• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Double check me before I upgrade

C

CoreyV

Member
A little background...

My wife and I have had Captivates since Aug 2010, never rooted, recently upgraded to 2.3.5. Since the upgrade we're getting a LOT of force close messages. I read somewhere about doing a factory reset to fix, but it's not bothering me that much to go through that effort.

So the other day I was at BB to buy some cables and glanced through the phones. I tell the BB guy I'm not due for an upgrade until August (or so I thought), but he offers to look up my account to see. To my surprise, I'm already eligible for an upgrade and my wife's is eligible at the end of April. So that got my upgrade juices flowing and looking at the S2.

On to the questions...

1) I've been relatively happy with the Captivate, so staying within the Samsung/Galaxy family makes sense to me. And while I've read the specs and the S2 seems like a pretty significant upgrade (processor, RAM, camera, etc), I haven't found a lot of comments from people that have upgraded from their Captivate to an S2. So is the S2 enough of an upgrade over the Captivate to be worth it?

2) Where to buy? AT&T, BB, etc all have it for $99. I happened across the S2 on Amazon and they have it for $49 (I never realized Amazon even did phones). I did some quick research and it looks legit and not too much more complicated than having the BB guy do the upgrade. So Amazon is legit?

3) Trade-in/sell my Captivate? I discovered I'm obviously pretty clueless on phones. The BB guy also mentioned they have an offer to buy back my Captivate for $26 - I'm thinking wow, that would almost cover the $36 AT&T upgrade fee. Then in my research last night I see something about selling used phones and I do a quick search on Ebay and see a ton of Captivates selling for $125 - $200 (who is buying these used when they're free with a new contract or extension?). So should I sell both of our Captivates or sell just one and keep one as a backup?

4) I've read about the battery issues with the 2.3.6 update. If I get one from Amazon will it come stock 2.3.4 (I think that was the stock) and I can just avoid the update until Samsung fixes the problem in the next update?

5) I guess AT&T just recently doubled the upgrade fee from $18 to $36. I read where some called to complain about the fee after the upgrade (how long/good of a customer they've been, never been late with a payment, etc) and the rep has waived the fee. How common is the waive (yes, I'm cheap)?

6) I put a screen protector and a rubberized case on our Captivates (I feared the worst at the time). We bought a tablet at xmas and didn't put on a screen protector - and it seems fine to us. I do drop my phone more than I should, so I'll likely still put a case around it. But do I need to mess with a screen protector to protect against things in my pocket (occasionally keys or a receipt with a staple)?

Anything else I'm missing in my consideration before I jump?

Thanks
 
I cant answer all the questions but I will give you some insight as I came from a Captivate also. I was a big fan of the captivate, and one day my power button stopped working which led to me having to upgrade, and it has been a real good upgrade and I feel the hardware in general was a great upgrade.

I will recommend buying from BB or Amazon, really BB if you can as they have an amazing warranty plan that's definitely worth it if you can afford it. If its the same as it used to be you can put a hammer through your screen and take it in and they will replace it no questions asked.

You can sell your captivate, I would recommend selling it on ebay as you will get more. I personally kept mine and have it pulled apart and I'm trying to get it working again and use it as a music player and stuff like that so I don't use my battery on my sgs2. This brings up the point that I think the captivate had better sound quality, but most people wont recognize it.

There are some battery issues with the upgrade to 2.3.6. I could make it through a day easily on 2.3.4, and I could on 2.3.6 also but there was a definite drain. To fix this I bought Tasker to turn on my wifi for 5 minutes every hour to allow stuff to update but also save battery. Now I'm running a ROM and if I dont touch my phone I can get through an entire day with 80% remaining, I usually have around 60 with pretty moderate use.

Don't know about waiving the fee, I think it depends on the customer service person you get. Some are very helpful and some are awful, you can usually call a few times and get someone who will work with you.

This phone is pretty resistant to scratches, well the screen. It does have a coating to repel fingerprints and it works pretty well. When I even touch the screen on my captivate it leaves many more fingerprints behind than the sgs2. That does bring the point about that this coating can scratch and I have one small scratch in mine now, not very noticeable though. If you have keys in your pocket with the phone you may want a protector, I've never had a screen protector and always carry mine around in a pocket but never with anything else in the pocket but maybe a pen. If you have the BB warranty there is always that option but you may want to make sure they still have the replacement warranty.
 
It looks like the Amazon deal wasn't as good as I thought. The $49 offer was for new service. My upgrade cost is $129.

Looks like I'll go back to BB instead (passing on the insurance though).
 
Question 1. YES a thousand times YES. I just made the switch my self and loved my cappy.

#2 Frys had them last weekend for 39.00 Walmart.com has them at 59.00. Radio Shack has them today for 79.00

#3 Sold my mint cappy on ebay for 200.00, in less than 4 hours. It was a complete package, 2 cases w/ belt clips, 5 batteries, and 4 chargers. (I spend a lot of time using my phone)

#4 Battery issues on the SGS2 seem to come from wifi being on and unused. I use tasker and turn my wifi off when I am not in a location that I don't connect at.

#5 Complained and they cut it in half.

#6 I got a seidio case and will get a screen protector I think.

The SGS2 ROCKS.
 
Bobbye said:
I gotta ask. Why not look at the Skyrocket? Same phone but it has LTE.
Click to expand...

The 4g is the only positive about it. The processor, while faster, is worse. The screen, while bigger, has the same resolution therefore making it fuzzy if you look close. And its supposed to be not nearly as smooth, again going back to the processor. Not to mention it doesn't have the dev community that the sgs2 has, but not all will really care about that.
 
Bobbye said:
Same phone but it has LTE.
Click to expand...
definitely not the same phone. It shares the same "galaxy s2" name but thats about it. The hardware is completely different. I like the SR and have no complaints about it at all but its not the same phone as the i777.

CoreyV said:
Anything else I'm missing in my consideration before I jump?
Click to expand...
I went from the captivate to the GS2 i777 and while I liked the captivate, this phone is 1000x better. You wont have any regrets getting this upgrade, whether it would be the i777 or skyrocket (i727 i think)
 
Yea I had the S2. I like the idea on the bigger screen for the SR. But the funny thing is I switched back to an iPhone. Due to work reasons.
 
Bobbye said:
Yea I had the S2. I like the idea on the bigger screen for the SR. But the funny thing is I switched back to an iPhone. Due to work reasons.
Click to expand...
thats the one thing I will never do is change my personal property to suit my work needs - lol
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom