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I`m a bit confused right now ... i really loved the HTC evo 4G but since i live in India ... i cant get my hands on that...
The only good phones i am left with are desire , xperia x10 or samsung galaxy
Pls let me know which one should i go for
And i wanted to know how are the games in desire .. are they even comparable to iphone games??... and can it be jailbreaked like the iphone????
heres a youtube vid of nova on the desire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vn2DuPeE-E
Avoid the Xperia X10, mainly due to the terrible terrible battery life and the fact it's still running Android 1.6, as well has having much lower performance than the Desire and Nexus One which use almost identical internals.
As for 'jailbreaking', in Android circles the equivalent is known as 'rooting' to enable you to install all the awesome custom firmwares available on this forum to enable new features, speed up your device or even get the latest versions of Android before they're even released.
Games-wise, there is a decent selection, but truthfully the iPhone is the king of mobile gaming. I haven't found this to be a problem however, as I realised after owning an iPod Touch before my android phone that with most games I'll play them for a few minutes when I download them and then never really touch them again. I use music, video, email, social networking and general internet browsing far more.
As for Desire vs Galaxy S...kind of hard to choose.
Galaxy S Pros and Cons:
+ Large, amazing Super AMOLED screen
+ Most powerful Android device out, especially it's GPU (for 3D games)
+ DivX video support
+ Video-out if you want to connect it to a screen
+ Reportedly great sound quality for headphones
+ Battery life better than most other high-end Android phones
- The phone itself looks like a cheap iPhone ripoff (why Samsung why?!)
- Samsung use their 'TouchWiz' interface on top of Android which looks kind of ugly and adds little
- Samsung don't have a good track record with updates...they've confirmed Froyo but no word on whether it'll ever get anything above that
- Reportedly all custom roms will need to be based off Samsung's official roms, so won't have as large a variety as HTC phones
- Apparently many users have had GPS problems
HTC Desire Pros and Cons:
+ Huge variety of custom roms
+ Similarity with Nexus One means since Nexus One gets updates first, most can be quickly ported to Desire
+ HTC Sense interface on top of Android looks great and improves usability (especially the widgets)
+ HTC's default apps for mail, weather, etc are extremely well designed
+ Will most likely be able to run Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) ported from the Nexus One once it's released
+ Very good build quality and nicer-looking hardware
- Battery life not as good
- Smaller screen that's regular AMOLED rather than Samsung's new variety
- Not as powerful as Galaxy S
Hope that helps! I'm currently in the middle of deciding between the Desire and Galaxy S myself, so done a fair bit of research and tried both out.
AXIS of Reality said:
- Not as powerful as Galaxy S
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
as you can see my quadrant score says diffrent
That would be because you're running Froyo, which the Galaxy S has been confirmed to be receiving later this year. =P
The more apt comparison is lower on that graph showing the 2.1 Desire and Nexus One far lower than the 2.1 Galaxy S.
well thanks for that .. i am leaning towards htc desire more now ... just to confirm are there any better andriod phones in the market which are gsm and available outside US ??
AndroHero said:
as you can see my quadrant score says diffrent
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Which battery meter are you using?
vinayendra: since you mentioned only games in your post, my advice to you is to avoid android platform and go with Iphone if games are your priority...
If you still need to choose between these 3 phones, Galaxy would be your choice, cause it's better GPU will be advantage with games
I cant speak for the galaxy S but having used both desire and the xperia the desire wins hands down. The xperia is really laggy and the old version of android is a deal breaker. Once sony pull their fingers out and update the xperia it might be a different story but I dont think we will see that for a few more months yet
the only advantage the xperia has is the large internal apps storage, you dont need to root it if your wanting loads of apps unlike the desire
AndroHero said:
heres a youtube vid of nova on the desire
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Vn2DuPeE-E
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
id love to know how to get that game running on my desire, I had it for my palm pre and loved it but the desire just gives me a black screen then it closes
djoni1980 said:
vinayendra: since you mentioned only games in your post, my advice to you is to avoid android platform and go with Iphone if games are your priority...
If you still need to choose between these 3 phones, Galaxy would be your choice, cause it's better GPU will be advantage with games
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Games or not my priority .. i already have a ipod touch ... for me the main things are cool apps maybe even GPS , email and very good user interface ... i have a htc 3G touch ... it really sucks ...after having that i had decided not to go for HTC again ... But i cant buy iphone 4 as it takes a year to come to my country ... and i heard andriod phones are awesome ... so going back to HTC
So anyone owns a desire .. plz tell the pros and cons of desire which u felt while using
Take the desire you wont regret it.and someone already mentiond pros & cons on page 1.
You only have to choose
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
AXIS of Reality said:
That would be because you're running Froyo, which the Galaxy S has been confirmed to be receiving later this year. =P
The more apt comparison is lower on that graph showing the 2.1 Desire and Nexus One far lower than the 2.1 Galaxy S.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
can you not read? it clearly says samsung galaxy s 2.2 on the benchmark
pms said:
Which battery meter are you using?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
the one that comes with the expresso theme for 2.2 sence roms
AndroHero said:
can you not read? it clearly says samsung galaxy s 2.2 on the benchmark
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL, actually it says <2.2, which is 2.1
djoni1980 said:
LOL, actually it says <2.2, which is 2.1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
oh yeah so it does lol
If you have access to those phones in India go and try them out in person because you won't have a clue on what everyone is going on about except for prior experience on your old Touch.
An Android phone is perfect if you live your online life through Google, if you don't I suggest you move.
An iPhone is known for simplicity and just working until you somehow manage to get yourself into the zoom feature and you're screwed unless you know the zoom out function. These high end phones are true powerhouses in pocket computing and are for more than showing off to your mates that you have a cool phone. If that's all you're going to do, you deserve an iPhone. If you're rolling up your sleeves and learning how to individualise yourself from every other Android user out there then you will quickly learn about live wallpapers, widgets, shortcuts and button combinations. Go further than that and its roms, themes, radios, adb commands so on and so forth.
Know what you want and shop according to it. One of these phones will tick most if not all of your needs and wants. Or something in the near future will. Between the 2 phones, out of the box you are looking at a difference of interface more than anything else. Really suggest you go try them out.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Jabbafat23 said:
If you have access to those phones in India go and try them out in person because you won't have a clue on what everyone is going on about except for prior experience on your old Touch.
An Android phone is perfect if you live your online life through Google, if you don't I suggest you move.
An iPhone is known for simplicity and just working until you somehow manage to get yourself into the zoom feature and you're screwed unless you know the zoom out function. These high end phones are true powerhouses in pocket computing and are for more than showing off to your mates that you have a cool phone. If that's all you're going to do, you deserve an iPhone. If you're rolling up your sleeves and learning how to individualise yourself from every other Android user out there then you will quickly learn about live wallpapers, widgets, shortcuts and button combinations. Go further than that and its roms, themes, radios, adb commands so on and so forth.
Know what you want and shop according to it. One of these phones will tick most if not all of your needs and wants. Or something in the near future will. Between the 2 phones, out of the box you are looking at a difference of interface more than anything else. Really suggest you go try them out.
Sent from my HTC Desire using XDA App
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'd mostly agree with that.
Android phones really are 'enthusiast' phones, in the sense that you get out of them what you put in. For example, customising it to work exactly how you want and look how you want it to look.
The iPhone is made as a very controlled system, so you have only the absolute minimum freedom (ie: change your wallpaper or order of icons). This is ideal for many people who want something that just 'works' and has been tuned to be an intuitive experience for the majority of people.
Android is based around making your phone uniquely yours, such as through the use of the homescreens to fill with whatever you want (widgets, controls, shortcuts, folders, etc). What this means is it requires more time and attention than an iPhone, but the end result is a phone and way of working that is of your own design.
Think of it like Lego:
- the iPhone is where you follow the instructions and get what is shown in the picture on the box (which can annoy people who want to do their own thing).
- Android is where you are given a pile of lego bricks to build whatever you want, so it's far more personalised even if it's not as polished as the iPhone (which can confuse or put of people who prefer a guiding hand and it to be done for them)
I'm happy to sacrifice some polish in the interface for the chance to really make my phone mine, but there are many who feel the other way. That's why it's great we have the oppurtunity to choose between Android and iOS (and soon Windows Phone 7, which seems like a halfway point between the two).
thanks for all that ... Now i am convinced to go for a desire which i will buy sometime this week
i have a small doubt ( a n00b one) .. whats the use of "rooting" and installing ROM`s???.. is it the same as "jailbreaking" in iphone where i can install paid apps and games for free and play with my looks ?? ... or is there anyother use??
i have HTC Desire which i bough from a friend in England, (i live in Seattle) and absolutely love it. My co-worker has Tmobile Samsung Vibrant. Ill give my impressions and quick pros and cons, i may sound little bias but here it is.
Samsung Galaxy Pros
Large SuperAMOLED screen, true 800x480 res, multitouch (Which, while is brighter than the Desire, not that much better, almost cant tell the difference.)
Better battery life, Galaxy also comes with 1500 mAh battery whereas Desire come with 1400 mAh ( again only one day of test with moderate use)
Better GPU
16 Gb of internal storage (which is a huge plus)
720p @30 frames video capture (which also is possible on the Desire with a custom ROM)
Cons
Built quality is extremely cheap, back is shiny plastic which is prone to scratches
Has ugly iphone 3GS style bezel around the screen
No camera flash (this one is a huge let down by Samsung which is beyond any comprehension)
Ugly UI which is a blatant iOS rip off (this one may be strictly preferential depending if you like iOS look or not)
Samsungs proven lack of support track record
Not clear whether gonna have large dev support on XDA
External speaker is horrible, tiny sound (Desire is the same)
That is all i can think of at the moment
Desire Cons
Uses old Clear pad 2000 touch panel which lacks true multitouch support or supports it in a broken way (you can google Nexus one touch screen problems, there is 70 pages plus thread about it)
Uses Cheap Pentile pixel arrangement, which some argue is better for media but horrible if ou spend most of the time reading text on your device. ( you can google Pentile on Nexus One, Anandtech.com has very informative article about this)
Eternal speaker is horrible, sound is tiny and quite
video capture is crap
When using on low brightness, screen has pink hue
Battery life is mediocre
Pros
Built quality is way better than Galaxy, also looks sophisticated compared to Galaxy
Camera flash
Huge support from XDA developers since it is almost identical to Nexus One
Runs Sense, although i equally hate Sense, it is a lot better that TouchWiz
Has hardware buttons (this one is a deal breaker for me as Galaxy touch sensitive buttons are unresponsive at times and generally suck)
AMOLED is almost as good as Galaxy's ( aside from cheap ass touch panel that HTC used on Desire and Nexus One, why HTC why)
That is all i can think of at the moment. I am eligible for an upgrade with Tmobile, but i think ill keep the Desire. Just better phone aside from crappy screen. Hope this helps
65536 color is a well-known limitation of WinMo.But display hardware's capable more than that.
If the Project Android can break the limitation that would be awesome!
Is it functioning this way now or not yet?
Is it EVEN possible?
Or its based on WinMo,so its IMPOSSIBLE?
Forgive me asking without searching first,cuz i dont think its a silly quz.
BTW.
THANKS ALL DEVS,THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER ON MY PHONE!!!
I don't see why it'd be that much better if it could. Don't think it's necessary either; not like you're photoshopping on Android or anything where you NEED to see EVERY hue of every color.
thats true.
but isnt it good to know ur TP2 has more ability?
BTW. its nice to have sound
I believe on most Windows Mobile devices, including the Rhodium, the display hardware itself is also limited to 65536 colors. Think about it, a manufacturer wouldn't want to spend extra money on a display supporting 24-bit color when the operating system is limited to only 16-bits anyway.
I'm pretty sure that running android on the rhodium ignores the color limitations of windows mobile. Really, the color limitations on winmo are bad. You can see the colors change instead of them blending into one another when you look at pictures. The display on the TP2 does support more colors because they don't make LCD screens 262k- limiting from 1.6m to 262k doesn't save cost- it just makes things instantly obsolete and HTC isn't dumb
I have a SonyEricsson Xperia X1 which is starting to break down and I'm thinking of getting a new phone. The Desire Z is the only non-Xperia phone I found that has everything I need. How is it? Pros? Cons? Battery life? GPS?
Also, I'm new to Android because the Xperia X1 has WinMo. What are the drawbacks of Android? The pros I already know of. How's the freeware app availability and development? (I will never pay for an application.) How about the advanced user customization? (I liked that about WinMo. Registry editing and changing files.)
Thanks for any answers!
Here's my review of the Desire Z based on my review (note: this is my first mobile device with something better than WinMo 5.
It has a nice performance (unless you're running something like HTC Sense 3.0+ HTC Sense). The keyboard (if you use it) is very comfortable and it features a "search" and a "menu" key, plus 2 shortcuts, the only thing I would like is an extra row for numbers (but I'm already used to the soft keyboard so I rarely use it). I wish I could review the stock rom, but I removed it after 2 days (and this is my first android phone). Battery life is OK, I get 1 day of battery life with medium use (screen on for like 4 hours, nothing heavy running), however, I bought my phone used, so I think the battery should have been better if it was new. The camera is OK for taking casual photos, the flash does a very good job for taking in dark places, just don't expect "ultra sharp" quality. The speaker is very loud, however, I find myself most of the time putting my hands on the back of the phone to "bounce" back the sound to myself, as the speaker is on the back side.
As for android, there are a lot of free applications, however, the market sometimes has apps that are useless or malicious (although you'll usually only notice them after scrolling a lot down). There's also something called GetJar, where you can get apps for free every week legally (they call them "gold apps"). Most of the apps you'll need will be free (soft keyboards, launchers, email apps) and most of them will be free but will have a "pro" or "donate" version (usually the free ones will have ads, which I can easily ignore, as they're usually small.
Sorry for any typo, English isn't my main language.
Time has long since passed to ditch Winmo. The drawbacks to Android? There aren't any. Winmo is a joke for lag, memory leakage, instability, and crashing. Android is stable and fast; and enjoys huge support from manufacturers, developers, and the user community. There is no "registry" since that is a Windows invention. But there are hacks and mods for anything you would ever want to do, and much more. Trust me, make the move to Android, and you will never look back on Winmo (except to shake your head and laugh).
There are plenty of free or ad-supported apps on the Market, as far as most any utility you would need. And also good quality free games. But really, why such an adamant stance on paying for apps? What would be the big deal in PAYING for software, if its something well made, that you use frequently, and say costs $1 (less than a Euro). That amount of money is completely insignificant for me when spend on something useful like a good app. God forbid the people that develop software should be compensated for it, and motivated to create other quality software, and to continue supporting their apps with updates and bug fixes? User made freeware is fine an all, and there is certainly good stuff out there. But its not going to fill every hole or need.
The con with the DZ is that its over a year old. This is really old in smartphone terms. Good phones with hardware keyboards are indeed rare. But aside from the keyboard, the Z has really fallen far behind in terms of CPU, memory, and other specs. If you are really hung up on a hardware keyboard, and can get a good deal on a Z, then go for it. Otherwise, I'd use my money on a more current device.
Thanks for the replies, guys!
Yes, the physical keyboard is a must. It's so much easier and faster than virtual keyboards. If I have to write more than three consecutive letters, I'll flip the keyboard open instead of trying to write with the virtual one. I do a lot of writing with my phones. My work phone is a Galaxy S and I have tried pretty much every keyboard it has, but they're all equally horrible. The same with my Xperia. I blame my first ever smartphone, the Nokia Communicator 9500. It was huge and awkward, but it had the comfiest keyboard ever.
The Xperia X1 has otherwise 95% of what I need, but it's starting to physically break and it has become abominably slow and unstable. And it wasn't that great to begin with. In hindsight, I really should have bought a HTC phone (assuming there existed one with a physical keyboard at the time).
The reason I won't pay for apps is because what has happened to me quite a many times with both my phone and my computer. I buy a program or app I need, happily use it and after a month, discover that there has existed a free alternative the whole time that is actually better. Cue me being pissed off. I have learned my lesson and right now, there is no software on my phone that I paid for and the only software on my computer that actually costed money are the operating system and games. That doesn't mean I won't donate to the authors of the software afterwards.
The only experience I have with Android is via my work phone, but I don't know about how customizable it is, because the work phone has been heavily restricted.
Tych0n said:
The Xperia X1 has otherwise 95% of what I need, but it's starting to physically break and it has become abominably slow and unstable. And it wasn't that great to begin with. In hindsight, I really should have bought a HTC phone (assuming there existed one with a physical keyboard at the time).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Xperia X1 was made by HTC.
Oh, well, something other than the X1, then, preferably something that used HTC's UI.
Tych0n said:
Oh, well, something other than the X1, then, preferably something that used HTC's UI.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
i thought buying an HTC cellphone is reather better than other android cellphones for 2 things:
1- its tough... it doesn't break easily, even with tiny hinges holding the screen...
2- it has Sense UI...
but turns out, Sense UI really affects performance, even on stock unrooted, the phone was really slow... although HTC Sense offers great look... but no performance comparing to other UIs
—————
|RIROZIZO|
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May be, but it's been my favorite since I first saw it.
Riro Zizo said:
but turns out, Sense UI really affects performance, even on stock unrooted, the phone was really slow... although HTC Sense offers great look... but no performance comparing to other UIs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've only found the launcher (home screen and app tray, for the OP) itself to really be any effect on performance, and its easy enough to use an alternate launcher. And the lag on the Sense launcher is really not as bad as some make it out to be.
Its purely a matter of personal taste, of course. But my personal opinion is that Sense is a much more aesthetic, refined, and unified Android experience than AOSP, or other manufacturer skins.
Of course, the beauty of Android is that if you don't like Sense, you can always flash a more vanilla ROM, or something else like MIUI.
---------- Post added at 08:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 PM ----------
Tych0n said:
The reason I won't pay for apps is because what has happened to me quite a many times with both my phone and my computer. I buy a program or app I need, happily use it and after a month, discover that there has existed a free alternative the whole time that is actually better. Cue me being pissed off. I have learned my lesson and right now, there is no software on my phone that I paid for and the only software on my computer that actually costed money are the operating system and games. That doesn't mean I won't donate to the authors of the software afterwards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If you are just talking utilities and useful apps, I think you will be right at home on Android. I honestly can't think of any utilities that you HAVE to pay for. Many are either free, or have a paid premium version with extra features (or remove ads), if you like the free version and decide to pay.
Desire Z it is, then!
I can get one from two different places without a nordic keyboard for ~300€ or one with nordic keyboard for ~500€. Guess which one I'll buy...
I came to Android on the DZ from a WinMo phone. Best move I ever made, Android made my old WinMo (which I was happy with at the time) look like a laggy, clunky joke.
Welcome to Android !
Sent from my Desire Z running CM7.
If you want a qwerty-slider android phone I don't think you can do better than the DZ. My preferred rom is virtuous affinity - this give a smooth and very usable sense 3.5 experience. However, I would do think this phone is at the end of its lifespan. The built in ram and the single core cpu are going to limit how much further it can be pushed and I don't think we are ever going to see usable/smooth ics or sense 4 on this handset.
If you want a qwerty-slider android phone I don't think you can do better than the DZ - but I wish there was!! Come on HTC where's the quad core 4.7in HD qwerty-slider I want so badly
MaxWiz said:
If you want a qwerty-slider android phone I don't think you can do better than the DZ - but I wish there was!! Come on HTC where's the quad core 4.7in HD qwerty-slider I want so badly
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This a million times! I'm astonished that there's so few sliders with full keyboards out there. The market is dominated by those goddamn slates. I've watched my friends write with the virtual keyboards of iPhones, Galaxies and whatever, and it always looks slow, clumsy and awkward. They even have to use predictive text input to compensate for the slowness. In contrast, writing with a QWERTY thumb keyboard is a breeze. The Desire Z is apparently pretty much the newest and best Android slider there is on the market, but it still has a WVGA screen, while pretty much every new slate has some HD-super-gizmo screen. What the hell? My Xperia has a WVGA...
But anyway, seeing as I can get a DZ for LESS (~300€) than I paid for my X1 (~450€), I'm happy even though it might not be the fastest and newest there is.
I'm a big fan of hardware keyboards too. I switched from the Motorola Droid to the HTC G2. I found the keyboard on the G2 to be not so good. Not sure if it's just because I got mine used on ebay and it was worn, but it doesn't look like it's worn out. I've noticed the keyboard tends to miss/duplicate keystrokes often. So I've been tending to use the on screen keyboard, which is really good. I think the on screen keys are bigger than on the droid so it's pretty easy to type on. But I found the hardware keyboard to be much slower to type on than the Droid.
jgummeson said:
I've noticed the keyboard tends to miss/duplicate keystrokes often.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That could be from wear. The keyboard of my X1 worked flawlessly in the beginning, now it duplicates and misses keystrokes all the time. It's still better than the virtual keyboards, though...
Hi!
My iPhone 4 contract recently finished, and so a couple of weeks ago I acquired a HTC One X.
Most things work well - it's noticeably nowhere near as polished as the iPhone UI was, but I'm only on a 12 month contract, so I can live with it.
One thing that is really bugging me is that notifications on the iPhone caused the screen to turn on, which I found really useful. Is there the option to do this on the One X?
Also, can I make it repeat notifications x number of times if I don't immediately notice it?
Thanks in advance!
Thomas
At the moment, no on both counts. Whether there's an app to do it I don't know
I don't believe there's built-in functionality for those, but as you'll probably discover over time you can get into a lot more of the phone's inner workings and get the funtionality via apps — that's the beauty of Android.
Here are a couple to look at:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.igecelabs.android.MissedIt
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rageconsulting.android.lightflow
I'm confident you'll find more with a little sifting though.
As for the overall UI polish, this is an aside but I was a little disappointed too when I switched from my iPhone 4 to the One X. However, the moment I installed regular Android Ice Cream Sandwich (specifically one of the WIP Cyanogenmod 9 ports) I realised that HTC actually aren't that great at UI because almost every single change they make is for the worse.
Indeed, most parts of the phone look and feel better without HTC's add-ons. Even the menus look better, losing that weird 'breaking apart' effect HTC chose to use. The contact editing, messaging, etc is so much cleaner too, and everything like swiping between pages feels smoother. Here's a guide that shows what the more stock experience looks like:
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc...android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich-1043150/review
But that might be a step too far for you. It was my first ever time using a custom ROM and it only took me a few hours to get my head around and pull off, so it's up to you.
Thanks for the responses, I appreciate it!
It has been a while since I've flashed a new ROM on to a phone - I had a HTC TyTN II a few years ago (that was an awful phone) which I had a few custom roms.
I might start looking at custom roms soon. My brother has a Galaxy Nexus which I believe has the stock Android UI, so maybe I'll play around on that for a bit to see what it's like.
Thanks again!
Thomas
Hello,
I'm a big qwerty fan. Started with the Nokia N900, which I had for 2+ years. Eventually it developed a common problem with the usb port, and I decided it was time to move on, as the browser and some other system apps were starting to not work with newer versions of services, sites, etc.
So last year I bought a qwerty Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro. I had never really used Android before, so it was a big transition, and I have to confess that I'm still very underwhelmed by some things in Android, although 4.x fixed many glaring issues.
Currently I feel very limited by the specs on the phone, which is clearly underpowered for today's Android apps, so I've decided to move on to a better qwerty phone, the Captivate Glide.
I decided to open this thread to ask you, as the title says, what do you wish someone had told you about your Captivate Glide. What do you wish you had known right away?
For instance, for my previous phone, I went for two months before I discovered that although Sony's firmware did not include the quick toggles on the pull down notifications menu as google started including in 4.2 and Samsung already included since 2.x times, there were apps to simulate that (such as Widgetsoid). Or that for my firmware version, rooting cleared the memory, so I would loose all my game saves and anything that the app didn't explicitly had the option to backup to the sd card or cloud when I decided to root. And so on.
Thanks for the input!
rad30n said:
Hello,
I'm a big qwerty fan. Started with the Nokia N900, which I had for 2+ years. Eventually it developed a common problem with the usb port, and I decided it was time to move on, as the browser and some other system apps were starting to not work with newer versions of services, sites, etc.
So last year I bought a qwerty Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro. I had never really used Android before, so it was a big transition, and I have to confess that I'm still very underwhelmed by some things in Android, although 4.x fixed many glaring issues.
Currently I feel very limited by the specs on the phone, which is clearly underpowered for today's Android apps, so I've decided to move on to a better qwerty phone, the Captivate Glide.
I decided to open this thread to ask you, as the title says, what do you wish someone had told you about your Captivate Glide. What do you wish you had known right away?
For instance, for my previous phone, I went for two months before I discovered that although Sony's firmware did not include the quick toggles on the pull down notifications menu as google started including in 4.2 and Samsung already included since 2.x times, there were apps to simulate that (such as Widgetsoid). Or that for my firmware version, rooting cleared the memory, so I would loose all my game saves and anything that the app didn't explicitly had the option to backup to the sd card or cloud when I decided to root. And so on.
Thanks for the input!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, this is more of a 'thing I WAS told, but didn't really believe' sort of thing. Every review I read on the phone remarked about how flat and flush the QWERTY keyboard was. I thought to myself, if it is even a little bit raised up, then it would work 100x better for playing certain games like SNES emulators than the onscreen keyboard, and it would make typing a lot easier.
But no, it really is flat. Really, really, amazingly flat. It is barely raised at all, less than 1mm for sure. I got to try it out in the store before I bought it and was shocked despite the warnings. Yet it was still a great phone for a good price, so I bought it anyway, hoping that I could get used to it.
What it means is that you can't really 'touch-type' very well. That is I still have to look at the keyboard while I type, so it's only marginally better than an onscreen keyboard for typing.
For gaming, maybe if it was a turn based RPG where you don't move around a lot, like a SRPG it would be better than the onscreen keyboard, but for all else it's more frustrating than it is useful.
This isn't really a dealbreaker for me, but it is a little disappointing. My roomie has a Droid Razr 3 with a keyboard and it is a really nice one, it was such an odd decision on Samsung's part to make it so flush, it almost defeats the purpose of having one. You do have more screen real estate than with a virtual keyboard while typing, and slightly better accuracy- but that's about it.