Upgrading from the OV to the Triumph? Look here

theboundless

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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.
 
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csrow

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Thanks for the review. The one that is really keeping me from jumping to Triumph is the weak signals. Voice, data, and GPS all seems weaker than OV.

Cheap LCD and flaky touch sensors, I could live with. Not having reliable voice and data is a problem. I hope they can make it better in a software update.
 

thexxoffspring

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The only reason I want the T is for the led notification. I could careless about anything. But the color thing does kinda bother me. Is the screen hdpi?
 

Retorrent

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Thanks for the review. The one that is really keeping me from jumping to Triumph is the weak signals. Voice, data, and GPS all seems weaker than OV.

Cheap LCD and flaky touch sensors, I could live with. Not having reliable voice and data is a problem. I hope they can make it better in a software update.

Problem is that software update are not what I call "speedy" from Virgin, If I spent that much on a phone and had to suffer from weak signal's that sucker would be going back the next day.
 

theboundless

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Thanks for the review. The one that is really keeping me from jumping to Triumph is the weak signals. Voice, data, and GPS all seems weaker than OV.

Cheap LCD and flaky touch sensors, I could live with. Not having reliable voice and data is a problem. I hope they can make it better in a software update.
So far, I've made a few phone calls, and though there are less bars, I wouldn't say the phone is unusable or anything like that, the calls sounded good. After a few weeks I'll be able to tell if the lower signal bars have any real world impact.
 

koopakid08

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So far, I've made a few phone calls, and though there are less bars, I wouldn't say the phone is unusable or anything like that, the calls sounded good. After a few weeks I'll be able to tell if the lower signal bars have any real world impact.

So overall do think it is worth the upgrade from the OV?
 

Liquidplacidity

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You forgot a con. I've had this phone for three days now and the camera is really bad. It's extremely laggy. The pictures take very good pictures, but when recording, the lag that you see in the camera, will also be played back in the video.
 

benslgdroid

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I never buy electronics on release day. Initial models usually have allot of issues rather wait a few months for updated hardware and software.
 

Centinel

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I never buy electronics on release day. Initial models usually have allot of issues rather wait a few months for updated hardware and software.

Good man.

I'd go a step farther and wait until the next major iteration of technology. Did we really shuck the costs of postpaid phones just so we can spend the money on incremental phone upgrades?

And to be honest, if the feedback in this thread is even marginally accurate, I'm not sure I'd consider the Triumph much of an upgrade at all.
 

narrow_minded#WN

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Good man.

I'd go a step farther and wait until the next major iteration of technology. Did we really shuck the costs of postpaid phones just so we can spend the money on incremental phone upgrades?

And to be honest, if the feedback in this thread is even marginally accurate, I'm not sure I'd consider the Triumph much of an upgrade at all.

The only things that make this phone an upgrade are the bigger screen, the FFC, and the notification light. The processor is faster, but I'm not convinced that would translate into a very noticeable difference in day-to-day use compared to an OV... especially an overclocked OV. A locked bootloader would be the final nail in the coffin of this phone for me.

I'll wait. Give it another 6 months or so, and we'll see a true upgrade make its way to Virgin Mobile.
 

ceejay83

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thanks for your review. the unresponsive screen and worse reception/battery life are the deal breaker for me. hopefully the black will turn out good
 

Liquidplacidity

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It just depends on which "batch" of phone you get. Mine doesn't have an unresponsive screen at all. The back button, however, stops working randomly. I have to lock the phone, then turn it back on. I think all these are ROM issues though. I'm also having GPS connectivity problems where I can't get a GPS signal. See, I bought it on the release date, yeah. I have 30 days to return it. I'm going to return the current one I have in 28 more days, and hopefully I get the fixed/updated batch of the phone. Overall though, It's a great phone. I love everything about it. The little issues it has doesn't really bother me that much. Oh and the bootloader? It isn't locked. Volume down + Power gives you a read/write access folder on your computer. You're free to edit them as you which, just make sure you have a backup. I put a different kernel in there, and yup, it worked. I didn't keep it that way though because it wasn't the right ROM for this phone, but sure enough, the bootloader allowed it.
 

theboundless

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The only things that make this phone an upgrade are the bigger screen, the FFC, and the notification light. The processor is faster, but I'm not convinced that would translate into a very noticeable difference in day-to-day use compared to an OV... especially an overclocked OV. A locked bootloader would be the final nail in the coffin of this phone for me.

I'll wait. Give it another 6 months or so, and we'll see a true upgrade make its way to Virgin Mobile.

The real world difference in processor speed is actually really obvious. And I was coming from a fast OV that was stable at 825! The OV's processor is really no match for the 2nd gen snapdragon processor. Not like this is the only thing to consider, but its actually one of the strongest reasons I'm keeping my Triumph.
 

sinimsdp

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I think another con right now is the price tag. Sure the T has better stats, but is the upgrade really worth the price of 2 OV's?
 

HatMaker

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I posted my thoughts of the Triumph and the Optimus V in the Triumph forum, but overall I really feel this phone wasn't 100% complete. I have numerous issues detailed there, but the disappointing part it seems I got one of the best examples of this phone.

My phone doesn't have malfunctioning buttons, a washed out screen, and broken SD card readers like some others do, but I still have major issues with the functionality of the Triumph. I would only recommend the Triumph to somebody if they absolutely needed the bigger screen and hardware power over the Optimus V.
 
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LeslieAnn

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I posted my thoughts of the Triumph and the Optimus V in the Triumph forum, but overall I really feel this phone wasn't 100% complete. I have numerous issues detailed there, but the disappointing part it seems I got one of the best examples of this phone.

My phone doesn't have malfunctioning buttons, a washed out screen, and broken SD card readers like some others do, but I still have major issues with the functionality of the Triumph. I would only recommend the Triumph to somebody if they absolutely needed the bigger screen and hardware power over the Optimus V.

Thank you for posting this.

That stinks, I wasn't aware of so many issues, but I also wasn't looking.
This was exactly the kind of quality issues many were afraid of (including myself).

There is more to a phone than fit and finish or processor as Triumph users are now seeing. It's easy to make a cheap phone look good, or throw one or two good parts to bump the specs, it doesn't make it a good product. You can still cheap out on the little things and those, visible or not, can make or break a product just as much as a large part.

What also worries me is that the carrier is ultimately responsible for phone updates, which Virgin is bad about, plus you have to wait for Motorola to offer it to them, who also has a bad reputation for updates. And worse than that, Motorola has to wait for Huawei to give it to them.

We had nowhere near these kinds of issues with the OV, and I think at this point unless something seriously changes before then, I'll be upgrading to the OB.
 
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theboundless

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I feel like some people are forgetting the OV has issues too. Maybe I should have been more clear about that. Here are some just off the top of my head:

OV Drawbacks:

1. The screen is low resolution

2. The screen is not particularly that sharp

3. The screen is quite small

4. Because of the small screen, when they keyboard pops up in portrait mode, it takes over half the screen! This makes inputting text sometimes difficult.

5. The processor is slow, even overclocked.

6. Games perform moderate at best, choppy at worst, with most new games not performing that well.

7. Netflix feels like I’m asking way too much of my phone, choppy at times, crashing at other times.

8. Battery life stock was bad!

9. Physical buttons have a cheap “clicky” feel to them

10. No notification light.

11. No official flash support.

12. Playing avi movie files was ok at best, choppy and unplayable at worst (I'm not even trying the hi-def ones!)


There are probably more issues if I sat down and thought about it for a while. My point here is, the comparison isn't between a perfectly designed Optimus V vs. a poorly designed Triumph. Rather, they both have plenty of issues. And I have to humbly disagree with Hatmaker, I think that if anyone buys the Triumph, they will like it enough to keep it. If you can afford it, its a great phone for the price, the best pre-paid phone there is out there.
 

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