That's good to hear, I don't use the phone part that often but when I do my Eris drives me bonkers.
My Eris drove me bonkers as well. The call history lag sucked big time. I would go to place a call from recent history. The RIGHT NAME would flash green when I clicked it, and then it would call SOMEONE ELSE. That's right. The allcaps means I really am shouting this. That's how mad my Eris made me when trying to place calls. I can feel my blood starting to boil again just thinking about it ....
The Eris was almost a year long nightmare in phoneland for me. Verizon replaced it three times. The first time was for a defective speaker that started to put out distorted tones and voice to the extent that it was causing some serious pain in the ear, and the dialer on every single on has been a pain in the rear.
Not only does the Fascinate actual dial a call when you hit the green button, but it also answers a call right when you hit the green button, or ignores it right away when you hit the red button. And IMMEDIATELY after you place or receive a call, the proper call is appropriately listed in your call history.
I've used the dialer on the original droid with 2.1 and 2.2, the dialer on the Eris, on the Incredible, and on the Droid X. The dialer on the Fascinate is my absolute favorite to date.
The only thing that this GOOGLE PHONE needs to have better integration with is GOOGLE. Again, I am truly shouting. I have shouted this at the folks at Verizon, and I will continue to do so until they fix it.
To get the full phonebook features, such as caller ID ringtones, you actually have to make a local phone contact in addition to your google contact. What the heck??? THIS IS A GOOGLE PHONE!!! But Verizon for some reason tries to hide that as much as possible on the Fascinate. Bing this. Bing/Verizon that. The back of the phone doesn't even say google on it. I have no idea how Verizon used Google's OS and managed to pull that one off. I don't know that I've ever seen a Windows PC or laptop in Best Buy for sale without a Windows sticker on it somewhere. And I've been there almost 6 years and seen hundreds of thousands of computers go through that store.
De-binging and de-bloating is remarkably easy, as is rooting. But that's the one phone call related gripe I will warn you about - you've got to make two copies of every contact to reap the full benefits of Google backing them up, and being able to utilize all the features the phone has to offer on caller ID, such as custom ringtones and more advanced contact information.
Other than that, it is a spendid phone, and the dialer truly is the best.