Advice needed from desire users

[chopsy]

Hi

I am looking to buy a new smartphone and have narrowed it down to either the Samsung Galaxy s or the desire. I know the comparison has been done to death so i'm not asking for another one! However I have a few specific questions about the desire..

Can you use the optical trackpad to move the cursor when writing text? So if you realise you've gone wrong you don't have to place your finger in-between two letters. On my existing very old touch scree phone this is a big issue as i can never get the cursor exactly where i want

Another trackpad question - what purpose does it have when browsing, does it highlight links allowing quick navigation without using the pinch and zoom?

Final track pad question- do you use it?

The battery- with moderate to heavy use will it ALWAYS last a long day 7-11 for example?

Hows the froyo update, is sense still as smooth as ever?


Any advice would be fantastic as i want to get a

 

[chris 290]

Find it pretty pointless, probably the least used button on my phone tbh.

 

[eteyen1]

to answer your first question- yes- just tested it out

dunno about the second one, never tried

3- not personally, but now that I've discovered the answer to 1, then I will do

the battery is a touchy subject with some users getting better life than others. Mine was horrible when I first got it, partly due to playing with it always and not setting it up fully. Its great now and would last me 7-11 moderate to heavy use

FROYO is amazing!

 

[Pedro7]

this phone is cheaper than

 

[pezzer]

Can you use the optical trackpad to move the cursor when writing text? .......
Yes.

what purpose does it have when browsing.......
Mainly just moving around the page display and clicking on links (I dont use it often)

do you use it?.... only really for your first question and sometimes for flicking through homescreens.

I would always expect at least a full days use and then some.

I'm sure you can get it for much less than

 

[EightSixteen]

Chopsy, I too have had issues on previous phones when trying to edit mistakes but the trackpad completely sorts this out and allows you to quickly scroll back as opposed to tapping the screen and hoping to land where you were aiming.

The trackpad works exactly as you think it does when browsing but truth be told I rarely use it for browsing. It also comes in handy for gaming especially while playing FPS' such as quake4droid, doom etc.

Battery life for me hasn't been a problem, I get around 14hours and a medium to heavy use (days off work) but that's with a few apps to save as much juice as possible.

Froyo is still early days for now IMO but I have seen things speed up a bit and sense is just as smooth.

Hope this helps you make the right decision ;-)

816

 

[benchmark]

without saying too much the answers to your 3 questions are:

Yes
Yes
and yes.

enjoy your Desire.

 

[Mushhushshu]

^ What he said. I find the track pad a bit under rated, never liked it at first but with use I couldnt be without it now. Useful for the text edit thing but I use it just as much for your second use, its really nice to be able to use it to select links - things like page numbers on forums which tend to be pretty tiny for my chubby fingers is where it comes into its own.

As for battery life, moderate use you should be fine for 7-11. I normally manage to drain mine between about 7 & 9 but Im a pretty heavy user so tend to keep the usb cable handy at work.

 

[Eris Ed]

Trackpad is great for editing text, that's all I use it for really. Touch near the mistake then move the cursor to the exact point.

 

[chopsy]

The main thing that is still bugging me is the battery.

I will only be checking the internet emails a little but there are some days I will want to use the music player alot.

How does the battery fare when listening to music?

 

[Mubble]

Music player is fine so long as you turn the screen off when not looking at it.

I use my music player on the train for my 1 hr commute to and from work and spend a lot of time browsing the net in the evening to save me turning on my laptop. Plus about an hr of calls a day. It's usually on 20% battery by the time I go to bed.

But then I keep the brightness low, turn of gps, bluetooth and wireless when not at home, which helps a lot.

 

[theretroandroid]

Can you use the optical trackpad to move the cursor when writing text? YES!

What purpose does it have when browsing, does it highlight links allowing quick navigation without using the pinch and zoom? Never tried this out!

Do you use it? lol, rarely coz the touchscreen is EPIC! its one of the best out there! gets me to the exact place i want to, as in, when typing and i wanna go back to the previous word, or in between the word, takes me where i want to!

The battery- with moderate to heavy use will it ALWAYS last a long day 7-11 for example? Well, I have my wifi always on! Im a heavy 'texter', so text all the time, with about 10 calls a day, i set the brightness of the screen to low btw, listen to a lil bit of music, the usual usage, the battery lasts a whole day for me, i do overnight charging!

Hows the froyo update, is sense still as smooth as ever? The first two times, dint install it right coz i dint have my goldcard in when i downloaded and installed the OTA, was pretty pissed, but after that i got it right and damn, frozen yoghurt is AMAZING! sense is a lot more smoother than it used to be!

And like everyone here has told you, the phone comes a lot cheaper than

 

[Pedro7]

its a smartphone that has the ability to do a lot of background synching, multitasking, and power the large screen and that 1GHz processor. the battery isn't going to be great on it..
aslong as you're sensible with what you leave running, switch things off when you don't need them etc, then you'll be able to squeeze a hefty chuck out of the battery. using a power saver routine that i use (i'll list it if you would like), im sitting at 64% battery after 15h and 3m since my last charge, and i've listened to music and keep screen brightness on full.

i don't think the AMOLED screen is done justice without full brightness

just a note, the new desires wont have AMOLED screens, they're SLCD screens..