As a phone - this phone sucks (sometimes)

BoulderGeek said:

Man, some of you are rheetards.

I know, that doesn't reflect well on actual shortbus developmentally challenged people out there. So, I apologize to all lobotomy patients who aren't fanboys.

And I think the captivate does suck as a phone. I had two dropped calls while stationary, outside and showing 4 bars, this weekend. My unlocked $20 LG prepay phone from Mexico does better.

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I think its either a defective phone or REALLY bad coverage/ reception in your area. I have NEVER had a dropped call. And I live in Northern California and use Edge primarily. My calls sound great. My Wifi works great.

I read all these horror stories about the Captivate on these forums and i honestly don't know what to think. I know 10 other people who own a Captivate and none of them have any of the issues I hear about on the forums. other than the GPS which is more of a fleeting annoyance (it fails for me 1 out of every 10 times I use it). I'm really starting to think most of the complaints fraudulent. I do believe that some are having issues, due to faulty phones or whatever other issue. But you see so many people posting that they HATE their phones and how horrible they are, but they won't get rid of them.

Make me wonder...

I'll give my opinion of both (have the Captivate and played with my friend's iPhone 4 for quite a while when deciding what to buy).

These are my opinions of the biggest talking points:

- Both screens are great. But once you get used to the Captivate screen, the iPhone 4's screen feels like a significant downgrade.
- The Apple market destroys the Android market. That's not even when factoring the gaming market on the iPhone. Then again, they all cost a pretty penny (unless you JB).
- Closed vs. Open. Not a big deal to many. I just get very bored of the iOS.
- GPS. iPhone's work. Captivate is hit or miss. When I actually use my GPS (not just testing in my room), it has worked spot on with Google Nav. The only time it was off was when I was on a service road and it thought I was on the highway (around a 5-10foot error). Reroutes within 2-5seconds as well.
- Phone calls. Never had issues with mine but neither have my iPhone 4 friends.

Both phones are great. Don't let either side fool you. You can't go wrong picking either phone.

BoulderGeek said:

And I think the captivate does suck as a phone. I had two dropped calls while stationary, outside and showing 4 bars,

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And countless people haven't had this problem. I fail to see how your anecdotal experience makes this a universally bad phone... versus some unique thing going on in your situation (either a defective phone, or location-specific issues with your local towers). For example, towers can drop calls for plenty of reasons unrelated to a particular phone or model, and there's no saying that in that specific instance that your call wouldn't have been dropped had you been on a different phone.

The Captivate is the first phone that I've ever had that works from anywhere in my apartment consistently. Granted my previous phone was about 5 years old now so I can't compare it to other android phones or iPhone .

sremick said:

And countless people haven't had this problem. I fail to see how your anecdotal experience makes this a universally bad phone... versus some unique thing going on in your situation (either a defective phone, or location-specific issues with your local towers). For example, towers can drop calls for plenty of reasons unrelated to a particular phone or model, and there's no saying that in that specific instance that your call wouldn't have been dropped had you been on a different phone.

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about towers, if you are close enough to 2 or more of them, they can actually fight over who holds your signal and you can be dropped on any phone period due to this.

For all it's problems, it's still the best phone I've owned.

highspeed11 said:

For all it's problems, it's still the best phone I've owned.

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+1 - this phone has blown me away so far. The screen is incredible, the touch-screen is super-responsive and everything has worked great so far. The only issue I've had is the GPS being slightly flaky (but it still works).

Zero problems with freezes, dropped calls, call quality, Wi-Fi (and it's set up in three locations so far) etc...

sremick said:

And countless people haven't had this problem. I fail to see how your anecdotal experience makes this a universally bad phone... versus some unique thing going on in your situation (either a defective phone, or location-specific issues with your local towers). For example, towers can drop calls for plenty of reasons unrelated to a particular phone or model, and there's no saying that in that specific instance that your call wouldn't have been dropped had you been on a different phone.

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I agree entirely.

I never expected that my participation in this thread would indicate that I thought that this was a universally bad phone.

Just like "Full Metal Jacket," there are many phones like my Captivate, but this one is mine. And it is a disappointment. Part of that (I believe) is the AT&T network. Part of that is the known issue of GPS. Part of that is the finding that WiFi is not as fast in streaming (burst is good) as other phones of this price range.

I'm sure that the Captivate and other Galaxy S phone _are_ satisfactory across the board for the great majority of users.

Just, not for me, where I live, and in comparison to other devices on other networks. That's why 'YMMV' exists.

And, as such, I can't be stuck with the above issues for the next two years. "The check is in the mail" answer from Samsung and AT&T isn't sufficient to dispel my reservations.

I came from an Apple 3G 8GB phone. I had put IOS4 on it, and it slowed my phone down so much the camera became near useless for me, cause it took over 15 seconds to load up (I have a toddler and need instant access to camera shots for the cute moments). I've never been an apple Fan, but when I got the 3G it was because it was a very cool phone that could do truly more then just make calls and text.

Apple Did some great things with the Iphone. They got AT&T to bend over and stop the previously rediculous data plan pricing on phones. They revolutionized the mobile gaming market, and the app store concept was a great movement.

My personal List of Pro/Con for each platform after owning my captivate since release.

Apple Iphone
+ Simple to Use UI
+ Simple Backup & Restore via Itunes
+ iPod + Itunes to Play, Sync & Rate Music
+ Phone Holds resell value
+ Ease of repair (I changed the glass on my 3g when I shattered it once)
+ Accessories like cases, car mounts & Bicycle mounts can be found for cheap.
+ Visual Voicemail is a plus and while not a big deal, its one I missed on my captivate until I migrated to Google VoiceMail.
- Heavily restricted UI. Themes are wonderful, and easy. Why apple doens't allow them is beyond me.
- Home button increasingly getting overused to band-aid the issue of lacking buttons.
- Multitasking is a hack.
- Premium Price for non-premium features. 8Gb/16GB/32GB pricing is ridiculous.
- Playback of nonstandard videos is very difficult and time consuming to convert to an approved format.
- Accessories have to be replaced (save cables) going to Iphone4 for any upgraders.

Android Specific
+ UI is easily customized, changed and easier to organize to your taste
+ Widgets for anything you can want. (Almost deserves two +)
+ Notification / Status Bar is implemented perfectly for one swipe access to all recent activity.
- Not easy to backup/Restore in comparison to iphone
- the UI can be overwhelming at first, and sometimes feels unpolished.
- Marketplace is lacking, and many apps feel unfinished

Captivate Specific
+ Screen is best screen I've ever seen on a phone.
+ Multitasking is super easy, and works very well on the captivate
+ Standard Cables (Micro-USB)
- USB slot is annoying to plug into sometimes
- GPS issues
- (until 2.2) mass updating apps on the device is a pain to deal with.
- Accessories like cases, and mounts are "universal" and never fit perfectly.

My wife has a 3GS running IOS4. Things she likes about my phone
+ The Screen is bigger and "crisper" to her.
+ The photoframe widget I have that cycles pictures on my main screen (lots of pictures of the little tike)
+ Woot.com and weather on one screen (or any combination of 2 "info" widgets in one place)
+ Camera takes better photos then her 3Gs

Other Misc details as a techie.
When you have a lot of notifications and updates on android, having them all in the notification/status bar, and hit the ONE you want to bring up is great, esp since it doesn't clear the rest off the bar. So when I goto a meeting, and ignore my phone for the duration, when I bring it back up, I can see a summary of all events that have happened (WordFeud tells me its my turn, 2 Emails, 2 txt msgs, and new conversations on gtalk). Had this happened on my iphone, I would have to manualy open each of those apps and have to remember to check each one individually. once you unlock your phone, your notifications are gone. Granted the apps like txt, and email will have the number of "unread" next to them, but there is no one stop notification place in iphone.

I give apple credit on the music front however. Playing music using the ipod is a great experience, and one android IMO can't come close to yet. Media scanning takes forever, and when I'm hiking/riding/driving using the music player it ALLWAYS stutters a little when a new song starts.

I love the google integration with android and being able to use google voice, and gtalk nativly. My wife had to buy BeeJiveIM to get close to the functionality I get for free with googletalk. Latitude is a lot of fun, and my good friends (NEVER COWORKERS!) have access too it. I don't know of a latitude equivalent on iphone, but its not a core feature that I would put as a plus or negative on either side. all iphone users are jealous of Swipe when I show that too them, as its a pretty neat ability. Plus its a snap to switch input keyboards on the fly in android, so when swipe is more annoying then useful, switching to android default is easy.

So All in All, for me Android on Samsung Captivate UnRooted/Unmodified, has more functionality and ease of use for my daily activities then my Iphone 3G did when it was jailbroken. Android, and android apps don't feel as "polished" as the iphone, but that doesn't take away any value of my android device over my experience with iphone 3G.

Damn, nice post!

Or nice damn post.

Or I guess the 50's version: Gee Willikers, swell post!

QUIT IT! Warnings will be handed out. If warnings are ignored, then bans will be issued. Simple.

SoFLO said:

QUIT IT! Warnings will be handed out. If warnings are ignored, then bans will be issued. Simple.

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You guys can consider yourselves lucky. Bans would be be the ONLY option if I had gotten to this first.

Play nice or go to someone else's sandbox.

Seemed to have been only one user actually causing the real problem.

TDQuiksilver said:

Seemed to have been only one user actually causing the real problem.

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Pot, meet kettle.

TDQuiksilver said:

Seemed to have been only one user actually causing the real problem.

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b1tchslappa99 said:

Pot, meet kettle.

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Ok, both of you knock it off.

b1tchslappa99, stop posting random pictures all over the place and trying to start trouble.

TDQuiksilver, stop meeting his taunts.

If this continues from either of you, you will be banned outright. This is ridiculous. Act like adults or go find another forum.

TDQuiksilver said:

End his babble and end the problem. Simple as that.

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Stop replying to his posts, report the issue, and leave it be. Simple as that. You're hanging by a thread right now.

SoFLO said:

Stop replying to his posts, report the issue, and leave it be. Simple as that. You're hanging by a thread right now.

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We HAVE been reporting the issue.

TDQuiksilver said:

We HAVE been reporting the issue.

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And, we have been dealing with those reports. We try to be pretty fair around here and don't outright ban people without cause. It also isn't an instantaneous thing when a post is reported. We have to review it and figure out what is going on. I'm sure that you and every other member here would prefer us to know what is going on before we just start banning people left and right, correct?

Now, that said there is a right and a wrong way to deal with an issue. Continuing to feed into an argument is the wrong way. Reporting it and leaving it alone is the right way. With the wrong way, you find yourself in trouble. With the right way, you stay out of trouble.

There is also a right and a wrong way to deal with a decision a Mod has made. Arguing about it on the open forum is the wrong way. Sending a PM to the Mod is the right way. Ignoring what a Mod just said about dropping the issue is the wrong way as well. Now, please drop it and allow this thread to go back to the original topic.

TDQuiksilver said:

We HAVE been reporting the issue.

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You didn't realize my post was a three-step process. You missed the first and last step. Conversation is over, this thread has strayed off topic far enough. If you want to discuss this further PM me.

Jofaba said:

Am I missing something? Is it now against the rules to complain about a product? I think that I've been pretty clear and fair in my comments but my latest posts have been deleted.

Is stuff happening between me posting and checking back?

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Jofaba said:

I must have missed an entire issue here. So strange coming here and suddenly seeing people being banned or threatened with being banned. Mind=blown

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Yes, unfortunately your post contained a quote of another post that was removed.....along with a bunch of other posts that where removed.

Boy i missed a lot.

Anywhoo back on topic. Im holding my captivate
in my hand and no service


but lay it on my pillow and its fine