Good choices for an OV replacement/upgrade

[zedorda]

Me and my wife both started our smart phone journey with the Optimus V and like most of us have had a wonderful experience. But this phone is showing its age and we thought it time to get new devices. I wanted a keyboard while she wanted a good camera with no less than 1ghz single-core and ICS. Black Friday offered up two options that fit our wants pretty well. The HTC One V for my wife and the Kyocera Rise for myself. I have to say so far we are both very happy. She did get Sense 4.0 and a much better camera but I got my keyboard and never use my camera.

Both of these phones are worthy upgrades for the OV but each have a different use IMO. Each appeal to different people with different usage needs. I use mine as a WiFi phone and/or backup. Whereas my wife uses hers as her main phone. I have a contract G-nex as my main phone but when the contract runs out I plan to cancel it till the next Nexus device or the release of Google Glass.

Hope this helps someone thinking of upgrading their OV. I know I didn't cover enough detail but feel free to ask about the devices and I will try and answer what I can.

 

[Encerspay45]

How's the multitasking on the Rise?
Like, how much does it lag when you stream music while switching between Facebook and Texting?
That's my main multitasking

 

[zedorda]

How's the multitasking on the Rise?
Like, how much does it lag when you stream music while switching between Facebook and Texting?
That's my main multitasking

I went ahead and tested texting and facebook then bounced between the two a few times. With them running I started youtube and started a video at random watched the first 5 seconds then hopped back to facebook. I didn't stream music but with all I did I only had stutters the first time I would open an app but after that going back to it was instant and youtube finished buffing the whole 5 min 480p video while it was in the back ground(WiFi). All in all alot smoother than the OV but not alot nicer looking. The HTC One V looks freaking beautiful while it does all that. For me that doesn't' mean much when the phone was only $30 vs her's at $100 (Black Friday prices) I will be honest I wouldn't pay the full $100 price tag for the Rise but sales are not hard to find on these and $70 is reasonable.

 

[cole2kb]

I can speak for the Rise as well. It was very snappy, but I had some lag under a heavy load (understandably so.) Facebook was snappy, but Chrome was pretty awful. Worked okay once it loaded, but took a good 10-12 seconds before it could accept any input.

Played a few games like Temple Run, Jetpack Joyride, and Dead Trigger. DT was iffy but the rest were decent.

 

[PhillipBranch]

anybody tried the Reverb yet?
Mine isn't in yet

 

[ilikechicken123]

I have the Rise. I tested youtube and its ok. I mean we have 3G so the videos stop. Pandora works AMAZINGLY .multitasking is pretty good. Very snappy. I played zombie frontier, wreck it ralph, and temple. Only lagged once on temple run. The others were fine.

The speaker is REALLY LOUD. So while streaming music and surfing the web, it was really nice.

In terms of the keyboard & ergonomics. Well its pretty holdable. Sometimes when I'm typing with the physical keyboard I accidentally hit the volume rocker which is right under the keyboard. And the qwertyuiop/top row on the keyboard is a little too close to the edge for my taste and the space bar is a little small so its something you have to get used to in the beginning. They added a new "menu" button to the original 3 buttons that come with ics which is pretty handy but i'd rather it be on the left side like it was on the OV instead of the right side.

 

[saxrulez]

My wife has the rise as well. I've played with it pretty extensively. If you read the one star reviews on VM's website almost all of them are from a turning off/wont turn on without a charger problem. My wife's phone was doing this as well. I finally figured out that it is from the battery being too loose. One of the reviews had said the same thing and took a matchbook and put it underneath the battery for a more snug fit. I tried this with hers and all has been well now for 3 days. Hopefully I can help someone else out with this issue.

The rise is a really good budget phone in my opinion. It is plenty snappy for your typical phone tasks and web browsing. All of the games I have tried so far have run great on it. For a person that uses their phone as a phone and not a gaming device, its a great phone.

The camera is better than I expected from the reviews. The pictures have all been of similar quality to those my OpV takes, but the addition of a flash helps a lot for indoor photos.

 

[zedorda]

I like the total vanilla ICS the Rise has. There is almost no bloat at all even the Sprint ID is just an app and not locked to the dock. I did have a total lockup while watching a youtube video but just as I was fiddling with the back to do a battery pull it started working as if It was worried.