• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

S2 skyrocket or htc vivid?

SGS2 skyrocket or HTC vivid

  • Skyrocket

    Votes: 25 83.3%
  • Vivid

    Votes: 5 16.7%

  • Total voters
    30
Just came from the AT&T store where they had both side by side. I eliminated the VIVID immediately because it had a side mounted charge port which made it unusable for the way I need to use it.

That item aside:

I did like the SENSE launcher better than TW but that was about all I liked about it.

The screen on the VIVID was dark and dull compared to the Skyr*. Both at full brighness it was like night and day (no pun intended). I didn't like the qHD fonts and icons which FOR ME were much too small. It made reading text FOR MY 64 yr old EYES too difficult. Font/Icon size was like looking at a 3.5" screen all over again.

IMO the Vivid was simply UGLY, the design of the back was bleh and it felt like it weighed 3x what the Skyr* did. Also felt lousy in the hand. The metal back was nice but just one more thing to scratch.

The other negative about the Vivid is the wait time until HTC provides a bootloader unlock for a permanent root. It could be days or it could be weeks or months.

Anyway, I ordered the Skyr* from Amazon without contract. They say "ships in 8 or 9 days" but I have no doubt it will ship within the next couple days. They have 30 day return with no restocking or shipping charges and no sales tax so worse case if I find it cheaper on eBay I will just return or cancel it. I'm in no rush as I still haven't fully configured the SGSII I got about 2 weeks ago and now am going to sell. :)
 
Upvote 0
I at this moment have a Skyrocket in my hand. It is a very sexy phone. I look forward to the day when I can test out LTE speeds, which will be as early as next month when I visit Atlanta :)
Was there a "special" SIM card as I have read about needed for it? The claim is that the "regular" SIM won't do LTE. I find that hard to comprehend because it's usually the provisioning of the SIM and not the card that adds the features. I'm using a 4yr old SIM in my GSII and am getting 10Mbps downloads (on rare occasions) so fake 4G is obviously working.
 
Upvote 0
I asked the guy in the AT&T store about that. He said that the 'newer' SIM cards would do LTE, so the one I got with the GS2 from a month ago would work fine. When I take a trip to Atlanta, or get LTE here in Orlando, I'm going to test it out myself. If it doesn't work, gonna head back to the LTE store and have a talk with the guy. He did seem a little unsure, since it's a new phone. He had to double-check the price :D
 
Upvote 0
No need for a special sim....my sim out of my infuse is connecting to lte just fine
What LTE speeds are you getting? One of the major blog sites said they used a sim from another android phone and didn't get LTE connection. They also said that regular sim wouldn't work at all in the VIVID. I find that hard to believe. The phone I played with in an ATT store just said "4G" on the top (no LTE here anyway). is there a special icon for LTE so you know it is in use?
 
Upvote 0
What LTE speeds are you getting? One of the major blog sites said they used a sim from another android phone and didn't get LTE connection. They also said that regular sim wouldn't work at all in the VIVID. I find that hard to believe. The phone I played with in an ATT store just said "4G" on the top (no LTE here anyway). is there a special icon for LTE so you know it is in use?
See the thread on speed tests. All those questions are answered there :D
 
Upvote 0
I'm debating too here's there main differences that I see on paper - I haven't seen eitehr in person yet.

- Vivid 1620MaH battery (5.1hr talk time), Skyrocket 1850MaH battery (7hr talk time)
- Vivid has qHD 540x960 display, Skyrocket has Super AMOLED plus (480 x 800)
- Both have Snapdragon Qualcomm APQ8060 processor, Vivid at 1.2Ghz, Skyrocket at 1.5Ghz
- Skyrocket has gingerbread 2.3.5, Vivid has 2.3.4 (not a big deal since both will get ICS)
- Skyrocket WILL support NFC, it's just disabled until ICS comes out, Vivid unsure yet

So on paper, it all points to Samsung. I'm kind of disappointed because I was really looking forward to the Vivid/Holiday. I haven't seen the displays side by side, but the HTC has that going for it. I'm not sure how important/useful NFC will be yet.
 
Upvote 0
i'm debating too here's there main differences that i see on paper - i haven't seen eitehr in person yet.

- vivid 1620mah battery (5.1hr talk time), skyrocket 1850mah battery (7hr talk time)
- vivid has qhd 540x960 display, skyrocket has super amoled plus (480 x 800)
- both have snapdragon qualcomm apq8060 processor, vivid at 1.2ghz, skyrocket at 1.5ghz
- skyrocket has gingerbread 2.3.5, vivid has 2.3.4 (not a big deal since both will get ics)
- skyrocket will support nfc, it's just disabled until ics comes out, vivid unsure yet

so on paper, it all points to samsung. I'm kind of disappointed because i was really looking forward to the vivid/holiday. I haven't seen the displays side by side, but the htc has that going for it. I'm not sure how important/useful nfc will be yet.

nfc?
 
Upvote 0
Eventually it can be used to transmit a number of things...including payment for items (google wallet)

Or simply waving your phone over a new device or item at the store and all of its specs appearing on the phone for you to study.

But probably not until you're on your third phone after this one and by then they'll have come up with something different that won't work until three phones after that.

Please don't put things on my phone that don't work and use them as selling features.
 
Upvote 0
But probably not until you're on your third phone after this one and by then they'll have come up with something different that won't work until three phones after that.

Please don't put things on my phone that don't work and use them as selling features.

Haha! Well....technically it works. The carriers have it deactivated until they can set up their own wallet app service ....which I am certain they will charger for
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones