Incredible or Eris?

[HTC?]

I'm currently without a phone and am in the market for a new smartphone on Verizon and I'm so confused right now.

I really want the HTC Incredible but I can't really afford to be without a phone until they get more stock, is the HTC Eris something I should consider? Is it alot better now that it has the 2.1 OS update?

I had a test drive of an Eris the other day and it seems okay, I only played with it for 5-10 mins and have no idea if I like it or not, but I really need to know more about it, the girl at the store I went to also has one, and absolutely loves it.

I can get the Eris next wednesday or I can use some POS temp phone until I'd be able to get my hands on an Incredible.

What else should I know about it? Hows the battery life? I'm coming from having a BlackBerry Storm 2 previously.

Does the Incredible only have a faster processor/better camera over the Eris?

I have no interest in the Motorola Droid, the slide out QWERTY keyboard annoys me.



Cheers!




Oh also, does anyone have an accurate timeframe of when there is likely to be more stock of the Incredible? Would it be any quicker ordering it online?

Every Verizon store tells me something different when I ask when they'll have more stock. I just don't want to buy the Eris and then decide that I really wished I'd waited for the Incredible.

 

[GrandMasterB]

I'm currently without a phone and am in the market for a new smartphone on Verizon and I'm so confused right now.

I really want the HTC Incredible but I can't really afford to be without a phone until they get more stock, is the HTC Eris something I should consider? Is it alot better now that it has the 2.1 OS update?

I had a test drive of an Eris the other day and it seems okay, I only played with it for 5-10 mins and have no idea if I like it or not, but I really need to know more about it, the girl at the store I went to also has one, and absolutely loves it.

I can get the Eris next wednesday or I can use some POS temp phone until I'd be able to get my hands on an Incredible.

What else should I know about it? Hows the battery life? I'm coming from having a BlackBerry Storm 2 previously.

Does the Incredible only have a faster processor/better camera over the Eris?

I have no interest in the Motorola Droid, the slide out QWERTY keyboard annoys me.



Cheers!




Oh also, does anyone have an accurate timeframe of when there is likely to be more stock of the Incredible? Would it be any quicker ordering it online?

Every Verizon store tells me something different when I ask when they'll have more stock. I just don't want to buy the Eris and then decide that I really wished I'd waited for the Incredible.

If you get the Eris over the Incredible you are going to be regretting it for the next 2 years. Get online and get your Incredible ordered and use an old phone until it gets here.

Or if you dont mind you could pick up the Eris now and then pay the $35 restocking fee to swap for an Incredible when they come back in stock. Only problem is..... they will probably still be sold out in 30 days.....

 

[lexluthor]

You are going to stick yourself with a significantly inferior device for 2 years just because you can't make it for 2 weeks on a POS phone?

 

[yojoe600]

get the incredible and you will be happy... just order it and it will be there before you know it

 

[Eric Bishop]

There are alot of benefits to getting the Incredible, but I don't know that they're worth $200+ over the Eris. Certainly, you shouldn't even consider the Moto Droid. It's a piece of garbage at this point. If you're even in the market for an Android phone, I'm sure you'll regret not getting the Incredible within 4 months, but $200+ dollars can take you a longs ways with discretionary purchases. It will certainly serve the basic functions of a smartphone for the next 12-15 months.

Personally, I'd just save $50 a month for the next three and get the Incredible and a memory card when it's down to $120 by the end of the summer.

 

[andrew53517]

Incredible for sure!!! Trust me!!!

 

[gavin77]

Eris is a great phone. I started out with one when they were first released, because I too could not handle the 1983 slide out keyboard on the Moto Droid.

That being said, I personally grew tired of the slow speed, no flash on the camera, smaller screen, and lack of Nav at the time.

Now that it has 2.1, it is a little better, slightly faster, and includes Nav.

Still EXTREMELY slower than my Incredible. What this translates to in real life are things like:

1)phone keys lagging while trying to enter numbers
2)screens showing the busy spinning wheel when opening or changing apps
3)picture scrolling very laggy and takes longer to process images
4)Google Maps/Nav, taking a long time to render actual maps, etc., and then when you scroll a map, you get a blank screen for a 5-10 seconds as the new map renders.
5)Onboard RAM, and available app memory is much less, which means things will quickly slow down even more as you add new apps, etc.
6)Internet WAY, WAY slower....although still faster than Blackberry, and very usable, especially with something like OPera Mini5 as a browser.
7)just overall less responsive to your touch input and sluggish

But, again, all of this is slightly better with 2.1, and the phone is very usable.

If it were me, I would probably wait for the Incredible, in fact that's exactly what I did. I think you might regret getting the Eris down the road when the Incredible finally becomes available again.

Incredible is one FAST beast, that really never slows down, never gets stuck on anything, and just runs super smoothly. This will matter more when you have to live with the phone yourself day after day.

It also has a very respectable 8MP camera, with great video quality, and dual LED flash. A beautiful, yet not too big 3.7" AMOLED screen. Super slim form factor, and that amazing 1GHZ processor.

They're both great, both Droids, both backed by Verzizons network, and you just need to decide what is more important to you.

1)a cheaper phone that has probably seen its last OS upgrade, that you will probably grow out of pretty quick, and get quite frustrated with at times due to its slower processor, or....

2)a little more expensive phone over a two year contract, that will get the crazy cool new Android 2.2 Froyo update, that can grow with you, that will not slow you down or frustrate you for the most part......

Hope this helps a little....good luck.....

 

[GrandMasterB]

There are alot of benefits to getting the Incredible, but I don't know that they're worth $200+ over the Eris. Certainly, you shouldn't even consider the Moto Droid. It's a piece of garbage at this point. If you're even in the market for an Android phone, I'm sure you'll regret not getting the Incredible within 4 months, but $200+ dollars can take you a longs ways with discretionary purchases. It will certainly serve the basic functions of a smartphone for the next 12-15 months.

Personally, I'd just save $50 a month for the next three and get the Incredible and a memory card when it's down to $120 by the end of the summer.

Where are you getting the idea that the Incredible is $200+ more than the Eris. Eris is $79 and the Incredible is $199. That is a difference of $120

 

[SeattleYanksFan]

I have the Incredible, my fiance has the Eris. Both phones are great in their own way. The Incredible is much faster. The battery life on the Eris is better. The Eris is definitely built better. The Incredible has the bigger screen, and it definitely makes a difference for surfing the net.

Bottom line. The Eris is a fantastic phone, but hold out for the Incredible.

 

[cryptiq]

I have both phones. I agree with what everyone up above has said about the differences between the phones, and I'd also like to add that my Home, Back, Menu, Search buttons are very UNresponsive on the Eris, whereas they work wonderfully on the Incredible. And wow, the color quality of the Incredible vs. the Eris, it's amazing. The colors are a lot more vivid on the Inc, and I didn't really notice this until going back to my Eris, but when displaying the color black on the Eris, it's like it's not truly black, more of a deep grey, i think because of the backlighting...but it's a washed out black, whereas when the Inc displays black, it's black, like the pixel is completely turned off and there's no washout or color fade, it's like staring into a black hole. Having read all the negative press about the Nexus One's screen, I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw the screen on the Inc.

Save up your cash and get the Inc. Even with the 2.1 update on the Eris, you still don't have the speech to text function, live wallpaper, and I think it's missing a few more things I can't think of off the top of my head. The Eris was a pretty decent phone when it was released, but unless there was like a $300 price difference, I'd do whatever it takes to get the Inc.

 

[gavin77]

I have both phones. I agree with what everyone up above has said about the differences between the phones, and I'd also like to add that my Home, Back, Menu, Search buttons are very UNresponsive on the Eris, whereas they work wonderfully on the Incredible. And wow, the color quality of the Incredible vs. the Eris, it's amazing. The colors are a lot more vivid on the Inc, and I didn't really notice this until going back to my Eris, but when displaying the color black on the Eris, it's like it's not truly black, more of a deep grey, i think because of the backlighting...but it's a washed out black, whereas when the Inc displays black, it's black, like the pixel is completely turned off and there's no washout or color fade, it's like staring into a black hole. Having read all the negative press about the Nexus One's screen, I was pleasantly surprised when I first saw the screen on the Inc.

Save up your cash and get the Inc. Even with the 2.1 update on the Eris, you still don't have the speech to text function, live wallpaper, and I think it's missing a few more things I can't think of off the top of my head. The Eris was a pretty decent phone when it was released, but unless there was like a $300 price difference, I'd do whatever it takes to get the Inc.

So true about the Home, Back, Menu, Search buttons....I forgot to mention that....

 

[blink]

I actually get right about the same battery life on my Incredible as I did on my Eris. I didn't think I would, given the added horsepower, but I'm doing just fine with it. Just keep in mind, with any smartphone, you are going to need to charge it each night if you want it to last you the whole next day.

 

[Rubik76]

I have both (actually the Eris is now my wife's). Before getting the Incredible, I thought the Eris was the bee's knees (not sure where that came from, there, sorry). Now that I have the Incredible, doing anything on the Eris is mind-numbingly frustrating. Everything takes so much longer on the Eris.

You really want the Incredible.

Of course, 6 months from now, something else will supplant the Incredible, and we'll all be telling you you're an idiot if you get the Incredible .

 

[HTC?]

Thanks for the opinions everyone, one last thing, is ordering online the way to go?

 

[MarkyD]

Certainly, you shouldn't even consider the Moto Droid. It's a piece of garbage at this point.

absurd. The Droid actually bests the Incredible in a number of ways (I have both.) The screen colors are more accurate on the Droid. Resolution is higher. It's better for playing games thanks to the slide out keyboard. Battery life is far superior, even when the Droid overclocked to 1ghz.

That said, the Incredible is, over all, my favorite of the two. They both blow the Eris out of the water, though.

 

[AdmSuvvuk]

Thanks for the opinions everyone, one last thing, is ordering online the way to go?

Right now...if you want one....it's pretty much the ONLY way to go.

 

[Hawkmech]

Going through the same dilemma as you are. Want an Inc but getting tired of waiting. Dont know why but it just bugs me to order a phone that I wont receive for who knows how long.

One thing I was told if you dont want to order, BB store clerk so consider the source, is that it is likely Best Buy will get stock before the corporate stores. Best Buy has its own distribution channels and orders direct from HTC.

Verizon will hold any inventory at the national warehouse to satisfy online orders before any stock is released to the corporate stores.

 

[MTC]

Check best buy first. If your due for a new upgrade you can get it there for 199.99 and they usually have them. I ordered from verizon when they didn't have any and then checked best buy the next day and they told me they had them.

Also, I would go in stores and order it rather than online. You might get it faster. Mine came to me in the mail in about 3 days... even when online it said they wouldn't ship until the 29th.

 

[HTC?]

On the Verizon website, I noticed that its changed a few times when it says the phone will ship by, are those dates pretty accurate?

 

[michaelkahl]

I have the Incredible, my fiance has the Eris. Both phones are great in their own way. The Incredible is much faster. The battery life on the Eris is better. The Eris is definitely built better. The Incredible has the bigger screen, and it definitely makes a difference for surfing the net.

Bottom line. The Eris is a fantastic phone, but hold out for the Incredible.

+1 on the Eris having better build quality. Mine was naked since I got it in December and dropped it several time and it never left a mark. However, I'm happ with my DI because I can do and sync more. I limited the number of apps installed and accounts sync'd because the Eris would bog down badly. As long as I had 100mb of free storage and no more than two accounts sync'd ( FB & Gmail) performance was ok. Now I sync yahoo, gmail, exchange, flickr, facebook, and Twitter with no issues. I also have 75+ apps installed. I never did more than 10 on my Eris.

 

[jwm2]

On the Verizon website, I noticed that its changed a few times when it says the phone will ship by, are those dates pretty accurate?

Just pay attention to the date when you place your order, don't keep checking it after that. They are just informing new customers when theirs will ship if they order now.

 

[n_i_x]

Resolution is higher.

Seriously... those 50 pixels or so really make enough of a difference for you to mention it?

 

[ovenman]

Seriously... those 50 pixels or so really make enough of a difference for you to mention it?

Yes they do, use the two phones side by side, it's amazing the difference.

 

[Jakaro]

Is this a real question? heh, Eris, has already reached its End of Life, its not being produce anymore, so yeah that should be enough of an answer!

 

[MrsB1227]

use the POS phone in the meantime, i am currently using a moto krzr while I wait since I sold my blackberry already. it's torturous but I am sure will be well worth it when the phone FINALLY arrives.