either but do like some of the newer features they made to it. I don't really want nor need the physical keyboard so I'm not sure how I feel about packing extra weight for something I won't even use.

A couple of questions:

How is music playback?
Does the GPS lock quickly?
How is battery life?
Click to expand...

Battery life is pretty good, but I absolutely need to charge once a day. I play lots of games, surf the web and text frequently. An extended battery is available for this phone to make that even better as well, though I have no experience with it personally.

I've had no problems with the GPS locking on, it's pretty quick in my experience.

I upgraded to the Stratosphere from the Droid X and it was like a breath of fresh air. So much faster, so much brighter, so responsive. I really love it.

One thing I'll point out is that it does NOT have a notification LED. This seems to be a common complaint about Samsung phones, but there's a work-around for it called NoLED that I'm very happy with.

There are a few weird little software-related issues with it that I think can be fixed if enough people make enough noise. If you're curious, you should see my thread on it here. Honestly though, they're just little things that are against my personal preference, you might be fine with them.

Hope this helps.
 
cableguynoe said:
Free, but about $50 in taxes since they tax you on the retail price. Costco doesn't do that. So it was cheaper at costco even though it was $19.99
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Only if you're in California they do that. Otherwise, the other 49 states charge sales tax on the contract price.

You CA people are getting screwed.
 
I've had mine for a good week now and so far I'm enjoying it. I may need to charge the battery at least once a day, because I don't do alot other than check mail, surf some sites, etc. At home I use wifi, which works good and if I'm on the road may use 3/4G and turn it off once I'm done using it. I've also read other posts here on how to optimize settings to keep the battery from going down too soon.
 
I bought the extended battery, and after some time with it, I'm ready to give this bad boy up.

3pm and my phone is already dead. Better than being dead at 1:30, sure... but still... I mean, c'mon! My Droid X would be around 75% when I got home from work.

So, yeah, I've listed this in the classifieds here.
 
Greenless, I don't know what on earth you've done with your phone but I can make it through a 14 hour day on the STOCK battery, with no brief charges or anything. I'm betting you either have a battery devouring app or a defective unit.
 
p_025 said:
Greenless, I don't know what on earth you've done with your phone but I can make it through a 14 hour day on the STOCK battery, with no brief charges or anything. I'm betting you either have a battery devouring app or a defective unit.
Click to expand...

greenless said:
I bought the extended battery, and after some time with it, I'm ready to give this bad boy up.

3pm and my phone is already dead. Better than being dead at 1:30, sure... but still... I mean, c'mon! My Droid X would be around 75% when I got home from work.

So, yeah, I've listed this in the classifieds here.
Click to expand...

I am getting similar results as greenless...
not sure what the deal is. Have the same apps that I had on my D2...
It's been off the charger for just over 2 hours and I'm already at 65%. Havent even used it much.

Anyway, I've only had it for a week and I think I'm taking it back today for the d3. Not because of the battery though.
Having has the OG droid, and d2, i just cant get used to this keyboard. I rather live without 4g for another year but have a phone I know I'll be happy with.

But the battery definately sucks, and it's suprising because it's supposed to have a pretty good stock battery.
Maybe there's a batch of bad ones out there?
 
My stock battery can last a whole day, even with live wallpapers and heavy usage... the extended battery gets me through a whole 2 days with a short maintenance charge.

I seriously think either you have a defective battery or an app that is eating all your power...
 
KnightCrusader said:
My stock battery can last a whole day, even with live wallpapers and heavy usage... the extended battery gets me through a whole 2 days with a short maintenance charge.

I seriously think either you have a defective battery or an app that is eating all your power...
Click to expand...

A defective battery AND a defective extended battery?

And which apps would kill the battery? I de-bloated it, and today I ran it in 3G-only mode and it still dies by 2pm. I have 3 gmail accounts and 1 exchange account set to push, but I had the same setup on my DX.
 
greenless said:
A defective battery AND a defective extended battery?

And which apps would kill the battery? I de-bloated it, and today I ran it in 3G-only mode and it still dies by 2pm. I have 3 gmail accounts and 1 exchange account set to push, but I had the same setup on my DX.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that does seem odd. Maybe a faulty charging circuit, saying its charged when it really isn't?
 
I'm still betting it's a rogue app or a defective phone. Those are the only reasons I can think of for this phone dying after eight hours on the extended battery.

My Strat has been off the charger since 8 this morning (it's now 8:15 at night) and it's still at 50% on the extended battery.
 
Thanks belledee. I couldn't pass up replacing my Droid 1 with a free Stratosphere at Best Buy. Just got one and love it. Don't even care that it probably won't get ICS. Thanks for making me aware of the deal.

-Mitch
 
Technipages said:
Thanks belledee. I couldn't pass up replacing my Droid 1 with a free Stratosphere at Best Buy. Just got one and love it. Don't even care that it probably won't get ICS. Thanks for making me aware of the deal.

-Mitch
Click to expand...

You are welcome Mitch...I too am coming from the droid 1 and could not pass on this deal even with no ICS....Enjoy it, I know i do...:D
 
greenless said:
A defective battery AND a defective extended battery?

And which apps would kill the battery? I de-bloated it, and today I ran it in 3G-only mode and it still dies by 2pm. I have 3 gmail accounts and 1 exchange account set to push, but I had the same setup on my DX.
Click to expand...


Adding my two cents worth, I agree that there is something going on with your particular phone. Mine will last 12 hours+ running 3 e-mail accounts, with the standard battery, and I use it as a hotspot half that time.

Do you have a task manager app, checking that might give you your answer.
 
What is the data usage for a short text message? Saw where average data usage in US for one month is around 200mb. I have 4GB and as usual salesment try to over sell.
 
Macthemutt said:
What is the data usage for a short text message? Saw where average data usage in US for one month is around 200mb. I have 4GB and as usual salesment try to over sell.
Click to expand...

Texting (SMS) doesn't use data, so you're fine.

If you are using something like Google Voice to text, then it should be pretty small, text doesn't use up much bandwidth.
 
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