Coming To Android

I think you should tell us what you like most about having an iphone, favorite features, the stuff you'd miss if you switched...

I have a fascinate, my wife has an iphone. This is my take:

Fascinate pros:
4'' super amoled screen, very colorful
Highly customizable - widgets. you can root it, upgrading yourself to 2.2, or swap launchers and customize without rooting it
Superior notification system to iOS
Android multitasking ability > iOS
Turn by turn navigation with the gps
mobile hotspot capability
Micro SD card

And here is what I love about my wifes iphone:

The whole "apple experience" is sooo smooth and polished. It's a walled garden but it's a very beautiful walled garden.
Higher resolution screen. Retina blows super amoled out of the water when it comes to fine detail resolution.
I love the heft and build quality of the iphone.
Front facing camera
Itunes synch is better imo. Having all your media come from one trusted source is great.
Music player is better
Battery life is better imo.

Again it all comes back to what you want out of a phone. My biggest gripes with the fascinate are the battery life (i use my phone a lot), being stuck with 2.1 (no flash, no upgrades, im too chicken to root), and the hoops I have to jump through to put music on it (all of my music is on our macbook). If you can live with that and really need the extra cash then go for it. The fascinate is a sweet little phone, and would be one of the top dogs were it not for sammy/verizons lack of attention.

cbEck said:

My biggest gripes with the fascinate are the battery life (i use my phone a lot), being stuck with 2.1 (no flash, no upgrades, im too chicken to root), and the hoops I have to jump through to put music on it (all of my music is on our macbook). If you can live with that and really need the extra cash then go for it. The fascinate is a sweet little phone, and would be one of the top dogs were it not for sammy/verizons lack of attention.

Click to expand...

Does your macbook have a built-in sd card reader? If so, I bought a micro-sd to sd card ($5 at bestbuy) and I use that to transfer everything between the my computer and my phone.

Now, if you're using ITunes to house/transfer/sync, that's a whole different thing altogether unfortunately.

You can still use iTunes if you want to sync music/podcasts.... Apps like TuneSync do this easily.

This is with cable or over wifi.

nunyazz said:

You can still use iTunes if you want to sync music/podcasts.... Apps like TuneSync do this easily.

Click to expand...

Doubletwist does a good job for me, just have to update playlists on doubletwist if you have changed them in iTunes before syncing doubletwist with your phone.

(Doubletwist loaded on PC, using stock player on phone)

Crucial said:

Does your macbook have a built-in sd card reader? If so, I bought a micro-sd to sd card ($5 at bestbuy) and I use that to transfer everything between the my computer and my phone.

Now, if you're using ITunes to house/transfer/sync, that's a whole different thing altogether unfortunately.

Click to expand...

Her macbook does not have an sd card reader, but I did pick up a usb micro sd reader from amazon.

I should clarify that the problems I have with the phone and the macbook deal with the laptop being unable to recognize my phone off the USB cable. It gives me the whole "drive is unsupported" error, so I have to use the terminal command trick to get it to recognize my phone. From there I've used double twist to manage music and files.

I recognize most of my issues stem from not having a pc at home to connect to (laptop died...). The battery life is also relative. Typically I have an hour of phone calls a day, a few hours of music/media use, and screen time around 3 hours on.

Why don't you root? It is honestly really easy to do. I was scared to at first, but now I've rooted my phone many times over like a breeze.

heinmillerlax said:

Or should I go with an incredible? I really like the fascinate but all this talk of it running on an old operating system kinda turns me off of it

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I wouldn't worry too much about it running on an old OS, you can get it to 2.2/Froyo very easy now days, just not from verizon quite yet.

The only real advantage would be the incredible having 2.2 out of the box IMO.

Don't forget Adobe Flash.

xjestersdeadx said:

Don't forget Adobe Flash.

Click to expand...

= 2.2 out of the box.

heinmillerlax said:

Anyone have input on Incredible v Fascinate?

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I have a Fascinate and my fiancee has an Incredible. I absolutely love my phone, and she absolutely hates hers. Had she known the iPhone was coming to Verizon (I told her it was, but she didn't believe me) she would have waited.

I think the screen is much nicer (in terms of color, viewability, and toughness) on the SF. And the SF seems to be much more stable to me (my girlfriends incredible seems to crash more often than my fascinate does). Not to mention that the samsung apps blow away the htc ones.

The two biggest problems with the SF are it's really poor GPS performance, and it's lack 2.2 support right now. Outside of that the SF really can't be beat on Verizon right now.

This fascinate is great but I greatly miss my iphone. But not as a phone, because I was on you know who and never had service. LOL!

I use google everything so all that part of android is awesome. And I will absolutely not go back to a non android phone again for that reason.Widgets are the bomb.Basically this is an awesome organizer and communication device. Which, duh, makes it an awesome smart phone. My only beef in that respect is I loathe the keyboard interface after IOS.

The advantage in my mind to the IOS universe is the curated system and unified community. Friday you open the app store and see what goodies Steve has for us this week, LOL! Everyone rejoices and suffers through each update, even if you have a two or three year old device.

And of course there's just way more quality niche apps for IOS. And, anyone moving from an I-device to this is going to be a little disappointed by the response and battery life.

I came to this Samsung Fascinate from a limping old 3G (three year old phone), and I was taken aback by the difference when I played games and such.

My plan is to address this dilemna by getting an IPad for the sake of the Ios world. Media, lifestyle apps, games, etc, on my ipad then all my information on my Android.

heinmillerlax said:

Anyone have input on Incredible v Fascinate?

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Personally I'd go with the Fascinate. Out of the box the Incredible's battery is god awful and Super Amoled beats plain Amoled out of the water any day. You might as well plan on rooting either whichever you choose because the Fasinate's upgradable to 2.2 with root while the Incredible can get 2.3.

Incredible = better software

Fascinate = better hardware

If you are sufficiently savvy and willing to put in a little time, the Fascinate can be modified into a great phone. If you're not savvy I'd stick with the iPhone. Wouldn't bother with the Incredible.

I chose the incredible over the fascinate because it was smaller in size which was better for me. The GPS is faster (unrooted) and it has 2.2 without having to root. I loved the screen more on the fascinate but that was really the only advantage over the incredible other than hardware. Good luck with your decision!