I upgraded from Optimus S to Marquee -- questions?

[snoutmeat]

When my Optimus S was dying, I was forced to find a good replacement. I'm on SERO-P and wanted to find the best phone available at the $40 rate -- without paying the $10 4G surcharge.

After doing some research, the Marquee came up as a likely candidate...but boy, is it ever tough to find real-world reviews from users, especially folks who have upgraded from the Optimus S. I'm getting the impression that Sprint hasn't sold many Marquees, and they don't seem to be trying very hard.

I also get the impression that there are many people who are in the situation I was in ...on SERO-P, using the Optimus S, but thinking about an upgrade because their phones are dying or because they're unhappy with some Optimus S shortcoming.

For this reason, I'm starting this thread. I searched and found an old vaguely similar thread in the Optimus S forum, but it was all from Optimus S owners considering the switch -- nobody who actually owned a Marquee.

In upcoming messages, I'll describe my experience with the Marquee, especially as it compares to its LG predecessor, the Optimus S. I'm happy to answer any specific questions as well.

 

[snoutmeat]

Why the Marquee?

For a typical Sprint customer, there's little to recommend the LG Marquee. Sprint has phones with bigger screens, faster processors, slide-out keyboards, better cameras, better battery life, 3D, etc, etc, etc....all for roughly the same price as the Marquee...ok, maybe $100 more or $200 more, but over the course of a typical 2-year $1000-plus contract, spending an extra $100 for a phone is pretty minor. It seems pretty clear to me that this is why the Marquee has failed to succeed at Sprint. It doesn't stand out in any particular way, and its reviews are not very good.

If I were an ordinary customer, a $99 iPhone 4 would be tempting, or maybe an HTC EVO 4G for the same price...but I'm not an ordinary customer. I'm on SERO, the no-longer-available "Friends and Family" plan that who-knows-how-many other frugal folks are still using. For me, the plan is perfect -- 500 minutes of calls, plus unlimited texting and data, originally for $30 a month, but now $40 because I've upgraded to a "feature" phone. Nearly 2 years ago, Sprint worked to make the original $30 plan less attractive by tacking on a $10 surcharge for all the new-and-improved smartphones like the Optimus S. For me (and many others), it was worth the extra $10 to jump up from a clunky Windows 6.0 phone to a full-featured Android device. Now Sprint is trying to make the $40 plan less attractive by announcing that 4G phones have an additional $10 surcharge...and the iPhone also has that $10 surcharge...and, in fact, every new smartphone available in the future will also have the $10 surcharge. In other words, the $30 SERO plan became a $40 SERO plan and is now on its way to being a $50 SERO plan.

Which phones were the last to be introduced and are still available at the old $40 rate? The LG Marquee and the Motorola XPRT. Though I used to be a big fan of physical keyboards, after owning the Optimus S for 18 months, I'm now accustomed to typing on the screen. This moves the Marquee to the top of the list for me.

In other markets, the phone is sold as the Optimus Black...so it's at least a spiritual successor to the Optimus S. On paper at least, the Marquee looks like a big step up from the Optimus S, and many of the changes seem to be designed specifically to address noted Opimus S shortcomings. Specifically:

--much bigger screen
--faster processor
--glass (not plastic) screen
--higher-res camera, plus a front-facing camera
--flash (on the camera) and Flash (on the browser)
--much more onboard memory

Issues that made me pause:

-- reported terrible battery life
-- reports that, despite the faster processor, the phone is slower than the Optimus S

So, for me at least, the 2 big questions were:

--is it really a step up from the Optimus S? (after all, that phone is still available on the Sprint website, and at the same price as the Marquee)

--is it a good enough phone to live with for the next 6 months (until my contract is up and my phone credit renews), next year, next 2 years....or should I just suck it up, get a better phone, and pay the extra $10 per month?


My impressions after owning the phone for several weeks? HECK YES, it's a big step up from the Optimus S (for my uses, at least). I'm very happy with my choice. It's not a perfect phone, but most of its shortcomings are (for me, at least) annoyances and not deal-breakers. More details to come.

 

[pagan]

Hi, I just switched from Optimus S to Marquee and i should agree with you, Its a great phone and am happy with it too.
One caveat is, i am still trying to figure out how to setup corporate email. It keep saying 'Unable to open connection to server'.

 

[Iwannabrowse]

Do you find the internet browsing to be better on the Marquee? I'm on Sero as well and considering getting either the Optimus or the Marquee. The problem is that I'd have to pay out of pocket for the Marquee while I could pay nothing and upgrade to the Optimus because it is still on the Sprint site.

 

[snoutmeat]

The web browsing seems about the same on both phones, but (of course) the Marquee has a substantially bigger screen.

When you say that you'd be paying out of pocket for the Marquee but could get the Optimus S for free, I'm assuming this means you're out of contract? If I were in your shoes, I'd find the phone with the biggest discount (probably the iPhone) and sell it on Craigslist or Ebay, then use the proceeds to get whatever phone you'd like. Remember that with traditional "postpaid" plans like ours, the phone company is effectively subsidizing the cost of the phone by charging us something extra each month, so it's financially in your best interest to get a new phone the minute you are able to do so, whether you plan to keep that phone or not.

If you are out of contract with Sprint and are just sticking around for the $40/month rate, then Straight Talk is just about as good a deal. They sell prepaid "bring your own phone" plans online with unlimited talk, text, and data for $45 a month, or $41.66 if you pay for 3 months at a time. Their plans work with any T-Mobile, AT&T, or unlocked GSM phone -- if it is an AT&T or T-Mobile phone, it does not need to be unlocked. I bought my wife an AT&T iPhone 4 on Craigslist for $300 and put her on Straight Talk for $41.66 a month. Work out the total cost over 2 years, and the 2 plans are very similar. SERO is about $48.50 a month with taxes and fees for me, so Straight Talk is $7 a month cheaper. Over 24 months, that's about equal to the discount Sprint gives you on a new phone. Plus you get your choice from a wide variety of great (used, refurbished, or new) GSM phones, unlimited minutes, and no contract. And if you want 4G, there's no question that Straight Talk is cheaper (because that's an extra $10/month with SERO). So yeah, I know you were asking about Optimus vs Marquee, but that may be another route for you to consider.

If you are sticking with Sprint, then (as I mentioned above), I'd get the most discounted phone, sell it, and buy a Marquee. Hope this helps!

 

[snoutmeat]

Wow -- has it really been two months already? I have been enjoying the phone. By now, a direct comparison is a little tougher, because it has been so long since I've used the Optimus S. But here are more thoughts:

--the bigger screen is awesome.
--having a glass screen is great, too -- easier typing and not a scratch on it, though I haven't installed a screen protector.
--I haven't had any problems with the random call drops others have reported. I know that Sprint pushed out a minor firmware upgrade that was supposed to address this issue.
--in Europe, people seem to love this phone (as the Optimus Black). It gets great reviews. As I mentioned in a previous post, I think the reason it's gotten such bad reviews here is that there are so many other phones available with better specs that this one just doesn't stand out (unless you're on SERO). I have seen reports that the battery life is just atrocious, and I have found this to be untrue, except on a couple of occasions...both times when the phone had 0-1 bars. Once (annoyingly) was when I was in the hospital with my child, and the other was when I was out in the mountains. The firmware and/or hardware seems to burn through the battery at 10x the usual rate in this situation. I wonder if the GSM version (Europe's Optimus Black) is different enough to not have this problem (hence the better reviews), and also wonder if some tweaks to the Marquee's firmware would improve the situation.

To ameliorate the battery problem, I've bought 2 aftermarket batteries and a charger, which cost less than $15 on Ebay. The generic batteries seem to work as well (for as long) as the original...I just throw one in my jacket pocket if I think I'm going to be using the phone heavily that day. I know this isn't a perfect solution, but it works well for me. There's also a seller on eBay who sells an extended battery pack and new back for the phone, and using that combo would have the same effect, but I enjoy having a super-slim phone the 95% of the time that the standard battery is sufficient.

An example -- a few weeks ago, I got up at 6 am and caught a plane at 8. The flight allowed roughly 90 minutes of "electronic devices on" time each way. The event I was attending had its guide set up as an app, so I used the phone on the plane and all day long. I placed a dozen texts and made a couple of short phone calls, took some pictures, and used Google Maps to find the bus stop etc. I used the phone heavily. I brought my spare batteries along because I figured I might use all 3, but I didn't switch out my original battery until I was sitting in the plane at 8 pm for my flight home. It was a full day of heavy screen use and moderate GPS, camera, Web, and phone use, and the phone made it through almost the full day. I was in an area that had good Sprint coverage, and it made all the difference.

So don't let the "horrible battery life" reports scare you off from getting a Marquee if your home/workplace have good Sprint coverage. I think I've also read elsewhere that people with bad Sprint coverage at home can get a free device from Sprint that acts as a mini cell phone tower?

 

[snoutmeat]

Several more random thoughts:

--the whole phone feels very slim. The Optimus S felt more rugged/heavy/heavy-duty. I keep wondering if I am going to pull the phone out of my pocket to see the screen cracked because the area of glass is so large compared to the Optimus S and because the phone feels so slim (and potentially prone to flexing or being bent in half). Pulling the battery cover off the Optimus S revealed a solid metal frame that the whole phone seemed to be built around; pulling the cover off the Marquee reveals black plastic. So far, so good with the screen.

--Others have suggested good protectors/cases for the phone from eBay. I haven't bothered, because I really like how slim the phone is and I figure that the case won't do much good. The screen is already slightly recessed (the housing extends the slightest bit beyond the screen), so dropping on a flat surface should be ok, and if it's a super-rough surface like pavement on a street, then a case is unlikely to help anyway. The mirror finish on the back has gotten a little scuffed up, but that's the removable battery cover, which is available on eBay for about the same price as a protector. If mine gets too ugly from scuffs, I'll just buy a new one and snap it on.

--for the same reason, I love the fact that the battery cover covers both the back and most of the sides of the phone. If a drop results in a gouged/chunked-up corner, a new battery cover should address this as well.

--One of the things that made me chuck the Optimus S is that it was no longer charging reliably. Part of this may have been due to the flawed Android update that I never rolled back, but I believe it also had a physical hardware issue with an intermittent connection in the micro USB port -- the charger would usually work if I bent the cable in a certain way after attaching it, and then wrapping the cord around the phone to hold it in place. I don't know if this bad connection was the result of a connector that had gone bad, a loose solder connection, or just crud (dust etc) building up in the exposed connector, but the Marquee has a sliding cover for the USB connector that lets you keep the crud out.

--weirdly, the USB port is on the top of the phone -- I don't think I've seen another phone with it in this position, but it works fine, even if I'm listening to music on headphones in bed while it's charging.

--probably my biggest demand on the phone's resources comes if I'm listening to Google Listen, Stitcher, or some audio stored on the SD card and simultaneously playing Plants vs. Zombies. Both phones handle this without issues, but, on an advanced level where there's a whole lot of action going on, I THINK the graphics were smoother on the Optimus than they are on the Marquee. Not a huge surprise, considering that the new phone needs to deal with many more pixels, and if I recall correctly, doesn't the Optimus have a dedicated graphics chip that the Marquee lacks? At any rate, the Marquee works just fine at Plants vs Zombies PLUS mp3 decoding simultaneously, and Temple Run works fine too (never tried that one on my Optimus).

--I've noticed an increasing number of Apps on Amazon's Free App Of The Day that say, "Note: this app does not work with the LG Optimus". Not sure what the problem is (Flash, maybe?), and I don't think I've actually installed any of those apps, but I've never seen a "Note: this app does not work on the LG Marquee" message.

--the extra on-board memory is really nice. This was a constant concern with the Optimus, and I'd regularly clear out apps I wasn't using or clear the temporary files from the browser, but would still periodically get "memory low!" warnings on the Optimus. Yes, I moved the apps to SD whenever I could, but it was still so much of an issue that I eventually rooted the phone and installed software that utilized a partition of the SD card as virtual memory for the phone. I'm happy to say that I haven't had any memory issues on this phone.

--the camera is better on the Marquee than on the Optimus, but still not as good as my wife's iPhone 4 camera and nowhere near as good as my dedicated digital camera. I have discovered that the phone can be set so pressing the button pre-focuses and releasing the button activates the shutter, which has greatly improved laggy shutter issues, but it's still a tiny lens with a tiny sensor that works OK in broad daylight but suffers indoors.

--It's nice to see that many parts (screen, digitizer, back cover, volume buttons, USB port) are available on eBay, but it's also a little disconcerting, because it means that some people out there need those parts. In particular, the current auction for digitizers shows that 24 were sold, which tells me that people are cracking the screens on these phones.