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If you're here because you're considering buying a Fascinate...

adamb83

Lurker
Oct 19, 2010
6
3
Just do it!


This is an absolutely gorgeous phone that is nothing short of amazing. I can't tell you how many reviews I read before purchasing it. The complaints people have are ridiculous. Here are some of the negative things said about the phone.

"The phone has Bing"

Solution. Set a bookmark in your browser for Google, and keep your browser icon on the first page. Warning, this will take you one extra click... I know, it's horribly inconvenient.

"The volume rocker feels cheap"

Solution. Get a black silicone case to cover your phone and you won't even notice. Really, who cares anyway? I never even noticed this problem.

"No Led notification"

Solution. Download the LED app, or just deal with it. I never knew that phones had this capability in the first place. I keep my phone on me, and if I'm in the shower or away from my phone, I simply tap the power button and there are my notifications waiting for me.

"Touchwiz sucks"

Solution. I was ready to download launcher pro the second I got this phone until I found out that touchwiz is actually kinda cool. I have no experience with HTC sense, or Motoblur, but my experience with TouchWiz has been very positive.


Some complaints may be valid. If you rely on GPS (which I don't because I have one on my car's dash) then maybe, just maybe this phone is not for you.


Here are the facts:

The battery life is the best on any smartphone I've seen. My friend's Droid X is dead before the day is over. My Fascinate always last through the day, and up to 2 days with light use.

The screen is the best of any smartphone available to Verizon. It's beautiful. People drool with envy when they see this screen. There is no debate here.

The size is perfect (subjective). 4.0 Inches is absolutely ideal. Large enough to make internet viewing easy, and small enough to allow you to navigate with one hand

It's as beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside. The design is very sleek, and professional looking.


This phone is amazing. Don't let the small details through you off. This phone blows past my friends Droid X in every category. No Regrets on this purchase
 
Welcome to the forums! Glad you're enjoying your Fascinate.

Another solution to the "Bing" curse, Launcher Pro +(which has a google search widget) aftermarket browser = Google Search. I'm using LP + Dolphin HD and it works great. The only thing that won't work is voice search, it still goes through bing.

I have a silicone case on my phone but even without it the volume rocker doesn't rattle much, not enough that I'd be annoyed by it.
 
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Thanks guys. I am going to try Launcher Pro very soon, as I'm curious to see what it's all about. Right now I am definitely enjoying the stock Fascinate though.

Don't you also kind of like that we're in a very select group? I feel like this phone is a hidden gem that the public is largely unaware of.
 
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Yes, if you are like me, I did a bunch of research before making the purchase, I'm still debating if I'm keeping the phone, but this phone is amazing, the screen is just beautiful, I just hope that the GPS does get fixed soon, I noticed that a soft reset can help you acquire a GPS lock (which is very inconvenient to restart when you want to use it). I've only used my GPS in the mornings, so I'll give it another shot this afternoon and see if i only have to restart it once a day.

I too have the silicone cover, i can't really notice anything about the volume rocker being cheap, overall it looks and feels great. And yes i know the whole Bing thing really sucks, but as previous posts will state on how you can "change" or better yet "live with" it.

Coming from the HTC Incredible, I really got used to the HTC Sense and also Launcher Pro, HTC has a lot more widgets or apps than Samsung does, so you might miss that, but your workaround is just use Launcher Pro (paid version) as you get more widgets such as calendar, People, etc.
 
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Thanks guys. I am going to try Launcher Pro very soon, as I'm curious to see what it's all about. Right now I am definitely enjoying the stock Fascinate though.

Don't you also kind of like that we're in a very select group? I feel like this phone is a hidden gem that the public is largely unaware of.

Yeah there arent as many fascinate users as say the droid x (although many of us have dropped the droid x for the fascinate), i think a lot of has to do with how verizon positioned the phone.

releasing 2 months after the x, a few weeks after the droid 2, and having the incredible seemingly just come back into stock right before it launched definetly hurt sales in comparison the galaxy s phones on the other big 3 us carriers. not to mention that some people heard bing, and said no way.

on sprint, they launced the epic 4g really as a co-flagship phone opposite of the evo, and drew in a lot of people waiting for a slide-out keyboard. T-mobile launched it as a flagship device as well, when (apparently anyway) talks to bring the iphone there died; and with at&t its your only good choice for android.

Verizon is absolutely cluttered with android phones, and in the next 2 months there launching like 5 more. I really don't get it. They should have 5, 6 androids tops and have 3 or so top-tier devices, 2 middle of the road, and 1 cheap one. At some point their are only cannibalzing their own sales, not brining in new smartphone customers.

That being said the fascinate out of the box is not as refined as the x, d2, or incredible which in turn also hurts perception of the phone. When you "preach" to people about voodoo and how it makes the phone leap bounds past the others, then maybe that ll help some...maybe not.

Thankfully at least, because there are so many galaxy s phones out there (5 million and counting) a lot of what is developed for the other phones are vice versa can be ported over (by some extremely talented individuals) or adapted.
 
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I think I'll buy launcher pro today and give it a shot. I am not planning on rooting my phone however, will that cause any issues having both TouchWiz and Launcher Pro?

No, you can easily switch between both, you can go to Applications, find Launcher Pro and press the "Clear Defaults", then when you press the Home button you will be prompted which one you want to use, or you can just download an app from the Market that lets you switch between both (app switcher) can't remember the name.
 
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No, you can easily switch between both, you can go to Applications, find Launcher Pro and press the "Clear Defaults", then when you press the Home button you will be prompted which one you want to use, or you can just download an app from the Market that lets you switch between both (app switcher) can't remember the name.

It's called Home Switcher
 
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Works for me as well on DX 2.2 Guess something just didnt load correctly for you. I have switched back and forth on several occasions only to realize how terrible the phone is without LP+!! Talk about lagmaster 8000!!

maybe its been updated for 2,2 then? the site still says *Froyo(2.2) is not supported due to the API change*

ill take your word that it works for you though
 
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That being said the fascinate out of the box is not as refined as the x, d2, or incredible which in turn also hurts perception of the phone. When you "preach" to people about voodoo and how it makes the phone leap bounds past the others, then maybe that ll help some...maybe not.

The percentage of owners of any phone who actually choose to root it is VERY small. That's where it's key for the phone producer to make the stock software attractive and easy to use. HTC did great with this with Sense, and I will admit that Apple (YUCK) has done well. The SF is a great phone, but it won't achieve as high of sales, especially when taking in account the higher rate of returns compared to any phone in quite a while, simply due to its stock shortcomings (bing, call quality issues, gps issues, etc.).
 
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Hi, I'm a newbie to android smart-phone. Got LG ally about a month ago from Costco. I'm now considering to exchange it with either fascinate or droid 2 or upcoming phones like samsung continuum, LG vortex. So far I'm leaning to fascinate.

The LG ally seems to be pretty good for android beginners like me. But after one month of usage, I feel the need for better battery, larger screen and a little faster speed. Its 3.2" screen has good resolution, but it feels a little cramped for web browsing. The battery life goes to about 50~55% in 12 hours of moderate usage (mainly phone calls, emails and a few web browsing) , which is not so bad, but I wish it lasts a little longer. I set the brightness to about 10%, keep GPS, WiFi off when not in use, removed youtube, weather widget that seem to suck battery.

I wonder how well fascinate would do in the battery life in the similar condition. And how does Fascinate do in call quality, signal reception compared to Ally? The signal reception doesn't look so good in ally, but call quality sounds pretty good to me and GPS works well with locking in less than minute. Right now, Costco has Fascinate on sale at 129.99. Do you think it's worth of upgrading from Ally?
 
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Just do it!


This is an absolutely gorgeous phone that is nothing short of amazing. I can't tell you how many reviews I read before purchasing it. The complaints people have are ridiculous. Here are some of the negative things said about the phone.

"The phone has Bing"

Solution. Set a bookmark in your browser for Google, and keep your browser icon on the first page. Warning, this will take you one extra click... I know, it's horribly inconvenient.

It's more of a "Verizon taking a nice phone and bloating it with their crap" thing that they always do. I understand why it annoys people because it annoys me too. Verizon needs to learn to stop taking nice phones and setting them back a few steps.

"The volume rocker feels cheap"

Solution. Get a black silicone case to cover your phone and you won't even notice. Really, who cares anyway? I never even noticed this problem.

My volume rocker vibrates horrendously when the phone does (as does the USB cover), which just makes it sound cheap. Unacceptable in a $700 phone, imo.

"No Led notification"

Solution. Download the LED app, or just deal with it. I never knew that phones had this capability in the first place. I keep my phone on me, and if I'm in the shower or away from my phone, I simply tap the power button and there are my notifications waiting for me.

More of an annoyance than anything. My past 3 smartphones have all had LED notifications, and it's really nice to have once you're used to it. I hate that I constantly have to turn on my phone to check stuff in case I missed it vibrating. You wouldn't know, though, since you've never had a phone that had one.

"Touchwiz sucks"

Solution. I was ready to download launcher pro the second I got this phone until I found out that touchwiz is actually kinda cool. I have no experience with HTC sense, or Motoblur, but my experience with TouchWiz has been very positive.

I like touchwiz, personally, so I won't argue that one.

Some complaints may be valid. If you rely on GPS (which I don't because I have one on my car's dash) then maybe, just maybe this phone is not for you.


Here are the facts:

The battery life is the best on any smartphone I've seen. My friend's Droid X is dead before the day is over. My Fascinate always last through the day, and up to 2 days with light use.

Awesome battery life. Last night, after literally being on for ~16.5 hours, I streamed pandora for another ~3 hours just so I could get the battery down and recharge it that way instead of putting the phone on the charger with 3/4 of the battery life remaining. It was ridiculous in an aweomse way.

The screen is the best of any smartphone available to Verizon. It's beautiful. People drool with envy when they see this screen. There is no debate here.

The size is perfect (subjective). 4.0 Inches is absolutely ideal. Large enough to make internet viewing easy, and small enough to allow you to navigate with one hand

Great screen and perfect size. Any bigger would be a turn-off.

It's as beautiful on the outside as it is on the inside. The design is very sleek, and professional looking.

Great design, but the screen on/off button is in a crappy location (always hit the vol rocker trying to turn it on, and it's too recessed), and the speakerphone speaker is too easy to muffle in your pocket.

This phone is amazing. Don't let the small details through you off. This phone blows past my friends Droid X in every category. No Regrets on this purchase

1 char
 
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The SF is a giant leap over the Ally but if you just bought the Ally 2 months ago aren't you in a contract? If you are Im not sure you can get that price, which is usually for new and renewal contracts. But yeah if you can I'd go for it; its a great phone
Costco has great return/exchange policy for cell phones like many other items. They have 30 days of return period (can go back to previous phone at no cost). After that there is 60 days of exchange period. I bought Ally a little more than a month ago, so I have until mid-december to exchange it with any other phone.
I know that Fascinate easily blows away Ally in terms of screen, speed. But I'm more concerned about the battery life, call quality comparison. I wonder if anyone on this forum actually moved from Ally to Fascinate and would like to hear from them.
 
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