Initial Charge Thoughts and Reviews

[whitenessj]

i use 3 main screens and the rest for filler...now that you can set which screen is a "home" it makes it even better for me.. i use 1 for Work 2 for Personal and te 3rd for driving... sounds silly but it is nice to have a simple screen w/ voice command and nav / maps if necessary and they stay out of the way when i am at home or in my office

 

[nopants]

i use 3 main screens and the rest for filler...now that you can set which screen is a "home" it makes it even better for me.. i use 1 for Work 2 for Personal and te 3rd for driving... sounds silly but it is nice to have a simple screen w/ voice command and nav / maps if necessary and they stay out of the way when i am at home or in my office

That begs a question which likely deserves its own thread - I'm making a list of gripes as I use the phone but one of them is the accessibility of the "vehicle menu mode" which launches automatically when I use the car dock. Love the car dock and the mode screen that launches when you dock it for the exact reasons you describe but, when I'm in another vehicle or not docked, I can't find a way to access the vehicle mode menu independently - anyone know where this is?

 

[whitenessj]

car dock v2 is the app. you want
https://market.android.com/details?id=net.cwfk.ig88.carhome&feature=search_result

~EDIT~ add link

i would start a thread but it is a quick answer

 

[lpsquall]

So I charged my phone up to 45% and within half and hour i'm down to 33%. :'( This is a problem.

 

[whitenessj]

yup you got a rogue process or 10 running...
goto the Task manager and go under the RAM tab. hit the button at the bottom that says clear memory
look under the "running" tab how many prgms does IT show...
now go under the setting>applications>> running services..what all is running??

You have to have a rogue issue somewhere..

 

[lpsquall]

yup you got a rogue process or 10 running...
goto the Task manager and go under the RAM tab. hit the button at the bottom that says clear memory
look under the "running" tab how many prgms does IT show...
now go under the setting>applications>> running services..what all is running??

You have to have a rogue issue somewhere..

I have no programs running under the Running Tab. I clearned the RAM and I am currently using: 267/328.

The only app I can think of that I had installed and removed was Lookout.

The only ongoing process I have running is NoLED.

I think i'm going to set it back to factory and setup the device again.

 

[whitenessj]

yeah i have mixed results on NoLED... some people say it is a battery killer others swear by it... Check your running services after reset there are a bunch of unnecessary ones constantly running. like setup wizards and such.. also double check the frequency of the sync schedule..

 

[Friend-O]

Played with one in a Verizon store today and found the UI to be a bit laggy, which was disappointing...my Incredible is smoother. Wasn't blown away by the 4G internet speeds either. The screen reports seem to be accurate though...wow...just beautiful. The keyboard was nice, as were both cameras (really surprised at the quality of the front camera). I liked the size and thickness of it...felt good in my hand. *that's what she said* Seems like a nice phone, but I'm gonna have to pass. I'll be waiting patiently for the GSII or Bionic...

 

[lpsquall]

yeah i have mixed results on NoLED... some people say it is a battery killer others swear by it... Check your running services after reset there are a bunch of unnecessary ones constantly running. like setup wizards and such.. also double check the frequency of the sync schedule..

Reset was farily fast. I uninstalled NoLED. Before I had everything to maunally refresh. Hopefully this will improve battery life.

 

[whitenessj]

give that a run for a few and let me know PM me if you wish. Dont forget to kill the buggy services I think there were 6 or 7 the first time up .

 

[KoukiFC3S]

How fast does this phone charge? The Galaxy S and my Nexus take forever to charge.

 

[moondrius]

Its not too bad, not nearly as bas as the Captivate was.

 

[mboverst]

It's not too bad directly plugged in, but It's painfully slow using the Verizon charging pad through a silicone case (as to be expected).

 

[ragdoll08]

Well, after my whole fiasco of buying it pre-release from best buy and then being forced to return it, I finally picked up my fully activated and functioning Charge yesterday after VZW enticed me with an annual upgrade. Gotta admit, I'm loving it so far!

Currently using the vos-neon cyan clock and vos-glass opaque weather skins from "beautiful clock and weather" widgets from market over WP Clock wallpaper and so far it looks fantastic. Liking it alot over the sense weather/clock (which I favored alot btw) and light-years over the stock TW widgets... and surprisingly enough so far I'm not minding the rest of TW so far, even though I'm eyin' that Shell 3D launcher if the mood strikes.

Screen is fantastic.. actually liking the stock messaging more then I thought I would too. Startin' to think alot of this TW hate is alittle overblown. There's alittle lag now and then but not nothing to write home about. Probably from the ram issue everyone seems to be up in arms about??

Anyways, any other must have's I should be aware of for my new favorite toy??!

 

[mboverst]

Startin' to think alot of this TW hate is alittle overblown.

Completely agree. Even some of the die hards here still complain about TW, but I actually like some aspects of it (MSG being one). Sure, the colors aren't my favorite, but who really cares? I eliminated the lag and am loving it right now. As I mentioned perviously in this thread, I'm a pretty picky guy when dealing with electronics. The only issues I've had so far have been VZW related with their visual voice mail and a temp problem with AOL mail syncing. So far none have been device related.

 

[xxtdxx]

I'm now over 48 hours into using my new Charge. I'm coming from the Thunderbolt (which I still have in the event I decide to return the Charge). There are things about each phone I really like and other stuff the TB has that I wish the Charge had also (and vice versa). Of course the screen on the Charge is amazing. Nothing comes close to it. Holding the phones next to each other and navigating the same apps, they run the exact same. One might appear to be taking longer to load the app but when it does appear all the info is already showing vs. the other loading the app faster and then taking a bit to load the info. We don't have 4g in my area yet so I can't say anything about the speed of the 2. I still have to tinker with it but I believe the battery life on the Charge is much much better than the TB (yes I know it has a bigger battery). I turn off auto-brightness, lower the screen brightness, and turn off background data and I still have plenty of battery left with moderate to heavy use (keep in mind this is in a 3g area with the 3g only option selected). TouchWiz is a little annoying compared to Sense. My main gripe is when I download new apps I want them to be place in the main list alphabetically and not just thrown in at the end of the grid. Other than that I think Samsung could have chosen a better color scheme but it is what it is.

 

[roc69x]

Thoughts

I liked it once you cleaned up the bloat. First android phone and its so easy to get software for it. I was hesitant to get it as it did not do too well on the benchmarck scores but noticed minimal lag and it played several gameloft games smoothly. Also it can go for quite some time with very heavy use so I should have no trouble getting through the day. The screen looks amazing and the the call quality is good but not excellent. Also the network is a major upgrade over ATT and I will be near a 4G area soon so I hopefully get to try that out. I wanted a 4g phone, good battery, nice screen, HDMI port, and it is pretty light as a bonus. Yeah the plastic does not look as durable as say the TB exterior but mine will be mostly wrapped in a TPU case anyway.

 

[deadpenguins]

I was hesitant to get it as it did not do too well on the benchmarck scores but noticed minimal lag and it played several gameloft games smoothly.

The reason the Charge (and all samsung devices) score so low on quadrant is because samsung's filing system is inproperly evaluated by quadrant. If you take a look at some TB vs Charge videos, you'll see the Charge clearly outperforms it, despite its lower score.

Take benchmarking scores with a grain of salt. They hold little weight to how the actual devicereally performs.

 

[redskinsnut]

I just got mine yesterday. I am used to the D1 keyboard and I must say I am not at all a fan of the onboard keyboard on the Charge. The autofill is way different and wacky to me. Anyone else experience this? Suggestions?

 

[ellje]

I'm using the gingerbread keyboard and have been very happy with it thus far... not sure how it compares to your d1, but it may be worth a shot.