The Captivate

[PhoenixRose]

Yesterday, I bought the Captivate. I went into my local AT&T store, fully intending to purchase the i4. Of course, they told me that it would take 3-4 weeks for one to be shipped to the store. So, I took a look around and the salesman showed me the Captivate. The screen, of course, was amazing right off the bat.
He told me about the 30 "trial", so I decided "what the heck" and bought the phone. Then, as soon as I got home, I did as much research, and pursued this forum as much as I could in the past 24 hours.
I have to admit that there are some rather scary complaints and issues that people have had with the phone. But, I'm not one to use GPS, and the fact that the camera doesn't have a flash doesn't bother me, though, there are some issues that I have noticed.
1) The 3G indicator with the arrows isn't always lit up. I haven't had much chance to use the 3G, as I've mostly been at my home, using Wifi, but I was curious if that's normal, or does it mean I'm having connection issues?
2) The four light up buttons at the bottom seem to be rather unresponsive sometimes and I have to hit them multiple times. Is that normal for the phone? Or is it a defect that can be fixed by getting a new one?
3) It seems a bit slow sometimes? I'm not sure. It could be the fact that I've read so many people saying it's slow, that now I see it.

Those are really my only three issues with the phone, at the moment. Right now I'm trying to decide whether I want to return it and get an iPhone or continue using the Captivate. There are some features I really love. The screen is beautiful and I really love Swype. Honestly, I'd really miss Swype if I switched to another phone.
I think, I basically want some reasurrance that it is a good phone, despite the flaws, and worth the 200$.

Thanks!

 

[moodockr]

The only main issues that I have had with my phone is the battery life and I have done a full battery drain multiple times and the bottoms keys for me are sometimes unresponsive which is kind of annoying but other than that the phone is fantastic I am going to exchange for a new one Ill let you know if the problems are fixed with it

 

[CrimsonPride]

1) if youre on wifi the 3g arrows shouldnt light up, when youre on wifi the 3g is actually shut off. if you turn off wifi then the arrows should light up more

2) ive heard that a few did have defective buttons on the bottom, if i ever have to press mine more than once its because the light went off and i missed the button slightly.

3) some people say its slow but i guess it depends what phone you came from. i came from a slow phone so this seems fast to me, but everyone says its faster than the iphone 3gs so if you had one of those maybe you can compare it to that. you can download launchers from the android market that help speed it up though and those could help, ADW.Launcher and LauncherPro seem to be the most popular, i prefer ADW myself but have both

 

[tlo07]

You should definately install Advanced Task Killer from the Market. It really helps speed up the phone. When you turn the phone on, you don't realize all the crap applications that start up too. ATK will kill all the background stuff and free up quite a bit of memory. Thats the first thing I do when I turn my phone on in the morning, is kill off all the crap. I also run it a couple of times during the day. ADK is free so you have nothing to lose.

I am not having problems with unresponsive buttons. Occassionally when the phone is "asleep", I have to press the button which wakes it up, but then I have to press it again to actually get the functionality. If you are regularly pressing multiple times, you might want to consider exchanging as you may have a defective unit. I also notice instead of hitting the buttons dead-on, I have better luck pressing them near the top.