So...Who Has One?

[jflexe99]

I picked mine up today. I don't know exactly how much battery it had when I picked it up, besides lowish. Seem to drain quick, but it is only first day, I know.

Screen is gorgeous! It responds fast. Once in a while I see a little lag, nothing terrible though. Also, it seems like you have to push a little for screen to respond. Other phones you just barely touch the screen and it responds. But still works nicely.

Haven't done any real web browsing, no phone calls, little texting, no e-mails. Just installing apps and widgets I use. I might be swapping to GO launcher due to it being a very nice free launcher. Stock UI isn't bad, just not perfect. It is somewhat close to TouchWiz.

The phone itself feels GREAT in the hand. Thin, lightweight, not as wide as my old SkyRocket(I kind of miss the width of the screen due to texting). The back/battery cover is excellent. Feels great, looks great, good grip, and no fingerprints like on the SR....

I have yet to try the camera, video or audio either...but I am sure over the next day or two I will be.

I would recommend this phone if you want the best screen you can get, fast, lightweight and just an overall good phone.

Seriously...the screen is AMAZING!!!

 

[Sniper1087]

i was between this and the original SGS2 and picked this one up, the screen is fantastic, and well the sgs2 is faster performance, but the resolution not as high and well i compared them side by side.

 

[jflexe99]

Quadrant, 1st test 2190, 2nd test 2622, 3rd test 2287

AnTuTu, got a 6273 on one test

Even though it isn't quite as fast/smooth as the Galaxy S2, I really do like this more than the GS2. It is still fast with very minor lag, and that's only once in a while for me.

Just can't get over how nice this screen is...blows super amoleds away! I do want to see the Galaxy Nexus screen though, has to be gorgeous as well.

 

[blopez24]

returned my vivid to get this screw htc and their locked bootloaders after promising something they cant come through. I took it back as i will be working all day during the week and wouldnt be able to return it. I love the screen its amazing. havent noticed any lag i will more than likely get a launcher.

 

[planoman]

I picked mine up today. I don't know exactly how much battery it had when I picked it up, besides lowish. Seem to drain quick, but it is only first day, I know.

Screen is gorgeous! It responds fast. Once in a while I see a little lag, nothing terrible though. Also, it seems like you have to push a little for screen to respond. Other phones you just barely touch the screen and it responds. But still works nicely.

Haven't done any real web browsing, no phone calls, little texting, no e-mails. Just installing apps and widgets I use. I might be swapping to GO launcher due to it being a very nice free launcher. Stock UI isn't bad, just not perfect. It is somewhat close to TouchWiz.

The phone itself feels GREAT in the hand. Thin, lightweight, not as wide as my old SkyRocket(I kind of miss the width of the screen due to texting). The back/battery cover is excellent. Feels great, looks great, good grip, and no fingerprints like on the SR....

I have yet to try the camera, video or audio either...but I am sure over the next day or two I will be.

I would recommend this phone if you want the best screen you can get, fast, lightweight and just an overall good phone.

Seriously...the screen is AMAZING!!!

I looked at it today and was impressed with the phone. If I were to get one, I would buy off contract, possibly selling my SR. I saw a review that stated there is some type of inertia control on the app drawer which slows the scrolling down and not to confuse it with lag. I noticed this on the app drawer and screen but thought it was very smooth although I could tell there was some type of limit on the scrolling. Pinch to zoom on the web sites was smooth also.

I am looking forward to reports on battery life and real world usage reports.

 

[aimhelix]

Got mine today at launch date from the ATT store - swapping my Galaxy S Skyrocket for this phone. There was a lot of mixed reviews prior to this phone's release and I decided to just bite the bullet and go for it. So far so good.

As others have mentioned, the screen is gorgeous. The best screen IMO out there right now due to how bright and fine the HD quality is. Very hard to tell individual pixels w/the naked eye. But, I do miss some things about the SR: the wider aspect ratio. The screen sizes betweent he Nitro and the SR are bout 4.5" but the SR's screen is slightly wider which makes it nice for texting in portrait mode.

The Nitro does not feel as buttery fast as the SR. It's nothing major, but there are moments when the phone lags a bit when going from one screen to another when your screens are full of widgets but it's a rare occurence and I sort of expected this having to power an HD screen. Hopefully, a software update or a more optimized ICS will make this better as the Nitro has the hardware to back it up.

The LG UI is really ugly.. lol. But I also found Touchwiz to be just as ugly so I ran Go Launcher on both phones. Installing the launcher seem to do little as to making the phone perform better or worse.

I'm a bigger fan of the button layout on the Nitro than the SR. When browsing I tend to power off the SR because of the power button being on the side, I like having it better where the Nitro has it - the top right.

Battery time seem to be on-par w/the SR though this is my 1st time charging to full and then using it w/medium load. (1-1.5 hrs of browsing, check email every 1-2 hrs, Facebook, G+, 1 HR of NAV). I figure I can squeeze 12ish or so hrs w/this type of use per charge.

Call quality is about the same as the SR. There is a difference of course but neither phone stood out over the other for me in this category.

Overall I am enjoying this phone. Sure I miss the SR's blazing speed but this phone is amazing when watching Netflix or browsing. I can read sites w/o having to zoom in as the text is so crisp that zoomed out views are often legible. Colors pop as much as the AMOLED except at a much much higher res.

 

[planoman]

Quadrant, 1st test 2190, 2nd test 2622, 3rd test 2287

AnTuTu, got a 6273 on one test

Even though it isn't quite as fast/smooth as the Galaxy S2, I really do like this more than the GS2. It is still fast with very minor lag, and that's only once in a while for me.

Just can't get over how nice this screen is...blows super amoleds away! I do want to see the Galaxy Nexus screen though, has to be gorgeous as well.

Thanks for posting this info. That is a SMOKING Antutu! I get 5830's to 5850's on my SR. This is faster than the Galaxy Nexus. Did you run a few and was it consistently that fast?

 

[jflexe99]

Just did another antutu test. 6003

 

[Sniper1087]

6314 atuntu, now my concern is battery life, and signal,yes signal for some reason today I lost complete connection for like 2 minutes well not a big deal, but I just dont want it to happen all the time, if it does well i might have to get the Nexus and Simple Mobile with it, well I will put it through its paces and decided whether I keep the Lg phone and AT&T, wish me luck.

 

[tbran]

LG only shows 3 hour Talk Time in the Nitro specs, compared to 6 on the SR. Granted they can be unreliable, but battery life might be the price paid for the great screen. Btw, I just ran Atuntu on my S2SR for 3 runs and got 6372, 6244 and 6308 on skyrocketeer 2.0, so it seems comparable.
Sent from my Samsung S-II SR from Tapatalk.

 

[jgivesit]

Picked this up today...finally got away from the shackles of the iPhone (former fanboy, had each generation). Being a grandfathered unlimited AT&T guy, I didn't want to switch carriers...but I also couldn't bare the thought of moving to a lesser screen resolution than my iPhone 4. Finally, the Nitro arrived on AT&T so it was time to make the switch.

First impression, screen is simply stunning. It's a larger retina display, essentially, except I find the colors brighter and the contrast improved. Also, the screen seems to be closer to the surface...like there is almost no glass between your finger and the LCD. Incredible.

Size - moving from a 3.5 inch screen to a 4.5 inch screen seemed like a huge jump, one that I was excited about, but also worried...didn't want to look like I jammed a bb playbook in my pocket, wouldn't be good for my game Verdict - feels smaller in my pocket than the iphone did, and significantly lighter. From a usage standpoint, 4.5 inches feels great. I can reach nearly everything one handed using my thumb. Pulling down the notification tray can be a bit tricky, but other than that, no probs. Its funny, I find that the experience was like purchasing my 50 inch TV a few years ago. When I brought it home, I marveled at how huge it was. Weeks/months later, it was just the norm to me. I already find that this will be the case with this phone. I already caught myself thinking that the Galaxy Note may be very manageable and a perfect size. Its like the trend in sunglasses...they just keep getting bigger because the new large starts to feel normal.

Hardware - light and pretty thin. Handed the phone to my 4s using buddy and he said "wow, that's thin." Next to the skyrocket, nearly the same thickness. The regular sg2 seemed noticeably thinner though. Coming from the glass iPhone, the build feels a bit non-premium, but still solid. I really like the beveled curve on the edges of the glass screen, it provides a premium infinity pool type feel. Charger flap is just crap...it reminds me of the charging port covers on my old digital cameras...which I always broke off. Eh well. Overall, not the sexiest beast but definitely sexier than the online pics in harsh light paint.

Camera - did a side by side pic comparison with my buddy's iPhone 4s. We both took a picture of a christmas tree with no flash in a mood lit living room. The Nitro snapped a clear pic, light was amplified...the christmas lights in the tree seemed to glow. The 4s took an extremely clear pic, light was less amplified (picture was a bit dark), but the detail was better than the Nitro. We did a few other tests and found that the 4s takes pics that are more sharp, but not by much. Only real complaint I have with the cam is it seems to be hard to get a 100% crisp/sharp pic, even in good lighting at a standard distance. Everything seems to be slightly soft, like I moved my hand ever so slightly when snapping.

Software - The LG skin is gross...but thank god android lets you change what you don't like. Installed LauncherPro with an ICS theme and BAM, looks like a brand new device. Bit of lag when moving between app pages. Browser lags a bit when scrolling. Pinch/zoom lags a bit as well. Expecting better things when we get some GPU acceleration in ICS.

Battery - so far, tragic. The highest I've had the charge was 30% which I drained to 1% on less than 30 minutes of browsing on wifi. Coming from the iPhone, this is tragic. Need to find some way to fix this. Screen brightness is on auto btw.

Overall, the screen on this phone is the absolute killer feature. Next to the samoled plus, it has better, brighter whites...nearly equal color saturation, and about equal brightness. But, the resolution is what makes it truly stand out from the 800 x 480 variants. Once you use a display which allows you to read text on desktop versions of sites without zooming, you can never go back. I promise. Samoled HD Plus may offer a similar experience...but haven't had the luxury of seeing one in person yet.

I'll report back with a battery life update towards the end of a week, once I've established a new usage pattern instead of the "new toy" pattern it has suffered today.

Bottom line recommendation from an ex iPhone 4 guy - buy it, but with potentially an extended battery.

 

[jflexe99]

Battery for me seems OK. We can't really say how the battery is for another week. I always shut off my data if I am just texting or calling people. Saves a lot of battery. I think the battery will be fine for most. It is a huge bump up from a 480x800 screen. Can't think of ever going back.

 

[erwaso]

So what I'm hearing is great screen, but laggy. My old HTC aria on 2.2 with 600mhz processor isn't laggy to me. The Niro can't be worse.

 

[calvin35]

So what I'm hearing is great screen, but laggy. My old HTC aria on 2.2 with 600mhz processor isn't laggy to me. The Niro can't be worse.

I know that some reviews are reporting minimal lag, but I have tested two Nitros at different stores and both exhibited lag. In addition the browser cannot be full screened, at least I was not able to do it. There wad always a notification bar at the top and a navigation bat at the bottom. In addition both units I tested had rendering issues of flash when scrolling. Sometimes when scrolling the flash would appear on top of the navigation bar on the bottom of the browser and when the scrolling stopped the flash would catch up and reveal the navigation bar. I currently have a vivid and just was not impressed with my own experience with this phone. I keep thinking that I just got unlucky and will probably go back for a third look.

 

[calvin35]

So what I'm hearing is great screen, but laggy. My old HTC aria on 2.2 with 600mhz processor isn't laggy to me. The Niro can't be worse.

I have tried this phone twice and both times I found it to be laggy. It also has flash rendering issues when scrolling. Also if someone can figure out how to get rid of the notification bar at the top and the navigation bar at the bottom please let me know.

 

[fkabibil]

I have tried this phone twice and both times I found it to be laggy. It also has flash rendering issues when scrolling. Also if someone can figure out how to get rid of the notification bar at the top and the navigation bar at the bottom please let me know.

The android phones on display at AT&T all exhibit lag. Im guessing it has something to do with the demo software they always have running behind the scenes. As far as the browser just download dolphin browser and your problem is solved.

 

[jflexe99]

The lag isn't bad. Its once in a while, and not much.

A full screen web browsing experience. Download an aftermarket web browser like Dolphin, that is what I use and it is splendid web browsing on this phone!

 

[jjb70]

@jgivesit
Great review and congrats on the new device. I like reading reviews by end users who call it like they see it. That's how I always approach electronics. And I'm also an IOS/Android user. Both platforms are great, both have some issues too...

I'm on the fence about this device. I still have a few weeks to return my GS2 if I want to swap. I was planning on buying it Sunday but when I played with the Demo (right out of the box), honestly it seemed a little laggy to me. Even viewing the built in videos was a little choppy. The size, form factor and weight were absolutely perfect. But my GS2 is SO fast and responsive that I'm not sure it will be worth the trade off.

I'd like to hear if any other launchers or settings help you over the next few days to speed it up.

If any of you guys could try using the "Gingerbread" vanilla launcher and report back, I'd really appreciate it. That one usually takes out any lag due to skin.

 

[jflexe99]

I use GO Launcher, excellent launcher, many many options. Looks great, performs great!

I have had about 5 hours off the charger with a good amount of texting, one call, and just admiring the screen, still at 92% battery.

 

[jgivesit]

I use GO Launcher, excellent launcher, many many options. Looks great, performs great!

I have had about 5 hours off the charger with a good amount of texting, one call, and just admiring the screen, still at 92% battery.

Have you changed any settings to increase your battery life? I used my device on wifi starting at 9:30am today beginning with 100% charge. I played pandora for about an hour using the speaker, checked FB a couple of times, sent about 5 texts, browsed thru probably about 15 page loads, took a one hour call, and by 2:30 I was down to 11%. I'm not sure if this is considered heavy usage, but this is typical of my daily routine which, with my previous phone, would land me closer to 8:00pm (which would include another hour of pandora, 15 page loads, and some texts) before needing a charge.

Can any of you suggest a good battery monitoring/tracking tool which I can use to diagnose what is causing the drain?