Considering Switching from Evo to D2

[Mister OX]

Ok i've done a lot of reading in both forums and figured i'd come ask the "Experts" about the potential switch. Currently, I rock the HTC Evo. Now when I lived in Atlanta, service from Sprint was amazing and more than likely would not be put into this position. Since my move to NJ, i've found that i've had horrible service from Sprint, dropped calls, low signal, etc. In looking for a carrier to switch to, i've pretty much decided on Verizon. There comes the issue, there is the Motorola Droid X and the soon-to-be released Droid 2. The one thing I have hated about my Evo, is the lack of a keyboard. I do like the Android OS, being a 10+ year veteran of Blackberry, but the one thing I have had the hardest time adjusting to is the lack of a physical keyboard.

Thoughts on the switch? Or any recommendations?

 

[Cory Streater]

All 3 phones are awesome, so it's tough to recommend one over the other. However, if you set aside everything else and focus on just the keyboard, I would say I found the Droid X to have a slightly better and more responsive keyboard than the EVO. I make fewer errors and because it's thinner in size, it feels more natural in the hands. That said, a physical keyboard would still be my keyboard of choice. I like to be able to physically touch and press keys. It's the one thing I miss about the Touch Pro 2, which had the best keyboard I've ever used on a smartphone. The original Droid was a huge step down for me and I even found myself using the screen over it. I think the Droid 2 improves on that quite a bit but we won't know for sure because nobody has been able to get their hands on one yet. Now if you look at the phones as a whole, I would probably still choose the X because of it's screen size. To me that outweighs the lack of a physical keyboard.

 

[Mister OX]

All 3 phones are awesome, so it's tough to recommend one over the other. However, if you set aside everything else and focus on just the keyboard, I would say I found the Droid X to have a slightly better and more responsive keyboard than the EVO. I make fewer errors and because it's thinner in size, it feels more natural in the hands. That said, a physical keyboard would still be my keyboard of choice. I like to be able to physically touch and press keys. It's the one thing I miss about the Touch Pro 2, which had the best keyboard I've ever used on a smartphone. The original Droid was a huge step down for me and I even found myself using the screen over it. I think the Droid 2 improves on that quite a bit but we won't know for sure because nobody has been able to get their hands on one yet. Now if you look at the phones as a whole, I would probably still choose the X because of it's screen size. To me that outweighs the lack of a physical keyboard.

You pose some good statements there, and I agree the thought of the thin Droid X has crossed my mind. What frustrates me more is when I am on the go, and need to hammer out a series of text messages and/or a email, the lack of a physical keyboard becomes frustrating.

 

[karnovaran]

Have you had a chance to use Swype? It would certainly make your life easier for text messaging, but I know e-mails that require more punctuation are frustrating with a virtual keyboard.

The internals are the same, so the tradeoff between the X and D2 is a bigger screen and multimedia capabilities (8MP, HDMI) vs smaller screen and physical keyboard. It sounds like you're not so much worried about the multimedia, so I'd recommend going with the D2 and seeing if the keyboard fulfills your needs. If not, you can always return it within 30 days.

 

[Mister OX]

Have you had a chance to use Swype? It would certainly make your life easier for text messaging, but I know e-mails that require more punctuation are frustrating with a virtual keyboard.

The internals are the same, so the tradeoff between the X and D2 is a bigger screen and multimedia capabilities (8MP, HDMI) vs smaller screen and physical keyboard. It sounds like you're not so much worried about the multimedia, so I'd recommend going with the D2 and seeing if the keyboard fulfills your needs. If not, you can always return it within 30 days.

Good point, I haven't tried Swype (couldn't get it to work on my Evo), but I think try it for 29 days and if it sucks go trade for the Droid X.

 

[Mister OX]

From the looks of it the Droid 2 seems to be a slam dunk for what i'm looking for.

 

[johntkong]

I think it all comes down to personal preference: virtual keyboard or physical keyboard. I personally love the feel of a real keyboard under my thumbs.

I had the Dx, and I loved it! The virtual keyboard was better than my iPod Touch 3! The big seller for me on the Dx was the size of the screen. Now that I've left my Dx (rip), I can't use screens any smaller

You've spoiled me X!!

 

[Mister OX]

Yeah I broke down and bought the Droid X instead. After playing with both, i've decided I can live without the keyboard.

 

[gspeed]

Samsung Fascinate is the phone I'd recommend.

I just brought the droid 2 for a 30 day rental.

I plan on returning and getting the facinate.

Droid2 screen can not compare with the Galaxy S(Fascinate) Super Amoled. Even the GpU of the Facinate will be much better then the Droid2.

Also the linpack scores of this device running 2.2 are pretty low.

I brought the phone because I need an Android device but am honestly underwhelmed. I've played with the Galaxy S line of phones and they are in a different league. I also find the 4" screen of the Galaxy S to be a happy medium between the larg 4.3" screen of the X and the 3.7 " screen of d2.

 

[chrstdvd]

I got the D2 instead of the Fascinate because of RAM and only 2 Gig internal memory. I hate physical keyboards, but this thing has a nice large one. Top row is to close to bottom of screen half, but U can get used to it.

 

[thebizz]

Two gigs of internal storage is plenty. The keyboard on the d2 is much better than the d1 but with do much bloat on this phone I'm somewhat disappointed the extra ram is with nothing with all the memory hogs loaded on this phone. thinking about trying to get a fascinate or trading my d2 for an x

 

[dwaynewilliams#WN]

I would prefer the Droid 2 over the Fascinate because of the Bing search. How are they going to put Bing search as the default search engine on a Google phone? Doesn't seem right.

 

[Bushido Brown]

Samsung Fascinate is the phone I'd recommend.

I just brought the droid 2 for a 30 day rental.

I plan on returning and getting the facinate.

Droid2 screen can not compare with the Galaxy S(Fascinate) Super Amoled. Even the GpU of the Facinate will be much better then the Droid2.

Also the linpack scores of this device running 2.2 are pretty low.

I brought the phone because I need an Android device but am honestly underwhelmed. I've played with the Galaxy S line of phones and they are in a different league. I also find the 4" screen of the Galaxy S to be a happy medium between the larg 4.3" screen of the X and the 3.7 " screen of d2.

The processing cores of the Fascinate and the Droid 2/X are identical if I'm not mistaken. Both phones achieve the same Linpack scores, not that means much in terms of real world performance, anyway. They only differ because the Galaxy phones have a beefier version of the PowerVR chip, which lends to many more polygons per second. This only comes into play if we're talking 3D gaming, and THAT only comes into play when software dev actually decides to create games that use the SGX 540 chip that's inside of the Galaxy S phones as a baseline.

 

[thebizz]

No the samsung chip is slightly different but pretty close gpu is the big difference

 

[Bushido Brown]

No the samsung chip is slightly different but pretty close gpu is the big difference

Do you have a link that you can show me that supports that claim? Quadrant flags both processors as an ARMv7 Processor rev 2 with max frequencies of 1GHZ.

As far as I can tell, the only difference is the SGX 540 as supposed to the Moto Droid's 530. The king of mobile gaming right now is the iPhone/iPod Touch, and their latest incarnations only sport a 535 GPU - which is roughly the baseline mobile games will be dev'd by. In other words, by the time software is released that takes advantage of the extra horsepower supplied by the "Hummingbird" we will most likely be staring down the barrel of the Droid 3, or Galaxy SS or whatever.

 

[thebizz]

Yes their both based off of the same revision I'll find the link to the story. But saying games don't take advantage of the power is not accurate try playing a game on both devices you will see how much smoother an sgs device is. But on processors the 45nm snapdragon is based of the same revision as these two. But the chip manufactures only have to stay within a specific guideline but it doesn't mean they can't modify their chips somewhat to give better performance. And btw look at what the n1 without jit and froyo would achieve in linpack right in line with these chips
Edit
A by king do you mean the most games. Because in benchmark test the hummingbird decimates the iphone and ipod

 

[Bushido Brown]

Yes their both based off of the same revision I'll find the link to the story. But saying games don't take advantage of the power is not accurate try playing a game on both devices you will see how much smoother an sgs device is. But on processors the 45nm snapdragon is based of the same revision as these two. But the chip manufactures only have to stay within a specific guideline but it doesn't mean they can't modify their chips somewhat to give better performance. And btw look at what the n1 without jit and froyo would achieve in linpack right in line with these chips
Edit
A by king do you mean the most games. Because in benchmark test the hummingbird decimates the iphone and ipod

King, like the Prom King, ie: most popular. Meaning most games will be designed with their "inferior" hardware in mind, not the Galaxy S.

I imagine Sammy may have encoded some specific instructions for their chipset, but that's rather trivial don't you think? The only real tangible advantage is the 540. It will run markedly smoother than any of the HTC's, but the OP asked about the Droid 2. The Galaxy phones spit out impressive numbers in benchmarks, but I have yet to see any evidence that it play any of the modern 3D games better than a D2, or X for that matter.

Just because your speedometer reads 200 doesn't mean you'll ever get the chance to actually go that fast. The Fascinate has some good things going for it, but I wouldn't look to the CPU/GPU to provide any decisive advantage over the Droid 2.

 

[thebizz]

I simply bright an htc device up to talk about the different chip sets. no the gpu isn't a thing that would be a definitive yes or no for me but if your a heavy gamer yes you should look at it. I've played the game nova on my d1 d2 and the vibrant it ran the best on the vibrant that game could bog down on the d1 with slight slow downs on the 2 was smooth and fast on the vibrant. But look at the whole package you won't go wrong if you choose either the d2 or fascinate