I decided to join the forum because the Thrive is new and I wanted to pass on some info. It's a great starter phone if you are new to Android like me. It's NOT going to be anything close to an X or a Thunderbolt just so you know, but if your in the market for something easy, it might work for you. I purchased off at&t's website and received the phone within 2 days. It was easy to set up, the sim card was already in, so once it's charged it will activate the moment you turn it on. From there you go ahead and purchase your plan and set up voice mail, also easy. For some reason I had to reboot (turn off phone, take out battery and sim, replace everything, turn back on) for gmail and again to get android market to work, once I did this, it's been a breeze.
I've only run across a couple of issues: no disk came with the phone containing driver software (there was a disk for a tutorial) so I have run into some problems trying to get some music loaded up and as yet I have not found a solution. But it's not a huge deal if your only an occasional music user and I can keep using my Itouch for that. AT&T music also does not seem to be accessible with this phone. Outside of that everything synced up ok and downloading apps has been pretty easy to do.
The phone itself is better than expected. For under $200 I expected something plasticy but this phone has some umph to it, it feels great in the hand, not too heavy, not too light. It's got a beautiful screen, pictures I've taken have turned out great and I learned a little trick if you want to use them as wallpaper. Take the pic in landscape, once I started doing that, the cropping wasn't as big of an issue.
So I hope that helps those of you on the fence as to whether or not to buy one. I don't think AT&T is as badly priced as the more hardcore android users make it out to be. If you only need a little data, the unlimited $2 per day call/text plan is still cheaper than verizon. Yes, Boost or Virgin is cheaper, but there are also horror stories circulating about the lower tier companies. AT&T may be the big bad ma bell, but it comes down to a "better the devil you know" situation.
P.S. Covers/Cases/Screen Protectors and other accessories are not widely available for this new model. The other similar models like the vortex are slightly different, but Skinomi had a couple things to choose from made specifically for the Thrive/Phoenix models.
I've only run across a couple of issues: no disk came with the phone containing driver software (there was a disk for a tutorial) so I have run into some problems trying to get some music loaded up and as yet I have not found a solution. But it's not a huge deal if your only an occasional music user and I can keep using my Itouch for that. AT&T music also does not seem to be accessible with this phone. Outside of that everything synced up ok and downloading apps has been pretty easy to do.
The phone itself is better than expected. For under $200 I expected something plasticy but this phone has some umph to it, it feels great in the hand, not too heavy, not too light. It's got a beautiful screen, pictures I've taken have turned out great and I learned a little trick if you want to use them as wallpaper. Take the pic in landscape, once I started doing that, the cropping wasn't as big of an issue.
So I hope that helps those of you on the fence as to whether or not to buy one. I don't think AT&T is as badly priced as the more hardcore android users make it out to be. If you only need a little data, the unlimited $2 per day call/text plan is still cheaper than verizon. Yes, Boost or Virgin is cheaper, but there are also horror stories circulating about the lower tier companies. AT&T may be the big bad ma bell, but it comes down to a "better the devil you know" situation.
P.S. Covers/Cases/Screen Protectors and other accessories are not widely available for this new model. The other similar models like the vortex are slightly different, but Skinomi had a couple things to choose from made specifically for the Thrive/Phoenix models.