Attain vs. Admire on MetroPCS

[AppleUser]

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• SEE OTHER FORUM POST: http://androidforums.com/lg-connect-4g/511271-good-bad-lg-connect-phone-metropcs-2.html#post4071382

• AND: http://androidforums.com/lg-connect-4g/511271-good-bad-lg-connect-phone-metropcs-2.html#post4062022

To add just add more differences between these two, such as:

• The Visual Voice app on the Admire gives only sound, no text translation. On the Attain, one gets BOTH sound and text. Is there a way to have the Admire produce text from a deposited voice mail ?

• With the Admire, one can easily scroll through the home set of apps by the dots on either side of the three dock icons. But on the Attain, the dots are in a ridiculously crowded area at the top of the apps. If one tries to swipe to change the screen, often an app is launched. Stupid design. Anyone know of a way to reduce those dock icons and bring the dots down to the far right and far left like the Admire ?

Anyone know how to get a nice Attain-like dialpad on the Admire ?

Anyone know how to get a nice large date and time in the center of the Attain ?

 

[EarlyMon]

Don't know if this helps any -

I use QuickDesk Beta (tied mine to a long press of my search key) to really manage my preferred apps launch. Others also recommend SwipePad for this. Personally, I find this sort of thing to be Android's missing link. I use it on all of my phones.

I think many agree that the HTC style clock widgets can't be beat, you can find very similar with Beautiful Widgets, if pressed for cash, a developer-provided free and legal copy at getjar.com or search for clock widgets in the Market / Play Store, lots to choose from.

Can't speak specifically to the dialer differences, but many like the Go Contacts EX (includes dialer) - for that matter, people like a lot of the Go customizations, including the launcher.

Haven't seen a voicemail to text that I liked or without a transcription service fee, so can't comment there.

Hope this helps!

 

[AppleUser]

Of course it helps. But the Attain does have excellent voice-mail to text translation, but the same app on the Admire has none. The phone manufacturer reps seem to mostly indicate "talk with MetroPCS because they wanted it that way". If this is true, someone at MetroPCS should seek alternative employment.

Irrespective of it being 4G and a faster processor, many people would choose the Attain, and not the Admire, because of:

 

[EarlyMon]

Yes, they would, if that's what interests them. Android is all about choice.

Big price difference, too. And let's talk about that and the manufacturer / carrier specifications process.

The Attain has a 4G radio, 4x the storage, and a battery that's a tiny bit bigger. Those were the key marketing differentiators specified. Then, in all likelihood, Metro specified the target price. And that's where Samsung likely gave them a checklist of possible features and a formula for how many and what kind of features could be had within the target price.

So Samsung could say Metro made the choices, and Metro could say Samsung limited the choices and in their narrow contexts, neither would be lying. But the truth is that it was a cooperative specs effort in all likelihood.

So the feature frustration is put upon you by economics, and not just between those two parties, some of it is a kind of political economics.

Consider what approximately $200 bucks buys you for a subsidized phone on, let's say, Verizon. Going in as a new customer, that much will get you an HTC Rezound, Motorola RAZR Maxx, or Samsung Galaxy Nexus. (All upwards to $800 off contract, but the target is on-contract.)

So, makers like Samsung and LG have to protect their model variations between carriers and against other makers while Metro has to protect its contract advantages against other carriers.

That's how you (or any of us) are presented with the weird phone choices on any carrier.

And don't get me wrong on the voicemail thing, I wasn't doubting if that worked, I was just saying that I haven't personally seen that without a high error rate (and I haven't seen everything).

PS - the top end phones mentioned will have features missing that you want. Don't know which ones, but that's how it works. You add apps or get admin access (root) and change to what you like, that's the solution, because the higher models have more flexibility that way, too.

Note, I am not knocking Metro or its phone choices, just explaining why it is what it is.

 

[AppleUser]

Well-stated. It's true. Metro blames Samsung and Samsung blames Metro. Because of your recommendations, will chose the Attain over the Admire. The Connect would be the best choice if and when they iron out the very poor battery life and other bugs.

 

[SamsungAdmire]

the attain has like a 1ghz processor and snap dragon right? obviously wins, but i hate the fact that phone has no root at all, since i consider the attain a more advanced admire in terms of speed, etc.

 

[AppleUser]

i hate the fact that phone has no root at all, since i consider the attain a more advanced admire in terms of speed, etc.

Having an Apple background, I'm not familiar with Rooting. Won't a root be available soon ?

The Admire is neat in that if your rooting fails, it's only throwing away $50.

 

[SamsungAdmire]

Having an Apple background, I'm not familiar with Rooting. Won't a root be available soon ?

The Admire is neat in that if your rooting fails, it's only throwing away $50.

yah maybe but its been 2 months since its release but i hope it gets a root SOON since the lg connect already has root and custom roms too in like a month after its release
but as of right now i dont really care about the attain

edit : + i hope the attain 'all things root' dont end up like the messy admire..lol

 

[AppleUser]

i hope the attain 'all things root' dont end up like the messy admire..lol

Please explain.

 

[EarlyMon]

Having an Apple background, I'm not familiar with Rooting.

Some compare iOS jailbreaking to rooting, but it's not. It's like admin access on a Win PC or Mac OS X.

I'll assume that Apple background means you are familiar with OS X.

As you may know, OS X is unix (various BSD variants put together, actually), and then the window management runs on that, and apps access both parts. And OS X, unlike iOS, does preemptive multitasking, thanks to its unix foundation.

Same model for Android, but it uses the Linux variant of unix.

Android = Linux (with services) + Dalvik Virtual Machine + apps running in Dalvik using Linux services

And just like on OS X because it's this way for all unix, the admin user is named root.

In OS X, to install some things or make changes, you get a pop-up dialog to re-enter your password. That's because as the main user, you have temporary root privileges on demand, and you have to authenticate for that specific use. Very unixy.

In Android, rooting opens up the locked partitions long enough to install a Superuser app (superuser=root, generic name vs. specific name). When something needs to get root access, that app provides your authentication via a pop-up that says allow or disallow, instead of a password.

All other rooting stuff - changing system apps, themes, the whole rom (Android image) - flows from having access to that privilege set (which included unlocking the locked operating system area).

That's the whole rooting deal in a nutshell.

 

[AppleUser]

Thank you. Checking out these two phones feels like being beating up in a fist fight.

Okay, I just want to transfer pictures from the Attain or Admire to my computer. Easy ? NO !! With every cell I've owned thus far, one pairs the phone with the Mac and one can BROWSE device or SEND file. But with these two models... NO ! The Mac only can SEND. Spoke with a Samsung rep who said to download the USB Mac driver from their website. NO ! Told him there is no USB Mac driver, and the Mac should be ready to go anyway. He apologized and found out there is no Mac driver, and that these phones were not designed to be accessed by a Mac.

So the Rep then said I need to text message each one to myself or text them to myself or pry open the back cover and pry out the 2GB SD card inside. Furthermore, he agreed that there is no way to make a side button activate the shutter. Yes, this cell is not a camera, but it's not advisable to have to push a device forward with your thumb or finger on a localized area when you are supposed to hold it still for taking a picture. They should have programmed a side button when the camera or video is activated.

Geeeeeeeez.

 

[EarlyMon]

Ah - not connecting via USB making your SD card act as a simple thumb drive is totally a Samsung issue, not Android, not Apple. Drove me nuts with my Samsung Moment and my Macs. Samsung is love with Windows, no question.

Sounds like you're fighting Bluetooth because that wouldn't work.

Try one of these, see if it works for you - EStrongs File Explorer, SwiFTP or DavDrive to connect your phone to your Mac via wifi. Follow your nose for File Sharing options in System Preferences on the Mac. EStrongs will be a little slower, but will give you a nice file browser as well as LAN interconnect capabilities, so it's pretty nice.

To make matters worse, the Samsung/Bluetooth xfer issue varies by version of OS X.

 

[AppleUser]

How in the H+++ do you know so much ??

Okay, tried out the Motorola Razr. HERE: DROID RAZR by MOTOROLA - Purple 16GB (Verizon Wireless) | Costco Wireless

You would think it would be a clear winner, right ? NOPE. The Admire and Attain were better in most ways. After 25 minutes of use:

BETTER
• I could actually dictate a telephone number in the TO field of a new message, and it appeared ! Cannot do that on the Attain nor the Admire. Hope Metro fixes this issue to incorporate speech to numbers in the TO: field on all their Androids.
• Seemed to surf faster, but the videos did not load. Maybe that's why disney.com took four seconds on the MD, but 16 seconds on the Attain.
• Voice quality slightly better than the two Metro phones
• Amazingly lightweight yet a larger screen
• Took pictures faster... less delay than Metro. Maybe 0.25 seconds compared to one second on Metros.
• Keyboard had large pop-keys like the iPhone

WORSE OR UNACCEPTABLE
• The dial keypad was not as good at the Attain, but better than the Admire. These manufacturers need to fill the button space with the numbers and letters.
• The lower buttons were not illuminated and the emblems were not easy to discern. Stupid design.
• The unlock was that silly dedicated tab swipe found on the Admire.
• USB charging port is at the top. Stupid.
• Display date in very small text, much much smaller than the time.
• Two callers reported a reverberating sound
• I have large hands, yet the width of this unit made it very uncomfortable to hold. Really disliked the "form factor"
• At maximum brightness on all three units, the MDR had a slight bluish cast to the white background of webpages
• To redial a number, it took one extra button press compared to the two Metro phones
• $200 and then $90/mo. access then data $30-$80 for 2GB to 10GB. Two year contract with early termination fees.
• As with the Admire, one cannot wake up the Razr by the lower buttons as you can on the Attain.
• To create a new message, one must press a small + sign at the top right Stupid. Look at both Metro phones, the Attain and the Admire, and you'll see this a large bar across the entire top, and pressing anywhere on that bar gives you a new message screen. Great !
• The Razr did NOT have Visual Voice text translation like the Attain. It is simply not available.
• The white dots to change screens is crowded at the top. Silly GUI. It was nearly impossible to reliably hit one of the dots, and it was annoying to cover up the screen when doing so, The Admire has the best interface with a nice large separate areas at the lower parts of the screen, so you don't have to cover up the screen with your hand when scrolling, and the two areas are easy to hit on target.

SAME AS METRO
• No hard-wired camera shutter button. One has to press a dedicated area on the screen.


SUMMARY: No way. I would not get this Motorola Droid Razr.

 

[EarlyMon]

Not defending the RAZR, but make sure that embedded content is always on when comparing browser results.

 

[AppleUser]

Not defending the RAZR, but make sure that embedded content is always on when comparing browser results.

So it is NOT on by default ? In any event, webpages without embedded content DID load faster than the two Metro phones, but the other disadvantages of the phone far overshadowed the speed.

 

[EarlyMon]

Never assume settings of public display models. People tinker with things.

You keep mentioning white dots to change screens. You do know that you can swipe left, right to do that, or depending on brand / model, double tap the home key, or pinch the homescreen, yes?

 

[AppleUser]

Never assume settings of public display models. People tinker with things.

You keep mentioning white dots to change screens. You do know that you can swipe left, right to do that, or depending on brand / model, double tap the home key, or pinch the homescreen, yes?

Yes, but more often than not, when swiping, it launches an app. I hate that. Double tap ? Pinch ? No, didn't try those.

 

[EarlyMon]

I recall you saying that swiping launched apps, now that you mention it. I haven't experienced that.

Guess you can try to swipe in the area between rows of icons.

 

[AppleUser]

I recall you saying that swiping launched apps, now that you mention it. I haven't experienced that.

Guess you can try to swipe in the area between rows of icons.

There is very little space. Cannot do that reliably.