The Verizon Wireless Megathread: Tears for tiers

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The Verizon Wireless Megathread: Tears for tiers

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

PirateDentist posted:

but it's not what people expect.

Except this is how "caller ID" has worked on every US cellular provider for the better part of the past decade? Perhaps longer, but that's beyond my personal experience.

I'd get the complaint if "caller ID" was a new feature that didn't match up to folks's expectation, but it's been like this for a long time. Plus, all carriers do it the same way and use the same language in advertising, so there's no where to go if one finds it offensive.

# ¿ May 20, 2011 02:22

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:58

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

LE posted:

I know that the rooting/rom community has embraced the hell out of the device (which is fine, I get that), but I find it odd that they're all so quick to dismiss the Droid Charge. I'm assuming that they just have a grudge against Samsung.

They likely do have a grudge against Samsung, but that's not why they're avoiding the device. Folks have put a lot of effort into porting CyanogenMod to the Fascinate, much of which applies to the Charge (although LTE is something new). Unfortunately it's drat hard to support Samsung devices in community Android distributions, and one-off CDMA devices on a US carrier even more so. We know the Charge is essentially a 4.3" Fascinate with LTE, and the difficulties of porting to the Fascinate are well understood. That's why folks are dismissing the device.

Also, by "drat hard", I mean "harder than any other unlocked/cracked Android device on the market." So, of course developers looking at the Thunderbolt, Droid Charge, and Revolution, would much rather go with the other two devices just to avoid a massive porting headache.

LE posted:

but even Cyanogen said that he likes where Samsung is going.

Wherever Samsung is going with Galaxy S II they have not gone there with the Droid Charge.

# ¿ May 20, 2011 15:17

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Droid Life posted:

A few important things were said by Verizon’s CTO of Communications, the most important to us is that he is nudging at the end of 3G service altogether by the year 2013.

Ugh, Droid Life. "... by 2013 some devices might come to market without 3G radios," isn't the same as "end of 3G service altogether".

The CDMA network is going to be around for a while, they're not going to get (Vo)LTE-capable handsets in the hands of everyone for quite some time, especially if it requires a data-plan/significant-increase in monthly cost.

I suppose they could get rid of EVDO (3G) data and just keep 1x service around, but I don't think that's what Droid Life is implying with "3G" in the article.

# ¿ May 20, 2011 22:16

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

OMG JC a Bomb! posted:

I'm loving livid about this data plan bullshit.

We've known Verizon was going to do it for over a year now. Also, it's something they have to do. You can't build your way out of wireless capacity limits. In a given area, spectrum is finite.

OMG JC a Bomb! posted:

Why even have all of these loving apps when three youtube videos will put you at your monthly data limit?

Some folks have WiFi at home?

OMG JC a Bomb! posted:

This is my only means of accessing the internet. I don't know how I'm going to apply for jobs now.

1. If you already have unlimited data, you're not being forced off it.

2. Unless your job applications require watching YouTube videos, I'd suggest you stop watching them. With conversation, you can browse quite a bit of non-multimedia content for under 100 MB/day.

# ¿ May 22, 2011 17:55

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Kirios posted:

Can people who are far more knowledgeable than I inform me how good / terrible of a purchase this is for someone like myself?

I don't know tons about the device, but it's a purchase I'd personally hesitate over. It's a single-core, 1 GHz Scorpion CPU with an Adreno 205 GPU and 512 MB RAM, less whatever is dedicated to video memory. That's the same setup we saw on the Desire HD back in October, but with less RAM.

If you want a 2011 "serious Android gaming" device, I'd look into a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2. Aside from being far more powerful, there's at least a few Android games that support the Tegra exclusively, or offer Tegra-specific features.

Aside from that, the two advantages of the Xperia Play are the hardware gamepad, and whatever PlayStation Suite exclusive content it gets. Since the hardware itself is a far cry from the NGP, I question exactly how much exclusive content Sony is going to be able to pin-down for it. Similarly, I wouldn't expect a ton of third-party games to support the gamepad, although if it just acts as a hardware keyboard then I'd imagine that games with hardware keyboard support and remappable buttons would work.

To think of it another way: the best, non-exclusive Android games are touchscreen only or primarily touchscreen controlled, because that's what the vast majority of Android phones are. Aside from maybe emulators, and exclusive content, the gamepad won't buy you much. I get your point about touchscreen controls being inferior for serious gaming, but I'm not sure this is the answer. It's a phone in a bulky-slider form factor, except it doesn't have a hardware keyboard, and it's not an NGP. My fear is that, in a year's time, you'd rather have a slimmer (and possibly more powerful) phone and an NGP, instead of a single device that's suboptimal for both tasks.

As for the phone functionality, Sony Ericsson doesn't have the best community reputation. They almost screwed Xperia X10 owners out of software updates with some ridiculous PR double-talk. Although X10 owners are now seeing a Gingerbread update due to the similarity of that devices with their new Xperia models, Sony Ericsson's PR approach is deplorable. That said, we still don't know what to expect from them with regard to a timely Ice Cream Sandwhich update in a year from now. Although I do have to give them a lot of credit for making their more-recent Xperia devices hacker friendly, although I'm not sure how much the community has picked up on them.

Edit: Short version: Look at where the games are. If you're interested in already announced Xperia exclusives, go with the Xperia. If you want to retain future compatibility with the best, non-exclusive Android games, don't. If you're uncertain, well, hopefully the long answer gives some reasonable guidelines.

ExcessBLarg! fucked around with this message at 22:01 on May 22, 2011

# ¿ May 22, 2011 21:58

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Hamburglar posted:

It would suck to miss an exit because your GPS wouldn't keep a data connection while you talked to your dad on speakerphone

I was under the impression that Navigation caches the actual route, so it'll still tell you when to turn, you just might not have a pretty picture of it.

But wait a minute, who the gently caress talks on speakerphone while driving and exiting an unfamiliar-enough freeway to demand using Navigation? That's an accident waiting to happen and I imagine most (sane) folks wouldn't attempt it.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2011 19:42

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Hamburglar posted:

Eh, it's not common, but on 5 hour long car trips your bound to get a few phone calls.

I do too. I guess I pay enough attention to the "you have to do poo poo in N miles" counter on my Garmin that I won't take a call if there's any question of what I should be doing road wise during it. Never occurred to me that this might be an actual problem for folks.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2011 20:52

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

kensei posted:

Anyone have any experience or opinion on the Motorola Droid Pro? My wife wants a droid with a keyboard that is not too huge, and that seems like an option.

It's the most Blackberry like of Android devices, and if that's what she's coming from, it might be appropriate. Personally I find portrait-orientation hardware keyboards cramped to type on. At this point I find (portrait-orientation) virtual keyboards strictly superior for their prediction and correction features.

The thing that bugs me about the Droid Pro is that it has an absolutely tiny 3.1" HVGA screen. The Droid Incredible 2, is nearly the same size (DI2: 4.75 x 2.52 x 0.48) vs (DP: 4.69 x 2.36 x 0.46) but has a much bigger/better 4.0" 800x480 screen which makes virtual keyboards reasonably comfortable to type on.

If she's willing, I'd somehow figure out how to try SwiftKey, the GB Keyboard, or even Swype on a 4.0" screen and see if one of those is amenable to her, particularly the predictive stuff. But if hardware is the only way to go, the Droid Pro is a reasonable, if limited option.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2011 15:57

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

kensei posted:

She doesn't like swype too much - I have that on mine.

Swype is an interesting one. I personally love it, although mostly for reasons that have less to do with "Swyping." In short, even its biggest fans admit that Swype doesn't work well in all circumstances, and a lot of folks just outright hate it. I'd show her the SwiftKey X Beta and download the Gingerbread Keyboard on your phone (if you're still on Froyo), since those cover the gamut of alternatives.

My wife had a similar experience. She wanted a smallerish phone with a physical keyboard, so that's what we got, and these days she uses the Froyo (not even GB) on-screen keyboard since it's far more convenient and works well enough. Although it was a reasonable decision to make at that time, if the same scenario were to play out with today's devices, it probably would've been a mistake for her to go hardware. Perhaps that's still the answer for your wife. I guess knowing how it played out on our end is why I'm advocating a "try it out" route.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2011 16:47

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Pizza Club posted:

What kind of screen does the Evo 4G have (that's what I have)?

Regular TFT LCD I think.

Pizza Club posted:

I really don't know what the difference is between screens besides LCD/AMOLED. Why is it regarded so poorly?

LCD screens consist of a backlit light source with pixels that darken to produce color, whereas AMOLED the pixels themselves produce light. The main difference is that AMOLED screens are known for having deeper blacks and much more vibrant color.

A related, but ultimately separate issue is the arrangement of subpixels. Traditionally, an LCD pixel is actually made of three differently-colored subpixels, a red, green, and blue triad. However, the first-generation AMOLED screens ditched this for a PenTile arrangement where red and blue pixels alternate on each side of green ones.

One of the things about subpixels is that the individual pixels contribute to the actual resolution of the device. So on a 480x800 traditional LCD, there's actually 1440 pixel columns, of different colors, which contributes to making black & white text look much sharper than if it were a 480 column black & white display.

However, a Pentile 480x800 AMOLED display only has 961 (?) pixel columns, so black & white text looks considerably less sharp than a traditional LCD. Some folks may futher notice the bizarre color pattern. Long story short, it pisses some folks off and the benefit of AMOLED displays, in their opinion, don't outweigh the nasty Pentile pattern. Other folks either don't see it, or aren't bothered by it.

Now we have Super AMOLED Plus displays out (i.e., in SGSIIs) with the traditional subpixel triad layout. And apparently the X2 has a PenTile LCD, which is a bizarre combination that combines the worst of LCD and AMOLED display properties.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 16:29

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

sirbeefalot posted:

I mean if it improves power consumption then great, but personally I don't think that would be worth the image quality tradeoff.

I'm skeptical about the claims of improved power consumption without numbers. Traditionally, most of the power consumption in LCD displays is the backlight. I don't see how using fewer, larger subpixels improves energy consumption unless the pixels themselves are more transmissive (so the backlight doesn't have to be as bright), or by using a PenTile arrangement they can increase the tranmissive area.

Which could be the case, but it wasn't an obvious conclusion to me.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 18:12

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Super Dude posted:

It's a phone, not my home theater system.

You read a bunch of tiny text on your home theater TV?

I do see it, I understand it's inferior, I'm just not particularly bothered by it.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 18:13

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

bull3964 posted:

The X2 uses a PenTile RGBW matrix.

Ah, I assumed it was RGBG. Yes, this would definitely reduce power consumption for a given brightness.

Super Dude posted:

I have a computer hooked up to it, so yes, I browse the internet and read a bunch of tiny text on my tv.

I envy your distance vision, television size, or possibly both.

# ¿ Jun 17, 2011 18:36

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

maduin posted:

Are people actually surprised?

I'm not surprised about the 2 GB $30/mo plan. $5/mo over AT&T because Verizon is (has?) "the network" definitely was to be expected.

However, I'm a bit dismayed about the lack of a 200-500 MB $20-25/mo tier. I know a good number of folks who are on the fence about getting a smartphone, but already have iPad Touches and have WiFi at work/home who would love to carry a single device around, not be heavy data users, and would somewhat grumblingly pay $15-20/mo more to do so, but not $30/mo. Granted I shouldn't be terribly surprised as they got rid of the 150 MB $15/mo option a while back.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2011 20:43

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

wandler20 posted:

I listen to Sirius XM for about 8 hours a day during the week at work and I usually end up over 5gb of data per month. Getting rid of one year contracts kinda pissed me off, this really upsets me.

I'm not really sure what to think. Except that if even 10% of Verizon subscribers listened to Internet radio from 9-5 every day the network would definitely be over capacity. I definitely think it's fair for "you" to pay more for data than someone who is extremely frugal and keeps his usage under 500 MB a month.

But I think "you" continuing to pay $30/mo for 5 GB, while the frugal-user getting a price break at $15/mo or something, is a much fairer solution.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2011 22:47

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

AppleCobbler posted:

yeah, great, make it so that you have to use netflix on wifi.

Customer: Well, if I have to use Netflix on WiFi then, can I just forego the data plan and use a smartphone with voice service and WiFi data only?

Sales rep: No, of course not!

Love them options ....

# ¿ Jun 21, 2011 14:51

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Thoguh posted:

What's the point of going 4G if you can't use it for less than $100 a month?

Lower latency, greater spectrum capacity, the whole "network of the future" stuff.

Even if you're just browsing web pages, it's nice to have them load consistently faster if the 3G network is overloaded. The problem is that, instead of LTE being a behind-the-scenes evolutionary upgrade, there's a lot of marketing hype behind "4G" and Verzion is charging a subsidy premium ($50-100 more than 3G) for 4G devices that are otherwise arguably-inferior to the latest 3G ones.

So yeah, folks expect to do lots of Netflix.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2011 15:10

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

bull3964 posted:

If I go in on the 12th and they tell me I'll lose unlimited data if I upgrade, I'll just return the thunderbolt, switch back to my droid, and then go to Sprint's EPRP page to overnight an Evo 3D for $10/mo less than the retail plan rate.

Shored up your plan there a bit, bud.

Also, why bother returning the Thunderbolt? Wouldn't selling the contract on SA-Mart/eBay net you some profit from folks who were too late to get in on unlimited data?

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 16:05

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

HondaCivet posted:

I wanted an iPhone dangit.

So get an iPhone. It's one thing for folks who have been on the fence about upgrading for a while, debating between a Droid X2 and a Thunderbolt, to go with the LTE device to hedge their bets on what Verizon actually does on the 7th.

But I wouldn't massively inconvenience yourself.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 16:08

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

bull3964 posted:

If verizon was actually concerned about spectrum use and congestion on towers they would be moving to a cap and throttle scheme rather than a cap and overage.

While I personally prefer throttling, this isn't something entirely new. Voice plans have always been about buckets and charging obscene rates for overages. There's an argument that if you're at your limit and you need more high-bandwidth data, you'd be far more willing to pay overages than to suffer a throttle. But as we all know, in reality, it's to send four-figure bills to oblivious parents of Netflixing teens or something.

bull3964 posted:

Above all, this stuff should not be getting more expensive as time goes on, it should be getting less expensive.

Actually I'm not sure this follows, at least, not right now. Verizon is dumping a lot of capital into a nationwide LTE network. That takes some serious funding.

You might argue that the per-subscriber rate should decrease as many more folks subscribe to data plans, except they're going to have to upgrade radios and backhaul in far out locations to an extent they never did even with EVDO. I can understand the cost of doing so exceeding the revenue they'd get from the relatively-few data subscribers they pick up who are home-located in those markets.

Now, once LTE is up and running everywhere, operating costs should gown down and that would, ideally, be reflected in decreasing plan costs or increased data quotas. We'll see if that happens though.

ExcessBLarg! fucked around with this message at 18:21 on Jun 22, 2011

# ¿ Jun 22, 2011 18:17

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Hed posted:

Does Verizon still limit GPS ability in their phones without the purchase of a monthly service like VZ Navigator?

Maybe on some dumbphones? Definitely not on smartphones, dear lord.

I think they still install VZ Navigator on their Android phones, but if it's a "with Google" device (e.g., Thunderbolt, Droid Charge) then it comes with Google Maps/Navigation out of the box, and if it's a Bing device, you can download them from the Market. Or use the Bing Navigator I guess.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2011 19:38

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

sadus posted:

But what's to stop everyone with grandfathered unlimited plans download useless crap 24/7 to raise the averages?

Statistics? Verizon could use a median or quantile-based approach, or really anything that ignores the top 1% (ab)users.

sadus posted:

Someone should make an app that downloads and discards useless data nonstop at full speed.

Right, because loving over a shared network for absolutely zero benefit is somehow going to result in a better experience for everyone.

I realize you're being facetious, but the problem is that if someone wrote and released such an app, even as a parody, xda-type folks are stupid enough to jump on it big time.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2011 00:46

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

DM Zero posted:

Does anyone have recommendations on where to get a phone from (Verizon retailer? Best Buy? Amazon?)

Amazon Wireless often has cheaper prices than Verizon. Best Buy Mobile is advantageous if there's any mail-in rebates, since they just deduct it as an instant rebate at the time of purchase, although the carriers themselves have been moving away from mail-in rebates recently anyways.

Otherwise there's not much of a difference between them.

DM Zero posted:

whether the Droid Charge or the HTC Thunderbolt generally seems better based on experiences?

Feel free to peruse the devices thread for my concerns on the Charge. But the short answer is that the ThunderBolt already has CyanogenMod builds available (although not yet stable) whereas CyanogenMod support for the Charge is going to be difficult as it is with other Samsung CDMA devices.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2011 20:41

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

AppleCobbler posted:

The gingerbread sense roms for the ThunderBolt are solid. Cm7 isn't the only game in town.

Sure. I didn't make it clear, but one the biggest distinction between HTC and CDMA Samsung is CyanogenMod. But yes, there's plenty of other options for the ThunderBolt as well.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2011 22:18

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

maduin posted:

I can't believe people are asking how to get unlimited plans now, after like 10 months of advanced notice that it was eventually coming and at least a month of knowing that July 7th was the cutoff.

So first, someone is always going to ask, no reason to get upset over that.

Second, while we've known for months that it was going to happen and have known for at least a few weeks the exact conditions and day under which tiered plans would be dropped, there's folks who don't routinely visit IYG who are just now finding out, and I'm not going to fault them for that.

I'd like to think that if I stop in AI someday to ask an "obvious" car question, that I wouldn't get horribly flamed for it.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 00:41

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Duckman2008 posted:

Same reason Sprint charges the $10 a month data plan even if it is a Palm Centro, Instinct or Windows Mobile 6.x phone, they want the stuff to die out and they don't want a "black market."

But you can still do a ToL on an on-contract pre-smartphone-tax Optimus or something right?

I can understand Verizon stripping unlimited data during ToL for off-contract accounts, but that's a pretty hosed up thing to do on-contract. Kalibar has a point there.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 02:02

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

decoy octopus posted:

Messed up is buying a Droid 2 off contract to replace a broken smartphone and taking it to a verizon store to activate and having them switch you off unlimited data even though your aren't really changing anything but your hardware.

I thought hardware activation (or even subsidized upgrade) wasn't supposed to do that. Mistake I presume?

I assume if this is one of those "oops! can't change it back" scenarios that ETFs on said contract are waived at that point. At least in the sense of "I'm not paying it" and disputing any credit dings that might come out of it.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2011 02:20

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

bull3964 posted:

Verizon is inspecting traffic and redirecting what it can detect as tethering to a portal to purchase official tethering.

From what I see, it appears that Verizon is adding some additional routing entires to their Gingerbread ROMs (e.g., Thunderbolt) that route (wifi?) tethered connections to the paywall. There's apparently an "HTC routing-fix" in the beta builds of WiFi Tether to fix that.

They may also be doing what you say as well, although I haven't seen that specifically. Of course, they can always packet sniff if they want, so if they're not actually doing it now they may very well do so soon.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2011 01:15

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Pascallion posted:

Going off of the example from the first 5 hours, it seems like:
1) The battery info can't be trusted.
2) 10 minutes of screen time will drain 11.3% of my total battery so 1.45 hours of the screen being on at all ((not actually DOING anything meaningful) will completely drain the battery.

Both of these things are (approximately) true. First, AMOLED screens suck a good deal of power. On the other hand, using a mostly-black screen or turning down the screen brightness actually has a measurable difference in power consumption. Unfortunately this is just a tradeoff with AMOLED as a screen technology and one of the things you pay for, for OMG colors. If you want to prioritize display power efficiency, look at the Motorola pentile RGBW LCD displays. It's optimized for power efficiency and absolutely nothing else (i.e., lookin' good).

That said, the battery usage information is largely (if not total) bullshit. In Froyo (and I don't think this much has been changed for Gingerbread) the way battery usage percentages are computed is by keeping track of how much time a component is on, and multiplying it by an average power usage number predetermined by some method of dubious accuracy. At best, it's a crude estimation of actual power consumption.

For example, display consumption is computed as a linear function of the brightness setting. It consists of a constant "screen on" factor, and a linearly-interpolated (starting at zero) "screen full" factor. So while this gives an approximation of power consumption for a given brightness setting, it neglects things like which colors were used. So if the screen is on, but displaying white text on a black background, where 20% of the screen contains text, actual power consumption is going to be a quarter of that if the screen was containing 20% black text on a white background. How any of that translates into the bullshit average consumption numbers used by battery stats is anyone's guess.

In general, I'll say that while Samsung's power consumption tends to be fairly reasonable relative to other Android devices (although none that great), any power efficiency they have is likely the result of decent hardware as opposed to significant (or frankly, any) effort to optimize at the driver or OS level.

Keep in mind that Samsung spends just enough time engineering the software stack for their CDMA devices to release them in a barely working (if that) state, and I've not seen evidence of them putting in much effort beyond that for things like power optimization.

To give an example, the Epic's hardware keyboard keystate poll loop spins 100 times longer than is actually necessary, far longer than any Linux embedded hardware keyboard driver, anytime a key is held down. This mean that the original (Eclair) keyboard driver burns 7% CPU time just to watch for key releases. This was reduced to just 2% in Froyo, by virtue of increasing the poll timer delay to the extent that the hardware keyboard frequently skips keypresses, a frustrating and often made complaint by Epic users. When properly tuned, the driver uses just 0.2% CPU time and is perfectly responsive. This illustrates how a simple optimization for the purpose of bettering user experience can also reduce CPU utilization and power consumption, but it something Samsung never bothered to do properly despite frequent complaints. I'd be surprised if they were to go out of their way to optimize drivers purely for power efficiency purposes alone.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 21:47

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Codiusprime posted:

Not to mention the charge is a bastard child of last year's tech and this year's power hungry LTE antenna.

Which I wouldn't be surprised is not accounted for properly in its power profile too.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 21:59

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Hey, Verizon is getting the Epic!

A few more details on Verizon's Samsung SCH-i405 slider

Note, those are the exact same specs as the Epic s/WiMAX/LTE/ and releasing with Android 2.3.4. It may also have SAMOLED+ and a bigger battery.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 22:49

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

doctor thodt posted:

What kind of impact do the Pentile displays have on battery efficiency?

Motorola's pentile RGBW LCD displays are a different ballgame from the AMOLED pentile RGBG displays Samsung used on the early SGS models.

Basically, by including a white pixel, the RGBW displays can maintain the same apparent brightness at lower backlight brightness levels. That Wikipedia link claims 50% less average power consumption over a conventional LCD.

doctor thodt posted:

Can we reasonably expect the Bionic to be more power-efficient than the other LTE phones based on the screen alone?

I suspect the screen is going to be a good deal more power efficient compared to other LTE devices, but that says nothing about the LTE radio efficiency or other factors. The 1930 mAh battery certainly helps battery life though.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 23:02

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Codiusprime posted:

Keep the hits coming Verizon, last year's crowd is really impressed with your phone lineup.

It's scary to think it might be marginally popular as the only LTE hardware keyboard device until the Droid 4 or whatever.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2011 23:13

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Kyrosiris posted:

Right, but our standards are "low" because the rate at which technology improves is ridiculously faster than the rate at which battery life/technology has improved, and really there's nothing you can do about that.

I disagree. Clock-for-clock, 1 GHz Snapdragons and Hummingbirds aren't inherently more power hungry than older ARM cores. If anything, they should consume less power having been built with smaller processes. Yes they'll consume more power at full-tilt, but not when running at 100 MHz "idle" clockspeed.

A 4.0" WVGA screen will consume more power than a 2.5" HVGA, but that doesn't explain a near order-of-magnitude decrease in battery life (much of which is standby time).

Let's be honest, BlackBerries have good battery life because they optimize for and prioritize it. While Android does make at least token efforts to optimize for battery life, it's not all the way there. At least in part because it's a software stack developed by multiple parties (Google and OEMs) where efficiency is not exploited to its fullest.

That said, OS standby power efficiency doesn't really matter much if you spend a significant portion of the battery life with an active display, decoding video, or playing games. So the fact that Android and iOS have inferior standby time might be moot to their target market. But BlackBerry folks are right to bitch about the state of battery efficiency in new fangled devices--it could be a good deal better than it actually is.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 17:34

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

bull3964 posted:

Now it's time to start lusting after the Dinara.

HD screen is interesting but I have a feeling it's going to be pentile-mumble so perhaps not a huge quality improvement over RGB qHD.

Internal battery? I don't know if I trust their watchdog enough, especially if the thing ends up with an unlocked bootloader. Sometimes you just have to battery pull.

Also, I'm generally skeptical of any Q4 2011 device that's not running ICS. It could be the best hardware in the world, but once ICS hits, that's what folks are going to want.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 19:32

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

yamdankee posted:

I think it's still overall bad for the customer. What real benefits does it bring?

I'd guess they can make the device marginally smaller since there's no need for a battery door and proper battery slot.

Although personally, I'd rather take the 1 mm hit and have a removable battery.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 19:59

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Kyrosiris posted:

Considering it's been revealed as a 1GHz/512 RAM/low-res screen piece of junk, probably not.

It's believed that the screen is a SAMOLED+ WVGA, which makes it the same as that on the SGSII (and Droid Charge) save for physical size.

Otherwise, no, it's not Verizon's SGSII device. It's pretty much a Droid Charge with a (questionably-responsive) hardware keyboard.

Which makes it Verizon's best LTE hardware keyboard device. :v:

# ¿ Jul 19, 2011 21:52

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

kalibar posted:

Since they ditched PenTile for the Droid Charge and presumably for its keyboard variant, you're getting the best screen on the market -- that's a given.

I agree with your hardware assessment. Although I do understand folks' disappointment with the SGSII having been out in Europe for sometime now and yet the US carriers are still getting SGS offshoots. The SGSII is a better phone, aside from the shat DAC.

kalibar posted:

(though admittedly, the Samsung-label versions of the device still need a lot of software work, which will come with time).

That's the thing, the software side is no guarantee. The SGS I9000 ended up being The Little Phone That Could, in that despite its Samsung retardedness, it had a stellar development community the pushed the capabilities of its hardware (e.g., supercurio and his voodoo poo poo) and even eventually got official CyanogenMod 7.1 support going. Fortunately, the GSM/UMTS US offshoots were similar enough that the fruits of that labor carried over reasonably well.

But CDMA Samsung is, just, different. So far it's been one-off devices that have been reasonably different from each other and the GSM/UMTS variants, somewhat hardware, but particularly software wise. The development communities are much smaller due to being limited to a single US carrier, and while some devices (Fascinate) have done better than others (Continuum, Indulge, etc.) it's pretty much a crapshoot.

If the Fascinate, Charge, and "Slider" communities can come together and make ROMs and poo poo that work on all three, it might be alright. But if "Slider" ends up like the Epic with mass xda forum drama and an incomprehensible set of ROMs, it's going to be frustrating. Or it could end up being neglected entirely.

Also, there's an amusing irony if "Slider" ships with the Epic's hosed keyboard driver. What was the point of punting on the Bionic (yeah yeah, screen, DAC) if the only hardware keyboard LTE option doesn't actually let you type?

ExcessBLarg! fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Jul 20, 2011

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 14:57

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

Penguissimo posted:

Sure, they could still screw up a Verizon GSII in all sorts of ways, but it's worth at least seeing how things turn out.

I think the short answer is this:

A Verizon SGSII is going to be the Droid Charge's baseband/radio tech combined with the international SGSII's processor (except Tegra2?), storage, and OS stack. So if Samsung and/or the community provide "good enough" support for the Charge at the time of the SGSII release, I'd expect it to be equal or better.

But if the situation with the Charge still isn't figured out by then, depending on what the roadblocks are (usually radio & peripheral related), I wouldn't expect a lot more out of a Verizon SGSII.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2011 20:58

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 19:58

ExcessBLarg!: Sep 1, 2001

bull3964 posted:

When faced with a 2 month wait, many are going to either buy what's on the market now

Which is either battery-sucking LTE devices or other Motorola products.

bull3964 posted:

or wait just a little while longer to see what the competition cooks up.

Think a dual-core LTE anything is going to beat the Bionic to market?

bull3964 posted:

Moto managed to lose a lot of sales just by not executing a timeline properly.

Not really, you're all still under contract until November right? What's left of the prorated ETF? I suppose some folks might split now for an Evo 3D or Sensation, but really, OG Droid folks are probably going to end up with a Motorola product one way or another. Except folks going iPhone, but I feel those folks were going to go iPhone no matter what.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2011 21:03

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Inspect Your Gadgets > The Verizon Wireless Megathread: Tears for tiers

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