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Stuck to my guns. My Behold II replaced with Samsung Vibrant

How so? HTC is known for cutting corners and making cheaply built products.
I know your still pitting the Vibrant against the Slide and I will tell you right now Vibrant owners have no room to talk when it comes to built quality. My girlfriends Vibrant flexes. The first time she fell asleep and left me alone with it I grabbed the top and bottom of the phone and pushed on the middle with my thumbs and it squeeked like a dying rat. I did this because I hated the built quality of her old phone (cliq xt).

The slide's big flaw physically is the way the battery cover fastens to the phone and the little wobble in the hinges for the slide action. The reason the screen wobbles is due to the hinges used to make the gap between the screen and keyboard as narrow as possible (compare it to the cliq) and the snap on battery cover is to have a seamless back on the phone.
 
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I think in the evolution of this relatively young platform every manufacturer has had it's share of missteps. Samsung's are naturally the only ones people here care about, and it's well justified.

I've barely had this Vibrant half a day, so it's not like I have any long term anecdotal evidence or anything. It's certainly not flawless. But Samsung is putting a lot of their eggs in one basket with the Galaxy S line, launching phones on multiple carriers around the world. Given that I'd say Samsung has a lot at stake getting this one right, and I'd add they seem to have hit on nearly every mark with this one.

It's media playback capabilities are arguably superior to......everything. The included audio player is not only the best I've ever seen on Android, it's a fair sight better than the one in iOS3 and iOS4. The video player has played most of the videos I've tossed at it without transcoding (my MKV collection notwithstanding, but RockPlayer takes care of those). The dialer and contacts apps are slick and offer a great deal of customization. And, it reliably makes phone calls without FC'ing or locking up, something my Behold II constantly had issues with even after I had all the other nagging problems put to bed.

It's too early to say for certain, but given what Samsung has at stake with this platform, I think it's going to be a huge success. And before I turn this into a full review I'm going to STFU! :)
Scott
 
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How so? HTC is known for cutting corners and making cheaply built products.

My HTC Droid Incredible is quite well built, and has alot of nice add-ons (fm radio, wireless-N, HD video camera, etc). And based off other users experiences, the biggest issue are with the screen (made by SAMSUNG!). G1's sold on launch day are still going strong, MyTouch 3g's are going to be getting 2.2, and getting support a year and a half after launch. HTC stands behind there products.

And you're seriously trying to argue in a Behold 2 forum that Samsung DOESN'T cut corners or make cheaply built products? Not saying that all they're products are crap (my Samsung blast was a pretty good phone, and was let down by TMO not Samsung). But we all can say YES they cut corners, YES they make products cheaply (mostly software, but also hardware).

I was going more for for it not being Samsung. Everyone on this forum has had a bad experience from Samsung. And a lot of use would choose not to repeat that, especially if there are similar products available.
 
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I'm not saying all of HTC's products are bad, but I am saying that in general, Samsung uses better quality hardware than HTC. The BH2 actually had very good hardware and would have been a pretty good phone with 2.1.

On top of that, Samsung still leads the other manufacturers in the area of innovation. Notice how they all want Samsung's Super AMOLED displays?

And no, I wasn't pitting the Vibrant against the Slide. I was just saying that if you must have a 1 ghz phone now and can't wait for a similar product (Emerald), then you're okay purchasing the Vibrant as there won't be much of a difference between the two phones.
 
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I'm not saying all of HTC's products are bad, but I am saying that in general, Samsung uses better quality hardware than HTC. The BH2 actually had very good hardware and would have been a pretty good phone with 2.1.

On top of that, Samsung still leads the other manufacturers in the area of innovation. Notice how they all want Samsung's Super AMOLED displays?

And no, I wasn't pitting the Vibrant against the Slide. I was just saying that if you must have a 1 ghz phone now and can't wait for a similar product (Emerald), then you're okay purchasing the Vibrant as there won't be much of a difference between the two phones.

HTC has the first andoid phone, the second android phone in the us market, the first 1 ghz phone, the first 4g phone, the first >4" android phone. Before the vibrant, the best android on at least 3 of the 4 carriers was an HTC (and arguably Verizon as well, almost all the reviews from Incredible owners who tried the Droid X preferred the Incredible). And Motorola had (well still has) the Droid. Samsung is not the innovative leader in the droid market.

I'll agree that purely in terms of specs, the Galaxies S (galaxy group S ?) are in some ways on top of this generation of phone (marginally). However, they're also probably the last of this generation of phone (as far as flagship phones). We'll be seeing 1.5-2gz phones in a couple months (on sale for christmas).
 
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Well, just updating the state of things here. I received my Samsung Vibrant from T-Mobile today. Taking away everything that is way better than the behold ii (bigger screen, 1ghz cpu), it's what Touchwiz and the Behold II should have been.

Having said that, I'll likely be rooting the phone, installing Modaco's custom rom, and running ADW.Launcher. Gonna give Touchwiz 3.0 and the Samsung social widgets a go for a few days before I decide.

And yes, it's already rooted. And yes MoDaCo already has a custom rom available that at least allows some customization, wifi tether, and removal of stock apps. And yes, Cyanogen now has a team member assigned to porting CM6 to the Vibrant/Galaxy S. So if you're thinking that the Vibrant is a potential repeat of the Behold II in the support dept, it's probably going to be orders of magnitude better in that regard.

I've installed all my usual favorite apps, tons of mp3's and video, and it's been great so far. It came with a half charge, so I spent the better part of the day (about 6 hours) draining the battery. It's on charger now, so let's hope battery life ends up being ok. It's already way better than the Behold II was for me with a ton of tweaks battery-life wise.

At the end of the day, T-Mobile did the right thing for me and though it took significant effort on my part I am now satisfied.

I'll leave off by giving a bit shout out to all you guys. This was a very helpful place and brought me up to speed on Android in general, and the Behold II specifically, in record time. So some of the credit for my success with my complaints definitely goes to you guys!

My hats off. Best of luck to you all!
Scott


do you miss the camera flash and camera app?
seriously why in the heck did the skip the flash?
 
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But that is strictly software. That could one day be on the marketplace. Meanwhile a flash of any kind can never be added to the Vibrant.

As Spiz said the point is flash is not needed regardless of the feature being software. For the record a LED flash technically could be added to vibrant if people are so desperate for it by doing a DIY light but really its not that serious. As I have said before its been proven unnecessary at this point.
 
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As Spiz said the point is flash is not needed regardless of the feature being software. For the record a LED flash technically could be added to vibrant if people are so desperate for it by doing a DIY light but really its not that serious. As I have said before its been proven unnecessary at this point.

Honestly ever since switching to a touchscreen phone I have not used my phone camera a whole lot. In the time it takes to push an unlock button, swipe something on the screen, open the camera app, then snap the picture what I wanted to take a picture of is long past. In that time I can just get my Rebel T1i and have a picture 3x the resolution. Flash or no flash.

Its not like it was on my old Sony phone with the kodak camera where I could snap a picture with the press of one button. I only use my camera for quick candid pictures and these days phone pics take planning.

The software on the Vibrant is great as a flash replacement and actually better when taking pictures outside at night. I will agree.
 
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Honestly ever since switching to a touchscreen phone I have not used my phone camera a whole lot. In the time it takes to push an unlock button, swipe something on the screen, open the camera app, then snap the picture what I wanted to take a picture of is long past. In that time I can just get my Rebel T1i and have a picture 3x the resolution. Flash or no flash.

Its not like it was on my old Sony phone with the kodak camera where I could snap a picture with the press of one button. I only use my camera for quick candid pictures and these days phone pics take planning.

The software on the Vibrant is great as a flash replacement and actually better when taking pictures outside at night. I will agree.

Well ever since I had a touchscreen smartphone I used the camera feature less as well but its not due to laziness its the fact that android has so much to offer that you forget about the camera. Before bh2 I came from a Motozine it was absolutely amazing at taking pics, 5mp kodak camera with xenon flash. Thats all it was good for doing though aside from web searching but it was mobile web searching and we all know that doesn't compare. The games sucked.

Quick pics are definitely best with actual camera's, I mainly take profile pics with my phones, with an actual camera I capture moments.
 
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Well ever since I had a touchscreen smartphone I used the camera feature less as well but its not due to laziness its the fact that android has so much to offer that you forget about the camera. Before bh2 I came from a Motozine it was absolutely amazing at taking pics, 5mp kodak camera with xenon flash. Thats all it was good for doing though aside from web searching but it was mobile web searching and we all know that doesn't compare. The games sucked.

Quick pics are definitely best with actual camera's, I mainly take profile pics with my phones, with an actual camera I capture moments.

Its not laziness at all.

I never used a phone camera for "planned" pictures and now with the four step process it takes on phones these days it takes some planning to take a picture. I would rather take a picture with my 15.1MP Rebel with a real camera lense and xenon flash over my 5MP pinhole camera with LED flash if I get a chance to plan it out.
 
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Sigh... glad to hear that someone was righted in this whole mess.

I'm another pissed behold II (p.o.s.) owner who was tricked into buying the phone and have now spent about a week with reps from both samsung and tmo trying to get them to right this wrong. As usual... the only "reasonable" thing that they can offer me is to buy a new phone. (obviously the vibrant seeing how it is the only phone with the 2.x android o.s. from tmo)

Any particular person or department you spoke with over at the corporate offices?(I have emailed Mr. Dotson at his email address... not holding my breath) I called the customer relations dept and got the same b.s. that the lower pee-on's were giving me. ("tmo didn't make that promise to upgrade the phone" & "the only thing we can do is have you buy the new vibrant") Boy...this has REALLY put a black eye on tmo in my book which has thus far been outstanding for them.

Guess I just needed to vent a bit. Sorry to break into the chitter chatter about the camera's. ;) Carry on.
 
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For me it was emailing Dotson's office that got the ball rolling. Calling "regular" customer service ended up being a complete waste of time for me, as well as almost comical given their confusion and lack of understanding about the products they sell. It took nearly a week before I got my first phone call from Executive Customer Relations too. All in all my six exchanges (email and phone) ended up taking almost two weeks to complete. It took some patience, but that wasn't much of a deal considering I had nothing to lose.
 
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For me it was emailing Dotson's office that got the ball rolling. Calling "regular" customer service ended up being a complete waste of time for me, as well as almost comical given their confusion and lack of understanding about the products they sell. It took nearly a week before I got my first phone call from Executive Customer Relations too. All in all my six exchanges (email and phone) ended up taking almost two weeks to complete. It took some patience, but that wasn't much of a deal considering I had nothing to lose.

T-mobile's customer service is great but I will agree is pretty clueless.

When talking the tier 2 PDA support about my GF's Cliq XT the woman repeatedly referred to it as the Cliq XL and when the conversation go into switching her out of that phone the woman had no clue about any mytouch 3G having a keyboard or what a Vibrant was. I wound up getting the Vibrant out of them because the only Slide they had was in Black and I don't want to have the exact same phone it would be too confusing.
 
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Its not laziness at all.

I never used a phone camera for "planned" pictures and now with the four step process it takes on phones these days it takes some planning to take a picture. I would rather take a picture with my 15.1MP Rebel with a real camera lense and xenon flash over my 5MP pinhole camera with LED flash if I get a chance to plan it out.

Well technically it is... I mean I do agree how it takes longer and stuff but its still kinda lazy.

Just create a shortcut on the home screen. I mean I'm sure mobile phone cameras aren't exactly made to replace actual camera's yet though. You either have a phone with a camera feature or a camera with a phone feature. Most definitely they have migrate from what they originally were though.
 
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Well technically it is... I mean I do agree how it takes longer and stuff but its still kinda lazy.

Just create a shortcut on the home screen. I mean I'm sure mobile phone cameras aren't exactly made to replace actual camera's yet though. You either have a phone with a camera feature or a camera with a phone feature. Most definitely they have migrate from what they originally were though.

Even with a shortcut you have to do four steps.

Push the unlock button, swipe the screen, tap the shortcut, wait for the app to load, then snap the picture.

i would rather just use a real camera.
 
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For me it was emailing Dotson's office that got the ball rolling. Calling "regular" customer service ended up being a complete waste of time for me, as well as almost comical given their confusion and lack of understanding about the products they sell. It took nearly a week before I got my first phone call from Executive Customer Relations too. All in all my six exchanges (email and phone) ended up taking almost two weeks to complete. It took some patience, but that wasn't much of a deal considering I had nothing to lose.


yeah so i emailed dotson last saturday.. one of the problems i expressed was missing phonecalls/ texts while still having full reception... checked my vm today because no icon had shown up on my phone.. guess who called me back twice this week trying to get ahold of me? well not dotson.. but his personal assistant! so i called him back.. no answer, which came as no suprised.. but i did let him know as to why i hadnt returned his call yet lol... so hopefully i can get this ball rolling! not that i want the vibrant.. because im pretty much DONE with samsung phone products... but if i can get it.. ill be selling it/ trading it for a phone that i want lol
 
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Hey guys..just wanted to let you guys know that I just got my BH2 replaced with a Vibrant yesterday. I bought my BH2 after playing with one in the TMO store in March not really knowing anything about the phone..just liked it. Anyhow, I saw the legendary mysteriously dissappearing video and was psyched about running 2.x. But, after reading through the forums here and learning the truth and seeing the awesome BH_MAN finally calling it quits on making 2.1 work..I decided that I was just goiing to have to suck it up and keep the "paper weight". Then I got the OTA upgrade to 1.6. BIG WOW! Not really. Since the upgrade my phone has had at least 15 FC's a day..minimum. So, after checking around and doing a little research I came across this phone number 1-800-318-9270. Called this and asked for the Executive Customer Service Team..was on the phone for 10-15 min and now I am awaiting my new vibrant to arrive in the mail. Maybe I was just having a lucky day..Idk..but instead of weeks of emails and call backs, 15 min and it was a done deal
 
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