So my contract with VZW is expiring soon, and so I (should) be able to get a new phone for a discount.
Currently, I have a Droid Eris that I had to settle for. I wanted the Droid, and was informed I had to choose between the phone I "wanted" and having a roof over my head, so I took the Eris.
During my time as an Eris owner, I've discovered a few things:
Now.. I'm looking to replace my Eris (finally!) And maybe my irritation stems from the fact that I had to compromise and settle for an inferior product compared to what I wanted. And this time I'm going to get what I want.
Here are the specs I'm looking for:
I know I probably seem like a guy who wants to eat his cake and have it too. I just feel like I've been dealing with a cheap product for two years, and I want to make sure that the next phone I get will not be COMPLETELY obsolete 6 months after I purchase it.
At first I got excited about the HTC Thunderbolt, but then I read a ton of reviews that say it sucks a battery like a 2 dollar...yeah.
Then I read about the Bionic, and it seems kinda nifty right now, but who knows?
Comparing the Droid 3, Droid X2, and Droid Pro...the 3 seems to come out ahead. However my contract won't be up for renewal until mid-October, so I have time to compare and shop and such... so my question is... does anyone know of any phones that will/should satisfy most of my desires? (In a PG way...not a NC-17 way). I know that personality plays a large part in determining what a person likes so...in a nutshell I am an IS major, graduating in May. I am a 'retro' gamer (NES, SNES, Atari, and MUDs preferably). I like programming/web development because it gives me a small feeling that I am playing god (creating something from nothing), and I hope to get involved in app development soon. I want to be more or less on the cutting edge, but at the same time I want the highest quality - not just the newest gadget. I would prefer a phone that's been out for a bit if it outperforms the newcomers.
Currently, I have a Droid Eris that I had to settle for. I wanted the Droid, and was informed I had to choose between the phone I "wanted" and having a roof over my head, so I took the Eris.
During my time as an Eris owner, I've discovered a few things:
- VZW seems to be about 6 months and a version behind what the current OS is.
- Storage capacity doesn't mean anything (at one point I had several Gigs free and the phone refused to connect calls because I had too many apps).
- The bugs you will encounter are most likely completely unknown to the support technicians (in the preceeding problem, VZW wanted me to wipe my phone back to factory - found that deleting apps so they're below a certain limit would fix it on forums)
Now.. I'm looking to replace my Eris (finally!) And maybe my irritation stems from the fact that I had to compromise and settle for an inferior product compared to what I wanted. And this time I'm going to get what I want.
Here are the specs I'm looking for:
- "Long" battery life. And by that, I mean I want it to last an entire workday without having to charge it for an hour at lunch. I don't want a phone where the battery goes from 63% to 49% in a matter of a few minutes.
- "Good" resolution video/photo capabilities (preferably with a flash). I'm big into the local music scene here, and I want to be able to get pictures of my bands 'in action' in a dimly lit environment.
- "Fast" bootup. I don't care about all the fancy animations that my Eris pops up - it takes about five minutes from hitting the power button to being able to do anything with the phone.
- A lack of "gummyness". When I end a phone call on my Eris, I typically have to wait about a minute and a half for it to recognize that there is no call in progress, end the connection, and return to a state of being able to do anything - during this time it is completely locked up and there have been a few instances where I had to remove the battery and boot it back up.
- Minimal bloatware. While I am a geek and I want every possible feature that I'm interested in...I am not interested in bloatware like "MP3 Store", "Teeter", and "Visual Voice Mail" (the latter of which seems to be a "free trial" that you can pay a monthly fee to continue using after the trial is up). I also want minimal advertisements on bootup. While the little Android guy that would pop out and wave during bootup that was on my HTC Touch was amusing, that says to me "Hey! Spend 45 seconds looking at this little dude wave at you while we try to figure out what we're doing. Ok, now let us display our company logo for another 30-45 seconds before we begin the loading process". My desktop computer boots up faster than my phone does >.<
- Little slices of geek-ish heaven. I want live backgrounds. I want to be able to watch Netflix on my phone. I want to be able to browse YouTube (which transitioned from useless bloatware to an actual working app about 5 months after I bought the phone). I want to be able to have as strong a signal as my wife's fruit does. Traditionally, my Eris and Touch have maxed out at 3 bars of signal, with an occasional timid foray into the 4 bars region. Typically, like right now, I have 2 bars on my phone. My wife's Blackberry has a full signal and it's sitting 10 feet from me. While I like, and have gotten quite comfortable with the touchscreen keyboard, I would also like to have a slide-out keyboard for those times I need to send a long message. I would LOVE it if it had a screen that could still be read when the sun hit it...and the larger the screen the better.
I know I probably seem like a guy who wants to eat his cake and have it too. I just feel like I've been dealing with a cheap product for two years, and I want to make sure that the next phone I get will not be COMPLETELY obsolete 6 months after I purchase it.
At first I got excited about the HTC Thunderbolt, but then I read a ton of reviews that say it sucks a battery like a 2 dollar...yeah.
Then I read about the Bionic, and it seems kinda nifty right now, but who knows?
Comparing the Droid 3, Droid X2, and Droid Pro...the 3 seems to come out ahead. However my contract won't be up for renewal until mid-October, so I have time to compare and shop and such... so my question is... does anyone know of any phones that will/should satisfy most of my desires? (In a PG way...not a NC-17 way). I know that personality plays a large part in determining what a person likes so...in a nutshell I am an IS major, graduating in May. I am a 'retro' gamer (NES, SNES, Atari, and MUDs preferably). I like programming/web development because it gives me a small feeling that I am playing god (creating something from nothing), and I hope to get involved in app development soon. I want to be more or less on the cutting edge, but at the same time I want the highest quality - not just the newest gadget. I would prefer a phone that's been out for a bit if it outperforms the newcomers.
