3 fascinates today. My business account manager was nice enough to bring three Fascinates to my office today for me and a couple of my employees to test drive for a couple of hours one of which was his personal phone.
The Good:
1. The screen. They were bright and vibrant just as you would expect and the contrast was very nice with deep blacks. The colors were very oversaturated though and the whites had a very distracting blue tint. In direct sunlight they were very good, much improved over the Droid Incredible and about the same as the Droid X.
2. The GPU. I played around with some you tube videos and messed with some benchmarks. The graphics were smooth in all situations and the frame rates were high. About 20% better than the Droid X and 50% better than the Droid Incredible. This GPU is fast.
3. The CPU. Very smooth. Most tasks were a breeze for them and saw little signs of lag or stutter. There were some hiccups every now and again but they were directly related to the Touch Wiz UI as they were non existant when running Launcher Pro. Overall I would say the CPU is on par with the Droid X and slightly faster than the Droid Incredible.
4. The size. While I prefer the larger screen on the Droid X, I can see most people liking the 4" screen size better than the 3.7" on the Droid Incredible or the 4.3" screen on the Droid X. Its not too big and its not too small, it is just right. Also this screen is made from Gorilla Glass so its silky smooth to the touch and your finger just glides across the screen very smoothy. It should also be very durable.
5. The Camera. I did not play with the camera alot but for the time I did spend on it it took pictures that were at least on par with the Droid X and better than the Droid Incredible. So pretty darn good.
6. The Camcorder. I did not play with the camcorder alot either but its about the same as the camera, about on par with the Droid X and slightly better than the Droid Incredible in image quality. The big difference though is that it was very smooth compared to the other the Droids. Its is extremely better than the Droid Incredible, its framerates seemed to be about double the Droid Incredible. It seemed to be much better than the Droid X as well. Where the Droid X would have the occasional stutter the Fascinate was just smooth smooth smooth. This camcorder might just be good enough to replace your stand alone camcorder. I was vert impressed with the video recording ability.
The Bad:
1. Touch Wiz. I know this is a very personal preference thing but the 4 of us testing the phones agreed. It is just bad. Its almost like it was made for children. It is cartoony and just seems out of place on a device like this. It is sometimes slow and jerky and does lag the phone on occasion.
2. Bing. Again this is a personal preference thing. Bottom line is its not nearly as good as Google. Its out of place on this device. It was slow to search and did not give results as relevant as Google does on my Droid X.
The voice part did not work very well and is very limited compared to Google voice actions. I tested to see if running a different launcher would allow Google search and contrary to the other thread it still went through bing.
3. Build Quality. The devices did not feel nearly as high quality as the Droid 2 or the Droid X and not even as good as the Droid Incredible. This plastic on 2 of the 3 devices actually creeked when interacting with the device and the plastic was very slippery in my opinion. A case would be a must for me out I fear that it might slip out of mine hand. Its actually a very odd feeling. The glass on the front of the device is super high quality and the back feels very cheap.
4. The Capacative Keys. On 2 of the 3 devices the keys were very unresponsive requiring 3-4 touches before it would actually take. It was always frustrating to say the least. Also, the backlight for the keys turn off way to soon. Way before the screen does and they are almost impossible to see without the back light. My account manager said there is a setting to keep them on longer but we could not find it in the time that I had them (was busy trying to test as much as possible).
5. The GPS. This is a total deal breaker for me. The GPS did not work at all on 2 of the devices. The third device would grab a signal but it would report my position more than mile away from where I actually was. It was not good.
The Verdict: A solid 6.5/10 for me. This device has much potential but was released with way to many issues. The GPS not working is inexcusable. The Bing thing is not for me either. I am very dissapointed that we can't default to google if we want it. If the GPS worked correctly and it didn't have Bing it would have been an 8.5/10.
Note: As always take things like this with a grain of salt but my account manager said that the GPS issue is software related and a firmware fix for the GPS would be out by the end of September. He also told me what I have heard before and that Froyo would be out for the Fascinate near the end of the year.
My .02
The Good:
1. The screen. They were bright and vibrant just as you would expect and the contrast was very nice with deep blacks. The colors were very oversaturated though and the whites had a very distracting blue tint. In direct sunlight they were very good, much improved over the Droid Incredible and about the same as the Droid X.
2. The GPU. I played around with some you tube videos and messed with some benchmarks. The graphics were smooth in all situations and the frame rates were high. About 20% better than the Droid X and 50% better than the Droid Incredible. This GPU is fast.
3. The CPU. Very smooth. Most tasks were a breeze for them and saw little signs of lag or stutter. There were some hiccups every now and again but they were directly related to the Touch Wiz UI as they were non existant when running Launcher Pro. Overall I would say the CPU is on par with the Droid X and slightly faster than the Droid Incredible.
4. The size. While I prefer the larger screen on the Droid X, I can see most people liking the 4" screen size better than the 3.7" on the Droid Incredible or the 4.3" screen on the Droid X. Its not too big and its not too small, it is just right. Also this screen is made from Gorilla Glass so its silky smooth to the touch and your finger just glides across the screen very smoothy. It should also be very durable.
5. The Camera. I did not play with the camera alot but for the time I did spend on it it took pictures that were at least on par with the Droid X and better than the Droid Incredible. So pretty darn good.
6. The Camcorder. I did not play with the camcorder alot either but its about the same as the camera, about on par with the Droid X and slightly better than the Droid Incredible in image quality. The big difference though is that it was very smooth compared to the other the Droids. Its is extremely better than the Droid Incredible, its framerates seemed to be about double the Droid Incredible. It seemed to be much better than the Droid X as well. Where the Droid X would have the occasional stutter the Fascinate was just smooth smooth smooth. This camcorder might just be good enough to replace your stand alone camcorder. I was vert impressed with the video recording ability.
The Bad:
1. Touch Wiz. I know this is a very personal preference thing but the 4 of us testing the phones agreed. It is just bad. Its almost like it was made for children. It is cartoony and just seems out of place on a device like this. It is sometimes slow and jerky and does lag the phone on occasion.
2. Bing. Again this is a personal preference thing. Bottom line is its not nearly as good as Google. Its out of place on this device. It was slow to search and did not give results as relevant as Google does on my Droid X.
The voice part did not work very well and is very limited compared to Google voice actions. I tested to see if running a different launcher would allow Google search and contrary to the other thread it still went through bing.
3. Build Quality. The devices did not feel nearly as high quality as the Droid 2 or the Droid X and not even as good as the Droid Incredible. This plastic on 2 of the 3 devices actually creeked when interacting with the device and the plastic was very slippery in my opinion. A case would be a must for me out I fear that it might slip out of mine hand. Its actually a very odd feeling. The glass on the front of the device is super high quality and the back feels very cheap.
4. The Capacative Keys. On 2 of the 3 devices the keys were very unresponsive requiring 3-4 touches before it would actually take. It was always frustrating to say the least. Also, the backlight for the keys turn off way to soon. Way before the screen does and they are almost impossible to see without the back light. My account manager said there is a setting to keep them on longer but we could not find it in the time that I had them (was busy trying to test as much as possible).
5. The GPS. This is a total deal breaker for me. The GPS did not work at all on 2 of the devices. The third device would grab a signal but it would report my position more than mile away from where I actually was. It was not good.
The Verdict: A solid 6.5/10 for me. This device has much potential but was released with way to many issues. The GPS not working is inexcusable. The Bing thing is not for me either. I am very dissapointed that we can't default to google if we want it. If the GPS worked correctly and it didn't have Bing it would have been an 8.5/10.
Note: As always take things like this with a grain of salt but my account manager said that the GPS issue is software related and a firmware fix for the GPS would be out by the end of September. He also told me what I have heard before and that Froyo would be out for the Fascinate near the end of the year.
My .02
