Moto Droid to Droid Incredible?

[Doubledee90]

I asked this same question in the Incredible forum, you can see their responses here. http://androidforums.com/htc-incredible/97425-switch-moto-droid-droid-incredible.html


I currently have a Droid rooted and overclocked to 1ghz. I just found out that I can upgrade to a new phone (I took a family members upgrade to get my Droid in October). I really like the Incredible, its fast, sleek, and I happen to like Sense a lot. Sense seems to make Android a whole new better OS.

Now should I spend the $200 and get the Incredible once it is in stock again, or just keep my Droid. I used to like the keyboard, but I realize that is is more annoying than useful. Is the Incredible that much of a difference for me to switch or should I wait for something else?


Thanks for your help.

 

[nstallion]

Considering the speed of the new 2.2 ROMs I honestly think now there is no question that it would be a downgrade.

Things to think about:
1. The Incredible is not rooted.
2. The AMOLED screen has been highly criticized for inadequate brightness, color inaccuracy, excessive contrast in colors, and the weird pixel layout that lowers its effective resolution by 1/3rd.
3. It seems a lot more fragile than the Droid.
4. There are still people complaining the battery life is not very good
5.

In its defense, if you like Sense UI you have to buy an HTC product because it looks like the attempts to port a Sense ROM to the Droid have been abandoned. It also has a much nicer camera.

If I were in your position I would wait to see how good Motorola's new offerings are (Droid 2, Xtreme).

 

[UBRocked]

Considering the speed of the new 2.2 ROMs I honestly think now there is no question that it would be a downgrade.

Things to think about:
1. The Incredible is not rooted.
2. The AMOLED screen has been highly criticized for inadequate brightness, color inaccuracy, excessive contrast in colors, and the weird pixel layout that lowers its effective resolution by 1/3rd.
3. It seems a lot more fragile than the Droid.
4. There are still people complaining the battery life is not very good
5. http://i49.tinypic.com/30w1ro0.jpg

In its defense, if you like Sense UI you have to buy an HTC product because it looks like the attempts to port a Sense ROM to the Droid have been abandoned. It also has a much nicer camera.

If I were in your position I would wait to see how good Motorola's new offerings are (Droid 2, Xtreme).

What's that saying..."a picture is worth 1,000 words"...

The incredible is a nice phone but HTC should have made the screen bigger...that way it would actually have a spec that is better than the Droid. Okay...the incredible has more RAM (that's nice...wish I had more!).

I know, I know...the Droid's we are comparing are rooted and OC'd.....so it's not a true comparison right? True...a stock Droid is inferior to a stock Incredible...but we get software updates faster... This is a benchmark just like the one nstallion posted...but this is running @ 600MHz with 2.2

I think time is showing that the Arm

 

[brettlewis]

I have owned both the Droid and the Incredible. I like both devices for different reasons.

I liked the droid due to its great development community. I used bugless beast pretty much as soon as it was available and was very happy with my phone performance. The problem was I has a few different hardware issues that really annoyed me. I ran through a couple droids before Verizon offered me a new phone which happens to be my new incredible.

I received my incredible AFTER the reports of bad screens and low stock and haven't had any issues at all with it. I dont know if they changed something during that week where almost none shipped but its working great. I haven't had any battery issues as some people have complained about. My battery last as long as my droid on does. I also like my incredible because I haven't had to do anything to it to get it to work as I want. Since root isnt available I also haven't had the option. ha

Pretty much both phones are great phones for different reasons. I just a preferential thing I suppose.

 

[Papadroid]

I came from the Eris to the Droid (and no I'm not comparing the Eris to the Incredible). The reason I chose the Droid over the Incredible is because of two reasons. One I want root and two I don't want sense. Sure sense looks nice and has some nice features but some of those features are buggy and sense holds up the updating of the phone. It will take much longer to get 2.2 on the incredible over the Droid.

 

[dguy]

Considering the speed of the new 2.2 ROMs I honestly think now there is no question that it would be a downgrade.

Things to think about:
1. The Incredible is not rooted.
2. The AMOLED screen has been highly criticized for inadequate brightness, color inaccuracy, excessive contrast in colors, and the weird pixel layout that lowers its effective resolution by 1/3rd.
3. It seems a lot more fragile than the Droid.
4. There are still people complaining the battery life is not very good
5.


In its defense, if you like Sense UI you have to buy an HTC product because it looks like the attempts to port a Sense ROM to the Droid have been abandoned. It also has a much nicer camera.

If I were in your position I would wait to see how good Motorola's new offerings are (Droid 2, Xtreme).

That's a rather biased way of looking at things. Allow me to provide a rebuttal.

The Droid Incredible has no less than 100% more CPU power than the Motorola Droid at stock. A 1Ghz Snapdragon is also faster than a Droid overclocked to 1Ghz. While the Droid with Android 2.2 will probably come close to the current Droid Incredible in CPU performance, the Droid Incredible will also get Android 2.2. The Droid Incredible has twice the RAM of the Motorola Droid. Combining these two aspects, general usage of the Droid Incredible will be significantly superior, especially when running more advanced applications. The performance difference between the devices is so huge that the Droid runs like a slug by comparison at the moment.

Most AMOLED criticisms are blown way out of proportion. I would like to reference the story of the fox and the grapes. The Fox and the Grapes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The majority of OLED criticism boils down to nothing more than being an excellent example of this story. You will be hard pressed to find someone who actually has an OLED device say they would rather have an LCD device.

AMOLED has exactly one problem and one problem only: In bright sunlight, the display is harder to read than an LCD. That said, it's still usable if you need to make a call or something. The way it is criticized, some people make it sound like LCD phones are so good in bright sunlight that they are a pleasant experience to use which is absolutely false. There's no smartphone that is pleasant to use with a noon sun beating down on it. It's ridiculous to try and say OLED devices are the only ones with this problem.

In all other lightning conditions(any level of darkness or brightness indoors, evenings outdoors, and anything else one could think of), an OLED will always produce a superior picture to an LCD. OLED has better viewing angles than any LCD, better colors, better contrast, better blacks, and is better on battery consumption than an LCD.

The OLED resolution issue has long been debunked as utter nonsense.

Observe this picture: The left is an LCD screen(Evo 4G) and the right is an OLED screen(Droid Incredible).

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_excdv1c1bcw/TAz_03z12QI/AAAAAAAAA0Q/uRbC_TR1lD8/LCD vs OLED.jpg

The Droid uses the exact same type of screen as is on the left. Yes, the Droid Incredible's screen is that much better.

The Droid Incredible's battery life is an overblown issue as well. The Droid Incredible comes with HTC Sense and a whole slew of widgets and services enabled by default that suck up battery big time. Most people just leave it on the stock configuration and that is why battery is sucked up so fast. If you disable all of these and set the phone up to work similarly to the stock Droid configuration, you will have much longer battery life. Besides this, a larger battery can be purchased for the Droid Incredible from HTC for $16.99 with free shipping.(For some reason the Droid Incredible ships with a 1300mAh battery when the device can hold an HTC 1500mAh battery)

Droid Incredible has a much better camera than the Droid.

Rooting will be an option in the future, that's hardly an issue.

HTC Sense makes Android look significantly nicer and run smoother than stock Android. Wanting this or not is a matter of taste however.

I haven't heard any reports of Droid Incredibles being broken easily and in large numbers. They seem pretty solid to me.

Droid Incredible has a higher data storage capacity than the Droid.

Droid Incredible is much lighter and thinner than the Droid.

 

[nader2013]

That's a rather biased way of looking at things. Allow me to provide a rebuttal.

The Droid Incredible has no less than 100% more CPU power than the Motorola Droid at stock. A 1Ghz Snapdragon is also faster than a Droid overclocked to 1Ghz. While the Droid with Android 2.2 will probably come close to the current Droid Incredible in CPU performance, the Droid Incredible will also get Android 2.2. The Droid Incredible has twice the RAM of the Motorola Droid. Combining these two aspects, general usage of the Droid Incredible will be significantly superior, especially when running more advanced applications. The performance difference between the devices is so huge that the Droid runs like a slug by comparison at the moment.

Most AMOLED criticisms are blown way out of proportion. I would like to reference the story of the fox and the grapes. The Fox and the Grapes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The majority of OLED criticism boils down to nothing more than being an excellent example of this story. You will be hard pressed to find someone who actually has an OLED device say they would rather have an LCD device.

AMOLED has exactly one problem and one problem only: In bright sunlight, the display is harder to read than an LCD. That said, it's still usable if you need to make a call or something. The way it is criticized, some people make it sound like LCD phones are so good in bright sunlight that they are a pleasant experience to use which is absolutely false. There's no smartphone that is pleasant to use with a noon sun beating down on it. It's ridiculous to try and say OLED devices are the only ones with this problem.

In all other lightning conditions(any level of darkness or brightness indoors, evenings outdoors, and anything else one could think of), an OLED will always produce a superior picture to an LCD. OLED has better viewing angles than any LCD, better colors, better contrast, better blacks, and is better on battery consumption than an LCD.

The OLED resolution issue has long been debunked as utter nonsense.

Observe this picture: The left is an LCD screen(Evo 4G) and the right is an OLED screen(Droid Incredible).

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_excdv1c1bcw/TAz_03z12QI/AAAAAAAAA0Q/uRbC_TR1lD8/LCD vs OLED.jpg

The Droid uses the exact same type of screen as is on the left. Yes, the Droid Incredible's screen is that much better.

The Droid Incredible's battery life is an overblown issue as well. The Droid Incredible comes with HTC Sense and a whole slew of widgets and services enabled by default that suck up battery big time. Most people just leave it on the stock configuration and that is why battery is sucked up so fast. If you disable all of these and set the phone up to work similarly to the stock Droid configuration, you will have much longer battery life. Besides this, a larger battery can be purchased for the Droid Incredible from HTC for $16.99 with free shipping.(For some reason the Droid Incredible ships with a 1300mAh battery when the device can hold an HTC 1500mAh battery)

Droid Incredible has a much better camera than the Droid.

Rooting will be an option in the future, that's hardly an issue.

HTC Sense makes Android look significantly nicer and run smoother than stock Android. Wanting this or not is a matter of taste however.

I haven't heard any reports of Droid Incredibles being broken easily and in large numbers. They seem pretty solid to me.

Droid Incredible has a higher data storage capacity than the Droid.

Droid Incredible is much lighter and thinner than the Droid.

Did you not see the benchmarks posted above??? Droid 2.2 vs Incredible

That picture is clearly focused on the Incredible and not the EVO, as all text is blurry on the left screen and everything is sharp on the right noe.

And it alo may be thinner and lgihter, but the droid is a tank and withstands many drops from various heights.

I agree with you in some parts of your argument though.

 

[jamor]

Considering the speed of the new 2.2 ROMs I honestly think now there is no question that it would be a downgrade.

Things to think about:
1. The Incredible is not rooted.
2. The AMOLED screen has been highly criticized for inadequate brightness, color inaccuracy, excessive contrast in colors, and the weird pixel layout that lowers its effective resolution by 1/3rd.
3. It seems a lot more fragile than the Droid.
4. There are still people complaining the battery life is not very good.

In its defense, if you like Sense UI you have to buy an HTC product because it looks like the attempts to port a Sense ROM to the Droid have been abandoned. It also has a much nicer camera.

1. Incredible is rooted.
2. Amoled screen is absolutely amazing and looks far better than any phone out, for the record.
3. Dropping phones on concrete is usually pretty bad no matter what phone it is.
4. I get 20+ hours battery life.
5. Slimmer, easier to put in pocket, faster
6. 2.2 is on its way.

just wanted to run that by. I will not return.

 

[e30kid]

As a person who previously owned the Droid and currently owns the Incredible, i would have to say that the day to day user experience on the incredible is superior to that of the droid, at least in unrooted form.

Coming from the stock android ui makes using sense kind of odd, especially because of the keyboard and extra HTC apps that duplicate functionality already available with stock android apps. I really hope that there is a way to run a stock 2.2 rom once the Incredible's root exploit becomes more developed.

The OLED screen is a non issue for me. There really isn't a huge difference in usability. The screen does look nicer than the Droid's LCD though.

The only real advantage that the droid has right now is customization, IMO. That advantage is rapidly waning as the Incredible goes through the rooting process though. The processor is slower, the phone is more clunky, and there is less ram available for use after all is said and done.

 

[pirahna]

I am in the same boat, I have a Droid but am available for a upgrade. I had a Incredible for a while and really liked it but returned and decided to wait until the new 4g phones start coming out and would like a bigger screen as well. The Droid will be fine for the next few months until something I like much better comes out.

 

[snt]

Considering the speed of the new 2.2 ROMs I honestly think now there is no question that it would be a downgrade.

Things to think about:
1. The Incredible is not rooted.
2. The AMOLED screen has been highly criticized for inadequate brightness, color inaccuracy, excessive contrast in colors, and the weird pixel layout that lowers its effective resolution by 1/3rd.
3. It seems a lot more fragile than the Droid.
4. There are still people complaining the battery life is not very good
5.

In its defense, if you like Sense UI you have to buy an HTC product because it looks like the attempts to port a Sense ROM to the Droid have been abandoned. It also has a much nicer camera.

If I were in your position I would wait to see how good Motorola's new offerings are (Droid 2, Xtreme).

Sorry to go OT, but I have seen you post similar screenshots in other threads. What app is that?

Thanks

-SNT

 

[johnlgalt]

Quadrant - free, in market.

 

[nstallion]

The app is Quadrant.


I feel I should explain myself a bit further here.

I do agree that it would be nice if the Droid was lighter, but I also like the fact that it is incredibly strong and I completely disagree that dropping it on concrete will have the same results with both phones. I've dropped my phone a few times on concrete and it's only resulted in tiny dings on the metal case. I think one of the main causes of so many screens shattering on the Incredible is that the metal surrounding the camera lens transfers impact energy directly through the phone to the screen, making it much more likely to shatter.

As far as the AMOLED goes. Yes it has more vivid color, better contrast, darker blacks and better viewing angle. The problem is the colors are actually too vivid and do not represent how colors are supposed to look. Also the PenTile (look this up if you don't know what I'm talking about) layout of the individual red/green/blue LEDs is sort of a cheat, and causes blurriness at the edge of solid colors. OLED is a pretty new technology and once it grows a bit (and they find a way to pack in a proper set of red/green/blue LEDs in EVERY pixel) it will be superior to LCD in every way. At this point, however, there are some definite drawbacks when comparing it to a technology that has been honed for many, many years (LCD).

I DID forget to mention that the Incredible has DOUBLE the RAM of our Droid's and I can't believe I did.

I will also say that stock vs stock the Incredible is hand's down the better phone, but considering that it is so easy to root the Droid, and the OP's Droid IS rooted, I don't think that should be something he needs to consider.

Also the Snapdragon is not faster than the Droid's OMAP clock for clock. Linpack benchmarks have shown this.

You can also see Quadrant benchmarks of Droid's at 1ghz on 2.2 vs the Nexus One (basically the same chip as the Incredible) on 2.2 and the Droid is slightly faster. While the Snapdragon is definitely the flavor of the month for CPUs in the new devices, the OMAP 3430 is a very underrated chip and will (for most people) easily overclock to 1+ghz. Also the OMAP has a better integrated GPU than the Snapdragon.

I'm not saying the Droid is hands down a better device. Stock for stock the Incredible is definitely better. But for the OP I'd stick with the OC'd Droid and wait to see how good the new Moto devices are.

Sorry to the OP for turning this into yet another Droid vs Incredible war, but you were kinda asking for it. I'm sure this thread in the Incredible forum looks COMPLETELY different. If you are considering the Incredible, just got and try one, and if you do like it better consider if it's really worth using your upgrade on the Incredible or waiting a month or two for the new phones.

 

[shadowdude777]

Everyone that's saying that the Incredible will soon be rooted and blow the Droid away is just wrong. It might get a slight lead on us in Quadrant benchmarks, but it won't "destroy" us as you say. The Incredible has a Snapdragon processor; Snapdragon has only been able to be overclocked to 1.11GHz, I believe. The performance increase you'll get from being able to overclock is minuscule. The Droid's overclockability, however, is immense.

Long story short: Get a Droid if you are planning to root it or if you need the keyboard. Otherwise, get an Incredible. Or, you could save your upgrade for a 4.3" Android phone. That's what I'd do. Droid to Incredible is at best, a lateral move, in my opinion.

EDIT: nstallion seems to have beaten me to the punch.

 

[Doubledee90]

Everyone that's saying that the Incredible will soon be rooted and blow the Droid away is just wrong. It might get a slight lead on us in Quadrant benchmarks, but it won't "destroy" us as you say. The Incredible has a Snapdragon processor; Snapdragon has only been able to be overclocked to 1.11GHz, I believe. The performance increase you'll get from being able to overclock is minuscule. The Droid's overclockability, however, is immense.

Long story short: Get a Droid if you are planning to root it or if you need the keyboard. Otherwise, get an Incredible. Or, you could save your upgrade for a 4.3" Android phone. That's what I'd do. Droid to Incredible is at best, a lateral move, in my opinion.

EDIT: nstallion seems to have beaten me to the punch.

I did ask this to be a Droid ve Incredible thread, but its ok. I think I might move to the incredible because I really do like sense, and the size, weight, and feel are amazing. Also the touch screen seems more responsive than my Droid. I will keep my Droid, because I still do love this phone. But I have a while to come to a decision because the Incredible is backordered.