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Well, I suppose I wouldn't be buying this phone for me, but for my mother. I currently have the captivate, all tricked out with custom roms, software, OC/UV, and ext4 and what not, and its smooth and beautiful. Has anyone had another high end device and switched to this? I'm just curious how it stacks up, and how you think this phone will be in the future. I know the captivate had a lot of issues when it was first out, but those were pretty quickly fixed (which I assume will be the same for this phone). I suppose one concern is that I had the backflip prior to the captivate, and I'm sketchy about motorola. They had the phone SO locked down it was ridiculous. And it turned out to be a huge flop and a POS. But anyways, opinions and advice would be hugely appreciated! Compared to other AT&T phones, the only other real competitors are the Inspire (not liking specs so much) and the captivate.
commander2k said:
Well, I suppose I wouldn't be buying this phone for me, but for my mother. I currently have the captivate, all tricked out with custom roms, software, OC/UV, and ext4 and what not, and its smooth and beautiful. Has anyone had another high end device and switched to this? I'm just curious how it stacks up, and how you think this phone will be in the future. I know the captivate had a lot of issues when it was first out, but those were pretty quickly fixed (which I assume will be the same for this phone). I suppose one concern is that I had the backflip prior to the captivate, and I'm sketchy about motorola. They had the phone SO locked down it was ridiculous. And it turned out to be a huge flop and a POS. But anyways, opinions and advice would be hugely appreciated! Compared to other AT&T phones, the only other real competitors are the Inspire (not liking specs so much) and the captivate.
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Had a cappy running Paragon 6 with 1.4 OC, my Atrix is way faster (and GPS actually works). It has DDR2 ram which makes it fly. One thing you notice is even with an OC on ANY single core phone you'll notice slow down when you are doing multiple things such as installing while doing something else or if something is syncing, with the Atrix these slow downs/bogs really don't exist. I am completely happy with my Atrix, do I wish I could load a custom rom/kernel and OC it right now? Hell yes, but even going from a totally pimped out cappy to this (Stock?) Atrix I'm more than satisfied. Also the fingerprint reader on the Atrix is awesome .
As far as the Inspire it was a decent phone, when it came out 8 months ago as the Desire HD. I had an Inspire before the Atrix and here's my personal opinions. I love the bigger screen (But the atrix has a higher res), it OC's to 1.8 ghz...that's about it. As for the bad, battery life is so-so to terrible...I had it so it only used about 1-2% an hour with the screen off BUT with the screen on it was like 20% an hour (Browsing web, gaming ext.) where the Atrix is like 10% or less an hour. Ram is ok, it's DDR vs DDR2 on the Atrix (Atrix also has 1 gig of ram vs 700+ on the inspire) and I see a difference. The speaker sucks on the Inspire and call quality was lower. As far as the 1.8 OC, it destroys the already weak battery this thing has AND it still bogs when multi tasking (No real way around this being a single core).
So like I said in all honesty the Inspire was a great phone 8 months ago when it came out, but vs the Atrix it just seems to fall in it's shadow. One other thing is Inspire has CM7 but 2.3 really doesn't have any major improvements over 2.2 (2.1 to 2.2 brought JIT which rocked) so I'd like to have 2.3 but it's kinda not a big deal IMO.
Hope this helps, this is just my .02 between the two but obviously I kept the Atrix past 30 days so I've made my choice.
Well thank you very much for the really fast and reeeeally detailed response!! Yeah I have my captivate running Darky with 1.4 OC and whatnot. Super smooth, but I understand what you're saying. I do notice a substantial slow down pretty much only when installing things, but with the dual cores kicking in... beautiful lol. I actually see some ROMs already out there, well... like two. I'm sure this phone is going to get a lot of attention.
How did you feel about the Inspire next to the captivate? I don't really care for the battery drain or the specs... My personal opinion.
And I agree, they have cm7 or something like that out for the captivate, doesn't seem stable enough for me, plus I like the features on my current rom more haha.
So my mom went and bought a phone without me, the stupid sales person sold her the Inspire... Which I suppose isn't terrible, I just like the captivate and atrix more. I actually want the atrix for myself now, so I may end up giving my mom my captivate and stealing her upgrade. They want to charge me a $200 early upgrade fee!! It seems a bit steep, and I know I can't find it cheaper anywhere else. A few concerns that maybe you can address if you'd be so kind:
I love the Super amoled screen on the captivate. Is it a harsh change to lcd? Am I correct that the resolution is higher though in the atrix?
The home screen... I hate how the buttons change when you scroll. Is that changeable or would you have to install a new one altogether?
Motoblur: it was absolutely TERRIBLE for the backflip. Although I think most of that was because it was underpowered. Can you turn it off? Do you like it? (I'm sure they've made changes) How does the phone handle it?
Oh AND, do you know if it uses the entire 1Gb of ram? I know that isn't the case in most phones.
commander2k said:
Well thank you very much for the really fast and reeeeally detailed response!! Yeah I have my captivate running Darky with 1.4 OC and whatnot. Super smooth, but I understand what you're saying. I do notice a substantial slow down pretty much only when installing things, but with the dual cores kicking in... beautiful lol. I actually see some ROMs already out there, well... like two. I'm sure this phone is going to get a lot of attention.
How did you feel about the Inspire next to the captivate? I don't really care for the battery drain or the specs... My personal opinion.
And I agree, they have cm7 or something like that out for the captivate, doesn't seem stable enough for me, plus I like the features on my current rom more haha.
So my mom went and bought a phone without me, the stupid sales person sold her the Inspire... Which I suppose isn't terrible, I just like the captivate and atrix more. I actually want the atrix for myself now, so I may end up giving my mom my captivate and stealing her upgrade. They want to charge me a $200 early upgrade fee!! It seems a bit steep, and I know I can't find it cheaper anywhere else. A few concerns that maybe you can address if you'd be so kind:
I love the Super amoled screen on the captivate. Is it a harsh change to lcd? Am I correct that the resolution is higher though in the atrix?
The home screen... I hate how the buttons change when you scroll. Is that changeable or would you have to install a new one altogether?
Motoblur: it was absolutely TERRIBLE for the backflip. Although I think most of that was because it was underpowered. Can you turn it off? Do you like it? (I'm sure they've made changes) How does the phone handle it?
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In all honesty the inspire feels like the captivate should have out of the box except with worse battery and volume.
I'll be honest, motoblur sucks in my opinion, it isn't as bad as some people make it out to be but it still sucks lol. But since I was running custom roms on the captivate since forever I just loaded go launcher like I did on my captivate and used TiBu to freeze anything motoblur related and your good to go. It takes about 10 minutes to do this. I had a, backflop for about 2 days with 1.6 so I feel you on how slow it was. I'd say with motoblur it isnt sd low persay but you will notice it pick up with a new launcher and freezing apps.
As far as the screen, it is bright but not as sun burning bright as a captivate (I don't miss turning on the screen at 1am in bed and being blinded for the next ten minutes lol). I didn't have a problem with the screen change as the captivates colors are super saturated where as the atrix is a tad washed out, so it's personal preference. I do notice the screen resolution difference in movies tho, I feel the atrix is better. But I've also never ran into an issue where I couldn't see the atrix screen in the sun.
One other thing is the docking and hdmi you gain on the atrix, playing star fox 64 on a 50" tv in 720p with a miimote rocks lol.
The atrix does use all 1 gig of ram (more like 800 because the system reserves some like every other phone) and it's ddr2 not ddr like other phones which I think is why it's also so fast. Also since it has so much ram it holds like 20 apps in memory with 200ish always free so most common apps you load are instant. It's funny because I'll listen to pandora on the way to work at 8 and it's still loaded when I leave work at 4 (widget and all).
Any more concerns ask away ;-)
Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk
if you like to run custom roms and lots of hacks then the atrix is probably not for you, at least not yet until it gets unlocked but the atrix has a lot less problems out of the box than the captivate. Even without all the hacks you can can do all the essentials like rooting, removing bloatware, tethering and sideloading. You can freeze motoblur and use whatever launcher you want from the market.
i like the screen on the atrix more than the captivate. i didn;t like how you can see the pixels so easily on the captivate and websites looks so much better on the atrix. theres advantages to both i guess so you should just go to the store and compare the two to see what you like better.
as for the ram if you use app killer you will have 500mb free but im starting to think that this is unnecessary with the atrix. i used to get warnings on my captivate that i was running out of memory all the time but with the atrix i can have 20 apps open in the background and still have 300mb left.
Actually with the darky rom (or the kernel, idk which one implemented the mod) they made the the screen much more dim in the dark. So I don't have that problem anymore. But I do know what you're talking about.
And that's really awesome! I didn't realize the motoblur work-around was so easy!! I think I will have my mom get the Atrix, she isn't so technologically savvy, so she won't be worrying about modding it up (but once the mods are out, I will be tinkering). It sounds like the atrix is the truly superior phone as far as specs, and it will probably stand up against other newer phones for quite awhile compared to the Inspire, but I still really like the captivate for the organic LED screen. I prefer it over any lcd screen myself, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions. I think that I may wait a few months and get the Galaxy S 2 or see whatever else is out there at the time. Thank you guys so much for the helpful advice and experience!!!
There is a thread like this one on the forum of the Samsung Galaxy s 2 but almost all the guys talk about the SGS2 and i want it to share it here, to all the Atrix ppl.
The original thread is here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1083964
now... to the topic, i own the motorola atrix and i think its a great device, fast and fun, i can do whatever i want, but i dont like some stuff, like the wake up lag (i think it can be fixed only unmounting the SD card), the fact that it reboot randomly and the locked bootloader, now, i knoe that there r some guys trying to unlock it and i think someone posted a way to flash full roms but didnt understud how to do it.
Now i can get the SGS2 really cheap, but i havent seen it on the street to test it or anything, dont know the problems that it have and dont know which phone will be better running the same rom (lets say CM7).
so i have that problem, what do you think?
I think you are not asking how we like the MB860/Atrix as your title suggests, but rather asking us if you should buy the SGS2!
That's honestly what I think after reading your post!
If you are looking for justification of owning both devices, I say do it! My friends ask me why I need more than one phone and I laugh at them. My reply is always, "Why not?". Then I proceed to show the differences between devices, pros and cons of each. Its just fun, and a hobby. Is that what you were fishing for?
Side note: NO more random reboots for me! Ever since I uninstalled the horrible horrible LP+, I haven't seen a reboot (or graphical shell crash, whichever it is) in 10+ days. Ditch the LauncherPro! It sucks on the Atrix! Maybe I should find more threads and inform them of my experience.?.
Edit: Ive also never experienced wake up lag. Ever.
I think it's quite good
The only gripe is the locked bootloader, so there hasn't been an explosion of kernels and roms for it, which is a shame
I do like to customise my stuff to suit my needs
I've also played with a i9100, and it is very nice, and I would be torn between the two
The fingerprint reader I use all the time and probably couldn't do without it once I've had it.
Its a very powerful device, and the Full Ubuntu customization makes it so it can replace netbooks for a lot of people. Since I like almost everything in it, lets say what I dont:
Its looks.
It appears ordinary. TOO Ordinary. I'm on the subway, holding a phone more powerful than all others in the train combined, but if anyone looks at it, it just screams "mid-end".
Its back cover.
It's extremelly slippery. Of all the phones I've owned in 8 years, this one I let slip and fall to the floor more times in two months than any other during the one year I've owned each. That's about 20 falls now and counting.
And, of course, the locked bootloarder.
Motoblur isn't as bad to me as most others, as I like the contacts integration and the phone location without the need to download third party apps. But unlocking the webtop was a MAJOR headache for someone who knew NOTHING of Linux.
Now, on comparison, the SG2 has a bigger screen, a better contrast, a more powerful core, and a different look that may appeal to many people. However, it doesnt have the Lapdock, which can matter a lot or absolutely nothing, depending on what you think of it. And it has a different UI which you may like better or not. Also, It's pixel density is much lower.
There is a comparison thread here.
I have a love hate relationship with it. Its my first android. I gave my i4 to my wife. I love the size/form factor. Battery, call quality, web surfing are good. I think the gps, combined with cardock and vlingo in car is superb.
Id give the screen an A-
Text and sites look pretty good, but pixelation is evident on homescreen wallpapers and widgets. The 5mp camera blows. The video recording is great IF you have good lighting.
I have been able to achieve 7.19 mb down in certain parts of houston. Other places are random 3g.
Pretty pissed moto hasn't released GB.
Accessories are fatally overpriced.
I've played with a lapdock. Great build quality, crappy performance. Webtop mod on tv is cool, but gimicky.
Biggest gripe though is my battery cover creaks a lot. I had to put tapw on the inside to make it feel solid and sound quiet.
However through updates/future mods/and using a case all of my complaints are easily erased. The atrix was released way too early. Maybe att pushed moto. If the phone had landed in late July with everything working and updated, I think it would have had the launch it deserves.
Not sure it will survive the HTC holiday and Lead. And the Droid Bionic and some new sprint phone appear to be atrix rev 2 with everything good to go at launch.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
I love my Atrix. Yes, it's buggy at times, but it doesn't give me a fraction of the frustration that my old iPhone gave me.
Once I get to college, I'll be right in Atlanta's HSPA+ coverage area, so I'll expect some awesome data speeds there. We should have Gingerbread by then as well.
i like the atrix, its a challenge at the moment with us having 2nd init and trying to make custom roms keeps me entertain for hours
I owned both the Atrix and SGS2. I kept the Atrix. SGS2 was a dissappointment. Actually im not sure why people make such a fuss about it. Ateix has better sound, better sprakerphone, better resolutipn etc. Worst part is the battery lfe on SGS2 . Absolutely awful. Often lasted less than 6 hours. Sure its powerful but what's the point id you can't use that power or have tobfreeze most of the Apps in order to get through the day. I just didn't feel I could rely on it.
Atrix isn't perfect (yet). But its overall combination is great.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
I love my Atrix. The only flaws with it are the bootloader (which has been mostly worked around thanks to 2nd init, now we just wait for someone to develop a CM7 rom for it) and the fact that the screen cant show gradients well. The battery life is outstanding, text is crisp, nothing slows it down (...except live wallpapers, but I suspect Motoblur at work there, so moot point after roms) and the call quality is great.
As for the rebooting, its either something you installed or you got a faulty device and need to exchange it.
I cant say anything about the Galaxy S, but there's nothing I've seen that would justify changing phones from the Atrix.
To me is love and hate on the Atrix 4G. I got so used to running multi-OS on a custom rom HTC HD2. Kinda missing the HTC Sense on both Android and WinMo.
Here is what I do love about the Atrix:
* Better Screen Res.
* Dual Core CPU
* Fingerprint Reader
* HDMI output
* Webtop function
What I hated on the Atrix + Motorola
* No International Warrenty
* Lockdown of Bootloader
* Poor or no language display support within Webtop
* Overly expensive hardwares
Overall, The Atrix is a pretty slick device only If you don't use lot of interactive widget on the screen. I might just keep it for a little more time untill I can find a NextG version of HTC Sensation aka Pyramid.
I hate my atrix. One min its fast and responsive, the next its like running windows 95 on a 486 with 24mb of ram. My data connection randomly times out and the screen is crap.
I want to like this phone, especially after seeing 2.3 on the X and how responsive it is but I have a feeling im going to get let down. Im tired of waiting endlessly for the next version of android that's supposed to magically make everything better, or hope the community will pick up the slack.
I just hope I can convince my wife to give up her pink pantech dumbphone for the atrix so I can get an iphone 5 when its released.
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
sammm said:
To me is love and hate on the Atrix 4G. I got so used to running multi-OS on a custom rom HTC HD2. Kinda missing the HTC Sense on both Android and WinMo.
Here is what I do love about the Atrix:
* Better Screen Res.
* Dual Core CPU
* Fingerprint Reader
* HDMI output
* Webtop function
What I hated on the Atrix + Motorola
* No International Warrenty
* Lockdown of Bootloader
* Poor or no language display support within Webtop
* Overly expensive hardwares
Overall, The Atrix is a pretty slick device only If you don't use lot of interactive widget on the screen. I might just keep it for a little more time untill I can find a NextG version of HTC Sensation aka Pyramid.
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Click to collapse
I miss winmo sense on the hd2 as well! I thought it was the best version of sense. I didn't have to do anything to it except mYbe one mid to add extra icons tobthe home screen. I ovetflashed my hd2 and eventually the battery points broke don removing ; replacing batteries so often when flashing! So I can't even get it to work anymite just to play with it to see how it used to look.
Anyone out there figured out how to Make WINMO sense for android?
(Just looked back at my spelling. Man the Atrix keyboard is awful!)
Sent from my MB860 using XDA App
IT is a great phone best I've had so far,but find out for yourself.The hardware is top notch and the software is catching up.I think its a pretty good device that slowly goign to improve.
wow, really? That's my launcher of choice and my atrix has NOT ONCE did a random reboot. It feels faster with launcher pro plus than with any other launcher.
I mostly like the atrix. Only have a few issues with mine. The hard lock button wears out really quick. Mine has pretty much lost all of its spring. I dont know if its the phone or the market, but google market wont connect intermittently. For "4g" it really feels like 3g. The form factor is boring. Lastly the locked bootloader.
I was actually looking at the xperia arc. That thing looks slick. Not dual core but honestly til the OS is optimized for dual cores, its not that important. My nexus one is as fast if not faster then my atrix. i really like how SE altered the UI.
i doo love my atrix, its a great phone and i think ill keep it until gingerbread and see how it works, but as soon as Entel (my carrier) get stock on the SGS2 ill buy it cos it will cost me like $60 and i can sell it for like $800 if it is unlocked for all companies
maybe there i will test it to see how it works
the only problem i have with the atrix is the locked bootloader, and the wake up lag, nothing more, games, apps, and all the stuff run smooth as butter
I love mine. I bought it March 3rd and I have yet to put it down. I love tinkering and changing things. Yes, the bootloader is locked, but devs are working on ways around that as I type. I am running Gingerblur 4.5 and never have/had any of the issues you describe. My buddy has the SGII that he paid like 800 for. Got it from the UK. I played with it...and I wasn't too impressed. It was right out of the box and he has since changed a lot. Atrix feels just right to me. As soon as we can bypass BL and GB is officially OTA'd it will get even better.
ok... now i have the SGS2, but dont know what to do >.<, sell the atrix or the SGS2 (i need money).
both are great phones, and i really dont know what to do... >.<
Hello everyone, this is my first post and I'm happy to finally become a member of this community after shedding my buggy LG touchscreen phone.
I got this Amaze 4g on Monday at the T-Mobile store since they had very limited phone stock and the sales reps highly recommended it since they had dropped its price to the same as the SGS2. This is my first smartphone but I'm now disappointed to find out that the Galaxy S2 has much more dev support and is a bit better for gaming and power-using. I keep seeing youtube videos that hail the Amaze 4g as the winner in most if not all head to head reviews.
I'm now contemplating returning this for a Galaxy S2 since gaming is a big part of my spare time, but I'd have to pay a damn $50 restocking fee. Is the Galaxy S2 that much better to justify paying the $50? Am I really missing a lot?
I would love to hear more from gamers using the Amaze 4g. Most reviews of heavy games on the Market like Modern Combat 3 and Dead Space have reviews of SGS2 users, and I could find no Amaze 4g users among the reviews. I'm not really much of a picture taker, so the camera on the Amaze isn't something I would miss too much. I'm not looking to start a flame war or anything of the sort. I just want to make sure that I have a capable phone to play these games before I buy them.
They have the same processor so gaming shouldn't be too different performance wise.
The reason your seeing more reviews for the galaxy s 2 is because the gs2 is a more popular phone world wide compared to the amaze.
I work for tmobile and the most popular phone people ask for is the gs2, maybe due to proper ads by Samsung where HTC kinda stopped with advertising their flagship phones since they roll out a new one every month.
So don't worry, u got urself an amazing phone!
Sent From My HTC Amaze
howhi50 said:
They have the same processor so gaming shouldn't be too different performance wise.
The reason your seeing more reviews for the galaxy s 2 is because the gs2 is a more popular phone world wide compared to the amaze.
I work for tmobile and the most popular phone people ask for is the gs2, maybe due to proper ads by Samsung where HTC kinda stopped with advertising their flagship phones since they roll out a new one every month.
So don't worry, u got urself an amazing phone!
Sent From My HTC Amaze
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Hey.. leak out some kernels and phone info so we can grow the development...
Just stick a usb in.. copy, paste, and no one will ever know.
Just get a Galaxy S2 and feel good about it.
It's your choice not mine and if you don't feel like just get a right one for you.
You are stuck with this phone for Maximum 2 years.
Get a phone you want to use for 2 years.
I am a bit of a heavy user on my phone when it comes to games, all i use my phone for is games, facebook, text, and some other things xD haha. that said, i havent recieved my Amaze yet BUT i played Deadspace and Eternal Legacy (big game, over 1GB) on my Sensation and they ran butter smooth. now with the CPU underclocked and less RAM it would obviously not run as smooth as the Amaze.. the sgs ii will run just as smooth as the amaze in games. they have the same CPU/GPU/amount of RAM.
I'll vouch for this, I had the SGSII for a week and I hated every minute of it...the resolution is lower even though its a amoled screen, I don't think the colors are even that much better to be honest, the blacks are just darker, thats all.....I hated everything about it, the camera, how big it was, how big everything on it was...I did a direct sunlight test, and HTC IS better even though they advertise that super amoled is better, its BS. it has more dev support becauses samsung doesn't put as much restrictions on their phones as HTC does. That's the reason.
Camera is immensly better on the HTC. I absolutely hate Touchwiz, where as Sense seems much better.
Its ultimately your choice
Just to be clear when you're talking GS2 are you talking the GS2X with the Snapdragon or S2 with Samsung's more powerful Exynos processor?
Either way the Amaze has the upper hand in terms of resolution and Camera, keyboard if you're using stock Sense keyboard vs TouchWiz IMO. Game play goes to the Amaze if you're comparing Snapdragon's but if you're looking at the Exynos I'd give gaming to Sammy.
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using xda premium
Love my Amaze, although I don't like the feel in my hand. My hands aren't that big so the curved back makes it difficult to hold it tightly.
Actually wished it was squared off more, like the SGS2, but it's a minor issue.
Held the DROID RAZR and that thing holds very nicely, but no removable battery (and not being on T-Mobile) kills it for me.
Overall, very satisfied with my Amaze, although it took installing LauncherPro & disabling a bunch of preinstalled apps using ADB using ZergRush 1-Click Temp Root.
I love the amaze as well.
Did a lot of researching before picking one up, but so far it's been worth it (other than battery life, and possible video recording issues.). Got a nice score of 1057 on Vellamo, so I'm plenty happy about performance. In terms of hardware specs, it's pretty much one of the high end ones, with a balance of storage and features. (Unlike a couple of other options out there.)
Hasn't locked up/random reboot on me yet!
Of course, I came from the Motorola xt720 (extremely buggy at times), which was my first android device. So my experience isn't as great as some others.
Currently on stock ROM, but it's unlocked and rooted. Just waiting for a nice stable ICS build to come along!
I came from an SGS1 and I loved that phone, especially since it had so much development. To be completely honest, if WIND Mobile had the SGS2, not a single doubt in my mind that I would've gotten that handset instead of the Amaze, simply because the SGS2 is leaps and bounds ahead of the Amaze in terms of custom ROMs and whatnot.
That being said, I still love my Amaze because it is by no means a bad phone. It's just a lot newer than the SGS2 and it's a shame that HTC is making it harder for developers to get into coding for the Amaze.
I love HTC I guess you could say I'm a fanboy so take this with a grain of salt. My friend has the Samsung C(r)aptivate and my mom the Samsung Galaxy Tab (1st gen), and when ever I upgrade either one I f**k it up in some way or another, because for some reason I always have to go back to stock before I do anything but having an HTC I forget this. I don't know about the SGSII since I've never rooted/flashed one but I love my HTC Amaze it should be better than the SGSII by a bit since it is clocked faster stock, however SGSII have an accelerated internet browser so it is a bit faster in web browsing. So all in all it is looks, feel and preference. I love the heft of this phone and the way it feels in my hand, Sense is the best interface other than AOSP although it is a bit heavy, IMO TouchWiz is garbage. So they are pretty damn similar phone (unless it is the SGSII Hercules which is exactly the same). As mentioned before Samsung has better development since it is a joke to root it and have no Nand lock etc...
WikusVanDeMerwe said:
Hello everyone, this is my first post and I'm happy to finally become a member of this community after shedding my buggy LG touchscreen phone.
I got this Amaze 4g on Monday at the T-Mobile store since they had very limited phone stock and the sales reps highly recommended it since they had dropped its price to the same as the SGS2. This is my first smartphone but I'm now disappointed to find out that the Galaxy S2 has much more dev support and is a bit better for gaming and power-using. I keep seeing youtube videos that hail the Amaze 4g as the winner in most if not all head to head reviews.
I'm now contemplating returning this for a Galaxy S2 since gaming is a big part of my spare time, but I'd have to pay a damn $50 restocking fee. Is the Galaxy S2 that much better to justify paying the $50? Am I really missing a lot?
I would love to hear more from gamers using the Amaze 4g. Most reviews of heavy games on the Market like Modern Combat 3 and Dead Space have reviews of SGS2 users, and I could find no Amaze 4g users among the reviews. I'm not really much of a picture taker, so the camera on the Amaze isn't something I would miss too much. I'm not looking to start a flame war or anything of the sort. I just want to make sure that I have a capable phone to play these games before I buy them.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My 2cents worth, the Amaze has only been out a few months, the Devs are working on it, so custom roms are slow coming out. Personally I really like the Amaze, and have never had a Sammy, so can't say on that. Finally it's all up to you and your preferences.
You my good sir did not mess up... The amaze is waaaayyyyyy better than that sgs2. First, just look at how the amaze is made compared to the same old plastic on the sgs. Second, the camera, don't even get me started, this phone has the best camera I've ever owned to be honest, I don't buy expensive cameras, infact I've only owned one camera. Third, there is more developement on sgs2 because its pretty obvious, Samsung has managed to put their galaxy line in the mainstream, popular enough to be competing head on with the iPhone. And remember that HTC doesn't release their phones the same way everytime, they change how their phones are made every few models, take a look at the sgs line and its pretty much the same. Also the amaze has a qhd screen, the sgs has has a 480p screen if I'm not mistaken, and when I look at the sgs it looks all pixaleted if you know what I mean. And finally, the dev here is still in its baby steps, its all about patience.
And as for gaming, my experience has been great, I've been playing gta3 with no fcs no lag, I've also played asphalt 6 and worked awesome.
Sent from my HTC Amaze 4G using xda premium
Plus, the Amaze is one of the few to receive the ICS update (hopefully this month). And once that drops, I believe development for the Amaze will pick up substantially.
Sent from my HTC Desire Z using xda premium
someone mentioned that the gs2 has lower clock speed, i think for the original one.. yes. but the tmobile hercules t989 it has the same clock speed.
anyways, there's too much exaggeration that the tmobile gs2 development is light years ahead of us. they do have a few devs, but they're not light years ahead of us. a lot of their devs are leaving, and its mostly just tweaked touchwiz, like how ours is tweaked sense. Yeah there are some asop roms, but don't think by having a gs2, you'll be flashing roms like crazy.. because you're not (yet).
I've had the amaze for 2 months before switching over to the gs2. Don't get me wrong, the amaze is a beautiful and fast phone with the better camera... much better. The only thing that bothered me is the battery life. the battery life is simply okay.. this could be fixed by running something other than sense or having a spare or two (one should be enough). but yes sense kills the battery. if it wasn't for the battery life, i would still be using the amaze.
listen to everyone else about the screen. the washed out screen isn't as bad as it sounds. you won't notice it at all when playing games. i played games on both phones. the amaze will give you more details and it will pop out more with more accurate colors. like i said on one of my breakdowns of the two phones.. if you're a gamer, you would want to go with the amaze simply because the games look better. functionality is the same for both phones. You're gonna kill your battery playing games on either so buy a spare anker and you're good to go.
As far as gaming the amaze is pretty bad as far as touch screen compared to the SGS2. i noticed this on few games that my buddy at work(who has t-mo sgs2) informed me about where multi touch gets faulty the more you play or longer you go with out rebooting you phone. This is not the case on his galaxy.
few games that come to mind are jelly defense, jet car stunts, flick golf, also on GTA3.
Well, I'm happy to hear more people have been gaming on the Amaze 4g. I've downloaded Zenonia 3 and Dead on Arrival and they make my phone's left side of the screen really hot. Yesterday whenever I would quit Zenonia 3 and go to the Task Manager, the phone would lock up and do a restart. It did this consistently 3 times! On the last time it switched off the mobile network by itself which was very frustrating.
I find the Amaze to be a bit laggy when navigating menus, especially regarding the touch-screen's feedback. I have yet to take a pictture with this greaest of cameras. Can Sesnse be removed? I just would love to know if this will get better but it is more of a gamble than anything. I hope when ICS comes out things get better. If the T-Mobile store doesn't get a SGS2 by next monday I'll have to stick with the Amaze.
Thank you all so much for the comments and advice.
I did a lot of soul searching when I was deciding on SG2 or Amaze.
What I like in the Amaze:
1) Camera buttons
2) Notification Light
3) Better form factor, SG2 feels too wide and square (personal preference)
4) Higher resolution
5) Solid/higher quality build perception
What I like from SG2 is:
1) AMOLED screen
2) Better battery life out of the box
3) Better benchmarks (bragging rights but doesn't translate into better everyday use)
4) Lighter feel
5) Better brand recognition
I initially ended up with the Amaze because they were out of SG2. I don't regret it after comparing it with two of my friends with SG2. I can still return the Amaze but I guess I'll keep it. The only thing I hate so far with the Amaze is the softkeys light bleeds onto the screen. Battery life so much better after I rooted and custom rom.
You guys shouldn't regret having the amaze, I am not happy with the sgs2. I use to have an amaze I really miss my amaze its impossible to get use to this stupid resolution. More devs don't matter when the roms aren't up to quality a lot of them haven't been updated in a long time. Juggernaut is the best so far IMO but the amaze feel is better x makes quality roms. No notification light is annoying to now I have to use bln.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA App
ebatr8 said:
You guys shouldn't regret having the amaze, I am not happy with the sgs2. I use to have an amaze I really miss my amaze its impossible to get use to this stupid resolution. More devs don't matter when the roms aren't up to quality a lot of them haven't been updated in a long time. Juggernaut is the best so far IMO but the amaze feel is better x makes quality roms. No notification light is annoying to now I have to use bln.
Sent from my SGH-T989 using XDA App
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agreed with every point. the amaze community is much better imho... that explains why we're still over here lol. I would most likely be back to the amaze in a little bit.
Debating on upgrading to the S3... My wife and I have old school Vibrants... Currently rooted, running ICZen 4.0.4, Overclocked a bit but not too much... The phones perform about as well as a stock SGS2, and I want to know how far I can safely PUSH the Vibrant, performance wise, and is there any way that I can somehow upgrade the hardware of the phone - maybe more RAM or something... I like the phone's SIZE, don't really want a larger phone, but if I have to go to the SGS3 then so be it
i love the Vibrant as weel bro its been one phone to not give up ive ran my Vibrant when i was running Bionix and DOW kernel OC at 1.7 FLYING a little hot runny but hey still running lol but any phone you grab make sure to look at the development sections dont want a phone hardly anyone works on you will get very bored lol as far as the screen is why i havnt upgraded to anything really i love the screen its perfect not big or small "PERFECT" if i was to get another phone i was thinking bout the BLAZE 4g for its processors and SPECS and the 4g reports r faster on that phone but all phones now are snappy and smooth the Vibrant was a test to see how far we can push android and with great success they done just that ! any phone you get will be great dont get rid of the vibrant its a ride or die phone like the G1 was
krazierokz said:
.... but any phone you grab make sure to look at the development sections dont want a phone hardly anyone works on you will get very bored lol ……if i was to get another phone i was thinking bout the BLAZE 4g
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This is very good advice.However, take your own advice and look into their Development Section.
Unless something has changed, not much going on at all over there. Not much internal storage either. My cousin got these for a good price, and they are decent devices, if you aren't into ROM flashing, that is.
Toast6977 said:
This is very good advice.However, take your own advice and look into their Development Section.
Unless something has changed, not much going on at all over there. Not much internal storage either. My cousin got these for a good price, and they are decent devices, if you aren't into ROM flashing, that is.
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I would, without a doubt, take the thing out of the box and root / ROM flash immediately... After having so much success with my old Vibrant, I'd root the **** out of a SGS3 or Note Ill look into it before deciding... lol
Advice
svavrek said:
I would, without a doubt, take the thing out of the box and root / ROM flash immediately... After having so much success with my old Vibrant, I'd root the **** out of a SGS3 or Note Ill look into it before deciding... lol
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I also have the Samsung Vibrant on T-Mobile. My contract will actually end in a week, and if I were you, I would wait for Google to release the next nexus phone. If you don't want to wait 1-2 months, I think either the galaxy nexus or HTC One S would be a good deal. The One S is FREE!! (If you sign a 2-year contract w/ T-Mobile.) The One S has a good development community, about the same size as the Vibrant. but with better specs in every area.
Well I had several high end phone like Nexus and S3, I keep the Vibrant as a backup phone and main music player, since it works with ATT/TMo 3G and have the wolfson dac for great sound. The Vibrant is going to last a long time because there are lots of developers for it, since its a variation of the popular Galaxy S.
You will be happy with the S3 speed, its seems okay with Touchwiz, but once you install custom rom it will be blazing fast. Especially the quadcore GPU for gaming. As for the durability, it will be much more cheaply built and easier to break/scratch compared to the Vibrant, so you will need to take care of it real good. Sometimes things will happen not due to the user, but due to the cheap design.
You should upgrade the Vibrant to Jelly Bean, the interface is much smoother than ICS. Try SlimBean rom, oc it to 1.2ghz, install the Google Now package as well. It slow down for heavy tasks, but for normal usage it mostly smooth and still have more features than the iPhone5.
Same as above, the only phone I'll be upgrading to is the next Google Nexus. Although I'm looking at the Oppo Find 5 too, but my final decision to purchase a phone has always been if its a Nexus or supported by Cyanogenmod.
I installed SlimBean over the weekend and just punched my SammyV up to 1.2GHz... wow its much nicer now
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app
Hi All,
Sorry if this should be in the Q&A and not General, but I'm not very sure where this should go. So my area where I live is not that great for reception, and I have a Galaxy Nexus which is not the greatest on radios. Not a very good combination.
I have an opportunity to trade my Samsung Galaxy for a Rezound. Should I do it? My main driving factor for this is that I can't get decent signal when I'm at home. So if I lose power or WiFi, I'm not getting online with my Sammy either.
Aside from General Feedback, I have 2 questions.
1) Can I get an extended battery for this phone that's 2000mAh or greater, and does it make the phone even fatter?
2) In general, how is development for this phone?
Any other advice would be great.
Maybe
The development for the Rezound is great, but not as expansive as for the G-Nex. There are extended batteries for the Rezound ranging from the OEM 2750 mAh to a Mugen 4000 mAh battery, but they will make the phone thicker and not work with a majority of cases. I'm using the 2750 OEM and regularly get more than 5 hours screen on time. The Rezound radios are much stronger than any of those available in the Samsung phones. It will come to a matter of which you prefer. The Rezound has good, stable, and completely functional ICS in both Sense and AOSP versions, but it may be awhile for good, stable, and complete functional JB. It is being worked on rather furiously though. I have to admit that I am biased towards the Rezound though. You should see if you can find someone with a Rezound so you can check it out and see if it is a good fit for you.
1) The extended battery is 2750mAh. It does make it thicker. Bothers some people, doesn't others. I don't mind some thickness. It gives the back a more curved shape and it's much less blocky feeling than some other extendeds I've seen
2) Development is decent. Not as good as you're used to on the GNex, but still quite active. There's a variety of Sense 3.6, 4, and 4.1 ROMs available. CM9 is working (except bluetooth calling and HDMI/MHL) and there are several CM9 based ROMs released. CM10 (along with AOKP-JB) is at an almost there state, with the same general limitations as the CM9 ROMs. There aren't any released ROMs yet, but there are quite a few privately distributed ROMs and a good bit of CM10 development going on, so there will likely be a mass release of CM10 ROMs as soon as the final kinks are worked out.
As for signal, I've had good luck with the phone. I had a Samsung Droid Charge (same radios as the GNex) before I had this phone and had poor reception, and this one is definitely better. It doesn't randomly drop signal or data the way the Charge did.
Thanks for the quick responses guys!
Some more questions:
The GNEX is lockable/relockable in a way that VZW can't tell if it's been rooted/unlocked if you return everything back to stock (solely for purposes or HARDWARE warranty claims. I'm not like that... I brick, my fault!). How is the Rezound? And I did some searching, but still confused as to what Aroma is.
I'm going to be upgrading my phone in November to something new, so I just need to make it till next November. Therefore, I'm not too worried about the "next" android thing. I'm assuming that this phone will get somewhat decent JB, and by the time "Klondike" or whatever comes out I should be up for an upgrade anyway.
Do the physical keys bother anyone? I'm used to onscreen keys, but don't think that it'd be much of an issue.
Finally, how is performance? I've seen benchmarks that make the rezound look better performance wise than the GNEX, but from what I understand both the CPU an GPU on it are weaker then GNEX's?
If you only unlock and then relock, it will say "RELOCKED" in the bootloader. If you go all out and S-OFF, that procedure will factory lock your bootloader like it was when it came. Either way though, I haven't heard of any issues. I sent one back recently with a bad charge port that was S-OFF and running my CM9 kang and never heard a peep of trouble from it.
Aroma is a touch based ROM installer that lets developers add install-time options to a ROM. I have it as part of my CM9 rom, and there are a few Sense ROMs that have it. We mainly use it to provide easier installation for S-ON devices, and offer some extra installer options as a bonus.
JB will come...devs smarter than I are working out the kinks now, and when they do, there will quickly be JB ROMs.
Rezound doesn't have physical keys. It actually has a better processor than the GNex...same processor class but clocked 300MHz faster. The processor is the best of it's generation. It isn't going to stand up to the likes of an S3 or a Droid DNA, but but I've never found myself wanting for more power. The GPU is actually a little better, however the screen pixel density is higher, so the extra GPU power goes to that, and the net result is overall weaker graphics performance. As a result, it's not going to win any awards on graphics performance, but it's not bad at all, and the screen is absolutely gorgeous.
Thanks!
Shrike,
Thanks for your quick replies and knowledge. Very friendly and helpful.
Last and final question. Is Rezound global? I've seen ROM's in the Dev. section that mention global?
no ota yet for global, but u can flash the ruu from android police. i did and its nice and stable. no issues
SENT FROM MY HTC REZ
As Mike said, it's global capable, and the latest leak unlocks that natively. Exactly how to go about using it is beyond my personal knowlege, but I know there are several GSM users on the forum, so the knowledge is here.
Think I'm doing it.
Thanks guys, think I'm gonna go for it.
I think as long as I can get some of the bloat off, I'll probably be pretty happy.
dreamersipaq said:
Thanks guys, think I'm gonna go for it.
I think as long as I can get some of the bloat off, I'll probably be pretty happy.
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Pretty much every ROM on here will be bloatless
Sent from my ADR6425LVW using xda app-developers app
I can highly recommend the Rezound. I just unlocked and loaded Nils Business Sense last night. It was a little scary at first, but if you follow the guides step by step, it's pretty painless. The longest parts were the downloads of the programs and files needed, and then re-customizing the rom to the way I like it.
I rooted and unlocked (NOT s-off) simply so I could load a rom and install Google Now. Which is amazingly fast. Makes Siri look like a chump.
I went from the rezound to my gnex.... I loved my rezound. It worked (and still does with my GF) great. And the radio is damn nice, get an extended battery or a couple spare OEM bat. The screen....in my own opinion only, face plants my gnex soundly. CPU is quite capable.
I liked sense, kind of miss it myself at times, and I was lucky to not have lag in any launcher I tried. That being said I can't get rid of my gnex, I'm all about longevity in electronics, the support of 3rd partyroms and abundance of used gnexs will keep me here for a long time. My kindle fire running AOKP JB doesn't operate as smooth as my gnex
You could have both, just swap sim cards
Cheers