Verizon Private Sale - Upgrade Eris?

[knitpurlgurl]

I got the "Private Sale" invite from Verizon today. It's very tempting to upgrade to the Thunderbolt, however when Verizon has these sales it typically means that they are rolling out something bigger, better, and newer soon after the sale event. What are your thoughts? Are you going to hang onto Eris until a dual processor phone comes out?

 

[doogald]

I got the "Private Sale" invite from Verizon today. It's very tempting to upgrade to the Thunderbolt, however when Verizon has these sales it typically means that they are rolling out something bigger, better, and newer soon after the sale event. What are your thoughts? Are you going to hang onto Eris until a dual processor phone comes out?

There are some dual-processor phones coming out at the end of the week (allegedly) - the Droid X2 will be out. Strangely, though, it's not LTE. (It is also missing a front-facing camera if that is important.) That Playstation phone is also out this week, too, I think. (Not my cup of tea.)

The Droid Charge came out last week and I think that's a better phone than the TBolt. IMHO. (Much better battery life, allegedly, with similar performance specs.)

The odds of getting LTE anywhere near where I live and play is extremely remote - I'll settle for stable 4G - so I am not as wild about LTE as others.

There should be a Galaxy S2 phone coming to Verizon at some point this year, but I think one key thing to know is that no matter what day you are thinking about getting a new phone, there is probably a great, new phone coming out at some point in the next 2 to 6 weeks.

 

[stanlalee]

droid2x is already out. I upgraded to the Tbolt and dont regret it. Rooted 3 days after I got it. Thanks to the dev's and leaks my Tbolt already has Gingerbread/sense 2.1+ everything I want from sense 3.0 (fully functional lockscreen, weather, messenging, wallpaper), working netflix ect, I could care less about dual core. If it matters rooted froyo Tbolt quadrant scores for me (overclocked to 1.7ghz which it has no problem doing) were 2700, Linpack 60 and neocore 59 fps all day long. these easily match unrooted dx2, atrix and thus likely bionic. More importantly I'll take 4G LTE over dual core all day. if your going to wait, wait for both (which rules on d2x).

 

[mrhomiec]

i just want a phone that'll last 2 years worth of technology advances and new android versions. even tho there's rooting, i want the sense that my phone is being supported for the full 2 year contract. unlike the Eris, it was literally dropped 3-months after i got it. that was pretty much a face-palm.

i'm hoping for a Nexus-line phone to come over, with the Nexus S being on all except Verizon. it seems pretty dim. my upgrade is around the holiday, and so far that's when the new Nexus seems to roll out.

 

[doogald]

i'm hoping for a Nexus-line phone to come over, with the Nexus S being on all except Verizon. it seems pretty dim. my upgrade is around the holiday, and so far that's when the new Nexus seems to roll out.

I truly believe that Verizon will never have a Nexus branded phone like that. That's just not the Verizon way. They made a decision to go ahead with the iPhone, but in that specific case, they are selling plenty, and Apple does almost all of the support.

VZW had said that they would have the Nexus One last year, then decided against it and went with the similar, but proprietary, Incredible instead. I would bank on this being the policy going forward. Hopefully they will surprise us someday.

 

[Gato]

How the heck do you get a private sale invite? I've been with big red for 10 years....I got nothing.

 

[knitpurlgurl]

How the heck do you get a private sale invite? I've been with big red for 10 years....I got nothing.

I've been with Verizon for 10 yrs too. I just got the invite yesterday in the mail. So watch for it.

 

[Gato]

Strange. I just tried to login to My Verizon to see what my current options are (I am eligible for reduced pricing but NE2 is in Dec.) and I cannot get upgrade options to load. It does nothing. Wonder what that could mean?

 

[knitpurlgurl]

Strange. I just tried to login to My Verizon to see what my current options are (I am eligible for reduced pricing but NE2 is in Dec.) and I cannot get upgrade options to load. It does nothing. Wonder what that could mean?

Who knows. I've had network issues with Verizon all day.

 

[Podivin]

i just want a phone that'll last 2 years worth of technology advances and new android versions.

I think the only way you're going to get this is to buy a bleeding edge phone the day it's released (and THEN you're going to have to deal with new technology bugs). Otherwise I don't think there is a smartphone out there that will still be 100% supported 2 years from now - things just change too fast.

To answer KPG's question, if you like the form factor and the price is right - go for it. I've never had the impression that you hate your Eris (especially after rooting it). The Thunderbolt is going to be such a step up that you'll be pleased with it (I love my DInc, but I always liked my Eris too).

 

[mrhomiec]

I think the only way you're going to get this is to buy a bleeding edge phone the day it's released.

i just want the hardware to support future OS updates officially. like i mentioned on the Eris, it was "officially" dead what? 9-months into it? i still love my Eris, but only cause rooting saved it. i don't like relying on rooting, with all the anti-rooting or not being able to "fully" root stuff that's been coming up in recent phones.

 

[doogald]

i just want the hardware to support future OS updates officially. like i mentioned on the Eris, it was "officially" dead what? 9-months into it? i still love my Eris, but only cause rooting saved it. i don't like relying on rooting, with all the anti-rooting or not being able to "fully" root stuff that's been coming up in recent phones.

The good news is that most of the major vendors and US carriers have agreed to officially provide updates to phones for 18 months "as long as the hardware supports it." A lot of people are taking the part that I put in quotes as the ultimate excuse for OEMs and carriers, but I remain optimistic that Android will stabilize a bit and they will be able and willing to provide future upgrades more easily and readily.

Time will tell. That said, my inclination is to buy a phone based on the software it is running the day that I buy, and never count on any upgrades.

 

[doogald]

I got the "Private Sale" invite from Verizon today. It's very tempting to upgrade to the Thunderbolt, however when Verizon has these sales it typically means that they are rolling out something bigger, better, and newer soon after the sale event. What are your thoughts? Are you going to hang onto Eris until a dual processor phone comes out?

I just got that Private Sale mailing, too. I don't think that I want a Thunderbolt enough to go for it.

 

[mrhomiec]

and behold, no longer have to worry about a non-rootable HTC phone anymore!

Behold, the Power of the Android Community: HTC to Unlock Future Bootloaders

so as long the next phone i get is HTC, and follows this unlock, i'm prolly getting that one.

 

[doogald]

and behold, no longer have to worry about a non-rootable HTC phone anymore!

Behold, the Power of the Android Community: HTC to Unlock Future Bootloaders

so as long the next phone i get is HTC, and follows this unlock, i'm prolly getting that one.

We still don't know if existing phones (Thunderbolt, Incredible 2 - I think that's it for VZW) will get decrypted and unlockable bootloaders. I hope that they do.