Droid 3 owners, is the phone worth it?

[MuzikJay]

I am switching from Sprint to Verizon for their service. I'm an Evo 4g owner now and want a physical keyboard so naturally my choices are between the Droid 3 and the Samsung Stratosphere even though I'll miss Sense UI.

I checked out both phones this morning at the Verizon store and liked the UI on the Samsung because it was a bit snappier than the D3s UI, but the Stratosphere also felt a little to light and cheap and although the slider is spring loaded, it's also really difficult to get open without the phone slipping all over the place.

The keyboard on the D3 is FAR better and more accurate than the keyboard on the Stratosphere and since that's the main reason I'm getting the phone but I'm just worried about all of the issues I've heard of people having with the D3 like constant reboots and laggy performance.

The D3 is only a penny on Amazon and the Stratosphere is free through Wirefly so either one is a viable option price wise.

Any thoughts? How do you all like your D3? Would you choose it over the Stratosphere after owning it for as long as you have? Have the reboots and lag been too big/irritating of an issue?

 

[samdroid]

I've never owned a Stratosphere, but the Droid 3 is the best phone I've owned. Never had reboot or lag issues. I use Launcherpro for the home launcher. The phone overall is snappy and am really happy with the purchase. The only issue, if I can call it that, is the speaker on this phone is not as loud as my OG Droid. Go for it, you won't be disappointed with this one.

 

[The Droid Shnoid]

I've never owned a Stratosphere, but the Droid 3 is the best phone I've owned. Never had reboot or lag issues. I use Launcherpro for the home launcher. The phone overall is snappy and am really happy with the purchase. The only issue, if I can call it that, is the speaker on this phone is not as loud as my OG Droid. Go for it, you won't be disappointed with this one.

You pretty much took the words out of my mouth.

 

[toothfairy]

I upgraded to a D3 about a month ago and haven't had any of the problems that some people mentioned. The phone is fast but upgrading from an Eris and anything is pretty fast. ha -- but I'm really happy. The keyboard is great -- I used swype alot in the past but it's a pleasure to type with this keyboard -- easy to hit the right keys and very comfortable. Battery life is good -- I don't use the phone heavily during the day -- maybe check some emails and a couple of calls -- use it more in the evening -- but I easily make it through the day with no problem. All in all I think it's a solid phone and I'm having a great experience so fa.r

 

[Suntan]

I can't comment on the Samsung as I haven't seen it, but I am really happy with the D3.

I haven't had a lot of the problems that other people are experiencing. I've only seen one reboot that happened when I switched from wifi to 3g (in a really remote area with poor 3g coverage) then back to wifi before the phone had made the first switch. Other than that it has run fine since the day it released.

Isn't the new samsung a 4G phone? Be aware that the D3 is only a 3G phone if that is important to you.

-Suntan

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I'll admit that I've not look at the new Samsung phone all that closely, but here are my thoughts:

Pluses: 1) 4G (if you are doing surfing away from WiFi networks, or tethering, this could be huge), 2) screen is much, much nicer than the D3's pentile, 3) Maybe a factor of lower quality materials but the phone feels a little lighter and easier to carry, 4) It may not be dual core, but the phone feels every bit as snappy as my D3 - maybe even more so.

Minuses: 1) Build quality is several notches below D3 2) Touchwhiz is my least favorite of all the Droid skins - very intrusive. Now, I've lived with the D3 long enough to figure out how to disable all the MotoBLUR (or whatever they are calling it these days) features that I loathe so much. So, it may well be possible to do the same with the Samsung phone. But, out of the box, I think Touchwhiz is kind of a mess, 3) Keyboard is meh (which, btw, all seems typical of Samsung phones), 4) I seriously doubt the battery life will be anywhere close to the D3, which post update, has been fantastic, 5) Does not have international roaming capacity (which may or may not matter to you), 6) Samsung has not been great about getting updates out in a timely fashion (Moto has done this well).

I'm not nearly as enthusiastic about the D3 as some of the other posters here. IMO, its still a buggy product and I think the screen quality is lacking. But, the keyboard is superb and I mostly like the Blur features (and the ones I don't like are easy to get rid of) and the build quality is very, very impressive. I think Moto's support has been decent, banging out a badly-needed update in a rapid fashion. I can see myself keeping this phone for a while.

So, bottom line for me:

If you need and want 4G, can live with crappy battery life, want a very nice screen, and are tech savy enough to disable Samsung's TouchWhiz features - go with that phone.

If you need long battery life, can live without 4G, want what is arguably the best keyboard on any smartphone available today, are OK with the pentile screen, and maybe want a phone that works internationally, D3 is your ticket.

P.S. I've not heard anything about the bootloader. If it is unlocked on the Samsung, then it is nobrainer which way to go.

 

[NormanGC]

I've been reading some posts about people complaining about the pentile screen and I do have to interject my personal comments regarding the pentile screen. The following link explains the PenTile technology and i think the information is valuable.

Technology

1st of all, one of the biggest complaints that people have about the new phones is the battery life. That was my number one concern going from BB 8830 to any android phone. I did settle on the D3 and have absolutely not regrets.

Some people make a big deal of this technology and they have the right to do so. If you want a super bright, crisp, clean and probably the best screen, look at the iPhone. No one can argue about its quality. I have watched several movies through netflix, I watched many videos on YouTube, replay the videos I recorded and looked at the pictures that I took and I can sincerely say that the display is good,

If you want the perfect camera, don't buy a phone, buy an SLR and all it's attachments. If you want to watch movies on crisp screens, DON'T stream video, you will never get the absolute quality you want, instead by a BlueRay player with a HiDef screen running at 240hz refresh rate. If you want to record gorgeous HD Video and have a professional look, don't use phones, buy yourself a Canon XF Series camcorder. If you want the best handheld voice recorder, don't use your phone. Buy a recorder like the the Olympus LS-11 and get the microphone kit. You'll be able to record anything and people will be jealous! Put the recording on a CD/DVD and no one will believe that you personally created it.

What I'm saying is that the D3 is a phone/camcorder/camera/PC and like any other smartphones, even though the quality is good, is still only a phone with average consumer technology.

You will NEVER get the quality of stand alone devices in a tiny camera phone.

So, don't sweat the small stuff. This phone is a great phone and the screen looks great!

 

[nathanb131]

I got this phone after the Samsung Continuum (one of the first galaxy S phones).

It's waaaay more stable and has way less moments of lag than I expected. And I don't restart it often, am running stock, and don't bother to actively try to manage what programs I may have left open. This is probably more a difference of Android 2.1 vs 2.3 but I was constantly trying to 'clean up' that Samsung just to get it to run smoothly on a regular basis. My D3 is almost always rock solid, I'd still be happy with it if it was a bit more glitchy than it is.

I like the screen a lot. The samsung's OMOLED was bright and colorful. Almost to the point of cartoon-like. To me, the D3 screen feels more 'grown up' and computer-like. It's like the difference between a beautiful plasma home theater tv and a nice external pc monitor. I don't watch much video at all or play many games. Most of my stuff is about reading text. I like that better with this phone. It just seems a little sharper and easier on the eyes when using it as a computer, not a little tv. My analogy probably makes little sense but that's just my impression.

4G would be awesome. The only advantage I can think of with the Samsung.

The build quality between the plasticky sammy and this D3 is night and day different. I will never buy a phone encased in that cheap plastic again. It makes a big difference when you are handling it many times a day.

I really don't use the hard keyboard much, but on occasion it is fantastic! The number row at the top makes it really nice to not have to toggle. It looks like the keys on the Samsung are bigger and fewer, which might be a good thing. I'm an old treo/bb person so I actually like smaller and closer spaced keys. Landscape keyboard keys that are big and wide apart just feel strange to me to type on. So personally I appreciate the many smaller keys on the D3.

Also, I expected to dislike motoblur after reading so much general hatred of it before I got the phone. Turns out I really like it and have no desire to root or install a 3rd party launcher. Especially compared to touchwiz. In fact, I'll bet I'd like it more than pure android. Blasphemy here, I know. The dialer interface is incredibly well done and I feel like anything else would be a big step back. I'm very relieved to know that I don't need to modify the general interface to my liking, which generally leads to more lag and glitches.

Don't like the camera function as much as the samsung. It's fairly slow and I've had some problems with pictures and videos not saving on a random basis. That's the one big glitch I've had....I would take like 10 pictures and later find out that pic number 3, 5, and 6 just didn't save. No error messages or anything...just weren't anywhere to be found even though some others taken at the same time were. Very odd, I'm suspecting a problem with my memory card but would expect the phone to mention that. So now I am very careful about verifying that the pic/movie saved before moving on and haven't seen the problem come back lately.

 

[akhi216]

The Droid 3 has an above average keyboard. Personally I would've preferred the keyboard to be wider so that the number key would have more symbols that could be accessed by an Alt keypress. The Pentile screen isn't anything to make a big fuss over IMO. Yes you can see individual pixels on the battery icon (even without straining even if you have blurred vision yada yada yada...) but if one has time to focus on and worry about such minor details as that then obviously they don't care about important things such as signal reception, call clarity, dropped calls, etc....but enough of that. I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you that this phone is perfect. When opening the app drawer from the home screen the app pauses for a split second before opening with a "blurred animation." This happens with a few functions and turning of animations under settings will not remove all of them. When switching from portrait to landscape the screen does another blurred animation where it shows a blank white screen with shades of grey rotating at opposite end. There is a split second pause when this happen that a person may not prefer, but I find it to be a stunning effect. The Gorilla Glass scratches easily after about two weeks for some reason, there's probably a coating on top of the Gorilla Glass. It has an OK button that comes in handy when navigating a page when browsing. Verizon's 3G sucks, but I have no problem watching a video in YouTube. On a Flash-heavy site that's a different story, but this may change when the D3 gets ICS...that is assuming that it does get ICS, which shouldn't be a problem as the D3's hardware should be more than enough to run it considering the fact that phones with weaker specs will get it (e.g. the entire 2011 Xperia line). If not then there's always XDA... I would've liked a native voice search option that could activated by holding down the search button. IMO Motorola could've added in some more options for long-presses.

I know I've already said it, but Verizon's 3G sucks. It sucks when compared to T-Mobile's or AT&T's 3G, but at least you have can have it 95% of the time and stream a video or track with little to no issues. I HAD to have a phone that has a slide-out keyboard and 4G. There were no options available, so I bought a Verizon 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot (MiFi) to complement my D3. Sure my bill is high, but I don't mind having to pay a little extra to get what I want, plus I can use 4G to play PS3/Xbox 360 online with no lag on my end whatsoever, and surf on my laptop at 4G speeds without compromising the use of my phone. Anyway, no matter what anyone may tell you 4G LTE is the $***; that's why AT&T and Sprint plan to move to it. I gurantee if you get a 4G LTE phone for a week you'll never settle for 3G. This brings me to the Stratosphere. Many think that screen on the Stratosphere is very good. It's cartoony IMO, but that's subjective. The Stratosphere has a small screen, but small screens are better to play games on, it's just easier. My experience with Samsung phones is that the reception is weak. To often people people could hear me with no problem but I had trouble making out what they say due to their voice fading in and out. Data stalled and dropped for a couple of seconds at times. However, Samsung claims that the Stratosphere has been optimized for 4G LTE on their website. When I played with a Stratosphere, the 4G connection was consistent, pages loaded faster than on the D3 (due to the 4G connection).

The D3 will have and edge hardware-wise if it gets ICS as one of the features that it brings is hardware acceleration. I doubt that the Stratospher will get ICS, but of course if you have the money you can get one of the better phones that will be available next year.

The Droid 3 comes with 16 GB of storage whereas the Stratosphere comes with 4 GB of storage, and both storages are partitioned.

It's all about what's important to you. If you're an internet junkie like me then the Stratosphere is the obvious hence the 4G LTE capabilities. However if you'd like to get a phone that's closer to the cutting edge and you don't need near-breakneck data speeds than the D3 is for you.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

 

[akhi216]

The Stratosphere uses a microsim card. This allows you to put the microsim card into a Verizon Galaxy Tab 10.1", which also uses microsim cards, and have 4G connectivity with it.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

 

[henry740#AC]

i just got the droid 3 and i love it! no problems at all

 

[akhi216]

The Droid 3 has an above average keyboard. Personally I would've preferred the keyboard to be wider so that the number key would have more symbols that could be accessed by an Alt keypress.

And my prayers have been answered...

First Pictures of the DROID4

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

 

[enb123]

I've had it since launch and I'd definitely buy it again. Most of the people in my office are now using iPhones (a mix of 4 and 4S's), and they'll never quite understand what they're missing - but that's their loss!

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

 

[MrObvious]

I have had this phone since September and the wife got one too and I must say that this phone is quite nice to use. My only thing is typing on the keyboard is a little hard because the phone is big but I can go fine on it. I am more use to a BB but this is a nice kb. Of course I have small thumbs for a 6 foot guy. The software is solid but bloated. I run a custom ROM and it negates that. I don't have any complaints minus the LED not being as customizable as a BB.