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VM Optimus V Vs Moto Triumph

agentc13 said:
Looks like you are getting some form both sides of the issue here. GOOD!

I will add my 2 cents (since I own the Triumph and the wife has the OV). I prefer the Triumph. I never had any of the issues that most people have reported, although very rarely I have trouble with the back key not working right (which is a hardware issue). The OV is very solid and a good phone. The Triumph does feel a little bit less hardy in comparison, but it is far from flimsy in my opinion. My wife has more issues with her OV than I do with my Triumph (partially because I know a lot more than she does, and she doesn't want to take the time to learn it all). The OV has a slower processor, a smaller screen, and less internal memory. If those are important to you more than other issues, you should remember that.

MOST of the issues people have had with the Triumph when it was released are not being seen as much (looks like they have better QC now). Many more of the issues are solved by putting one of the excellent custom ROMs on the phone, and if you feel comfortable with that I would recommend it. The OV has many similar ROMs (like CM7), but does not have MIUI if you would be interested in that. I am not totally current on all the OV ROMs (my wife is just rooted stock), but it seems like there are some really good ones being actively maintained. I think both are going to have ICS before too long from the looks of things.

Both phones would be a good choice. Especially since Virgin Mobile has a good replacement policy (as do places like Best Buy) on the chance that you would get a phone that doesn't work quite right.

OK, that was more like 25cents, but hopefully it helped. The people responding all had points you should consider so weigh it carefully. And if you buy one and feel it is the wrong choice I believe you can return it for a full refund for 30 days (that might just be Best Buy, I am not totally positive). Both phones have an active community here at Android Forums, so feel free to stop by both and ask some questions!


p.s. I would probably recommend the OV if you don't think you will ever want to root your phone or put custom ROMs on it. If you feel like you would want to do that I would recommend the Triumph as the custom ROMs fix almost every issue people have had with the phones software. You can PM me if you want any more of my excellent input! :P Good luck deciding!
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I have the same problem with back and menu key :(
 
AndyOpie150 said:
The stock "v" for me was a little slow, mostly because of the CPU speed being capped at 600MHz. The stock virtual keyboard will drive anybody batty,but there are plenty of good keyboards on the market. The screen is smaller,but with the right case can be put in the back pocket without fear of breakage(this is a plus for me as I work in commercial and industrial construction).
The battery life is quite good if you turn every thing off until you need that particular function. With light usage I can go a day easy on one charge. Constant internet usage 5 to 6 hours, which is better than the laptop I had.
The stock browser leaves something to desired but with Dolphin HD you can have a near PC experience with the proper add-ons. The ARM 6 processor doesn't support flash play and you cannot download any of the adobe flash players. Firefox Browser solves some of this issue, but not totally.
I personally have not had any major problems with my "V" and would not trade it for another phone until flash play or HTML 5 was available as well as 4G LTE on a Virgin Mobile phone. I like the $25.00 plan and don't plan on paying more.
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There is flash player for the Optimus V Adobe Flash Player 10.2 For ARMv6 and ARMv7 Android Phones | Android Campus
 
Currently an Optimus V owner but I was informed of the 50% off Cyber Monday sale late afternoon yesterday and began contemplating rolling the dice on the Triumph... once the SAVE 20 code made the rounds and dropped it to $120 it became a no lose proposition. Hopefully I get one of the phones that didn't give people issues, if I'm not happy I'll go with the Optimus Slider.

BTW, I went from a Droid 1 to an Optimus V so hopefully the Triumph will work for me like it has for others. Optimus V was acceptable for the most part, but I really do need more memory for apps.
 
Dr. Destructo said:
Currently an Optimus V owner but I was informed of the 50% off Cyber Monday sale late afternoon yesterday and began contemplating rolling the dice on the Triumph... once the SAVE 20 code made the rounds and dropped it to $120 it became a no lose proposition. Hopefully I get one of the phones that didn't give people issues, if I'm not happy I'll go with the Optimus Slider.

BTW, I went from a Droid 1 to an Optimus V so hopefully the Triumph will work for me like it has for others. Optimus V was acceptable for the most part, but I really do need more memory for apps.
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Your in luck then as the Triumph has a gig dedicated just for apps :D
 
hiwatt said:
If I was researching this phone and ran across this as a first post on a forum, I'd be scared.

I think its just the luck of the draw, I had to replace mine 3 times till I got a good one. Even with it's flaws it still beats the Optimus in almost every important category, bigger screen, faster processor, and more app space. Also, before you ask I have both so I can judge and even with the Optimus V overclocked running CM7.2 RC0 the Triumph is still better on Stock. I mean the Optimus V is a nice phone if you like slow nice phones ;).
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LOL we can talk about custom roms but not about rooting. Isn't that.. kinda backwards? Seems like every other thread on here mentions custom roms, how to use them, what are good ones, but when someone mentions what software is good for wireless tethering with root on the new OV phones, the thread gets locked.

Something is fish here. To flash you need root. Talking about roms and such should also be against the forum rules then.
 
Jason Beck said:
LOL we can talk about custom roms but not about rooting. Isn't that.. kinda backwards? Seems like every other thread on here mentions custom roms, how to use them, what are good ones, but when someone mentions what software is good for wireless tethering with root on the new OV phones, the thread gets locked.

Something is fish here. To flash you need root. Talking about roms and such should also be against the forum rules then.
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There is no rule against talking about rooting your phone either. It is talking about tethering that can be against the rules. It is fine to talk about if it is not against your Terms of Service. On Virgin Mobile, they do not allow tethering on any of the beyond talk plans so talking about it will get a thread locked.
 
I have owned the Optimus V for 6 Months and the Triumph for 6 months. I just went back to the Optimus V after no longer being able to put up with the lack of build quality and software glitches in the Triumph. My Triumph died 2 weeks ago. That was the last straw after waiting for a new battery from motorola for 2 weeks and that did not resolve the issue. Here are my observations/issues with the Triumph when it did boot:

1) Poor antenna design (constant poor signal)
2) Screen flickers
3) Bad call quality
4) Drops 3g and wireless LAN connections(couple times a day have to manually open a browser then data will flow again email sync etc)(this happens with every android(2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.3.7) I've owned so it may be an issue with the OS itself)
5) Screen easily scratched (poor quality)
6) Very short battery life (2-3 hours)(Triumph battery is 1300 mha while the optimus has 1500 mha so they put a smaller battery in a phone with more powerful cpu/bigger display = big clue that triumph designers were incompetent)
7) Touch screen intermittently unresponsive
8) Phone randomly prompts to be activated (no calls or data when it gets stuck in this mode)
9) Phone randomly gets stuck in bootloader mode
10) Phone randomly reboots
11) GPS takes forever to lock and is off making navigation with phone frustrating and sometimes impossible.
12) Phone is huge with sharp corners


Motorola support was not good as well, hung up on twice when their phone system transferred me and put on extended holds approaching 1 hour each time, lost my ticket #, etc... I have been without my triumph approaching a month while they sent me a battery and now for them to fix it and return it. This was my only phone and it is unreasonable that Motorola thinks a person can go almost a month with no phone. This is the first and last Motorola device I own.

While the Optimus V is not perfect I have found running CM7 rom with a overclock of 800mhz makes it almost as fast as the triumph + the better antenna + longer battery life + the more pocket friendly size makes it a clearly better phone pricing aside. I picked my second optimus V up this week for 99$ at BB.
 
My wife just got the Triumph and is not having any of the issues you are seeing. I have the Optimus V and her signal strength is equal to mine, her battery will easily last her throughout the day (even with moderate to heavy use and listening to music). The call quality is not quite as good as the V, but isn't that bad either. She hasn't had any problems with loss of activation, random reboots or freezes, The touch screen is responsive and we haven't noticed any flickering on it. As for the tethering issue, VM blocked that on the newer Optimus V also.

It sounds like you just got a bad one. I have heard other people make the same complaints, and had to return them to get a new one. If these issues have been there from the start, it sounds like a bad one and you should have returned it for an exchange before the return period ran out.
 
If you are a power user, you take some bad with a lot of good. There's a lot of minor issues and one major (the GPS is slow to lock). If the major isn't a big deal to you, then Triumph is the better of the two.

If you are a casual user that just wants a phone with every feature working well, and might browse the web or play a simple game on it periodically, OV is far better.
 
wonshikee said:
If you are a power user, you take some bad with a lot of good. There's a lot of minor issues and one major (the GPS is slow to lock). If the major isn't a big deal to you, then Triumph is the better of the two.
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That major issue isn't on every one, My GPS is fine (usually locks within a few seconds).
 
wonshikee said:
Are you using pure GPS, or do you have "use wireless networks" enabled in the locations settings.
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That is a lock with GPS satellites using GPS Status to check. That app doesn't use the network locations at all, only the GPS satellites. I use Google Maps/navigation and it locks fine with the GPS as well. Not all of the Triumphs have that issue. Some definitely do.
 
My triumph displayed more and more issues the longer I owned it until finally it would not boot. I don't think you guys should tell everyone its a great phone if you just bought it. Run it for 6 months or so then I would like to hear your thoughts.

This phone has major issues. To say the GPS lock is not a major issue is false. It is my only navigation device and it is unreliable. The antenna is horrible and gimps the phone. This should have been a great phone but motorola screwed it up. Also by the looks of the other forums i've read these phones are dropping like flies now, at least mine failed in the one year warranty window so I can get it fixed and get rid of it.
 
I just simply wanted to note that I completely agree that a phone "needing" a rom to fix the problems, as long as they are fixed, should not at all be a red flag.. I've never had the Triumph, I have had the OV, but if simply putting a new ROM on the device fixes the problems, the phone would be far superior to the OV and would definitely be worth it as long as you were willing to spend the extra money.

The OV is a nice phone, but I really don't see at all why so many people praise the phone so much... I really never saw anything that special out of it while I had it.

At the time, if I was willing to spend that much more money on the phone, I would have gladly bought it and threw a new ROM on it to have a better phone.
 
Just came back to my OV after four months with the Triumph. What a ****ing breath of fresh air! I've used MIUI and CM7 and CM9 on the Triumph. I've returned 2 different phones in hopes of getting this magical and elusive "good" model of the Triumph. Yes, the screen is better (larger) on the Triumph and the storage is larger, but that's it.

I'm going to say something no one wants to hear. I own and use both phones (OV and MT), and I tried for four months to make myself not believe it, but what I'm about to say is the absolute truth, and no amount of ROM'ing and Rooting is going to fix it:

The Triumph is an out-and-out, straight up lemon. From the moment you open it and see that big 'ol screen, you will WANT it to work SO BADLY that you will REFUSE to believe that there are problems. But they're there. And for the next three to four months, you will fight every part of the phone until you end up returning it 3 or 4 times (like a LOT of folks do) in hopes of getting this elusive "Good Triumph" that never seems to come.

So many Triumphs have been returned that people in the forums are actually comparing serial numbers because VM is just playing "musical chairs" with the incoming and outgoing replacements. Users are returning them so fast that people are receiving replacements that someone else JUST turned in. Don't believe me? The forums are in that direction ------>

Save yourself the time. Here's the gist of it:

1. The OV has FAR SUPERIOR radio antennas and attenuation. I get signals on my OV that I can NEVER get on the Triumph. At my office, both phones side by side, I get full bars on my OV, and ONE BAR on my Triumph, and my data is at 1x, not 3G. This is not a fluke. This is repeatable on a daily basis in multiple parts of town. Yes, I can still get calls fine on the Triumph with 1 bar, but data is absurdly slow. The OV sitting RIGHT BESIDE it is flying through data on a 3G connection.

2. The GPS on the OV locks INSTANTLY. EVERY TIME. Hold the search button, speak "Navigate to Radio Shack, Pensacola, Florida" and BOOM! You are LITERALLY in the Nav app looking at your GPS location down to a few feet of accuracy within 15-20 seconds. Indoors or out. On the Triumph, I could never get the GPS to lock any sooner than 3 minutes. Which, if you are in traffic looking for a particular location, 3 minutes is an ETERNITY. Once you are locked, IF you get a lock, watch what happens when you start driving. On the OV I can drive and use the Nav app and get the Google Maps satellite data downloaded as fast as I can drive, and it never misses a beat. In four months, I have NEVER had a workable GPS navigation on the Triumph. Across three returned phones, two different ROMS, and the three applications that are supposed to make the Triumph GPS get a lock. (The forum posters expect you to open GPSFix on the phone and wait 3-4 minutes for it to find all the satellites, THEN open up Google Maps/Nav. Ummm. NO.)

3. The build-quality on the Triumph is as rough as it sounds like in the forums. Holding the Triumph makes the OV seems like a high-end phone, and we all know it ain't. From the light-leaks in the screen, to the loose battery compartment door, to the uber-fragile charging port, it all just feels like a piece of shit, honestly. The "Soft-touch" plastic body is a lint and hair magnet, and makes sliding the phone out of jean pockets a chore. Your whole pocket turns inside-out because the "soft-touch" plastic grabs on like a warm gummy bear. I HATE it.

4. Touch response is INFURIATING! Yes, it's 100x better with a non-stock ROM, but it makes me INSANE to have to tap something 3 or 4 times to get it to register. The MOST infuriating part? The Android system "buttons" on the bottom of the phone are touch-sensitive icons that also experience this "oh-are-you-tapping-on-me-I-didn't-notice" phenomenon. Imagine hurriedly trying to do something on the phone only to get slowed down because the BACK button will not register a tap. OMGWTFBBQ! It makes me INSANE! Again, MUCH worse with the stock ROM, so if you are getting a MT, be ready to root and ROM.

5. Wifi. Sigh. So, as a new MT user, you are thinking "okay, so the antenna situation makes the 3G data slow, so I'll just use WiFI as often as I can... it'll be okay." NO. It won't. Same sorry antennas make for slower wifi browsing that the OV. Side-by-side comparisons are shocking. So that begs the question: Why worry about getting a faster CPU when the slow 3G and Wifi connections bottleneck everything else about the phone, ultimately making the MT feel SLOWER than the little 600mhz OV. It's honestly maddening.

So, there you have it. I know that within a few hours vocal Triumph owners will descend upon this post and call me every name in the book and try to refute every word I say. Yet NOT ONE MT OWNER who supposedly has this magical "good" Triumph will post screen shots or video of all of this in action. "Well, My GPS works perfectly... Has since day one!" Well, GREAT, Asshat. Take a video and SHOW US. Yet in the four months I've slogged through the Triumph forums, NOT ONE PERSON will post videos of their phones actually working like they claim. NOT ONE.

I don't know WHY so many Triumph owners will not admit to it, but the phone is a real piece of shit. I'm no better or no worse than anyone else here. I'm not too proud to admit I use a budget cell carrier and am quite vocally proud of the fact that I pay $25 a month for unlimited service. (Incidentally, I was in NYC last week standing in the middle Times Square. My travel companion was trying to look up some show tickets on his AT&T iPhone 4s. He had such lousy service I had to pull out my little Virgin Mobile phone he likes to make fun of, and had the info in seconds. This happened 2 or 3 times on the trip, and it was lovely to say "yup, 25 bucks!.. How much do you pay a month?")

All that said, I love Virgin Mobile for the deal it offers me on service. And I actually like the OV, I just wish I had a bigger screen. But I can say with sincere honesty that, all bullshitting aside, I would not wish the Motorola Triumph on my worst enemy, much less a fellow Virgin Mobile customer. Sorry if that hurts any Triumph owners feelings, but deep inside you know it's true, too.
 
I finally got my triumph back from Motorola, they replaced the usb port in it. I think this refects on the build quality of the phone, I'm very careful with my phones and this is the first that has ever needed repairs.(I've owned smartphones since back in bb days)

I couldn't agree more that the Triumph is a pos. I have both optimus v and triumph. I'm turning into a bit of a phone junky.....

A couple of things you can do to improve the triumph is load up rom cm7 and remove the factory screen protector. It is as thick as duct tape and taking it off improves touch function considerably. However the phones 4 bottom buttons are still maddeningly unresponsive.

One thing I must say is that the triumph screen is beautiful. It looks even better after removing the second screen protector. However I have the two phones side by side now and the triumph has a signal strength of 95-105(1 bar- unusable) where the optimus V has a signal strength of 80-85(3-4 bar) which is very usable. So if your signal strength is not excellent on optimus v (60s) you are asking for problems switching to triumph. I cant stream pandora and etc with the triumph which optimus v did fine.... Ill keep the triumph around in hopes that when I move next month the towers will be closer and it will be usable.

Oh and I'm running the triumph at 1.4mhz stable. But, yes this is the last Motorola product I buy. I don't and won't support companies that release shoddy products like this.

The next virgin mobile phone I will buy will be a HTC phone... they have great reviews just not that pos the wildfire.
 
I'm on my second Triumph now and both have had a problem with dust getting under the screen (near the search button on the bottom) - I keep the phone 'upside down' in my pocket (like most people I think, more natural to grab & use quickly) but it's not like I'm exposing it to the desert or anything.

I also have a big problem with GPS locking in a timely manner.. and the camera on this thing produces pretty disappointing colors under many lighting conditions. It's alright in medium lighting conditions (non direct sunlight), but in low light you can see a yellow 'haze' near the middle of the photo.. and in direct sunlight you get a lot of 'halo' effects around high contrast areas.

I'm really bummed because I like the phone. If the camera sucked less, GPS locked in a timely manner, and screen didn't allow dust to get under it, I'd be quite happy with the phone.

I'm thinking I'm going to again return this current one to Amazon and hop to best buy today (once Amazon confirms my return) and pick up an Optimus V for $105 or so.
 
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