I want the Captivate, but ...

It all comes down to your needs and wants. I consider myself a power user in excess and the Aria has everything I want and need (even if I've had to create it myself). Samsung is renowned for screwing over their smartphone users and providing horrible customer service (I can attest to this myself after speaking to worthless level four techs), where as HTC has a legacy of creating hardware platforms that are easily modifiable and thus are kept alive via the community of developers at XDA even if the device isn't supported officially. For example, I have a nearly fully functional FroYo build on my old Fuze right now thanks to the xdandroid project. Just some food for thought.

I have the Aria (my first Android smartphone and love it). I bought the Captivate, knowing that I could return it in 30 day, with a $35 restocking fee.

I prefer the Aria.

I used the Captivate for 17 straight days before I had enough. My thoughts on the Captivate.

Nice screen. Blue tint to it, but really nice. I like the 8 gig internal storage and I loaded a ton of my music onto it. Really nice camera features and functions, panorama mode is very cool. Camera quality good outdoors and in well lit, but pretty poor indoors and not so well lit conditions. The phone does not feel good in the hand and the haptic controls at the bottom are not easy to use "one handed". To be comfortable, probably best as a two handed device for heavy usage. The deal beaker for me was the Google Maps/Navigate function. This does/did not work. Took forever to locate gps signal and when it finally did, it was spotty and very inconsistent. I travel a lot for work and Navigation is a big deal for me. The Google Navigation on the Aria is ALWAYS spot on. Love it. To be honest, if the Nav on the Captivate worked like it does on my Aria, I would have kept the Captivate. The built in media/music player on the Captivate is really great as well.

I like the Captivate a lot but the dysfunctional Nav and how poorly it felt in my hand were deal breakers for me. Would love to hear from other Captivate people who have useful Google Navigation, did I just have a "lemon"?

I am happy to stick with my Aria......

Tasmin said:

And for the record, I'm an add-on line on a family plan, so I don't qualify for any of the offers that already have the Captivate down under $100.

Edit: Okay, now really bummed. Apparently I don't qualify for an Aria for less than $100 either. I figured that the free or $0.01 deals had been out long enough now that add-on lines would be at least approaching that price as well.

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i was in the same boat... family plan but my line was considered an add on line...tried to get the aria through walmart as they had it for free,free activation.free shipping and a $40 gift card...i pay the tax of $33 ...so i make $7... my wifes number was listed as primary(which is the line that gets the best deals and discounts) it was going to cost me $130 for the aria...ha...i called up at&t and and asked if i could change who's line was the primary and he said no problem...he also explained to me that it doesn't change anything on the bill except who is the primary number nothing else, not the way the bill comes and who pays the bill it all stays the same... it took about 5 minutes to complete on their end and it was instant...went back to Walmart's site and boom boom shaga laga boomboom i got my free aria with a $7 profit.....so see if you can change the primary...it worked for me

The captivate and it's tmobile twin both have a well documented and hereto unfixed agps bug rendering agps useless. This means that the captivate requires a hard gps lock everytime you use it instead of getting assistance from the network to guide the gps signal to where you are in a fraction of the time. Where's the GPS fix for the Samsung Vibrant and Captivate? -- Engadget Mobile

s919rider said:

I have the Aria (my first Android smartphone and love it). I bought the Captivate, knowing that I could return it in 30 day, with a $35 restocking fee.

I prefer the Aria.

I used the Captivate for 17 straight days before I had enough. My thoughts on the Captivate.

Nice screen. Blue tint to it, but really nice. I like the 8 gig internal storage and I loaded a ton of my music onto it. Really nice camera features and functions, panorama mode is very cool. Camera quality good outdoors and in well lit, but pretty poor indoors and not so well lit conditions. The phone does not feel good in the hand and the haptic controls at the bottom are not easy to use "one handed". To be comfortable, probably best as a two handed device for heavy usage. The deal beaker for me was the Google Maps/Navigate function. This does/did not work. Took forever to locate gps signal and when it finally did, it was spotty and very inconsistent. I travel a lot for work and Navigation is a big deal for me. The Google Navigation on the Aria is ALWAYS spot on. Love it. To be honest, if the Nav on the Captivate worked like it does on my Aria, I would have kept the Captivate. The built in media/music player on the Captivate is really great as well.

I like the Captivate a lot but the dysfunctional Nav and how poorly it felt in my hand were deal breakers for me. Would love to hear from other Captivate people who have useful Google Navigation, did I just have a "lemon"?

I am happy to stick with my Aria......

Click to expand...

it came wit 16gigs

FYI, I am someone who has, at least temporarily, switched FROM the captivate to the aria.

Why?

The captivate is gorgeous, but went through three, count 'em, three exchanges on them before I finally gave up. the gps workaround is easy enough, but there is a terrible wifi problem on some of them -- mentioned in these forums -- which could not be fixed, and which even new phones from different shipments showed.

a smartphone without wireless connectivity is a parsnip.

so i gave up and tried the aria; after 2 days and sideloading swype -- without rooting, thanks to this forum -- i'm happy. sense is gorgeous, but most important, the phone just works. everything works, easily, with no problems. htc really knows what they are doing, IMO.

I still have a couple of weeks to contemplate my options, but for my needs, the aria might be perfect. i don't take pictures, so i don't give a crap about the camera; the space is an issue but an SD card is easy enough for the aria, and the processor is awesome on the aria. i need a reliable smartphone that can handle lots of emailing, is world b/c i travel internationally, and doesn't require a lot of messing and fixing.

i do miss the 4" super amoled screen, admittedly, but that's about it. we'll see if i give the samsung one more go, but tonight i am leaning against it.

Having both the Aria and the Captivate I use the Aria. Because it works. Everything works and works well.

I also have an HTC Desire that I bought from a Canadian web site. I use the desire on the AT&T network here in the USA.

I prefer the Desire over the Aria, hands down.

I know, too many phones for one person but I like my gadgets

If considering the Desire to use in USA AT&T, be sure to get the A8182 model...

Wow the Desire is not cheap, I also did not know it was kind of like the upgrade to the Nexus One.

strose09 said:

Wow the Desire is not cheap, I also did not know it was kind of like the upgrade to the Nexus One.

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It's not an upgrade to the N1, they enabled FM radio, removed noise cancelling, changed the form factor slightly, added hardware buttons, changed to optical track ball, and added sense.

The guts are N1 hardware just like the Incredible is. AT&T should have picked the Desire up last Spring but they are idiots.

I have used and sold both, and to be honest, I prefer the HTC Aria over the Captivate.

1. HTC Sense UI is better IMO
2. Much smaller and mobile for someone who is on the go
3. Unless you play games, then you don't need the super duper processing power
4. Aria will get even faster when it gets pushed 2.2 with the new compiler in Froyo
5. Camera works great and you don't have a flash on the Captivate anyway so no worries there
6. You can download the older version of HTC sync, and as long as you dont update it you can side load apps (YAY MusicJunk!)

There is my $0.02.