Is it worth upgrading to the Admire, from the LG optimus M?

For me the screen size makes more of a difference. I can finally play "cut the rope!"

save your money.. LG Esteem comes out in less than 2 weeks

from wat i experienced with both phones, although the admire has 800mhz beating the optimus by 200mhz, the Admire seems slower then the optimus m.... But the samsung does runs smooth though. i upgraded to a samsung admire thinking that with a 800mhz cpu would run a game called Pocket Legends which is a 3D mmo alot faster and less lag then the LG Optimus, but i was wrong... so im guessing the Admire lacks 3D quality. im also waiting to see if someone could find out how to overclock it then ill test it again. i think if your not a gamer type android user, the samsung might do just fine for u.

I was just going to ask this same question. I have Optimus M, and was wondering if it was really worth getting the Admire, mainly for the screen size. Been thinking about it - tho I am happy with and do love my Optimus M.

The Lg Esteem is going to be little overpriced when it first comes out so want to wait until prices go down. Also I am hoping that by year end or beginning of next year, the Admire will have dropped in price some - tho it's still not badly priced now. Hmmm.....

Upgraded to this it is faster than the optimus even when I clocked my optimus at 800. Cant wait to oc this abd it has a bigger screen. Comparing this phone to the optimus, this phone is far superior.

My ol lady has an Admire. I won't buy one because I have had THREE Samsung phones fail miserably on me with firmware bugs and hardware failures. LG on the other hand, has never failed me, and this is my fourth LG phone.

That being said, I'll try to be unbiased as I write this.

My rooted Optimus M (BobZHome ROM, r.O.C.K kernel) is clocked at 748 Mhz and is able to keep up with her rooted (stock ROM with bloatware removed) Admire. It does have a bigger screen than the M, BUT for some reason I can hold the Admire and the M side by side and the Optimus's display just looks sharper and more vibrant when looking at the exact same picture. It ain't just me... my girl noticed it first as we were trading pictures. I used Elixir to check out the specs on each display, and from what I can tell they have the same resolution. Also, for some reason on the Admire, taking a screen capture image with ShootMe ends up with the image being all blue and red. No idea why.

Elixir shows that the phone has an ambient light sensor, but it doesn't seem to respond to changes in light. Display was set to auto brightness when I tried this. Not really a problem for me since I like to set brightness manually, but it's worth mentioning here.

I loaded up SetCPU after I got the Admire rooted, and the CPU Max Speed setting was maxed out at 800 Mhz with no option to adjust it higher. Need an overclockable kernel, but this ain't a fault with the phone itself.

Also, ringtones play at a decently loud volume when you preview them, but once they are set (using Handcent SMS) they play at a real low volume even with all the volume controls maxed out. I actually had to go into the phone, grab the sound files and amplify them on my computer, then dump them back into the phone. I'm talking ANY sound file, stock or otherwise. Don't know if this is a issue with the Admire but I run Handcent SMS also, and don't have this problem. Didn't have a problem on my old Ascend, either.

Not a whole lot of RAM on the phone as reported by Elixir (shows 79Mb unused), although I think the specs show 512Mb internal. Not much internal storage either (130Mb?) but Link2SD can take care of that problem.

Other than that, it's a decent phone with good performance. Doesn't really lag much, and graphics are ok. Battery life sucked until I removed the bloatware. Paid $99 for it, but the price will probably come down to $79 soon enough, if it ain't come down already. I see the LG Esteem is coming out, I have no idea what that phone is all about so I'm o go check it out now.

ASheehanJr said:

I was thinking about getting the Samsung Admire, by trading in my Lg Optimus M. Just want to know if its worth it for a phone that is only 20% faster?

Click to expand...

EVRYTHIG WAS FINE... till i got cocky..wanted to unROOT an Start fresh on PLAYFULS colckwork recovery
long story short
i zeroed my optimus M used white rabbit an took phone to metro.... not 1 OPTIMUS M at two different corporate stores... (have to order) a replacement

i had warranty through bestbuy so i went there
he checked an said OPTIMUS M was DISCONTINUED and set me up with an ADMIRE

my optimus overclook speed was 729 MHz BOBZ GB cm7 9/30 build

this ADMIRE is super stable the screen size is noticeable coming from OM display colors seem duller yet cleaner its display is CRISP ive yet to have any FC screens the 3.2.4 gingerbread is really nice an right now im happy i zeroed Om i misser but i got a new G F an her name is ADMIRE

ASheehanJr said:

I was thinking about getting the Samsung Admire, by trading in my Lg Optimus M. Just want to know if its worth it for a phone that is only 20% faster?

Click to expand...

EVRYTHIG WAS FINE... till i got cocky..wanted to unROOT an Start fresh on PLAYFULS colckwork recovery
long story short
i zeroed my optimus M used white rabbit an took phone to metro.... not 1 OPTIMUS M at two different corporate stores... (have to order) a replacement

i had warranty through bestbuy so i went there
he checked an said OPTIMUS M was DISCONTINUED and set me up with an ADMIRE

my optimus overclook speed was 729 MHz BOBZ GB cm7 9/30 build

this ADMIRE is super stable the screen size is noticeable coming from OM display colors seem duller yet cleaner its display is CRISP ive yet to have any FC screens the 3.2.4 gingerbread is really nice an right now im happy i zeroed Om i misser but i got a new G F an her name is ADMIRE

ASheehanJr said:

I'm actually still waiting for my Optimus replacement. I would of had my Admire yesterday but, I didn't here FedEX knock on the door and missed them. Hopefully later on today I will get it and when I do, I will have a new GF to play with. At least till my Optimus comes in.

Click to expand...

keep the admire out of the list of phones ive had (Samsung Galaxy Prevail (Boost Mobile) LG Optimus V (virgin mobile ZTE score(Cricket woreless) and currentilly the Samsung admire (MetroPCS)

ASheehanJr said:

I'm actually still waiting for my Optimus replacement. I would of had my Admire yesterday but, I didn't here FedEX knock on the door and missed them. Hopefully later on today I will get it and when I do, I will have a new GF to play with. At least till my Optimus comes in.

Click to expand...

keep the admire out of the list of phones ive had (Samsung Galaxy Prevail (Boost Mobile) LG Optimus V (virgin mobile ZTE score(Cricket wireless) and currentilly the Samsung admire (MetroPCS)

Overall, I really like my Admire. Being that it is so new, not a lot of custom mods out yet but at least it was able to be rooted. This is my first Android phone and coming from the iPhone 3GS, this is a pretty good OS. I think the Android is fairly impressive being that it is basically the PC equivalent of phones (runs on wide varieties of hardware with a core OS that is extensible and extendable) whereas Apple goes with the hand and glove approach. From a cost perspective, the Admire wins handily. It is really inexpensive and a good value. MetroPCS is a good service for the price. If we could get some uncapped 3G love, I would be thrilled!

First, thanks to all that have commented on pros and cons of Admire, very helpful. Think once they have a custom rom and/or price change, I'll make decision on getting it or the Esteem. My Optimus is still working great, but would really like the bigger screen....

Just wondering, tho I do read good reviews from those that already have the Admire, not understanding why there are also not-so-good comments about it; even developers not wanting to work with it. Any comments on this? My boyfriend has this phone (unrooted) and really likes it (so do I). TIA

Having had both phones, I sort of regret getting the admire a bit. Only because I've already seen what can be done with the Optimus.

I souped up my Optimus M with a custom rom and rooted apps and that thing was flying. No problems and it feels more solid in your hand.

The Admire has no custom roms/recovery right now. Which means that you cant overclock, customize or install on an ext partition. This last part is very important as the Admire has pretty limited memory space. With my customized Optimus M, I could extend the android memory onto the sd card which gave me plenty of space for apps. I'm practically full on the Admire.

The Optimus M's battery life was great before and with setcpu and juicedefender, it lasts all day once everything is tweaked.

The Admire has lousy battery life stock and once rooted with the above apps, it does last much longer but not quite as long as the Optimus. This is with the Optimus oc'ed at 747 or so versus the Admire stock at 800, both underclocked when not in use. I'm hoping that a custom rom will help tame things, like the weird brightness issues. The underclocking for the Admire is limited too. The Optimus has more usable steps.

I bought the Admire to future proof against a custom rom. It is a tad bit better than the Optimus in terms of speed and screen size. My fingers really dont notice the size difference when touching the screen though. For 30 bucks more its worth it, but only if you're willing to wait the 6 months to a year for a custom rom on par with those available for the Optimus. Otherwise if you want performance right now, get the Optimus. I souped one up for an idiot cousin and hid the apps that are detrimental and she has had no problems whatsoever haha.

The Admire does have Gorilla Glass, which is the same thing as the pyrex cookware you might have in your kitchen. Pretty unbreakable/unscratchable unless you're not the careful type. But its irrelevant if you take care of your phones anyways.

If it helps any, waiting for the roms for the Admire might be worth it too, considering how fast it took to root this phone versus the optimus. If somebody makes a custom recovery and rom that handles darktremor app2sd and keeps the improvements of 2.3.4 within the next 6 months then its definitely worth the wait. Just root and get setcpu and juicedefender to cope in the meantime. Its a decent phone just not on par with a customized Optimus yet.