Thoughts on Hackability of X vs Fascinate

[DamnRock]

So I'm in a tough spot... I'm going to pick up the free phone I'm getting for buying my fiancee a new Fascinate... in-store the Fascinate is BOGA so I should be able to get any phone I want... and it's between the Fascinate and the X. I've been going back and forth on which I'd rather have...

I like the design of the X, the larger screen, the camera... but I like the Super AMOLED screen on the Fascinate, the fact that it's Samsung and they don't hate hackers (easy root on fascinate and roms when available)...

I like the 8gb internal memory on the X (vs 2gb on Fascinate), although I like the 2200 quadrant score on the fascinate after lag-fix... but I don't like that I have to do the lag-fix to get rid of the lag and get the 2200 quadrant on the fascinate... the X's 1250ish quadrant is great and no lag issues from what I've heard.

I don't like bing search and bing nav but I've already fixed that on my fiancees fascinate so that's not really a big deal. I figure both phones will get 2.2 in the near future so that's not a big deal.

Battery life? No issues there on the fascinate. As long as the phone will last all day I'm fine... it doesn't have to run marathons or anything.

I guess the BIGGEST concerns on the X are the screen quality and camera. I've heard the X can be a big jerky on the 720p video as it won't quite do 30fps but the Fascinate will. I've heard the still camera on the X is quite nice and honestly in normal indoor situations so far, the Fascinates camera is lacking. Outdoors with plenty of light it takes beautiful pictures.

I need a tie breaker... some feature or hardware spec that'll tilt my scale towards one or the other. I initially got my fiancee the Fascinate because the X was reportedly hard to hack and I'm a programmer and want as much control as possible... although from what I've read on here, root isn't hard anymore and roms are forthcoming (FlyX, others?)...

What else is there to consider?

 

[DaRkL3AD3R]

Do not. I repeat, do NOT base your purchase on a bloody Quadrant score. Just don't.

That said, both are excellent phones. If you are looking for a more open route, definitely go with the Fascinate. If you are looking for finer tech specs (I don't consider AMOLED an up over LCD until they can get battery life under control) then the Droid X is your best bet. It's not SO locked down that you can't play with it. You just won't be loading up newer OS kernels before Motorola says so.

In all honesty, this isn't a tremendously big deal, and since phones hit EOL and its time to replace them in less than 2 years anyways, what do you really have to worry about longrun wise.

Of course being the happy X owner I am, I'm gonna tell you to man up and get the X, Fascinate's a chick phone isn't peer pressure such a wonderful thing?

 

[anon(40324)]

I agree, the Quadrant scores should not factor into your decision at all. Yes, it is a measure of performance, but it has been shown to be unreliable for the X for a few reasons. Either phone should perform all but flawlessly.

Another thing to consider is the material build quality of the phone. I am biased, but the metal back to the X makes it feel more like a phone than a toy, which can't be said for the Fascinate. I like my devices to feel like devices, not cheap plastic toys. One point for the X...

One other point that might sway your decision is the availability of the .sbf file for the X already. It's possible (and probably likely) that the .sbf file will leak for the Fascinate in the coming weeks, but if you're planning on hacking/ROMing/modding/otherwise messing with your phone, it's nice to have that peace of mind that just about anything you can do to screw up your phone can be undone by flashing that bad boy. You did mention you were a programmer, so you may not be as concerned with that as I was/am. But it's hard to put a price on peace of mind...

Obviously, as an X owner, I am biased. But the X has only been out for two months and look at all the work that has been done for it. Due to Verizon's heavy promoting of it, far more people have the X than the Fascinate, which means far more hacking will be done to it. IMO, the X, with a "supposedly less hackable locked-down bootloader" but far greater online community support, is the better choice.

Edit: I was just over at the XDA Developers forum and found this thread:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=782286
It has a couple of additional Fascinate vs. DX thoughts, so it might be worth checking out. The biggest NEW one was the soft keys on the Fascinate vs. hard keys on the DX. Personally, I hadn't thought about it, but after having hard keys, I much prefer them!

 

[dubge]

I will be honest, I was not thrilled about the hard keys on the X (coming from a D1) I liked how it looked much better on the D1 then the hard keys looked on the X BUT one thing that changed my whole perspective on that is the fact that I use phonemypc to access my HTPC and that in turn can control lights, AC, cameras and hopefully the heat soon, one thing I would do once and a while is hit the home screen on the D1 and it would exit the program and if you didnt back out of the program with the back key for what ever reason it would require me to reboot the PC to regain connection. Now with the hard keys I NEVER have that problem.

 

[DamnRock]

my fiancee is helping me make this decision... more than likely she wants to move back to a BlackBerry (why!?!) so I'll have her fascinate and if I can get the X as the BOGA in store this week, then I'll have both... I'll buy her a BB 8530 on ebay for like $125... decide which of the two android phones to keep and sell the other for $350 or $400 and make some cash in the end. So, I'm 99% sure I'm gonna get the X.

Thanks for the input guys!

 

[deercreek]

Yeah, I couldn't convince my wife to move away from BlackBerry when her replacement Curve crapped out. She ended up with a new 8530 and seems happy with it.