Couple questions to folks who have used Fascinate a while

[cjmiller1973]

I am using the original droid at the moment and got another invitation for an early upgrade. I have enjoyed my droid but am seriously considering an upgrade. I really wanted a keyboard but after a year of lugging an unusable one around (big hands = bad D1 keyboard experience) and the seemingly endless wait for the Merge, I am ready to go without.

The forums have been very insightful with reviews, but I find it takes a while to see past the new device awesomeness before you start to recognize any annoyances. Just want to hear some feedback from folks who know all the dirty little secrets about their beloved phone:

How is the screen outside/in bright light? Wife has a DInc and it is worthless to me in the sun...hoping super amoled is closer to my D1 in the bright light.

What technical/software issues have frustrated you and not been resolved? Based on the forums here, it seems like all the major ones I have heard of have been resolved by the community in some form or fashion.

If you owned a D1, how has this phone compared to the D1? How has the development community compared to that of the D1? Really worried about build quality...D1 was a tank...of course, it did have that extra layer of useless keyboard to cushion the few drops mine took. It has gorilla glass too right?

Bottom line...does this phone have the chops to keep you happy for 2 years or is this more of a stop gap phone till something better comes out?

 

[xgunther]

How is the screen outside/in bright light? Wife has a DInc and it is worthless to me in the sun...hoping super amoled is closer to my D1 in the bright light

The Super AMOLED makes it a bit easier to see in sunlight vs. the Incredible's screen. But in direct sunlight, it still washes out.

 

[Sta11i0n]

Well you're obviously already familiar with android and the aftermarket possibilities so no need to sell you on that stuff. As far as the keyboard goes, I believe you will enjoy it. I too suffer from the large hand = no little keys syndrome but find the large screen of the Fascinate to be very accommodating. I usually find myself typing on the keyboard in portrait view. The phone has enough width overall to get a hand on each side of it securely to be able to use both thumbs to key. If you want even more space, landscape is very nice. The buttons are wide and easy to strike for us big thumbers. As far as the screen goes, it is more than bright enough in any light. I am one of the few that uses the auto brightness setting and in bright light/outdoors, the screen is still stunning. The only real fix I'm still waiting for, which will be resolved very shortly, is the GPS. The time to get a lock right now is not unbearable, but annoying if you use it on a regular basis. Once DJ05 is officially released, I cannot think of anything negative about the phone. I've had mine for almost 2 months now and the thrill has yet to wear off.

 

[zakth]

I had the Droid 1, the keyboard on the Fascinate is far better. Using Swype also makes things much faster. As for the screen it does fairly well. Verizon sales a screen protector which does a good job of removing glare from the sun. Over all I am enjoying my Fascinate now that I have rooted it and installed a custom rom.

 

[Chris3D]

How is the screen outside/in bright light? Wife has a DInc and it is worthless to me in the sun...hoping super amoled is closer to my D1 in the bright light.

With the brightness turned up, I find the screen completely readable in sunlight. Obviously not as bright as indoors, but perfectly adequate, and far, far brighter than my iPhone ever was. The included Power Control widget let's you easily switch between brightness settings.

What technical/software issues have frustrated you and not been resolved? Based on the forums here, it seems like all the major ones I have heard of have been resolved by the community in some form or fashion.

The only two outstanding issues for me are:

1, The sound quality for phone calls. The sidetone is too loud and the mic is way too sensitive. But I guess it's not as much of an issue as it was, as I seem to have gotten used to it.

And 2, the signal strength is overall fairly weak, at least in my house. It turns out AT&T had far better coverage at my house than Verizon. But as soon as I drive 100 feet in any direction, the signal strength is fine. Not sure if it's a weak antennae or just lousy coverage.

For the issues that have been resolved... you're almost required to root the phone and at very least de-bloat the stock ROM to get decent performance and battery life. I was getting 8 to 10 hours of battery life at best before I removed all of Verizon's crap, now I get upwards of 40 hours.

Bottom line...does this phone have the chops to keep you happy for 2 years or is this more of a stop gap phone till something better comes out?

I refuse to pay early termination fees, so I'm sticking with this phone for at least the next two years. I'd say it's a great phone provided you're willing to root and de-bloat or run a different ROM. If I was stuck with the stock setup, there's no way I'd keep it.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

Arguably one of the most frustrating issues I have run into since getting the Fascinate has been the bloatware included with the phone. As others have stated it really does bring down the performance and battery life of the device, which is extremely frustrating. Thankfully however this is a relatively simple fix, as all you need to do is root the phone and remove the crap you don't need. However, if you are going to do this I strongly recommend you check out this thread for instructions on how and what you should actually remove, it may save you a lot of frustration in the long run.

Apps Save to Remove Once Rooted

 

[cjmiller1973]

Very encouraged by the responses so far. Rooting is not something I am opposed to...running CM r6 on my D1 now. However, with a faster phone I would prefer to root but stay closer to stock assuming stock is stable. I will give the touch wiz a shot but probably will run back to my launcher pro if it does not blow me away.

Couple follow up questions to the responses so far. If adjusting brightness for outdoors, does it seem to affect battery life too much? On the signal strength, saw a lot of posts on the forums about that...is that based on the bars you are seeing or are you getting lots of dropped calls? I don't make a lot of phone calls and I keep 'em short, but dropped calls would make me nuts.

Thanks for the replies...this is very helpful. I am surprised that things like the GPS were not fixed already by Samsung, but sometimes a good user community can make up for that...still a lingering concern in my mind though as the very best support you would expect to see right after a release with it tapering off over time.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

TouchWiz from everything I can tell you is pretty stable. Some users might tell you otherwise, but I use Stock TouchWiz and have no major issues to report to you regarding it, I am pleased.

As for brightness, the sAMOLED does do a better job in direct sunlight but increasing the brightness undoubtedly affects battery life. I have mine set to auto-brightness and it seems to do a pretty good job of going bright or dimming down in the appropriate situations.

I have noticed that the signal issue, at least for me, isn't more of an actual reception problem and more of a signal display issue. I put my Droid and my Fascinate side by side and the actual signal level (measured in dbm) was very similar, but the Fascinate for some reason is very conservative when it comes to how many bars it shows. For example, at my house I normally sit at -87dbm, the Droid shows 4 bars, while the Fascinate only shows 2 or maybe 3. The next maintenance update is supposed to address this issue.

 

[Chris3D]

On the brightness and battery life question, sure it'll bring down the battery if you're using it for hours on full brightness outside, but for normal use - checking a few e-mails, hopping on the web, sending some texts or making some phone calls, it's not an issue. Anywhere indoors, the phone is still bright on the dimmest setting, so it all averages out. Now if you're outside all day, every day, and using your phone on full bright, it could be an issue, but in that case, it'd be an issue with any phone you buy.

On the signal strength issue, for me it's not just about how it's displayed. When I check the actual strength, it's almost always -96 to -103 or worse. This is at home, and like I said, if I go any distance up or down the road, the signal is fine. I don't drop many calls, but I do experience calls cutting in and out on occasion. Like I said in my previous post, this could simply be poor coverage, so I don't want to totally blame the phone.

 

[Sta11i0n]

At home my signal is almost always -96dBm with 2 bars but I have never had a dropped call, or even any distortion while using it. So to me, I don't even remotely consider it to have poor signal issues.

To go back to your brightness question, that is exactly why I just use the auto brightness setting. The phone is very active at giving you the right amount of backlight to see in any condition. You can see this by standing outside, or in bright light, and putting your thumb over the light sensor. It will almost instantly go dark.

As far as Touch Wiz goes, I am very happy with it. I have tried both Launcher Pro Plus and ADW but always end up going back to stock within a few days. Both have some nice features I wish TW had, but overall, TW is the most practical for me. Most notably, the ability to arrange apps in your drawer as you wish where the others are alphabetical only.

And finally, the DJ05 update that fixes the GPS has yet to roll out officially, but I have come across the actual GPS file from it that can be used on DI01 phones. It has completely solved my issues by giving me a lock in under 15 seconds from a cold start. There is a thread about it in the ROMS/hacks section here if you want to check it out.

 

[nmyeti]

for quick outdoor brightness adjustment, i use a free widget called "brightness level" and just have it on my main home screen.

Brightness Level - Android app on AppBrain

Works perfectly, isn't intrusive and allows me to go back and forth between 25% which i use most of the time indoors and 100% which i use when i'm outside in an instant.

I had an Incredible and the SAMOLED screen on the fascinate is quite a bit better outside. It does wash out quite a bit, but it is still very usable (the incredible wasn't). It also is amazing on color and contrast. As a test i loaded up a wallpaper file from the nexus one on my phone and my buddies EVO. Honestly you have to see the difference to appreciate it, but my buddy is thinking of giving his wife his EVO and picking up an epic based on the screen alone.

I've had mine for long enough to know my way around it. I bought another one for my wife over the weekend ($1 from best buy online). Once her phone was activated, i rooted, installed JT's rom and kernel then setup the phone for her.

It's a fantastic phone with a few flaws. Most of those can be addressed by the development community right now and as the device sits, i'm much happier with it than my old Incredible.

 

[cjmiller1973]

Again, thanks for all the replies. Feeling like the Fascinate really hits the sweet spot for me...4" incredible looking screen, swype, fast processor, rootable, etc. Dx just looks a little too big for my taste. My only reservation is how quickly Samsung has responded to issues...quite disappointing to think some of the S line have had those GPS issues for so long without an official fix, and now the Continuum coming out with the same sort of issues. I am so encouraged by the user community here though, that I am still leaning towards the SF. Perusing both the DX and SF forums, I get the sense that it comes down to personal preference between two great phones. I think one last trip to play with them again and I will be ready to take the leap.