Looking at the Captivate

[ls377]

Hey all!
My Aria took a little spill today, and now I'm stuck with a busted screen. The digitizer is almost $100, so I'm considering other options. I can get a Captivate for $250-300 on ebay, and then sell my broken Aria. But before I take that plunge, I had a few questions for the Captivate community:

1. How are the ROM's? I know there are a lot of ROM's available, but how is the quality?
2. How is your GPS experience? GPS is not important to me, but I want to know if it's as big of a deal as its been made out to be.
3. How is the battery life?
4. Has anyone broken a screen? Yeah, I would rather not do that again lol.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Nophix]

1) Cognition FTMFW!! Cog is great.
2) GPS blows tail. I'm on #4 right now (don't ask), and only #3 had a somewhat working GPS.
3) Battery life can be excellent to horrible, depending on your setup and use. But, really, how hard is it to charge it?
4) Never busted a screen, but if I do mine is insured.

 

[anneoneamouse]

Hi,

I bought my Captivate when it first came out, and like it.

1. ROMS are great, quality varies from fantastic to awful, even from the same author / coder. Just remember to back up your original stock ATT ROM before you try anything else.

2. GPS is ok, for a phone. Different people seem to have different results, but I'm not sure how much this is driven by their expectation. That said, this is my first GPS device.

3. Battery is ok- you can get 1 to 2 days of use, basically depending on how bright you set the screen. It's a beautiful screen, but the catch is- it needs power. The slim form-factor of the phone is great in your pocket, bad for battery volume.

4. Haven't broken a screen.

All that said - I would NOT pay $250+ for an ebay phone. I'd expect that you're going to probably end up with a problem phone (GPS doesn't work, rooted + bricked, or other). They're available for free from other sources for first time customers.

Have you called your provider (assumed to be ATT), and seen whether they can cut you a deal of some kind? Even if they offer you the original $199 price for a contract renewal, you'd probably be better off, make sure you're not getting a refurb if you go this route. It never hurts to ask- and if the first person doesn't help, think about calling again until you get to speak to someone who will / can help you. You could always offer to re-sign for another 2 years from now, if they'll give you a price break.

Hope this helps,

AoN

 

[kingtz]

Hey all!
My Aria took a little spill today, and now I'm stuck with a busted screen. The digitizer is almost $100, so I'm considering other options. I can get a Captivate for $250-300 on ebay, and then sell my broken Aria. But before I take that plunge, I had a few questions for the Captivate community:

1. How are the ROM's? I know there are a lot of ROM's available, but how is the quality?
2. How is your GPS experience? GPS is not important to me, but I want to know if it's as big of a deal as its been made out to be.
3. How is the battery life?
4. Has anyone broken a screen? Yeah, I would rather not do that again lol.

Thanks in advance!

I've had my Captivate for about a month now, but I'll try and answer some of your questions.

1. Haven't tried out different ROMs yet.
2. GPS works fine for me. I live in LA and it works relatively well. It's not perfect as it can't pinpoint my location sometimes. For example, I'd be driving down a road and the map would show me as driving parallel to that road but with my icon about 10-15 ft to the side of the road, sometimes through peoples driveways or lawns. Just random inaccuracies like that. I have had any satellite locking issues yet.

3. Moderate use (browsing, 2-3 short phone calls (less than 5mins each), playing games and not being charged at all) would get me 1 day. Heavy use would get me just few hours.

4. The screen doesn't really seem any more or less fragile than the iphones and HTCs that my friends own and I've played with.

 

[ls377]

Thanks for the replies. Maybe I'll get lucky with the gps if I decide to pull the trigger. I can do without if though.

Sent from my Liberty using Tapatalk

 

[alexige]

I have had the phone just over a month and am on my second one (I was having software issues that i think i caused when playing with roms.) and the GPS is superb. Out of the box on my current phone i was inside with wifi lock and gps lock on and got a 5-10 meter accurancy in 15 seconds. Normal WiFi only lock for my house is 100s of meters wide. The gps is pretty excellent to use. The few times I've used it its been superb although google maps routing sometimes is off. I have locked on very quickly while in a moving car on a few occassions. About as fast if not faster than my Garmin GPS unit does while moving. My first phone was the same way except when I was trying to get a lock while on the freeway with alot of buildings and overpasses around.

I cant put the phone down long enough to see how long it will really last but I dont usually see the battery warnings until 8 or 9 at night with a lot of use.

The custom roms were pretty good but I am holding out for OTA Froyo. I had the leaked version on my first one and really liked it. I really like the TouchWiz UI, the only reason I would think about flashing again is so I can get Froyo, but I'm just waiting for now.

 

[ArgonNJ#CB]

Do yourself a favor and look at something else.
Captavate problems
GPS doesn't work well
No flash on the Camera
Samsung's seemingly inability to get the Galaxy S line updated to 2.2
I regret my purchase and would never buy another Samsung Android device. If you like Android, Verizon is the most Android friendly US carrier.

 

[rahlquist]

Cognition and Perception roms rock.
GPS is YMMV topic but in my experience I rate it about as worthwhile as a compass to a blind man with no hands. It jumps around more than a cheerleader and is about as accurate as throwing a horseshoe at a map.
Battery life is 16 hours max I average 8-12 with heavy use.
The screen is good it hit my garage floor from 36" screen down and didnt break 3 times.