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Who has the Shift

I had a blackberry curve 8330 for just under 2 years and moved to the shift almost a week ago.

Stuff I miss from the BlackBerry:
1. The keyboard (im sure ill get used to this one, but the placement of the keys was easier)
2. The ease of mail setup (auto in most cases)
3. Blackberry Messenger (not so much as everyone went to other devices or found other means to communicate and was pretty much phased out anyways)
4. The ease of setting custom tones and navigating files
5. Auto converting messages longer than 160 characters from SMS to MMS (I know a lot of people are just the opposite, but its kind of annoying when reading through 6 pages of a horoscope and getting cut off)



What I don't miss:
1. The battery pulls
2. The blank messages
3. The ever sticking trackball (cleaned and replaced several times)
4. The update to the desktop manager which no longer allowed app backup (had to restore to factory and repurchase and redownload quite a few things)
5. 3g only :P
6. The 7-10 minute boot up

Here's what I like about the Shift:
1. Android
2. Touchscreen AND keyboard!
3. Much faster (freezes a bit but ill figure that out)
4. No more battery pulls (knock on wood)
5. Great voice quality (better than my BB IMO, but speakerphone could be louder)
6. Angry Birds!!
7. Great Community
8. Market is much easier and faster to navigate than the BB App World
9. Perfect size (almost wanted EVO because it was bigger, but came to my senses)
10. Picture quality is amazing
11. So many options
12. I may edit as i find more things lol

What I dont like about the Shift:
1. Battery life; blah!
2. freezing (again, im sure ill figure that out even if i have to take it back)
3. keyboard character placement
4. lack of native call timer records
5. lack of FFC (wouldnt mind it so much if there was a hard button for the cam when taking self shots)
6. Battery Life!!!!!!

Overall I LOVE the Shift and can see me using it for a long time to come
 
Trying to decide which to upgrade to as well.. original EVO is a bit too big and business-like, Shift is nice but I'm hesitant with the 800 Mhz and the Epic well, is made by Samsung.

tarpon6 said:
How important is a physical keyboard to you? Will you, without a doubt, use a video chat app? Will you connect your phone to a TV or monitor to play videos?

Both phones are great, answer those questions, it should help.
Click to expand...

Not that important, despite using a physical keyboard I could easily get used to a virtual one with Swype / SlideIT. No, and no.

anahhvee said:
Question!
I just got the shift and I was wondering if I can still get swype even though it has the keyboard?
Click to expand...

Yes. You're in luck since despite the Shift's smaller screen it still sports the 800 x 400 resolution. Just type in Swype forums on Google and it should lead you to the beta.
 
I've had the Shift for 2 weeks. I love this phone, but I came from a 7yo Samsung PDA, so a lot of the features are new to me. Making the big move, I did a lot of research before commiting. The two finalist were the Evo and Evo Shift. Decision factors:

1. Service in my area - Sprint plan was more reasonable
2. Shift - smaller (less is more to me)
3. Keyboard - never having used one on a phone, I wanted that option, which is a good thing as I fat finger the screen
4. Processor - everything I read says the Shift is coded better and you will see little difference in the smaller processor vs the EVO. So far I have seen no delays in any functions
5. I have no use for a second camera so not a requirement
6. Battery Life - If you have not done so, use this procedure, it really works to extend life
1) Turn your device ON and charge for 8 hours or more
2) Unplug the device and Turn the phone OFF and charge for 1 hour
3) Unplug the device Turn ON wait 2 minutes and Turn OFF
4) Charge for another hour Your battery life should almost double
An interesting note on the battery procedure. I used this and also ordered a backup battery. When the backup battery arrived, I started seeing extended life on it right away without performing the same process again. I can only assume the above configures the phone on battery consumption?

I also installed a 16GB SD, SDMove, then SDWatch, Call Confirm and a bunch of other apps and have my PC data syncing to the SD. Lots more to do, but I believe I made the right decision on the Shift...at least for my needs.
 
Upgrading from a Hero, I'd have to say this is easily the best phone I've ever had on Sprint. The Hero was sluggish and buggy and was having issues not receiving text messages. I never did the 2.0 upgrade on it as I always heard the performance was just as bad or worse anyway, and I'm not interested in "rooting" or hacking my phone. I just want it to work as-is. But the Hero was barely powerful enough for the software that handles phone calls and was so laggy it drove me crazy.

Enter the Shift. I knew I wanted a new high-end Android phone on Sprint. That meant Evo or Epic. Epic is Samsung, and I've had enough bad experience with Samsung and their inability to write good software or provide timely updates over the years, including several feature phones back in the Vision/Power Vision days and of course the infamous Instinct. Whereas HTC does write some slick software. Even though HTC Sense on the Hero was tame because of performance issues, I still really liked it. So I was seriously thinking about the Evo when I heard about the Shift.

For me the Shift has the best of the Evo and Epic combined. I don't care about 4G or cameras so much, but I like having a keyboard. Trying to use the soft keys on my Hero was so frustrating, but part of that was due to lag. And I like HTC Sense, especially with all the bells and whistles. The size of the phone is ideal for me -- not too big like the Evo, and it's actually very similar in size to my Hero but with a bigger screen. Battery life has been better than my Hero, and it even had an upgrade 1800mAh battery. Processing power to me is simply amazing. This second-gen chip is great, I don't care what the clock speed is. There is no lag, everything is smooth and fast. It's like what I wished the Hero had been all along but it just couldn't cut it. I haven't found any major bugs or issues or stability problems, it's just a solid phone. Call reception in my house is even better than my Hero was. The build seems to be high quality and feels very solid.

Two minor things I don't like. The power button -- can't believe nobody has mentioned this, or i haven't read it anywhere at least. Trying to turn the phone on with one hand, can barely feel the button. Wish it was more on top of the phone instead of almost flush with the back side. I've gotten the hang of it but it's still a little awkward. I miss the hardware buttons on my Hero where I could just tap menu twice on the face of the phone and I'm in. The other thing is the auto-dimming. My Hero auto-dims the backlight correctly. If the Shift is doing any dimming of the display at all it's so subtle I can't tell it -- it practically blinds me if I turn it on while driving down the road after dark. And yes I've checked the settings.
 
I just got the Shift today, & coming from the Epic (I was on my 2nd Epic & it had the same problem has the first one I had - back button issue), it actually feels nice to have a smaller phone. It doesn't feel like I'm holding a brick (even though the bigger screen was nice for gaming) & I prefer the slide out mechanism without the spring, compared to the Epic. It makes it more sturdy and not as loose. I also like how the question mark has its own dedicated button (I tend to ask a lot of questions when I txt).

I havent played with it much because I am currently in the process of bump charging it so I can see how much battery I get with my first regular use of the phone, but from what I have played with so far I am highly impressed. Cant wait to root!
 
Had the Shift for about a week now. The other summaries are pretty accurate.

Volume Rocker - I can say this isn't placed in the best spot, but I've honestly not had an issue hitting it when opening the keyboard.

Screen Rotation - While definitely not a problem, and coming from an Intercept where it took over 15 seconds to change the screen to landscape the 3 seconds isn't bad, but as said, takes 3 seconds.

Power / Lock Button - I find this to be more of a nuisance than the volume rocker, and sometimes it's a pain pressing it when not specifically looking for it.

Vibration - I'm not sure why this happens.. I can only guess it's because of the keyboard, but the vibration sounds seem kind of odd. Again, coming from a Samsung phone maybe it's just something to get used to, but the vibrating when pressing the capacitive buttons the noise just seems awkward. Something I can get used to.

Battery - I can't say I've had the best experience with the battery yet, but then again I've been using it pretty heavily since I got it (web, apps, etc.) and it was at around 33% by 7:30 PM. May try the tricks posted around here.

Overall the phone is great, and I really like it so far. The resolution is beautiful compared to my old Intercept, speed is terrific, and the keyboard I just need to get used to. The interesting thing is that long playing of games on it won't severally reduce the battery (at least for me) as opposed to doing "average" things such as data, market, and the sorts.
 
I believe the haptic feedback (vibrating) can be turned off completely on the Shift, unlike the earlier Evo.

So - those vibrating buttons might be quieted.
 
Just received the Shift today - wow what an upgrade from my old Hero. So far after goofing around and setting it up to my liking there is only one thing that I like on the Hero better - can bring it of sleep easier. It is kind of a pain to hit the power button, it would be nice to have something on the face that could tap with a thumb one handed.

Otherwise man this is a huge upgrade and so much nicer to use. Have not run into any delay at all yet.
 
I wanted to wait a while before posting here but I have had the Shift for about 2 weeks now and I simply love this phone. I am coming from stock 2.1 Hero and had regretted the update. The first thing I noticed was the speed and battery life. Sometimes my Hero made it through the day with normal usage. I text quite a bit, check email via web, and occasional calls (no more than 5-10min) The Shift has amazing battery life. However like I just mentioned I do not use my phone heavily like some do. One day I had 80% battery life after a full day. I think many of the issues people have depends on the person and the phone itself. I personally do not like the position of the volume rocker. I occasionally hit it when using the keyboard but Ive learned to hold the phone differently when using the keyboard. The only thing I do truly miss if the track ball on the Hero. I used it quite a bit
 
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