considering the Captivate

[lastxxfarewell#AC]

hey android central....i'm a crackberry user (blackberry curve 8900. ) and a member of crackberry.com. i'm getting really sick of my curve's lagginess and crappy browser! i love the keyboard but i can see myself getting used to a touchscreen. i have an upgrade coming up october 3rd, and i really want to switch to a non-blackberry. i've been keeping my eyes open and i saw the iPhone4 which i love very much and have had my heart set on since day one...but then today i saw the samsung captivate. and i have a copule questions...
1. i have the $15 for 200 mb per month plan, will that be enough data per month?
2. is the touchscreen as good as the iPhone's?
3. how is the browser?

thanks for your help

 

[Joeybear23]

1. Possibly. I came from a Blackberry Storm (unlocked and on AT&T), and my data usage before was about 50-60MB per month. In the past two weeks I have used only 165 MB, and that's while setting up the phone and downloading about 30 apps. I sync with 2 exchange accounts and Gmail...

2. I prefer the Captivate touchscreen to my wife's iPhone4. Both, however, are tricky to get used to. I still select stuff unintentionally... but the Storm screen had to also be "clicked" so I am re-learning.

3. The browser is fast and easy to navigate, but you can install a different browser if you don't like it. It is leaps and bounds better than anything you can get on that small screen on the curve. You will love how you don't have to scroll around so much to see a web page.

 

[objectuser]

Joey has some good input. Here's my take coming from an iPhone 3G with iOS 4 (my wife currently uses an iPhone 4):

1. I was using under 200MB a month on my iPhone. But I'm not yet sure how much data I'll use with the Captivate. I expect it to be more.
2. I think the touch screens are equivalent. I don't notice a difference.
3. I like the browser much better on the Captivate than my iPhone. It renders things much faster than my iPhone (but that was 2 year old tech) and seems to fit text to pages better than what I was used to before.

The iPhone does have its advantages, but for me, the Captivate is a much better phone. It all depends on what you want. When I use my wife's phone, it feels very primitive in many ways, like the simple home screens/app launchers. But I think the iPhone has much better copy/paste, a better keyboard and ... well, maybe that's it.

 

[RobertInCypress]

I'm a former crackberry guy, went from the Pearl to the old Curve to tthe big Bold - the 9000.
i had a choice between the Captivate & the iPhone4 when I upgraded & went with Android.
1. i didnt have to wait to get the samsung - iPhone4 was a 3 day wait.
2. the price was pretty much the same at 16GB - $199 but the samsung is able to handle a microSD up to i hear 32 gb. i have a 16gb in mine now making it a 32gb phone.

i'm sure there are things the iPhone does better, and I went to AT&T wanting the iPhone but i'm super happy with the captivate & havent regretted it at all.
as for your questions,

i have the 30$/month data plan so i'm not sure

this is my first touchscreen and it took a few days but i like it now. a physical keyboard would still be a little easier but im getting better with the touch screen. swype makes typing pretty fast & is fun to use.

the browser is far & away better than anything blackberry offered. hands down. its not even close.

the only bad side to this over my old BB is that i dont think the push email comes through as fast. its not slow by any means but it isnt ''instant'' like the BB.
and there is NO LED LIGHT!!! i liked being able to glance over at the phone to see if i had a notification.

small price to pay though. this is a great phone

 

[stepchild]

I have both iphone 3gs and Captivate. Both phones are great phones to me. I love the apps on the iphone. To me they are ahead of android is some areas. Like a twitter app. Now I really love how you can customize the Captivate. It is just so much nicer to see things instantly vs having to open an app. Like weather for example.

Now for your questions:

1. I have the same plan and was gone for the weekend. Used cell data only, no wifi. I used 90MB in 4 days. Now the phone is still new to me so I used it a lot. When home and on wifi in 6 days I used 6MB. So it boils down to how and where you will use it and how much.

2. touch screen to me are the same. I can't tell the difference. Also you can choose between three keyboards to use. The android keyboard has voice to text, which works very well.

3. I hated the browser on my BB's. Both iphone and Captivate have great browsers.

Hope my limited experience helps you.

 

[frozencloud]

Im considering the captivate myself. Can any of you guys give me some inputs? I read that they have some bugs and problems. I read through Phil's walkthrough but i want to hear what u guys thinks cuz u guys use it day-in/day-out. It would be helpful if you guys can name some of the things u like and dislike, bugs, etc so i can make my decisions.

 

[gspeed]

Im considering the captivate myself. Can any of you guys give me some inputs? I read that they have some bugs and problems. I read through Phil's walkthrough but i want to hear what u guys thinks cuz u guys use it day-in/day-out. It would be helpful if you guys can name some of the things u like and dislike, bugs, etc so i can make my decisions.

You know if you just read through the threads on pages 1-4 on this subforum you will come to find a treasure trove of information. It will include peoples likes and dislikes. Rather then have us restate our likes and dislikes, which can be a lengthy process, I think it might be better to read through the threads already created and then come back with more specific questions.

 

[frozencloud]

You know if you just read through the threads on pages 1-4 on this subforum you will come to find a treasure trove of information. It will include peoples likes and dislikes. Rather then have us restate our likes and dislikes, which can be a lengthy process, I think it might be better to read through the threads already created and then come back with more specific questions.

actually i did for the most part...i just want to see if there are anything else that i missed. also, i wasnt sure if some of the problem was just isolated or a more broad thing since some of the threads didnt have alot of replies.

 

[spenserj87]

I'm a BB 8900 Curve user just now transitioning to the Captivate.

I'm on the unlimited data - grandfathered and I'd like to use tethering so I'm happy with that. I use Google Voice for texting so I dropped my texting plan and I'm super happy to just have data.

The keyboard on the Captivate is better than iPhone (my wife has an iPhone so I've used that a lot). I really like SwiftKeys as my keyboard - you just have to get used to typing and looking at the three suggested words (and clicking them) as you type - if you do, you will type pretty fast. I also like swype, but its predictive words aren't as good as SwitftKeys and I don't like going back and editing. The worst thing about the Captivate keyboard is editing what you've typed - I have a hard time getting the cursor where I want it. Android really needs a magnifying glass type mechanism like iPhone.

Email sucks - not even close compared to BB. But, there are so many other features and apps I like, that I'm willing to compromise a bit. I do hope that 2.2 gives some improvements. I hate the native Samsung email app - it is super slow, hesitates a lot on simple things, and doesn't render HTML very well. Touchdown shows great HTML and is very powerful, but I hate the look. K-9 is a bit in between.

Battery life has been sucking for me the last few days - not sure what it is. The Battery Usage says 70% screen so it doesn't appear to be a battery hog app - but I need to chase it down.

Browser is fantastic. And I really like the NewsRoom RSS app - it isn't as quick/efficient as Viiigo on the BB, but the pages are so much easier to read/access. The screen on this device is amazing - super clear - my middle age eyes like it way better than my BB 8900. That alone is motivation for sacrificing hard keys.

Volume of the phone isn't as good as I'd like - on everything. Even the music player doesn't max out very loud.

Phone is great - my BB was problematic after upgrading to 5.0...and the AT&T signal being marginal. The noise cancellation on the Samsung works great.

I like the way contacts sync/connect across apps. Nice to see the latest social media posts on the contact screen.

So far, if I can solve the battery issue, I'm happy. I think the froyo update will offer some big improvements and I think android has much greater potential than BB - other than messaging/email. But, I'm willing to sacrifice that...or wait till it gets better on android. And it is certainly cheaper than paying for BES.

 

[gspeed]

I'm a BB 8900 Curve user just now transitioning to the Captivate.

I'm on the unlimited data - grandfathered and I'd like to use tethering so I'm happy with that. I use Google Voice for texting so I dropped my texting plan and I'm super happy to just have data.

The keyboard on the Captivate is better than iPhone (my wife has an iPhone so I've used that a lot). I really like SwiftKeys as my keyboard - you just have to get used to typing and looking at the three suggested words (and clicking them) as you type - if you do, you will type pretty fast. I also like swype, but its predictive words aren't as good as SwitftKeys and I don't like going back and editing. The worst thing about the Captivate keyboard is editing what you've typed - I have a hard time getting the cursor where I want it. Android really needs a magnifying glass type mechanism like iPhone.

Email sucks - not even close compared to BB. But, there are so many other features and apps I like, that I'm willing to compromise a bit. I do hope that 2.2 gives some improvements. I hate the native Samsung email app - it is super slow, hesitates a lot on simple things, and doesn't render HTML very well. Touchdown shows great HTML and is very powerful, but I hate the look. K-9 is a bit in between.

Battery life has been sucking for me the last few days - not sure what it is. The Battery Usage says 70% screen so it doesn't appear to be a battery hog app - but I need to chase it down.

Browser is fantastic. And I really like the NewsRoom RSS app - it isn't as quick/efficient as Viiigo on the BB, but the pages are so much easier to read/access. The screen on this device is amazing - super clear - my middle age eyes like it way better than my BB 8900. That alone is motivation for sacrificing hard keys.

Volume of the phone isn't as good as I'd like - on everything. Even the music player doesn't max out very loud.

Phone is great - my BB was problematic after upgrading to 5.0...and the AT&T signal being marginal. The noise cancellation on the Samsung works great.

I like the way contacts sync/connect across apps. Nice to see the latest social media posts on the contact screen.

So far, if I can solve the battery issue, I'm happy. I think the froyo update will offer some big improvements and I think android has much greater potential than BB - other than messaging/email. But, I'm willing to sacrifice that...or wait till it gets better on android. And it is certainly cheaper than paying for BES.

To give an abbreviated version of his story.

He used to have a bb bold. He switched to captivate. He likes using Google voice for free texting. He enjoys the mulittude of keyboard options for Android and prefers Swiftkey, altough he thinks the cpativate should come with a track ball for editing.

The stock email doesn't fit his needs specifically and slows down the system. he's tried k9 and touchdown as 3rd party email clients and is trying to find the correct balance.

He's having battery issues. He likes the browser and the app newsroom. He loves the screen. Phone speaker isn't loud enough.

He likes that contact sync.

Overall he appears very happy with his device and is willing to wait till Google irons out any flaws within Android.

 

[dmnall]

Well considering I came from a BBC bold 9000 and while it was a great phone for the year and 8 months but I upgraded to the captivate! At first it was a little tough to get used to typing on it but it is better to type on compared to an iPhone!

I have the unlimited data plan grandfathered in and I have had my phone since the 18th so far I have a week until my billing cycle ends and with my BBC I used 21 MB in just 4 days and since switching over to the captivate I have used close to 600 MB and growing because I do not have access to wifi at work but at home I do!

If you can run on wifi then I can see the $ 15 a month plan would work but if you are not going to be on wifi then I would suggest the 2 GB plan because the charges would be horrendous! The captivate is a data hog but I love it!

The browser is the best I have ever used even compared to safari on the iPhone 4!

HTH,
Charlie

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk

 

[frozencloud]

I'm a BB 8900 Curve user just now transitioning to the Captivate.

I'm on the unlimited data - grandfathered and I'd like to use tethering so I'm happy with that. I use Google Voice for texting so I dropped my texting plan and I'm super happy to just have data.

The keyboard on the Captivate is better than iPhone (my wife has an iPhone so I've used that a lot). I really like SwiftKeys as my keyboard - you just have to get used to typing and looking at the three suggested words (and clicking them) as you type - if you do, you will type pretty fast. I also like swype, but its predictive words aren't as good as SwitftKeys and I don't like going back and editing. The worst thing about the Captivate keyboard is editing what you've typed - I have a hard time getting the cursor where I want it. Android really needs a magnifying glass type mechanism like iPhone.

Email sucks - not even close compared to BB. But, there are so many other features and apps I like, that I'm willing to compromise a bit. I do hope that 2.2 gives some improvements. I hate the native Samsung email app - it is super slow, hesitates a lot on simple things, and doesn't render HTML very well. Touchdown shows great HTML and is very powerful, but I hate the look. K-9 is a bit in between.

Battery life has been sucking for me the last few days - not sure what it is. The Battery Usage says 70% screen so it doesn't appear to be a battery hog app - but I need to chase it down.

Browser is fantastic. And I really like the NewsRoom RSS app - it isn't as quick/efficient as Viiigo on the BB, but the pages are so much easier to read/access. The screen on this device is amazing - super clear - my middle age eyes like it way better than my BB 8900. That alone is motivation for sacrificing hard keys.

Volume of the phone isn't as good as I'd like - on everything. Even the music player doesn't max out very loud.

Phone is great - my BB was problematic after upgrading to 5.0...and the AT&T signal being marginal. The noise cancellation on the Samsung works great.

I like the way contacts sync/connect across apps. Nice to see the latest social media posts on the contact screen.

So far, if I can solve the battery issue, I'm happy. I think the froyo update will offer some big improvements and I think android has much greater potential than BB - other than messaging/email. But, I'm willing to sacrifice that...or wait till it gets better on android. And it is certainly cheaper than paying for BES.

Thanks for the detailed post on your impression of the device. Coming from a BB background too, I guess I just have to face the adjustment required when I make the hop later next week. Im still not that fond of the whole UI, but I can always root the darn thing to fix that whole problem. Lets see how it goes. Worst come, I can always put that whole 30 day return policy into some use.