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Droid x2, Thunderbolt, or Droid Charge???

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dressagerider

Well-Known Member
I am switching from ATT and currently have the Inspire 4G. I love my phone and HTC, but ATT has no service in my area and I am dropping and missing calls daily.

4G is coming to my area in a few months, so I do not know how important it it is to get a 4G phone now. Will there be kinks to work out? Will 4G improve reception or just upload/download speeds? I really like the Motorola Droid x2 but it is not 4G - but does have dual core. The charge is beautiful but I am not familiar with samsung phones. The thunderbolt would be my first choice since I love HTC, but this phone has had a lot of problems and I am a little worried about that.

Any advice would be much appreciated!!!! I need to make the move asap.
 
IMO, there is currently no stable 4G device/system due to immaturity of the network and the fact that 4G radios suck power at 3X the rate of 3G.

Even just using the devices as 3G can be problematic, depending on what towers and upgrade level the network is. Not to mention if you live in a fringe area for 4G, you might have steady data connection grief.

TB: IMO, it seems that the weakest option of the current 4G devices is the TB, since a power sucking mess in 4G and problematic with 3G/4G.

Charge: If you MUST have a very good camera and highly value a display, the Charge has an edge, but the device is slow and the build seems weak and not solid by any stretch. There are also reports the reception is weak. The touch response of the display seems weak and has been picked up in a few reviews. Battery life appears best of the three 4G devices, but this a relative point, since all are hard on a battery.

Revolution: Same 4G battery issues as the others and has the weakest call quality of the three, but has some strong points. HDMI out, very good video support, 12GB of internal storage (it is also used for data, like the DX2) and appears to have the best radio reception of the the three devices (3G and 4G).

DX2: No 4G (perhaps a good thing for now?), sporadic MP3/Music issues (clicks & pops) and apparent heat spikes due mainly to some Flash content. As far as the MP3 issues, if I am not multi-tasking (setting changes or surfing) the clicks and pops happen about once during one out of five-ish songs (not THAT bad). If multitasking, at least once in every song (very bad). Another issue is random resets that appear to mainly be triggered by some Flash content and some video files using the stock player (does not happen using Rockplayer).

The good stuff in comparison to the 4G devices:

Much better battery life
Better call quality
Better radio reception (the Revolution appears to be good too).
Faster device for more demanding content and if you play game emulators like N64 & PSX.
The display has the best clarity and second overall to the Charge
Tons of add-ons due to the DX1
Better build
HDMI mirroring like the Revolution, but up to 1080p, rather than 720p.
In spite of the sporadic clicks & pops on the DX2, the Tegra 2 is better for sound quality.

As far as folks that are buying 4G devices now, just to "lock in" 4G, there is no apparent contract difference between 3G and 4G (both are same unlimited web package). The system settings profile for an LTE device may list "LTE", but the contract does not.

For somebody that does not want to wait for the Bionic or other next REAL wave of devices (all probably some form of dual core), the DX2 is IMO, the best device from a "total cost" perspective. Catch being the problems noted above and if they are fixed.

If we could take the storage space and video support from the Revolution- Display from the Charge- Power/efficiency, call quality, reception and audio quality from the DX2, we would have a near "perfect device".
 
4G is coming to my area later this year and I had to upgrade now (busted my last phone). I seriously considered the 4G phones but it seems the battery life on all of them is terrible (especially while using 4G). Since battery life was something important to me I decided to skip 4g for this upgrade and just go for it next time around once the kinks have been worked out some.

I went with the DX2 and once I got rid of flash it has been great. Seriously, with flash 10.3 it is terrible in many ways and without it is seemingly a great phone. So as for this phone it depends on how important flash is to you. I imagine they'll fix it at some point but right now flash is not really much of an option for the DX2.
 
Don't know where you got Revolution has the weakest call quality. I haven't tested it myself, but most user reports are its call quality is very crystal clear. Also its battery is not 3X weaker than DX2. Even in 4G mode, it can go 10~16 hours depending on usage. So does DX2 do 30~48 hours?
 
serp said:
4G is coming to my area later this year and I had to upgrade now (busted my last phone). I seriously considered the 4G phones but it seems the battery life on all of them is terrible (especially while using 4G). Since battery life was something important to me I decided to skip 4g for this upgrade and just go for it next time around once the kinks have been worked out some.

I went with the DX2 and once I got rid of flash it has been great. Seriously, with flash 10.3 it is terrible in many ways and without it is seemingly a great phone. So as for this phone it depends on how important flash is to you. I imagine they'll fix it at some point but right now flash is not really much of an option for the DX2.
Click to expand...

+1 and i love the radio/reception/call quality on the x2 also.
 
jinwons said:
Don't know where you got Revolution has the weakest call quality. I haven't tested it myself, but most user reports are its call quality is very crystal clear. Also its battery is not 3X weaker than DX2. Even in 4G mode, it can go 10~16 hours depending on usage. So does DX2 do 30~48 hours?
Click to expand...


Did not say the battery drain on the Rev was 3X, but did say 4G radios drain about 3X the juice of 3G. There are other things using power besides the radio, so not 3X as whole, but not very far off when 4G is used on current LTE devices.

Call quality sounds tinny. Not just me, since reviews have picked up on this too and is the most common ding (that and 4G battery life).
 
rushmore said:
Did not say the battery drain on the Rev was 3X, but did say 4G radios drain about 3X the juice of 3G. There are other things using power besides the radio, so not 3X as whole, but not very far off when 4G is used on current LTE devices.

Call quality sounds tinny. Not just me, since reviews have picked up on this too and is the most common ding (that and 4G battery life).
Click to expand...

I get what you mean but still think 3X is kind of exaggeration. It's more like 2X difference in battery drain between 4G and 3G.
 
jinwons said:
I get what you mean but still think 3X is kind of exaggeration. It's more like 2X difference in battery drain between 4G and 3G.
Click to expand...


Seems that way, but since using 4G cuts battery life to about half compared to 3G, the actual radio weight of the power change from 3G to 4G is about 3X. The reason is the display, sound IC, apps running, etc are basically constants, so the only variable pulling battery life down is the 4G radio use. Since the radio is only a fraction of total power consumed, the actual radio would need to be about 3X more power hungry to lower total battery life by 50%.
 
Thank you for all the replies!

I decided to go with the Thunderbolt since my area is getting 4G this summer. So far I am really pleased. The sound and call quality is amazing, it is very fast and I love the display. It has all the features I loved on my inspire but SO much more.

The droid x2 would have been my first choice if it was 4g because that is a super nice phone!

The samsung droid charge did not impress me at all. I just do not like the samsung interface and it seems like they just try to copy iphone too much. Also was concerned about samsung's reputation for lack of updating their phones.
 
Congrats on your choice.

For those still reading this for their own purposes, wanted to add that the Charge could be the best choice of these three for someone rooting/ROMing and concerned about battery life. They are fixing the key issues w/custom kernels, roms, including switching to the faster ext4 file system, and anyone w/a smartphone knows how they love to chew up their batteries, and the Charge is the best of these three phones in that important area.

My overall suggestion, however, is that it's too soon to buy (unless you just can't or won't wait)....the D3 (3G), the Galaxy S II (I believe 4G from what I've read), and the Bionic (4G) are all coming later this year. Each of them is a dual core CPU phone, so there's some future-proofing there, and from a developer perspective, Samsung gave Cyanogenmod a GSII in advance so they could start ROM development, indicating a ROM-friendly approach on what looks like will be a very cool phone that's hard to not wait a little while for...
 
To each his/her own, but I wouldn't go with Tbolt at this time. I would wait at least until more info on Bionic, GSII come for us.
 
I just wish the DX2 issues would get fixed, since it was mainly sweet and IMO a better option than the Charge, Rev or TB.

DX2 has some chops (just wish the firmware did not choke it):

-Build
-Display (I miss it bad)
-Call quality (back to my muddy Inc)
-Radio reception
-Sound quality (makes the clicks and pops more tragic)
-Games and emulators rock with the Tegra 2
-Easy root
-Wifi tether works great
-Battery life
-Form factor suited one hand operation better than other 4.3"
-Hard buttons were nice (I was just playing some Deluxe Galaga 94 with UAEAmiga on the Inc and hit a capacitive button by accident- lost my game place)
-Camera was better than my Inc's, so good enough for impulse pics

I would prefer a solid firmwared DX2 over the Bionic, since a 4.5" is a tad too big IMO and I think most of us know where the weakness will be, due to the combo of 4.5" lcd, dual core and LTE- battery life.

added:

Not to mention the DX2 is here NOW and not a several likely month wait like the Bionic.
 
rushmore said:
I would prefer a solid firmwared DX2 over the Bionic, since a 4.5" is a tad too big IMO and I think most of us know where the weakness will be, due to the combo of 4.5" lcd, dual core and LTE- battery life.
Click to expand...
I believe the screen size originally leaked has been retracted. They are now saying it will have a 4.3" screen FWIW.

I am still betting that the X2 will have better battery life than ANY 4G phone that releases before 4th quarter, and since battery life is more important to me than data speed, I'm sticking with the X2 despite some of it "flaws".

adam355 said:
Why wouldn't you consider the incredible 2?
Click to expand...
The Dinc2 is a nice phone. I prefer Motorola hardware to HTC (despite the bootloader issues) because Moto has always been good for me in terms of signal strength. I also gravitate towards the dual core processor and the larger screen resolution, but all these things are personal opinion. I would certainly not be unhappy if I were gifted a Dinc2.
 
adam355 said:
Why wouldnt you consider the incredible 2?
Click to expand...

I considered both. I got the DX2 and kept it for a week. I couldn't get the Inc2 out of my head so I went to Verizon yesterday and played with it for a while. I left with the DX2 in my pocket. The DX2 is just a nicer phone, IMO.
 
I had a Thunderbolt, went to the DX2, then went back to the Thunderbolt. Both phones have their issues which have been covered in great detail so I won't repeat them. All in all I felt like the Thunderbolt's set of pros and cons produced an overall better device than the X2's set of pros and cons. A software update can fix the Thunderbolt's reboot and 3g/4g connectivity issues and an extended battery or spare batteries eliminates the battery issue. There isn't an update that can really fix the biggest problems I had with the DX2.(No 4G, pentile screen, poor camera)
 
coming from the HTC Incredible I went with the Charge. and I am on the 4G network and for those saying it drains the battery I can browse the internet constantly for 4 hours before I get a low battery reminder. I can get maybe 30 mins longer on the 3g side with same phone so if 30 mins is a big factor to some then yes it will use more battery. The screen on the charge is far superior than any of the phones on the market. The front and rear cameras are very nice as well. The only time I get any lag on the screen is zooming in on a forum It needs time to catch up before i can scroll. The touch screen is in my opinion great it's not too sensitive nor is it not sensitive enough. If you do alot of texting the touch keys are big enough that you can actually hit the right key and of course you do have swype in which I need to use more often to get a better feel of it. But watching those who use it all the time it's just awesome. Ignore the pastic feel the phone feels great and like many I'm sure you will put it in a case for protection. If I was to rate this phone thus far on scale 1-10 I'd give it a 9 only because of the lag I get when zooming in before I can actually scroll to read forums. I've played pandora thru my blue tooth and the sound and reception is also good. Call quality is good now it could use a bit more power to the speaker to hear sounds when messages, emails or a phone call comes in but if like me I use a bluetooth so thats not an issue.
If you are getting 4G soon I'd look more into the 4g phone it's blazing fast and sure makes downloads and web surfing a breeze.

James
 
Well, I'm returning my this week sometime. Just sick of the heat, slow ness, and the screen. Going to go back to my OD until either the Bionic of SG2 comes out. Hopefully will only have to wait till July sometime. Latest August.
 
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