Hello,
My 2 year has finally come up and it's time to make a decision, or at least determine which phone I will do a 30 day trial with. In regards to smart phones, I am a past user of Palm 650, WM (Q an others), BB Storm1, Droid 1, and back to BB Storm 1(POS). The question is do I move forward with the Facinate for at least a year, Droid X, wait for the new HTC slider phone coming out, or go for the WP7, in Oct/Nov? I like the form factor, Apps, and ease of Use of an Iphone, but I hate it's reception problems, dependance on iTunes, and all the other BS that comes with Apple products. The thing I like about WP7 is that is will be extremely business centric (Security, Office docs, and Email), which is a huge requirement for my use. Android offers open OS, and BB.... Well, it does Email well. Bottom line, it will be some form of Android or WP7, on Verizon or Sprint. I have been a Verizon customer for 12 years, and I dont' see myself changing, but you never know.
On to my impression of the Facinate:
I spent a couple of hours on the Facinate in the store. The screen is very detailed, accurate, and looks far superior to the Droid X. I went into this reading all the countless blogs/forums on this phone, so I had a good idea of what people liked and disliked out of the gates.
I started by throwing away the bing search, bing maps, and anything associated with Microsoft. I figure if you have a Google phone, use google apps, beyond them being far superior at this point in time. As many of you know, this doesn't stop the code from doing redirects right back to these Apps for things like Search and Mapping tasks. The other thing I did was to was download Google maps/Navigate. Thankfully, I discovered that when you go to a webpage and hit the address, it gives you an option to do Google Maps, Bing, or VZ Maps. Once you hit G Maps, you then can hold down on the address to have it the navigation. Until a Root comes out, you can at least use Google Maps and Navigation, and not be subject to the inferior Bing options. The Navigation from Google is just like ever other Google phone, so no surprises there.
I next checked out need for speed to see how the 6-way axis worked. Nice graphics for a phone, and the game itself was OK. You could accelerate by tilting forward and decelerate by tilting it back. Also you could turn by tilting side to side. I think the possibilities with the superior accelerometer will be far greater compared to the other current available android phones, like DroidX, Incredible, or EVO.
Next I tried typing on the phone, since I have become very comfortable with using an on-screen keyboard opposed to physical keyboard. I noticed that typing on the Facinate was a little more difficult compared to the DroidX, in Portrait Mode. You do get a vibrate from the Facinate, that I am not aware if it is available on the DroidX. The portrait ease on the DroidX probably was due to the larger screen allowing for bigger buttons. On Landscape, I didn't notice any advantage on either, but I did make less overall mistakes when I was typing on a Droid2, although I was typing slower. I know it is a matter of getting used to, and I will once again be flying on my screen. The keyboard ease of use if VERY important to me since I write a tone of long emails and txt a lot amongst my clients, partners, and co workers.
One complaint on the forums is the look alike buttons compared to Iphone. I kinda liked the look and feel of the phone, but I wish it did have the home screen found with HTC Sense (Incerdible & EVO). I don't mind touchwize, but I did realize that they use third party widgets to do weather, time, and other functions, compared to HTC homebuilt apps. For Moto's DroidX, this portion was rather weak and boring. At the end of the day, I know anyone can make the home screen pretty by downloading Launcher Pro onto any of these phones.
Call quality seemed good, but I would have to travel up and down 101 and 280 (SF Bay Area) to truly understand it's overall quality. I assume it will be far superior to my current STORM or any AT&T phone. I have read that the Droid X is also good, but I will have to try it to be certain.
Web-surfing seemed similar to the DroidX, so there were no complaints here. Most likely I will end up using Firefox (when available), Skyfire, Dolphin, or a non Verizon version of Chrome. Hopefully that will initially take out the Bing dominance in the Internet Search engine.
They all have widgets for FB, Youtube, and anything you would find in any other Android phone, so it seems a wash in this respect.
One thing I liked but didn't find it customizable was the Car Doc and Docking Station apps. These were far nicer on the Facinate than compared to the DroidX version, but this does integrate tightly with Bing as the standard Search and mapping app. I couldn't find a way to change this, so hopefully someone could comment on a way to do this. I did see third party apps that you could get from the Market Place, but they still didn't seem as nice as the ones that came with the Facinate.
The camera seemed fine, but I will only be able to truely determine this when I take my own action pics and see how it handles motion and low lighting situations. I don't expect SLR quality, but I do expect the Facinate to be slightly better than the droidX due to a better sensor and software. I know many say that the DroidX is better due to it's 8 MP camera compared to the Facinate's 5 MP camera, but as most photographers know it comes down to basics of the sensor, color accuracy, ISO, Shutter speed, and F Stop capabilities, when comparing phone cameras. Mega Pixels do matter, but are more important when you blow up the pictures or when you are editing the photo. These are all crappy Jpeg photos, and unless you are blowing up these pics beyond 8x11, it comes down to the actual optical size and Sensor in the phone. IMO, the only phone that might produce decent photos will be Nokia N8, due to the size of the lens, the quality of the lens, and higher quality sensor. If you need a better photo, use a point in shoot or even better, a DSLR. Use your phone for those quick, fun photos that you may post on your FB page.
I didn't try the video recording feature, but I am sure it will be similar to the DroidX, which both are ok for those quick video clips. Again it comes down to the same capabilities as the camera, when comparing these phones.
A couple of conerns I do have about the phone is what a ROOT will actually do to the phone. For example, will it take out all the goodness that the touchwize does offer and put it to standard Android OS, or can you pick and choose what bloat ware you want to take out or keep. I like most things about the phone except for Bing integration. If I can replace this portion with Google, take most bloat ware out, and then add HTC Sense, then I would be an ecstatic camper.
The other concern is the memory. I normally understand this well, but lately this seems to be all too confusing. I am a heavy corportate user, web surfer, video streamer, Texter, Email users, Calendar User, Business Cloud App user, and slight phone gamer. Bottom line I push every phone I used to the max. I didn't keep the Doid1 because it was horrible for business use, and I wasn't a fan of Touchdown. With 2.1 it makes Android OS more bearable, and 2.2 will fix most of my concerns.
Oh, back to the memory thing. Typically RAM is used for app and phone processes. I see that the Facinate has 512 MB of RAM, but 128K is used for GPU, and the remaining for phone processes. I also see that there is 2GB internal memory that some say is for Apps, Pics, Musics, etc.. My question is, if the phone only has 384 KB of memory for processes, what happens when you fill up the phone with apps and it exceeds this amount. I would think that it would slow down to a hault and crash like my BB Storm did. Next, I hear the Froyo is supposed to open this RAM to allow access to the internal memory in the phone. Does this include SD card also, or is that just for Apps, pics, music, and the a like? Can someone comment who truly understands this and doesn't just speculate on this. If this is the case, then the DroidX wins hands down, and this might sway me to that device. Maybe the phone can use some of the ROM as RAM with Froyo, which then would be a limit of iinternal or Internal/SD memory. Again, if someone could comment on this, it would be great.
Overall, I think I will pick up the Facinate tomorrow to use for at least 30 days. It didn't feel too cheap as some say, and as long as the memory thing isn't an issue, then I know in a few weeks a ROOT will come out allowing me to do what I want with BING or any other program.
I hope this helps and I would love to hear feedback.
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