Here are a few considerations for those thinking about upgrading to the Triumph from the Optimus V:
DRAWBACKS:
1. The screen colors are are slightly less vibrant on the T than on the OV. If I would give the colors a scale (with my friends amoled Samsung as a 10), I’d give the T a 7/10, and I’d give the OV a 8/10.
2. There is a strange sensitivity issue with the T’s screen. It’s difficult to explain, but it seems like it’s a bit too sensitive. Sliding bars like volume or brightness sometimes are difficult, and precisely pinpointing a spot is harder on the T than on the OV, for example, like when you want the cursor on a specific spot within a word to change that word. (FIX: with the second layer of the two stock screen protectors removed, screen sensitivity seems normal)
3. The power button is on the left side. Now I actually like side power buttons as opposed to top power buttons (the OV is actually great insofar as it has front power buttons), but being right handed and having the power button on the left side is a little inconvenient. I need to reach all the way around with my index finger, instead of being able to press it with my thumb if it was on the right side. And, since the volume buttons are on the right side almost parallel to the power button, when I squeeze to press the power button, its easy to mistakenly press the volume buttons with my thumb inadvertently.
4. Strangely enough, though the general screen area has a sort of hyper-sensitivity, I find sometimes the capacitive buttons on the bottom to not be as sensitive. Nothing crazy, but the difference is there.
5. The sd card slot is on the inside of the phone, meaning you have to remove the battery cover to get to it. Though I don’t take out the sd card that often, I’m not a big fan of this, because it means in order to get to the sd card I need to remove the back cover, and my snug rocketfish case. On the OV, the sd slot was accessible, even with a case on.
6. The battery life is worse than a rom’d OV, but better than a phone like the Evo 4g.
7. The signal strength seems weaker. Not only do I get less bars at home, but I seem to see the phone switching to 1x more often. (FIX: this problem can largely be solved with a Prl update, now the MT and OV are comparable in signal strength in my opinion).
8. It does seem to take longer for the T to get a GPS signal. After testing, it is difficult to say precisely, because sometimes my OV took a while to get a gps lock.
9. For some reason, I’ve been getting a few 100% partial wakelocks from “android system.” I don’t want to blame the T for this, maybe it’s one of the apps bundled with the phone that’s doin’ all the wakin’.
10. Wifi tether does not seem to work, even with rooting the phone. I hope there will be a solution to this, though.
11. No dedicated camera button.
12. Too loud! Even on the lowest media volume setting, it’s pretty loud.
13. The MT is a bit heavier (5 ounces to the OV's 4 ounces)
ADVANTAGES:
1. Smooth gorilla glass screen. Silky to the touch! (the OV's screen is plastic or fiberglass)
2. Large screen, good for big hands (4.1 inches vs. the OV's 3.2 inch screen)
3. Everything appears sharp on the screen, with over double the resolution of the OV (MT's 480x800 to the OV's 320x480)
4. The refresh rate for the screen is great, games look incredibly smooth, not choppy at all.
5. Battery life is not as bad as you would think, especially if you augment it with something like droidwall profiles from mmarz.
6. I like capacitive buttons better, I always felt like I was wearing out my OV’s buttons, especially the “back” one.
7. The buttons the T does have seem to be higher quality than the OV, there’s a firmness to them without a cheap click feeling.
8. Processing speed seems to fly, much more than the OV, even though my OV was stable at 825! There’s really no comparison.
9. Ridiculously easy to root with gingerbreak (I remember the longer terminal method I had to use for the OV!).
10. Attractive angular square-ish design (personal thing).
11. Strong build quality, if the rest of the phone is built like the back panel, then its metal spray painted with a light rubber/plastic coating. Everything feels strong and well built.
12. LED notification light! I’ve set up my sms messages to blink red, and my gmail alerts to blink green.
13. Adobe flash! (haha, like I ever really use that)
14. Wider but still thin profile stays upright in my pocket easier than the OV.
15. USB tether does work, no limit on webpages! (I use easy tether)
16. Unlocked bootloader (thanks liquidplacidity)
17. For some reason, the screen is still quite readable even in daylight conditions, better than the OV.
18. Netflix flickering issues have been resolved with the 1.3 update, looks great and plays smoothly with no hiccups, unlike the OV.
19. Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 1ghz and Adreno 205 GPU (same as the HTC thunderbolt and Xperia Play). Everything feels noticably faster than the OV's outdated arm6 600mhz technology.
20. Camera resolution is higher than the OV's, there is a front vga camera as well (for video calls), and the rear camera sports a LED flash (MT's 5 megapix camera with LED flash vs the OV's 3.2 megapix w/no flash)
21. 1 gig of internal storage! (this is 5 times more than the OV's 200 mb)
22. Light sensor for auto adjustment of screen brightness (for the OV you must manually adjust the screen brightness)
23. Better battery life! Yes, you read correctly! From the official LG and Motorola sites, the MT is rated for 8.3 hours talk time and 300 hours standby, while the OV is only rated for 2.5 hours of talk time and up to 168 hours of standby.
24. About double the resolution for video capture (720p hd, 1280x720 to the OV's vga 640x480)
25. Speaker placement is better for listening (its on the side, whereas the OV's is on the back)
26. HDMI out, 720p hd. I have tried this feature yet personally, but I've read of people that really like it for videos and games (the OV does not have HDMI out)
SOME CONCLUSIONS:
1. Is it worth the money? Yes, if you can afford it. For an unsubsidized, pre-paid phone (which is really the only appropriate standard we should use), this is really pretty impressive. For example, cost of an unsubsidized Xperia Play (with the same Snapdragon MSM8255 1ghz and Adreno 205 GPU) is around $599, and the HTC Thunderbolt unsubsidized retails at $699 (with the same cpu and gpu). Considering these prices, the Triumph is a steal for the same core hardware.
2. Will I be disappointed if I buy it? Would I go back to the OV? Probably not, despite the issues people find with it, I haven't really read of anyone yet who has refunded it (beside a circumstance where the phone is broken) and gone back to the OV. So take everyone's criticism of the T with a grain of salt, if the T was actually that bad, we would see mass migrations back to the OV. Hasn't happened yet. Actions speak louder than words.
3. Is the experience on the T that different from the OV? Yes, very different. Not that the OV is bad, but even overclocked, the difference may be analogous to the difference between a core 2 duo laptop and an icore laptop, very noticeable for a nerd/techie, maybe not so noticeable for grandma or gramps.
4. Is the battery life that bad? Its not really "bad" at all, I think the average person using it a light to medium amount a day could easily get through a 14 hour day. But if you're expecting dumbphone battery life, stick with the razr.
5. Are you happy with your purchase? Yes, absolutely. For pre-paid standards, this phone is really nice. Not only did I get $100 for my OV, but I used the best buy 10% off coupon. So I paid less than $200 for this phone, a real steal considering the strong build quality.
6. Is the price of the Triumph really worth the cost of two OV's? It depends. Is the price of an OV really worth the cost two Samsung Restores? I think most OV people would wholeheartedly respond "heck yeah!" If you can afford the T, its worth the cost.
I hope this helps some people considering the switch.
DRAWBACKS:
1. The screen colors are are slightly less vibrant on the T than on the OV. If I would give the colors a scale (with my friends amoled Samsung as a 10), I’d give the T a 7/10, and I’d give the OV a 8/10.
2. There is a strange sensitivity issue with the T’s screen. It’s difficult to explain, but it seems like it’s a bit too sensitive. Sliding bars like volume or brightness sometimes are difficult, and precisely pinpointing a spot is harder on the T than on the OV, for example, like when you want the cursor on a specific spot within a word to change that word. (FIX: with the second layer of the two stock screen protectors removed, screen sensitivity seems normal)
3. The power button is on the left side. Now I actually like side power buttons as opposed to top power buttons (the OV is actually great insofar as it has front power buttons), but being right handed and having the power button on the left side is a little inconvenient. I need to reach all the way around with my index finger, instead of being able to press it with my thumb if it was on the right side. And, since the volume buttons are on the right side almost parallel to the power button, when I squeeze to press the power button, its easy to mistakenly press the volume buttons with my thumb inadvertently.
4. Strangely enough, though the general screen area has a sort of hyper-sensitivity, I find sometimes the capacitive buttons on the bottom to not be as sensitive. Nothing crazy, but the difference is there.
5. The sd card slot is on the inside of the phone, meaning you have to remove the battery cover to get to it. Though I don’t take out the sd card that often, I’m not a big fan of this, because it means in order to get to the sd card I need to remove the back cover, and my snug rocketfish case. On the OV, the sd slot was accessible, even with a case on.
6. The battery life is worse than a rom’d OV, but better than a phone like the Evo 4g.
7. The signal strength seems weaker. Not only do I get less bars at home, but I seem to see the phone switching to 1x more often. (FIX: this problem can largely be solved with a Prl update, now the MT and OV are comparable in signal strength in my opinion).
8. It does seem to take longer for the T to get a GPS signal. After testing, it is difficult to say precisely, because sometimes my OV took a while to get a gps lock.
9. For some reason, I’ve been getting a few 100% partial wakelocks from “android system.” I don’t want to blame the T for this, maybe it’s one of the apps bundled with the phone that’s doin’ all the wakin’.
10. Wifi tether does not seem to work, even with rooting the phone. I hope there will be a solution to this, though.
11. No dedicated camera button.
12. Too loud! Even on the lowest media volume setting, it’s pretty loud.
13. The MT is a bit heavier (5 ounces to the OV's 4 ounces)
ADVANTAGES:
1. Smooth gorilla glass screen. Silky to the touch! (the OV's screen is plastic or fiberglass)
2. Large screen, good for big hands (4.1 inches vs. the OV's 3.2 inch screen)
3. Everything appears sharp on the screen, with over double the resolution of the OV (MT's 480x800 to the OV's 320x480)
4. The refresh rate for the screen is great, games look incredibly smooth, not choppy at all.
5. Battery life is not as bad as you would think, especially if you augment it with something like droidwall profiles from mmarz.
6. I like capacitive buttons better, I always felt like I was wearing out my OV’s buttons, especially the “back” one.
7. The buttons the T does have seem to be higher quality than the OV, there’s a firmness to them without a cheap click feeling.
8. Processing speed seems to fly, much more than the OV, even though my OV was stable at 825! There’s really no comparison.
9. Ridiculously easy to root with gingerbreak (I remember the longer terminal method I had to use for the OV!).
10. Attractive angular square-ish design (personal thing).
11. Strong build quality, if the rest of the phone is built like the back panel, then its metal spray painted with a light rubber/plastic coating. Everything feels strong and well built.
12. LED notification light! I’ve set up my sms messages to blink red, and my gmail alerts to blink green.
13. Adobe flash! (haha, like I ever really use that)
14. Wider but still thin profile stays upright in my pocket easier than the OV.
15. USB tether does work, no limit on webpages! (I use easy tether)
16. Unlocked bootloader (thanks liquidplacidity)
17. For some reason, the screen is still quite readable even in daylight conditions, better than the OV.
18. Netflix flickering issues have been resolved with the 1.3 update, looks great and plays smoothly with no hiccups, unlike the OV.
19. Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 1ghz and Adreno 205 GPU (same as the HTC thunderbolt and Xperia Play). Everything feels noticably faster than the OV's outdated arm6 600mhz technology.
20. Camera resolution is higher than the OV's, there is a front vga camera as well (for video calls), and the rear camera sports a LED flash (MT's 5 megapix camera with LED flash vs the OV's 3.2 megapix w/no flash)
21. 1 gig of internal storage! (this is 5 times more than the OV's 200 mb)
22. Light sensor for auto adjustment of screen brightness (for the OV you must manually adjust the screen brightness)
23. Better battery life! Yes, you read correctly! From the official LG and Motorola sites, the MT is rated for 8.3 hours talk time and 300 hours standby, while the OV is only rated for 2.5 hours of talk time and up to 168 hours of standby.
24. About double the resolution for video capture (720p hd, 1280x720 to the OV's vga 640x480)
25. Speaker placement is better for listening (its on the side, whereas the OV's is on the back)
26. HDMI out, 720p hd. I have tried this feature yet personally, but I've read of people that really like it for videos and games (the OV does not have HDMI out)
SOME CONCLUSIONS:
1. Is it worth the money? Yes, if you can afford it. For an unsubsidized, pre-paid phone (which is really the only appropriate standard we should use), this is really pretty impressive. For example, cost of an unsubsidized Xperia Play (with the same Snapdragon MSM8255 1ghz and Adreno 205 GPU) is around $599, and the HTC Thunderbolt unsubsidized retails at $699 (with the same cpu and gpu). Considering these prices, the Triumph is a steal for the same core hardware.
2. Will I be disappointed if I buy it? Would I go back to the OV? Probably not, despite the issues people find with it, I haven't really read of anyone yet who has refunded it (beside a circumstance where the phone is broken) and gone back to the OV. So take everyone's criticism of the T with a grain of salt, if the T was actually that bad, we would see mass migrations back to the OV. Hasn't happened yet. Actions speak louder than words.
3. Is the experience on the T that different from the OV? Yes, very different. Not that the OV is bad, but even overclocked, the difference may be analogous to the difference between a core 2 duo laptop and an icore laptop, very noticeable for a nerd/techie, maybe not so noticeable for grandma or gramps.
4. Is the battery life that bad? Its not really "bad" at all, I think the average person using it a light to medium amount a day could easily get through a 14 hour day. But if you're expecting dumbphone battery life, stick with the razr.
5. Are you happy with your purchase? Yes, absolutely. For pre-paid standards, this phone is really nice. Not only did I get $100 for my OV, but I used the best buy 10% off coupon. So I paid less than $200 for this phone, a real steal considering the strong build quality.
6. Is the price of the Triumph really worth the cost of two OV's? It depends. Is the price of an OV really worth the cost two Samsung Restores? I think most OV people would wholeheartedly respond "heck yeah!" If you can afford the T, its worth the cost.
I hope this helps some people considering the switch.
Last edited: