Debate on switching TO captivate ... from atrix

[Nizmo972]

Hello all, long time reader, hardly been able to post. Searched and found stuff going from captivate to atrix, but nothing about atrix to captivate. I have been using this device for about a month now or so, love the phone, especially after the upload got uncapped. However, my wife just got a captivate yesterday, and the screen blew me away. The only thing i was unhappy about on the atrix was the fact all pictures looked like it had a bad grain to it, and the camera.. well it just plain sucked, flash, outside, inside, didn't matter where. I'm not into gaming on the phone, have other consoles/tablets for such use, I don't use it for anything other really than taking pictures, looking at facebook/pics and texting. So hardcore speed when using a million apps is not a huge concern to me. I use gps once every.. few weeks or so at most (I have heard about the gps issue.). And the 4g speed really isn't amazing to me (now further down the line, who knows how much faster it will be in my area).

So I used my wifes phone yesterday and absolutely loved it. Pictures, screen, didn't seem to lag all that much. I know there are other roms i can flash/etc. So what i'm looking for here are opinions. Am i dumb for wanting to go to the captivate? What would be the hugest drawbacks in my case? Thanks in advance.

 

[loraque]

The 4g speed thing is a non-issue. In fact, most ROMs you flash will get you HSUPA (iphone 4 upload speeds), so technically, the Captivate is faster than the 4g Atrix. 4g on ATT is just smoke and mirrors.

Samsung screens are better. Some might point at some spec or another, but if you just look at them (as you note), the difference is clear. If you are into flashing, the Captivate is often the top device at xda with quite a lot of dev action and choice. So long as GPS performance is not a deal breaker for you, it is a solid choice.

The point and shoot aspect of the Captivate is great- that is also a big issue for me. It is superior at it.

EDIT- I could be wrong on the speed thing, but I do not think so. I don't think the Atrix is doing anything different than a stock Captivate, and once you are not stock, you get the upgraded modem for HSUPA which the Atrix does not get. Still not positive though

 

[konazxiii]

You're most likely to get a biased opinion here. I will say that some of the Cappy developers bought into the Atrix and came back to the Galaxy S (if not the Captivate itself) after giving it a go. They left the Atrix in frustration. It turns out that Samsung lends itself (mostly) to modding/flashing. Motorola does not.

Also, there are a lot of great/active Cappy devs, AND we are lucky to get to ride on the coattails of the I9000 development crew (with a reoriented kernel and few minor tweaks I9000 ROMs will run on the Cappy).

Lastly, the only phone that comes close to our SAMOLED screen is the Retina Display...too bad you have to buy an iPhone to get one though. lol

 

[Nizmo972]

I do understand I will get a biased opinion on this forum. However, i'd rather hear from someone who originally had the captivate stock, tried out the atrix, and reverted rather than an atrix-pro who dislikes the captivate based on the fact that it can't play the latest and greatest games as well.

So as I stated, i'm pretty much just interested in opinions on what pros the captivate as opposed to the atrix. Is there anything i'm missing in details on the captivate before I go out and trade my atrix? As in: Unresponsive keyboard compared to atrix, software glitches that make people pull their hair out, major lag in everything you do, etc. "Also, there are a lot of great/active Cappy devs, AND we are lucky to get to ride on the coattails of the I9000 development crew (with a reoriented kernel and few minor tweaks I9000 ROMs will run on the Cappy)." No idea what that means, does that mean i can flash a rom that enhances the smoothness/ reception/ data of the phone that would compete with my current atrix data speeds? I have seen my atrix hit just over 4mb down and 1.4mb upload. All of your input is greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot for any other points or issues brought to my attention!

 

[loraque]

Speeds you note are the same we see, with HSUPA; The Atrix must have that afterall.

The big glitch with our phones is the GPS is unreliable, out of the box, with a large percentage of devices. It is probably a hardware issue, as "fixes" are intermittent and also unreliable. I solved this problem with a Bluetooth GPS receiver, others do not use Navigation and would not notice the drifting. Other than GPS, there is no overlying issue, though there are your random defects, like a sleep death on some early models (would turn off when charged fully).

The Atrix is a 1.2 Ghz processor I believe and dual core. It has more CPU power, and Moto is also pretty good with GPUs (Samsung probably right up there too). The atrix will have more CPU power, and will play games better as you already note.

The talk about i9000-

The Captivate is the ATT version of the Galaxy S line of phones. Every carrier has a model based on them, but the BASE model is the i9000 in Europe. There is a large community behind the i9000, and a seemingly almost as large one just for the Captivate (For a long time, it was the ONLY choice for Android on ATT).

For example, in Europe Gingerbread 2.3.3 rolled out to i9000 devices. In about one week, us Captivate users were able to run stock 2.3.3 ROMs. Now there are numerous custom Gingerbread ROMs available for us, when there is a strong possibility ATT will never distribute an official 2.3 ROM. The Captivate (and our Vibrant cousins) are in a uniquely good position in that regard. Additionally, many Captivate users run overclocked to 1.2Ghz, which would narrow the gap in performance with the Atrix until the dual-core was being utilized fully.

Moto has a good reputation for software upgrades, though that was before ATT. You are probably in good hands with the Atrix software wise. I think the Atrix has a second external mic for better speakerphone ability, and of course has access to the cool (expensive) add-ons. There is no doubt that the Atrix is a generation ahead, but the differences are actually pretty small right now. The Galaxy S II coming out soon would be a "morer fairer" comparison, though in that case, I think the Atrix looks like the underdog.

The screen is an important factor in a touchscreen interface, so you would not be the only one to decide on the screen over reasonably small performance gains in CPU.