Incoming! Android Content

[ezcheese]

Just ordered a Samsung Droid Charge. I picked it over the iPhone for the 4G. Emily's iPhone is sluggish at best sometimes with 3G. Of course, 4G coverage won't be available in my area for another several months, but (somehow ) Fayeteville and Charlotte are already covered for 4G so I'll get to play a little on the weekends. At least I think I will.

[craniotes]

Still loving my EVO 4G here, though being in NYC, I get a solid 4G signal pretty much everywhere (and yes, it does fly versus 3G). That said, even without the 4G, the phone itself is stellar, particularly now that it has the Gingerbread update. It positively flies through tasks, and the extra real estate of the screen makes a big difference when surfing (I still wouldn't mind the ultra high resolution of the iPhone's "retina" display, though).

Of course now the EVO 3D is right around the corner, which ups the ante with a 3D-capable QHD S-LCD screen, 3D camera and video recording (the latter in 1080p when in 2D), a dual core Qualcomm processor, and a 1750mah battery that should be able to get one through a full day of use with no sweat (we'll see about that). I have to wait until October to upgrade, but that should give them time to work the bugs out, as well as allow me to check out the iPhone once it's available on Sprint (rumored for September).

Regards,
Adam

[dshap]

Why doesn't my iPhone have 4G... and ATT sucks... aghhhh.

[ikkoku]

Why doesn't my iPhone have 4G... and ATT sucks... aghhhh.

It's 3.5G anyways... iPhone still rocks until ice cream sandwich is released

btw, I thought only Motorola used the 'Droid' nomenclature. When did Sammy start using it?


Congrats on the new gadget D!

[craniotes]

btw, I thought only Motorola used the 'Droid' nomenclature. When did Sammy start using it?

Verizon trademarked the term Droid (after licensing it from Lucasfilm), hence they can apply it to any Android handset that's exclusively theirs.

Regards,
Adam

PS - iPhone+ATT+NYC=sux

[ikkoku]

btw, I thought only Motorola used the 'Droid' nomenclature. When did Sammy start using it?

Verizon trademarked the term Droid (after licensing it from Lucasfilm), hence they can apply it to any Android handset that's exclusively theirs.

Regards,
Adam

PS - iPhone+ATT+NYC=sux

ahhhh... so it's a Verizon thing...

I agree AT&T suck so badly in NYC. iPhone+Verizon+NYC=WIN

[Pasquale]

Still with the evo here as well..

[ezcheese]

btw, I thought only Motorola used the 'Droid' nomenclature. When did Sammy start using it?

Verizon trademarked the term Droid (after licensing it from Lucasfilm), hence they can apply it to any Android handset that's exclusively theirs.

Regards,
Adam

PS - iPhone+ATT+NYC=sux

Yepyep. The Samsung is the first non-Motorola Droid thus far.

[userfriendly]

Nice pick up, I've heard the screen is awesome. Running HTC Droid Incredible myself.

[ezcheese]

Nice pick up, I've heard the screen is awesome. Running HTC Droid Incredible myself.

I stand corrected on Samsung being the first non-Motorola Droid then! Forgot about HTC.

[SCM64]

Nice phone strap?

(should have done the iPhone)

But congrats and enjoy.

[Rambam]

Android FTW

[CGSshorty]

HTC Thunderbolt here. Wait, my battery just died.

[Tank]

HTC Thunderbolt here. Wait, my battery just died.

HTC Inspire 4G here, my battery just died too lol

[CGSshorty]

HTC Thunderbolt here. Wait, my battery just died.

HTC Inspire 4G here, my battery just died too lol

Terrible weakness in an outstanding phone.

[ezcheese]

Got it! This thing is the business! Of course I'm currently surfing at lowly 3G speeds but this thing is slick. I shot some test video and the quality is very nice.

[zepp21]

Possibly the first DWC tech corner review?

[ezcheese]

Who knows! Possibly! I can't wait to see the 4G speeds this weekend in Charlotte. I'm also gonna try the 4G hotspot tethering before Verizon disables it on July 6th. It's currently free.

[ezcheese]

The only thing I don't like about this thing so far is the battery life. Otherwise, this is one bad mamajama!

Verizon's LTE network is lightning fast in Charlotte. I did a few bandwidth speed tests while I was down there and I got 12.98 Mpbs download and 4.77 Mbps upload with 3 bars on the first floor of a dense two story house. Then outdoors with a full signal I got 16.75Mbps download and 4.29 Mbps upload.

My 3G speeds have averaged a little over 1 Mbps down and .8 Mbps up. That's one hell of a difference and it makes me glad I went with a 4G phone.

The camera on this one is pretty good too. 8 Megapixel on the back, 1.3 on the front. I took a video of Riley playing in the river this morning and uploaded it to youtube.

Nice quality video!

Here are a couple of pics I took as well. Picasa auto-cropped them down to 800 pixels wide.

[matt.wu]

Looks great, Derek. What kind of battery life are we talking here?

[ezcheese]

With the GPS on while in the the 4G coverage area, it's pretty lousy. I have been playing on it quite a bit, but I have had to charge the phone halfway through the day and then again at night. Today I will try to use it less and see how it fares with the GPS off on the 3G network.

[ikkoku]

not familiar with Android OS, but does the GPS have a manual on/off switch or is it only on when an app (google maps, yelp, etc...) needs it?

[ezcheese]

With android you have a lot of control over settings like gps. There is a killer window shade feature that gives access from any screen to things like wifi gps data and also gives recent notifications system wide. Pretty damn cool.

[ikkoku]

With android you have a lot of control over settings like gps. There is a killer window shade feature that gives access from any screen to things like wifi gps data and also gives recent notifications system wide. Pretty damn cool.

yes I understand. Jailbroken iPhones have the same.

I was just curious about your battery performance since you mentioned that it was shitty when GPS was on. on the iPhone, the GPS is only on when an app that uses it is up (like TomTom).

[ezcheese]

Of course i cant say for sure if gps was really draining the battery more than anything else. Today i am having a vastly different experience. I have done quite a bit of surfing and messing around and i still have 3/4 charge.