Wife looking into a new phone: Fascinate or Incredible?

[dlt123me]

Hi all... I am still trying to decide if I want to buy the Fascinate or just wait till a new version 2 comes out.

I was at my local VZN store today and tested the Fascinate and was pretty disappointed. The phone sound quality was described as under water by the person I called using the phone.

I asked the salesman if the Fascinate had the 2.2 OS update and he said it did.

Has the OS been released to the general public yet? I thought it was still coming.

Also, if a Fascinate is rooted, will this help with sound and connection quality of the phone, or is this just a hardware issue?

I assume that rooting just allows you to remove locked software. Other than removing locked software, what does rooting accomplish or do to make the phone better?

Thanks,
Dennis

 

[Obed]

OP, I've owned both.
pros to Incredible - solid construction, nice display, lots of dev's working on roms, HTC has a good track record of updating their devices (ahem, Samsung...douche) in a timely manner

cons to Dinc - not a great camera, 720 camcorder looks washed out as do hi-res pics, battery life is bad, if getting it new you will get a SCLD display not an AMOLED display that the Incredible originally shipped with.

pros to Fascinate - battery better, display is brilliant

cons to Fascinate - bing (if that's a problem), lighter (It may not matter to you but the thing is too light for my preferences) and all the other things others have pointed out here.

as for me and my house, I just picked up my Fascinate today...so far pretty impressed, but I did my research and knew what I was getting into. My wife now has my Droid Inc..she loves it.

 

[Obed]

I was at my local VZN store today and tested the Fascinate and was pretty disappointed. The phone sound quality was described as under water by the person I called using the phone.

I haven't had a problem with call quality. It's better than the DInc but not as good as the Motorola Droid 1.

I asked the salesman if the Fascinate had the 2.2 OS update and he said it did.

Has the OS been released to the general public yet? I thought it was still coming.

it hasn't been released yet. alot of speculation but no ota's have went out. salesman fail.

Also, if a Fascinate is rooted, will this help with sound and connection quality of the phone, or is this just a hardware issue?

not at this time. to the best of my knowledge there are no alternative baseband radios for the Fascinate. The baseband is what affects call quality.

I assume that rooting just allows you to remove locked software. Other than removing locked software, what does rooting accomplish or do to make the phone better?

"better" is kind of relative. There are several dev-hacked kernels that fix certain issues that plague the device. Apparently there was an update from Samsung that was never released but leaked. Having root privileges and a custom recovery will allow you to flash that update to help GPS issues, overclock the processor or remove (or freeze) bloatware.

good questions.

 

[dlt123me]

Obed, thank you for responding to my other questions. I am very confused as to why some have great call quality and others don't.

Someone once mentioned, I believe in this thread, that it must be a batch of bad phones that went out. It would interesting to find out what the common thread is, serial number wise, to see if there is in fact a common thread between Good v.s. Bad phone call quality and SN.

cons to Dinc - not a great camera, 720 camcorder looks washed out as do hi-res pics, battery life is bad, if getting it new you will get a SCLD display not an AMOLED display that the Incredible originally shipped with.

I felt the camera pics in the Incredible were not as nice as the Fascinate and also knew about the battery life, but new Incredibles sold now have a SCLD and not AMOLED is a shocker. Hummmm, whats with that... Money saving?

Anyway, thanks again for responding. I'll have to sleep a few more days before making my decision...

Dennis

 

[EarlyMon]

Just a few notes - worldwide demand for S/AMOLED has exceeded production. Samsung, the key supplier here, has ponied up for a new facility to meet this demand, but we don't expect it online until sometime in 2011.

The existing Android cameras are mostly using poorer codecs - these are being overcome by the value-added phones' vendor by either increasing data, or by privately providing better codecs. The new Gingerbread (Android 2.3) includes more / better codec support, so in future, we might expect that gap to narrow - within limits of hareware, both of which here are quite good.

As far as call quality - I'm surprised. Usually, CDMA service such as that offered by Verizon is usually great quality, regardless of overall signal strength - unlike GSM common to AT&T as a counterpoint example. I'd therefore be more suspicious of each particular phone's configuration / settings first, before questioning phone quality. (Note - I'm a user like you guys and have been wrong before.)

For all effects, each phone offers the best effort to date from each manufacturer as a vendor-value-added phone, the Fascinate as part of Samsung's Galaxy-class phones, the Incredible as part of HTC's Desire-class phones.

FWIW - I have close friends with each on Verizon and each feels the other got cheated - suggesting to me that both are good choices.

The Fascinate has updated hardware and potentially shows a greater future, but HTC has been more forthcoming with updates (comparing to each maker's track record overall).

It's a tough call, and I could only wish that all of our choices in life are centered around such options.

Regardless of specs and opinions or stated so-called facts - including mine - my number one advice is to try anything anything before you buy and trust your instincts.

That's my opinion, fwiw.

 

[Obed]

I felt the camera pics in the Incredible were not as nice as the Fascinate and also knew about the battery life, but new Incredibles sold now have a SCLD and not AMOLED is a shocker. Hummmm, whats with that... Money saving?

the camera on the Dinc is a bit of an issue for me. I take a ton of pics of the kiddos and the pics on the HTC seemed a bit blurry in higher light situations and washed out in low light.
The dual flash is a bit of overkill, as most pics you take in dark light aren't in pitch black "call-of-duty in the jungle" black. The codecs on the camera compress the images and you can tell when you blow the pics up.

The camera on the Fascinate is better by a long shot, although it's 5mp vs. the Dinc's 8mp (more proof that mp's don't really matter when you get that high).
Camcorder feature on both phones is good, both shoot in 720 and look very nice.

I had a AMOLED (got it day of launch) so I can't comment on what the SCLD would look like. the display my AMOLED was nice compared to stunning S-AMOLED on the Fascinate. As for the reason for the switch, what EarlyMon posted is what i have heard. It's accessibility of SCLD, not cost.

The Incredible was back ordered for over a month because of the screen issue when it first came out. At some point they had to do something to get the handsets out so they switched.