Played with the charge today

[rescueswimmer]

Just wanted to give you some initial impressions for those who can't wait. I'm am by no means a phone snob but, I'd like to think I have played with and read and watched enough reviews of phones to give a everyday users perspective on the phone.

Stopped by my local VZ store and all they guys decked out in their Droid Charge gear, but no charges for sale. Just on display.

This is going to be quick since the guys here probably will have a in depth one up and running soon.

The phone is very thin for what you are getting. build quality seems pretty nice probably mostly plastic, Felt pretty light in the hand considering the Verizon anti theft device.

Were to begin, I have no real experience with sense or touchwhiz, but after playing with the thunderbolt, and the charge side by side, I think sense is probably a little nicer and more customizable since it appeared you could download more widgets, not sure if you can on touchwhiz, but for me not a deal breaker. I'm sure its what you get used to.

Verizion rep said battery life is supposed to 6-10 hours depending on use. So we shall see.

The display is phenomenal, for me it was like seeing HDTV for the first time. Truly amazing. Comparing it with the T-bolt no comparison. Since the display seems to be the big power hog on these things. I turned brightness down to 0 on both phones. The Charge was still usable at 0, to me the tbolt was not. and outside the charge would still be somewhat readable. 0 on the Charge is like 25% on the Tbolt.

Switching from screen to screen. They both seemed to work well, with the occasional bit of lag, but nothing set one apart from the other.

Stock keyboards. I really liked the Charge allot. it seems to be a little larger and to me was more responsive and didn't have a hard time keeping up with my typing. I had a harder time with the t-bolt but could be the smaller keys. I did like that if you hold your finger down on a word on the tbolt it magnifies it and gives you the option to copy, cut or paste, The charge you have to go into a menu and do some other things. Not really user friendly.

The hard buttons. Worked just like the tbolts capacitive. Might be a little sleeker if they were capacitive, but being a physical button it should save you some juice by not vibrating right?

Has a 4g on off software built in.

For me I'll let the early adopters hash out any issues with the phone. If it gets as good as advertised battery life and has no major issues. It is a no brainer for me who the charge is going to be a great phone



Just received clarification

The Tbolt can do data and voice over 4g & 3g. Were as the charge can only do it when connected to 4g. Hope this helps

 

[DolfanCole]

On a side not if anybody knows this answer please fill me in.

I turned off the 4g on the Charge so I was 3g and 1x made a phone call but it would not allow me to connect to the internet at the same time. I know under 4g you can surf and make calls.

I thought I read on the HandA forum that the Tbolt is able to do this on 3g as well but could not try it since there is no factory on/off 4g toggle.

RS

The Thunderbolt has an SVDO radio, meaning it can do simulataneous voice and data over 3G. AFAIK it's the only phone out that can do that right now.

 

[brianct1972]

Excellent "hands on" review, thanks for sharing!

 

[newdad28]

The voice/data simultaneously option with the T-bolt may end up getting my business just on that point. Soooo annoying to not be able to surf and get texts during calls.

 

[rescueswimmer]

The voice/data simultaneously option with the T-bolt may end up getting my business just on that point. Soooo annoying to not be able to surf and get texts during calls.

Just received clarification

The Tbolt can do data and voice over 4g & 3g. Were as the charge can only do it when connected to 4g. Hope this helps

 

[experiment 626]

Disappointed that the Charge does not have SVDO,especially at the initial price VZW's asking for it.Every LTE phone Verizon sells should have it. Thanks for review.

 

[EggoEspada]

The voice/data simultaneously option with the T-bolt may end up getting my business just on that point. Soooo annoying to not be able to surf and get texts during calls.

You can still receive text messages during calls, but yea you can't use data.

 

[Droid800]

You can still receive text messages during calls, but yea you can't use data.

Not true. You can still use data if you have a 4G connection. You just can't do it over 3G.

 

[Balthazar B]

So the moral of the story is that both the TBolt and Charge are deeply flawed, each in its own way. Guess we'll have to wait another 3-4 months for the next candidate in VzW's LTE lineup (although the LG Revolution may be released in June, but unclear how attractive it will be).

 

[Naris]

Disappointed that the Charge does not have SVDO,especially at the initial price VZW's asking for it.Every LTE phone Verizon sells should have it. Thanks for review.

From what I've read in the Thunderbolt review on Anandtech, it seems that HTC is the main player close enough to Qualcomm to have SVDO with 3G and 4G for now. Granted that might have also been the reason why so many Thunderbolts went down in both 3G and 4G data a few day ago.

 

[Droid800]

So the moral of the story is that both the TBolt and Charge are deeply flawed, each in its own way. Guess we'll have to wait another 3-4 months for the next candidate in VzW's LTE lineup (although the LG Revolution may be released in June, but unclear how attractive it will be).

The Revolution is a Thunderbolt with new packaging. It is literally the same chipsets as the Bolt. The only difference is that you'll be saddled with LG's interface instead of HTC's, and of course Bing. (you should also note the UI is the same as on the Optimus 2x, and that phone had issues even with a dual core)

 

[Cruiserdude]

The Revolution is a Thunderbolt with new packaging. It is literally the same chipsets as the Bolt. The only difference is that you'll be saddled with LG's interface instead of HTC's, and of course Bing. (you should also note the UI is the same as on the Optimus 2x, and that phone had issues even with a dual core)

That's my understanding as well. People liked the G2x because it was good hardware without the Optimus 2x's bloatware "skin", and was actually fast. People seem to hate the stock software on the Optimus 2x though. People like the T-Bolt for its software, the hardware side isn't really that impressive. There are those like myself that don't like Sense, but they still seemed to do a decent job of keeping the phone smooth and responsive.

So from what I can tell, the Revolution is gonna be a mix of what people didn't like about the T-Bolt (the chipset) and what people didn't like about the Optimus 2x (the software) with the added experience of Bing. If that's the case, I'll pass.