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Samsung Fascinate

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Bateluer said:
I've personally handled the Vibrant and Captivate and they both felt like cheap plastic. I know its whats under the hood that counts, but I guess I'm too used to the steel brick that is the Droid 1. The Epic 4G felt a little better, but its because of the keyboard.
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It's because you're used to holding a brick in your hand and to your face. Lightness is a plus, not a negative.

GPS and battery drain issues are real negatives and Samsung deserves bigger beating than they are getting. People made big deal out of iPhone4 antenna issue. GPS and battery drain problems are much worse. My GPS is fixed with Bionix 1.91 custom rom along with the battery drain problem. Google location based services work every time. But I shouldn't have to use custom rom to fix something that should work perfectly out of the box. Samsung released and sold 5 million of these phones knowing about the flaws.
 
The GPS work well enough for most location based features on my epic. Haven't tried using it as an auto gps. Honestly, if one of my radios is going to have an issue, I'd rather it be just the GPS instead of say the GSM antenna.
 
Let's get one thing straight. GPS does NOT work with any updates or "fixes". Best thing you can get is your approximate location using AT&T towers. This is poor stand-in for proper GPS functionality. Hopefully, this will be fixed eventually by Samsung, though I am not encouraged by their handling of the problem so far.

On all other fronts, I am satisfied with my Captivate. I don't think it feels like cheap plastic. As far as multimedia goes, it's great. Great large screen, and it plays all popular video formats I use out of the box. Same with audio. Aldiko is a great application for eBooks and serves all my needs in that department. Getting media onto the phone is a snap. Just connect it to your comp via USB and copy over the files. Done. They will play. Compared to iPad, iPhone, and iPod where none of the normal video formats work, so you are forced to go through a lengthy conversion process to watch your divx movies, it's light and day. And you don't need to use iTunes. Apple's restrictions basically make their products simple not viable as mutimedia devices as far as I am concerned.

Battery life also seems just fine.

Basically outside of GPS, I am very happy with this phone.

As far as Samsung's handling of the GPS issue, happy as I am with all other aspects of this phone, I will not be buying anything from Samsung in the future. Their attitude and actions in this matter have lost them any possibility of future business from me.
 
Tristicus said:
Got it yesterday...did everything on this post (except Voodoo): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=798064

Bought most of the important apps like Titanium Backup and stuff. Like the phone so far. Plays HD video fine, love having music while I browse the web, and no more Bing shit! Navigation also works pretty good too once it figures out where you are (Google Maps).
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Glad you ignored the naysayers and pulled the trigger. I just got the fascinate ~1 week ago and am loving it. No GPS issues either. I get a lock in 30-60 seconds most of time, and away I go. Google navigation has taken me through some interesting parts of New Hampshire, however.
 
Got the Fascinate for a steal on Friday ($0), and I like it a lot. I don't mind the "plasticky" feel...it's thin and light, and that's what I care about. I do have the GPS problem, pretty bad, in fact. I had one brief moment of lock on after downloading the "GPS Status" app, which uses GPS location files to assist the phone's tracking. It worked for about an hour or so and then gave out again. Not the reason I got the phone, but still a huge bummer, and something I hope is fixed.

As for the Bing thing, I don't care too much, and I just moved all the pre-loaded apps to the last app page. Not a big deal, although you do have to tame them with an app killer. Don't know why they keep auto-running, but I guess that's why it's called bloatware.
 
Vibrant running Bionix Final rom.
snap20101026_185637.png
 
soxfan said:
Glad you ignored the naysayers and pulled the trigger. I just got the fascinate ~1 week ago and am loving it. No GPS issues either. I get a lock in 30-60 seconds most of time, and away I go. Google navigation has taken me through some interesting parts of New Hampshire, however.
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God, we were using VZ Navigator from Salem to somewhere in Mass (right over the border), and that shit was horrid. If Google Maps is even half better than that, I'll be glad. I used it to just navigate to the auto store and it seemed alright like I said...we'll see how it fares for a trip.
 
richierich1212 said:
"2 Girls within 0.3 mi - View Pics?"

Great GPS system!
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Hey, got to support free apps somehow!

I just read an article about why the Android app community may not be as strong as the iphone community. Basically, Apple was pretty smart to give you the ability to browse on your computer and buy through your itunes account. Itunes gift cards are particularly easy to use. Google uses its own payment system, which doesn't encourage impulse purchases in the same way, and many developers are forced to rely on ads rather than app sales.
 
Termie said:
Hey, got to support free apps somehow!

I just read an article about why the Android app community may not be as strong as the iphone community. Basically, Apple was pretty smart to give you the ability to browse on your computer and buy through your itunes account. Itunes gift cards are particularly easy to use. Google uses its own payment system, which doesn't encourage impulse purchases in the same way, and many developers are forced to rely on ads rather than app sales.
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App Brain is great, especially once you get fast install up and running. I wish that had been default android.
 
Naustica said:
It's because you're used to holding a brick in your hand and to your face. Lightness is a plus, not a negative.
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Lightness is a plus, feeling cheap is not. The Droid 1 isn't what I'd consider heavy, but it feels very sturdy and well constructed. The US Galaxy S phones don't feel nearly as solid, feeling more like cheap plastic toys than high end smartphones.

You'd think with the money that Samsung sank into these, they could have gone for an aluminum unibody?
 
Bateluer said:
Lightness is a plus, feeling cheap is not. The Droid 1 isn't what I'd consider heavy, but it feels very sturdy and well constructed. The US Galaxy S phones don't feel nearly as solid, feeling more like cheap plastic toys than high end smartphones.

You'd think with the money that Samsung sank into these, they could have gone for an aluminum unibody?
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You want a heavy phone? Go get one. The Galaxy S (and I prefer the Captivate shape, but they're all close) has just the right size and weight inside its TPU case. (Put a case on a Droid/Droid X and it's HUGE.) You want heavier? Hold it inside an Otterbox.

Unibody wouldn't make it stronger, just feel different. Smartphones don't die from their insides getting jostled, they die when the glass bites it. The lighter Galaxy S actually has better survivability than any iPhone.
 
s44 said:
You want a heavy phone? Go get one. The Galaxy S (and I prefer the Captivate shape, but they're all close) has just the right size and weight inside its TPU case. (Put a case on a Droid/Droid X and it's HUGE.) You want heavier? Hold it inside an Otterbox.

Unibody wouldn't make it stronger, just feel different. Smartphones don't die from their insides getting jostled, they die when the glass bites it. The lighter Galaxy S actually has better survivability than any iPhone.
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Good points. A case on the Droid 1/2/X makes them utterly massive and unpocketable. It could be argued that they really don't need cases, but that's a personal preference.
 
Bateluer said:
Good points. A case on the Droid 1/2/X makes them utterly massive and unpocketable. It could be argued that they really don't need cases, but that's a personal preference.
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A female friend of mine got a DroidX with a case on it. I couldn't believe such a small person wielding such a large device.
 
I love my Vibrant. It has played every video file I threw at it (except stuff that won't fit on the stupid fat32 sd cards), and my GPS results look much like Naustica's running stock JI6+JI2 modem.

Tristicus, does the Fascinate come with 1gb or 2gb of app storage? I know it doesn't come with any internal SDcard storage like the Vibrant and Captivate, just an External SD card slot.
 
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