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Aren't their sites where you can trade and sell and buy contracts from people? Did I just make that up?
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Sep 15, 2011 16:58
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boz posted:Are there any ways to currently get out of a contact? Just had a baby so money is very tight. They still allow you to make changes to your contract don't they? If money is tight and you don't want to pay the fee to end the contract early, why don't you just drop the number of minutes, texts, or data you're buying?
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Sep 15, 2011 16:58
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I'm fairly close to pulling the trigger on a Bionic (yay .edu address knocks $50 off the price). Aside from this new Vigor thing that may or may not be coming, is there any reason why I shouldn't? I've got a Droid X that has had issues from the beginning (VZW always blamed apps, but it does the same thing on a fresh SBFd install) and they've gotten worse over the past few days. It'll hang when trying to answer calls, in the middle of composing texts etc, and has rebooted itself 5 or 6 times a day this week. Moving up to LTE and getting a properly functioning phone sounds like a great combination, I just want to make sure there aren't any glaring reasons why I shouldn't. I've read the past 5 or so pages of the thread and seen some hardware issues, but all in all it looks positive.
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Sep 15, 2011 20:22
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bull3964 posted:I got the extended battery for my bionic today. I'm not really sure that I needed it since the costco deal came with a 2nd battery, but it was 50% off ($24.99 instead of $50) so I grabbed it just so I would have options. Good to hear, mine should arrive today. I did notice on my charging dock it was made to fit the extended battery which is pretty cool.
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Sep 15, 2011 20:30
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highme posted:(yay .edu address knocks $50 off the price). Missed this part, does this stack with the CostCo deal? Thinking about also pulling trigger on Bionic- but I'm much worse off, I'm on an Env2. Have had the old school 2 year upgrade ready for months because I was assuming all these bullshit delays/economy problems wouldn't happen. I have been waiting oh so long. I am disappointed by the Bionic though, watching video on the unit at the store was pretty crappy. Size is nice though. I was given a Dell Streak 5" a while back and I love the drat thing if the software wasn't so utterly hosed, wish they'd update it soon. Don't have a contract on it, just surf web on it. Sohcahtoa82 posted:Not an Anthem posted: Yes but all that is your personal anecdote, from an admittedly biased pro-keyboard person. From a MANUFACTURING/DESIGN perspective, all the following are serious red flags for cell phones: Tons of moving parts, more places for dust/water/debris to get in, larger footprint. I will go over your response just based on my research me and a team did for a year for a major player. Replacing a broken screen can be done by a user. Replacing a sliding keyboard cannot. I've seen them fail and seen plenty of failed units while studying for a design. No one is "letting water in," but using a cellphone anywhere lets water in, whether through humidity, leaving it on a moist surface, having sweaty hands, etc. Furthermore, every time you use a keyboard you are literally pushing crap on your fingers into the keyboard. They are all designed to try to block crap from getting in, but it gets in. That is why computer keyboards are designed to be so strange with tapered-out keys and a drip catch tray. That is why you see crud build up under keys- it intentionally collects that crap so it doesn't get into the actual hardware, hampering it from working. That space doesn't exist on a cell phone. Water isn't the only problem, your hands are loving filthy, and luckily its easier to wipe a screen clean than somehow clean out the microscopic crap that builds up on the contacts of cell phones. Sealed keyboards are a lot better but lose tactility, which is why people want keyboards. "I don't see dust being a problem unless you live in a dusty area. Again, I haven't had problems." Dust, not as in "I live in Arizona and there is a dust storm," but dust as in what you are constantly getting rid of from desktops once a week, depending on how often you dust your apartment/house. Dust can also generate heat, which contributes to early phone death. YOU don't mind the thickness, but everyone else does. Nobody we tested with said "yeah, I want a larger phone." When they wanted certain features they were emotionally willing to compromise certain benefits to the slimmest, smallest phones, but on further silly psychological testing, they preferred slim to these features. Nobody wants it. The reason software keyboards suck so hard is that companies are ONLY NOW barely interested in hiring decent programmers to work on these, and even now they barely want to pay them. This will not change, ever, and why hopefully there continues to be market upheaval from new companies all the time. There is TONS of money to be made on that front. Learning the background of how some of these people operate is really sad, far worse than you think. I am a fat fingered son of a bitch and you might think I would want a physical keyboard, but I've even managed to adapt to tiny phones. To be fat biased for a minute, I am not fat, I just have large fingers and thumbs the size of golf balls. I can swype faster than I can type on my previous keyboarded phones or ones I have tested.
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Sep 15, 2011 21:43
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Not an Anthem posted:I am a fat fingered son of a bitch and you might think I would want a physical keyboard, but I've even managed to adapt to tiny phones. I'm with you on this. I have rather large hands and can't handle the small physical keyboards I've tried to use. In fact, I think the first thing I tweeted after getting my OG Droid was that my fingers were too big for the keyboard. In two years of using that phone I probably only typed on the physical keyboard half a dozen times, and most of those were within the first weeks. I opened it occasionally for the directional keys to play certain games, but overall it was just a massive annoyance more than any sort of help. Swype completely fixed the fat-finger problem for me.
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Sep 15, 2011 21:52
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Not an Anthem posted:I am disappointed by the Bionic though, watching video on the unit at the store was pretty crappy. What was wrong with the video? I watch 720p vids both streaming via Zumocast and from the SD, as well as stream video from Netflix and it's gorgeous. Coming from the OG Droid, I'm extremely happy that I waited for the Bionic instead of going with the Charge or doing something silly like switching to the iPhone 4. Also, count me in on the fat-finger club. I hated the physical keyboard on the OG, and I only ever used it for the d-pad to scroll on webpages in landscape view.
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Sep 15, 2011 23:12
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You have not experienced fat finger frustration till you've used a Palm Pre 2. Tiny hardware keyboard and no on screen alternative.
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Sep 15, 2011 23:18
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CubanRefugee posted:What was wrong with the video? I watch 720p vids both streaming via Zumocast and from the SD, as well as stream video from Netflix and it's gorgeous. Coming from the OG Droid, I'm extremely happy that I waited for the Bionic instead of going with the Charge or doing something silly like switching to the iPhone 4. The PenTile screen is pretty obvious on initial viewing and when looking for it specifically. The thing is, after the initial shock of seeing all the little pixels I start paying attention to what I'm watching/doing and I just forget about it. My eyes get used to it and it isn't noticeable until the next time I consciously think about it. Unless all the people claiming PenTile makes a phone unusable are literally toddlers I don't know how they've gotten by watching TV or using computers up to this point in time. Near-perfect image quality and screens you don't notice are very, very recent developments. And its not like PenTile is even bad. Image quality is still high, but people go off like Motorola is asking them to buy a phone with an 8bit display.
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Sep 15, 2011 23:26
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Rastor posted:With the rumors of the next Google Nexus device flying I don't understand why anyone would buy a current device rather than wait 6-10 weeks to see how those pan out. Imagine to yourself that some kind of Nexus device with a beautiful (i.e. not Pentile) 720p screen, dual core, 4G LTE, and Android 4.0 comes out before Thanksgiving. Will you be very sad? If the answer is "no, I will not be very sad" then hey, knock yourself out.
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Sep 15, 2011 23:33
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drat, Verizon must have ran out of extended batteries for the Bionic. I was expecting mine today but I just got an email saying it has just been shipped and won't arrive until Monday. Kind of an inconvenience since I was planning on using it when I go out of town tomorrow.
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Sep 16, 2011 00:01
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NewcastleBrown posted:The PenTile screen is pretty obvious on initial viewing and when looking for it specifically. Yeah, I think I only ever noticed the cross-hatching once or twice, but my eyes got used to it really quickly. I can understand the complaints about the display, but to me it's kind of like people that can notice the difference between different bitrate audio samples. My eyes and ears just aren't evolved like some people. 
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Sep 16, 2011 00:05
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So, CM7 is has been booted on the bionic. http://www.droid-life.com/2011/09/15/and-just-like-that-cm7-boots-up-on-the-droid-bionic/ It's not fully working yet, but a week to get it to boot is impressive.
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Sep 16, 2011 00:35
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bull3964 posted:So, CM7 is has been booted on the bionic. God drat I hate my phone. Seriously, I will be happier to get rid of this thing than I was to get rid of the Fascinate. (I know it isn't the phone's fault, its just been giving me issues today and the development for it is moving at a snails pace)
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Sep 16, 2011 00:39
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Not an Anthem posted:Missed this part, does this stack with the CostCo deal? Sorry, I should have expanded on that. There is no discount that I know of for students. However, if whatever entity that is in charge of your school has an agreement with VZW (in my case, the State of Oregon) you can use the corporate discount. However, I realized after posting that, that I was dumb. It didn't discount it because of my.edu address, I just used my wife's NE2 discount. It did knock 15% off the monthly bill though, well for her number at least.
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Sep 16, 2011 00:45
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Warranty question: My iPhone's speaker started acting up a month or so ago. I'm going to sell it on ebay and seeing as I have the warranty I might as well use it instead of selling a buggy phone. It wouldn't work for almost a whole day. I'd have to talk to people on speaker. Then it mysteriously starts working again. It hadn't done it for a couple weeks, but it did it yesterday for about 6 hours. Kind of a good thing as I would have forgotten about it and sold a defective phone on ebay without mentioning it. Do I have to go through Verizon for the warranty or can you also go through Apple? I've had the phone since June if that means anything. Verizon I think goes the Certified Pre-owned route, would Apple give a brand new phone? Or do I have to go through Verizon? CancerStick fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Sep 16, 2011 |
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Sep 16, 2011 01:09
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bull3964 posted:So, CM7 is has been booted on the bionic. Woo hoo, that means it'll be on the Droid 3 soon.
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Sep 16, 2011 01:23
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Rastor posted:I hate to quote myself, but this is still the only good answer to "any reason I shouldn't buy a Bionic right now now now?"
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Sep 16, 2011 01:41
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I think I got a "bad apple Bionic" the other day. Picked one up on Sunday, took it to my hotel (on the road for work) and charged it up. Since then, my battery life is horrid. Monday & Tuesday, I'd take it off the charger at around 6am. I *might* have used it for a few minutes to check RSS feeds and the forums (on 4g), but for the most part it just sat in standby while I worked. Both days, I was at 10% battery by 10 am; literally 90% of battery chewed up in 4 hours of barely any usage. I suspected that the issue might be Social Location; the battery usage data indicated that it was consuming a TON more of the battery than any other app. So, I used Task Manager to add it to the Auto-End list. This has only marginally improved the battery life. From 100% to 10%, over the past couple of days, has taken about 6-7 hours with about the same amount of use. Thing is, I'm not even on 4G/3G in the area I'm working in now, so I'm wondering if it's consuming less battery just because it's not getting the same amount of bandwidth. On top of all of this, since Wednesday, I've tried to use the WiFi in the hotel (in lieu of a Verizon signal, which I can't get here). Laptop and work phone (AT&T) connect to the wireless and work fine. The Bionic appears to be connected and all the settings seem correct, but as soon as I connect, all of my apps (Weather, Corporate E-Mail) start spitting out network errors. Can't connect to the Market, ESPN Scorecenter, etc. I think I'm going to take this thing back this weekend and get a replacement, unless someone can read the tea leaves of this post and tell me where the "Stop poo poo Performance" button is on this thing.
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Sep 16, 2011 02:11
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If you can overcome your hatred of Radio Shack, they're flinging Bionics for $200 with a new contract or even renewals. They even offer accessory discounts. However, the extended battery does not seem to be available. The website configurator for renewals looks incredibly janky though, and may not be entirely trusted to keep your service plan in place the way you'd like it.
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Sep 16, 2011 12:58
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ProjektorBoy posted:If you can overcome your hatred of Radio Shack, they're flinging Bionics for $200 with a new contract or even renewals. They even offer accessory discounts. However, the extended battery does not seem to be available. The website configurator for renewals looks incredibly janky though, and may not be entirely trusted to keep your service plan in place the way you'd like it. They want $799 if you buy it off contract  Edit: For reference it's $589 off contract from VZW.
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Sep 16, 2011 13:10
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JayKay posted:They want $799 if you buy it off contract In both of my Verizon stores (not corporate) they were $679.
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Sep 16, 2011 14:36
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wandler20 posted:In both of my Verizon stores (not corporate) they were $679. Yeah I'm lucky in the fact I have a "Verizon Experience" (read: corporate) store in my local mall. I haven't checked their in store price but I'm guessing it should be the same as the site.
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Sep 16, 2011 15:03
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ProjektorBoy posted:If you can overcome your hatred of Radio Shack, they're flinging Bionics for $200 with a new contract or even renewals. They even offer accessory discounts. However, the extended battery does not seem to be available. The website configurator for renewals looks incredibly janky though, and may not be entirely trusted to keep your service plan in place the way you'd like it. I wouldn't trust Radio Shack to change the batteries in my remote control let alone touch a Verizon plan.
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Sep 16, 2011 15:57
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bull3964 posted:It may be a bum unit. I would exchange it. I am dreading going into the store to explain this. I am getting signal drops roughly 5 times a day now. I have to reboot the phone to get working again
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Sep 16, 2011 16:23
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I doubt it will be a problem, when I had to turn it my lemon of an OG droid they gave me no hassle at all (except it was still out of stock so I had to wait a bit for the replacement).
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Sep 16, 2011 16:39
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Is anyone having DNS problems with Verizon right now? Some sites, like this one, load instantly. Other ones, like Facebook and my company's website, won't load at all. I've tried flushing my DNS cache on my end and rebooting my Droid X, but no dice.
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Sep 16, 2011 19:09
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CancerStick posted:Warranty question: Go through Apple. Verizon is a pain to deal with for iPhone issues, while Apple is a dream. I'll put it this way-when I did an assumption of liability, Verizon told me I no longer had any warranty on my phone, while Apple informed me that they were full of poo poo (I actually had to do a swap myself). As for new/used, Verizon does Certified Pre-Owned, while Apple does a full refurb unit. You cannot tell them apart from a new phone.
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Sep 16, 2011 19:14
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Latest "Galaxy Nexus" rumor, but quite frankly it smells. A little bit of "too good to be true." http://phandroid.com/2011/09/16/anonymous-4chan-user-posts-hands-on-time-with-the-samsung-nexus-prime/ Even at a 4.65 in screen size, I don't know how they can get both a 2000mah battery AND LTE AND make it only 8.8 inches thick. Also, it having the Exynos processor when we've already pretty much confirmed OMAP4 is the reference for ICS is a bit of a red flag (unless it's not going to be a true Nexus device.) For reference, the already announced Samsung Colex is a 4.5 in device, only has a 1700mah battery and is thicker than that. If those specs prove to be accurate though, I won't have any trouble trading in or selling my bionic to get it. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Sep 16, 2011 |
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Sep 16, 2011 21:20
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Isn't that rumor from 4chan on top of all the other too good to be true claims? It is the 4chan rumor, but at least they decided to make it sound like the perfect phone.
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Sep 16, 2011 21:21
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Meanwhile, P3Droid tweeted the following. "If what im hearing is true then I may cross the nexus prime off my christmas list." and this as well "Im pouring out this drink for the vzw nexus prime rip." What he's been hearing is no vanilla android experience.
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Sep 16, 2011 21:35
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bull3964 posted:Meanwhile, P3Droid tweeted the following. gently caress. I figured it would launch with TW or be added later but I didn't want to believe it. The Vigor is still looking nice and the blogs seem convinced it will have a 720p screen. Maybe I can get Verizon to move my update to October.
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Sep 16, 2011 22:06
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The other wildcard in the bunch is the phone known as the Droid HD (but sources say it's just a placeholder name for now.) A tipster claiming to have deep knowledge of the phone keeps hyping it up as the most amazing thing ever, but little is known beyond that. The thing I know right now is my Bionic has been stable. Has excellent call quality. Has excellent data reception. Gets very nice idle LTE battery life (sitting at above 70% after 8 hours today with LTE on and very light usage.) Is fast as anything I've used. I also love the hell out of the design once I saw it in person. If another phone comes out before Dec 8th that can deliver the whole package like that with improved specs and I can get it at Costco, then I'll go though the trouble of trading in. It will have to be a great device though considering the amount of swag I got for my phone when I bought it. I've been so satisfied with my Bionic so far that a simple spec bump won't be enough for me to get rid of it. Edit: Hahaha, the anonymous 4Chan user 'leaked' info about the GSIII as well. I think we can safely disregard this guy as a crackpot. quote:The specifications for the SGSIII are of course subject to change, but are Samsung-developed 2.0GHz quad-core CPU (no codename given), 1.5gb RAM, 32gb internal memory (with sd card slot), and a 4.65 inch screen. A new display called Super AMOLED III is being developed specifically for the phone (SGS had Super AMOLED, SGS II had Super AMOLED Plus, SGS III has Super AMOLED III) with 1280×1024 resolution, giving the phone a ppi of 352, which they emphasized that a 352ppi will make it the highest ppi mobile phone. He forgot to mention the unicorns and rainbows that shoot out every time you bring it out of your pocket. In other news, Radio Shack has outed the Vigor as an Oct 20th release. Telesales may be available from Verizon the week before. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Sep 16, 2011 |
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Sep 16, 2011 22:27
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bull3964 posted:I've been so satisfied with my Bionic so far that a simple spec bump won't be enough for me to get rid of it. I feel the same way. The ease of rooting it and freezing the VZ bloat has been pretty nice, too. There would have to be some sort of incredible superphone with its own massive accessory bundle for me to think about taking this thing back to Costco for a trade-in.
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Sep 16, 2011 23:11
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That is loving hilarious. Im surprised he forgot to mention the blow job feature too. Honestly, I think I'll just wait till my upgrade. The Vigor will have been out for a while by then and we will definitely know what's up with the Prime by then. Have to say I will not be surprised at all if Samsung releases the first ICS device and still insists on throwing their lovely interface in top. Samsung, never change baby.
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Sep 16, 2011 23:14
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Yeah, the 1280×1024 resolution doesn't even make SENSE unless we are talking rectangular pixels since that's normally a 5:4 resolution.
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Sep 16, 2011 23:21
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All these phone rumors are loving stupid.
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Sep 16, 2011 23:43
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chocolateTHUNDER posted:All these phone rumors are loving stupid. Yea, probably one of my least favorite aspects of Android. The quality of reporting on Android news is pretty awful too. Speaking of what, if any, Android sites do you guys frequent?
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Sep 16, 2011 23:52
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Codiusprime posted:Speaking of what, if any, Android sites do you guys frequent? In order of frequency of checking: http://androidcentral.com http://androidpolice.com http://droid-life.com http://phonearena.com (not technically Android but has a lot of coverage anyway)
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Sep 17, 2011 21:17
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Just got back from buying a Bionic, and it is just leaps and bounds ahead of my old Eris. I always thought Verizon just had a slow 3G network, but it turns out my old phone was the bottleneck. I am amazed at how fast this thing is, and how crisp the image is. I did have a weird glitch where the market wouldn't install anything, but it went away upon reboot. I can't even imagine how fast the LTE stuff is, but I won't get that until 2012. New toys are awesome.
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