I had no idea how outdated my Droid X was.

[Via]

My X got stolen over the weekend. It was a perfect storm of me being busy and exhausted, driving a few hours to see the parents, not paying attention etc.

On Sunday night, when I determined it was gone, I called verizon and suspended my account. Today I went to the store to have my old Decoy re-activated for the remainder of my contract (about 6 months).

The guy at the store helpfully pulled up some special offers, and he got me an iphone 4 for free if I signed a new 2 year deal. I played with it and decided to go ahead. I know it's dated, but I needed a phone today and free was good enough for me. Tonight I finally had a chance to explore it some more.

I crap you not - this thing is many times faster than the X in most cases. Content heavy sites like ESPN took almost a minute to become functional on the X (and were often unusable anyway), and this thing runs them like a cheap PC. I downloaded and played with some games and it was nice to see them run without stutter. It was nice to see a smartphine do anything without constant stutter.

I need to do a better job of keeping up with tech. I don't need the latest and greatest by a long shot, but the age of the X was seriously hampering my smartphone experience.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

I put ICS on my friend's Evo 4G and it was so slow and stuttery compared to my GN but to her she was so happy because it was smoother than what she had before.

Same feeling when I use a 3GS. The screen is so hideous its hard to use.

Crazy how things change so fast.

 

[Dulanic]

Phones have changed a ton over the past few years. A iPhone 4s or SGSII compared to a older droid or iPhone 3 is night and day difference.

 

[smartpatrol]

iOS and Windows Phone both run much smoother than Android. The old iPhone 4, and 1st-gen WP7 devices (single core Snapdragon S1) honestly "feel" faster than my Galaxy Nexus. I thought that this was when Android was supposed to catch up, with ICS's hardware acceleration and a dual-core processor.

I think it comes down to:
1. Android has more input lag. It takes just a split second longer to respond to touch. Especially noticeable when scrolling through web pages (IMO)
2. Frame rate consistency. Android may run at 60 fps most of the time, but it stutters whenever you are doing something remotely CPU-intensive (e.g. Rendering a web page, scrolling down a web page with lots of images, an app is downloading data, etc.)

Maybe some people don't notice or care, but those things make a big difference IMO. ICS was a step up from Android 2.x but it still lags behind iOS and WP7.

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Man I must be living in the stone age. My 3GS still seems fast and I love all that I can do with it. It will be 3 years old in another month. Dropped it more times than I can count with only a slim rubber case on it. I really feel the network is the biggest bottleneck by far with my smartphone usage.

 

[alent1234]

isn't ESPN flash heavy? if you access it with a flash compatible browser it will load all the annoying frames and mini windows. with iOS you get a quick load

and check out the ESPN app. way better than using the browser

 

[NikolaeVarius]

This is why you put a Rom on your phone. ICS on the Droid X is great.

 

[AnMig]

This is why you put a Rom on your phone. ICS on the Droid X is great.

Wow have not been keeping up with Droid X (first one) since I got my GNEX, but still use it beside my bed. It is rooted (Maybe gummy) and romed but it has been a while since I fooled around with it. Will need to look into ICS, did not know it was available.

Loved the X, good battery life and does not seem to far behind my GNEX (this is on wifi)

Its that damned locked bootloader that gets me scared whenever I change ROMS on it.

 

[Bateluer]

isn't ESPN flash heavy? if you access it with a flash compatible browser it will load all the annoying frames and mini windows. with iOS you get a quick load

and check out the ESPN app. way better than using the browser

True, but most browsers set Flash to 'Prompt User' before loading. You have to tap to get the Flash video to load.

 

[cronos]

I know that free is always good, but if you had to sign a new contract anyway you should have gotten the 4S even if you have to add some money. They're likely willing to negotiate with you for a rather sweet deal.

 

[Chapbass]

My DX ended up taking a swim, still miss that phone. Have an infuse 4g right now (of course, this had to happen right before the SGSII came out, so I missed the cut), and I don't like it nearly as much.

The DX is such a SOLID feeling phone.

 

[Lyfer]

I can only remember the 2010 droid x ad's lol. But yeah the droid x was Awfully slow. My brother has 6 more months to bare with it until he can upgrade. Maybe quad core LTE will be available then.

 

[Via]

I know that free is always good, but if you had to sign a new contract anyway you should have gotten the 4S even if you have to add some money. They're likely willing to negotiate with you for a rather sweet deal.

I thought about it, but they were out of stock and it would have taken over a week to get one. I needed a new phone immediately for work. It also would have been $200 as opposed to the other one being free (the offers he gave me applied to the regular iphone only).

Also - the Siri thing is cool (I played with it on a friends phone a while ago), but I don't see myself as a guy who's going to use that very much once the novelty wears off.

As far as memory goes - My X had 16 GB and I never even used 1 GB for storage, so I don't think not having more than 8 GB is going to be an issue for me either.

Even if the would have had a 4S in stock I think I probably would have gone with the regular one anyway (it would have been a tough call).

 

[Ns1]

Man I must be living in the stone age. My 3GS still seems fast and I love all that I can do with it. It will be 3 years old in another month. Dropped it more times than I can count with only a slim rubber case on it. I really feel the network is the biggest bottleneck by far with my smartphone usage.

yeah once you upgrade it's over

<--- had a 3gs until October

 

[zerocool84]

Droid X is slow because of the Motoblur skin on top of it. It seriously kills performance.

 

[Bateluer]

Droid X is slow because of the Motoblur skin on top of it. It seriously kills performance.

The number one reason why all Moto phones are dog slow, regardless of CPU, GPU, or RAM. The Razr, for example, has the same CPU and 1GB of RAM as the Nexus and yet the Nexus runs rings around it.

Install something like ADW.Ex, Go, Nova, LP, etc, and a lot of those issues go away. Not all though, since Blur sucks up RAM regardless.

 

[OS]

i had a droidx also, great phone for its time, but yeah then i got a samsung exhibit II 4G and even the HSPA network alone is worthwhile, internet is much faster.

it's a smaller phone, but then the entire samsung is the same thickness as the thin portion of the droidx.
this is a $200 prepaid phone and it was still an upgrade. It did not come with a microsd card however, so i threw in a $25 32GB microsd.

this is also why i hate two year contracts, if i had a 2 year contract i would still be stuck using an obsolete phone.

next stop...maybe galaxy S3...

 

[zerogear]

iOS and Windows Phone both run much smoother than Android. The old iPhone 4, and 1st-gen WP7 devices (single core Snapdragon S1) honestly "feel" faster than my Galaxy Nexus. I thought that this was when Android was supposed to catch up, with ICS's hardware acceleration and a dual-core processor.

Maybe some people don't notice or care, but those things make a big difference IMO. ICS was a step up from Android 2.x but it still lags behind iOS and WP7.

It's the way Android was programmed vs iOS and WP7 programming. iOS and WP7 prioritize visual/transition animation and OS over other processes, while Android doesn't.

 

[Bman123]

Did you actually mess around with the phones in store? No way I would of taken a non lte phone from verizon. I don't think I can go back to a 3g phone again because verizons 4g really is beefy

 

[Via]

I played with a few, but was most attracted to the snappy, smooth response of the iphone.

What's done is done anyway - I signed the contract, and I'm happy it was free. I don't have that personal assistant, but I don't think I'll miss it. The only thing I really miss is the X's huge screen.

After a full day of using it I have to say I'm pretty impressed; the difference in web bowsing alone almost makes me want to thank whomever stole my X (before I punch them).

Maybe after suffering with Motoblur for so long the iphone 4 is coming across as more impressive than it should, but ignorance is bliss. I've never had 4G, so I don't know what I'm missing.

RIP Droid X - it was my first smartphone, and for all of the bitching I've done about it I still have a lot of affection for it. I still remember bringing it home the day I got it and playing with it for hours, just amazed at what it could do.

 

[Bman123]

I will be the first android user in line to give the iphone credit. They just flat out work right all the time. The screen is nice, the os itself is honestly so much better then android. I would get a iphone in a heartbeat if it came with a bigger screen. For me 4 inches is really the sweet spot.

I had a iphone back in the day and my only real complaint about it was itunes, I seriously hate itunes with a passion.

If you haven't used a 4g phone just think of it as being fast like home internet. I remember pulling 20mbps plus all the time with my thunderbolt and stratosphere but at the same time I got shit battery life and that's something you don't have to deal with when you own a iphone.

They really are good phones they just get a lot of hate from fellow android users

 

[Bman123]

Thr only thing that matters here is that you are happy with your purchase. Congrats and have fun with your new phone...

 

[T_Yamamoto]

have fun with your new phone

but like what someone said, you should of rooted your X

 

[notposting]

It's amazing how fast things move, my OG Droid was the bomb at the time, it's an old tired slow piece of (durable) junk nowadays.

 

[Chocu1a]

have fun with your new phone

but like what someone said, you should of rooted your X

Point is moot, since it was stolen.