Motorola Droid X Vs Samsung Fascinate

[Shill]

I purchased my X yesterday, though it is on backorder and won't be shipped for a week or so. So I have some time to change my mind yet. I'd much rather change it now than later to avoid the $35 restocking fee.

I'd been absolutely set on the X until the sales person introduced me to the Fascinate. Not doing much research, I went with the X. and then came home curious about the Fascinate. I have been told the only reason to switch is because of the unlocked bootloader? Beign new to droids, I have no idea what that means for me. If it means more/better apps. I'm all for it! I'd love to see some emulators such as NES, SNES, N64, GBA, etc... Other thing I noticed was OLED vs LCD where OLED has much finer resolutions and higher quality.

Any/all input is appreciated.

 

[velocity92c]

Fascinate is the superior phone IMO. Lack of a camera flash is kind of puzzling, but having full custom ROMs (including custom kernels, which the X will never have) is a major selling point for me personally. Sprint customers are very lucky, they get the same phone with a hardware keyboard and a camera flash (the epic 4g). But you can't go wrong with either the DX or the Fascinate, both very nice phones.

 

[Shill]

AH, no flash on the fascinate? That's is my selling feature.

 

[Shill]

Phone Scoop[]=2836&id[]=2763&id[]=&id[]=&id[]=

2GB vs 8GB? What is the memory used for?

It says the DX screen is better, but isn't the OLED actually better?

FM radio?

TV output?

Samsung Fascinate (Galaxy S) Specs, Features (Phone Scoop)

Here it says LED flash

 

[FrostMan]

Fascinate has an led flash.

 

[AtrusNex]

I just received my fascinate yesterday. I bought this phone mostly on the premise of it's hardware, and potential openness. Argueably, the Galaxy S has some of the best hardware you can buy in a phone today, and I also quite like it's form factor.

Harware:
+ Super AMOLED display for better power usage and daytime viewing.
+ Powerful but not power hungry ARM A8 Cortex Processor.
+ IIRC, the best mobile GPU you can buy in a phone currently.
+ CMOS sensor seems to have very nice light rendering (Possibly backlit???)
+ Connectivity (Bluetooth 3.0, N protocol, FM Radio and DLNA)
- Wish it had more on-board ROM than 2 GB, but I can't really complain coming from a Droid.
- Pentile pixel matrix does create some funky patterns on borders of contrasting colors.
- Compass and GPS seem to have some issues, that hopefully will be worked out with driver updates.
- Speaker is sub-par to Droid's, but I've heard it's as good or better than the X's.

Form Factor:
+ 4 inch screen is a good compromise in size.
+ Not much larger than my Droid and around two thirds it's thickness.
+ The placement of the power button on the side of the device.
+ The soft touch buttons being farther away from the screen.
+ I like the USB cover for keeping junk out of my ports and keeping th phone looking clean.
- Would have preferred a soft touch back as opposed to the glossy one. Nothing a silicon case can't fix.

Software:
+++++++++ Camera app isn't stock Android! My biggest problem with vanilla Android. (It's actually quite good)
+ Some nice features added to the notification bar(power control, phone controls, etc.)
+ Facebook integration is pretty decent.
+ I like some of the editing features in the launcher.
+ Samsung is seeming to embrace the open source community more than other companies. Good for them!!
+ Elastic Scrolling
- Bing
- Verizon Bloatware
- Overall color theme, widgets and icons are pretty tacky in Touchwiz.
- Where's my "News and Weather" and music widgets?!?!
- FAT16?!? Really Samsung?

Overall, I think most of my big gripes with the phone will be fixed with software changes, official or not.

I've messed with the Droid X some, but admittedly don't know everything about the device. I did like it's camera and software, but what really put me off on buying it was Motorola's new anti-modding stance and the phone felt too big and awkward to hold, even though on paper it's not much different than the Fascinate. My biggest argument for the Droid X may be that the battery life might be slightly better, but I'm not convinced that the Fascinate actually has better battery life but is getting held back by poorly written software running in the background.

 

[Shill]

Harware:
- Wish it had more on-board ROM than 2 GB, but I can't really complain coming from a Droid.

Form Factor:
- Compass and GPS seem to have some issues, that hopefully will be worked out with driver updates.

Software:
- Bing
- Verizon Bloatware
- Overall color theme, widgets and icons are pretty tacky in Touchwiz.
- FAT16?!? Really Samsung?


Motorola's new anti-modding stance
poorly written software running in the background.

ROM? Can be upgraded with a decent MicroSD card, correct?

GPS and compass. What sort of issues, and is that based off of the stock apps? What if I were to test it with Google Maps?

Bing and Verizon bloatware? Really, Bing on google phone? I'm sure that can be changed easily.

Same with color theme. I'm sure that can be adjusted as well.

Fat16, is a big issue, but can be worked with.

Edit: Also, big +++ on your descriptions. Really helps alot.

 

[AtrusNex]

ROM? Can be upgraded with a decent MicroSD card, correct?

GPS and compass. What sort of issues, and is that based off of the stock apps? What if I were to test it with Google Maps?

Bing and Verizon bloatware? Really, Bing on google phone? I'm sure that can be changed easily.

Same with color theme. I'm sure that can be adjusted as well.

Fat16, is a big issue, but can be worked with.

Edit: Also, big +++ on your descriptions. Really helps alot.

Well the phone comes with 2 GB of internal flash memory plus a 16 GB SD card. The problem is that the internal ROM is where all of your system files and most of your applications are stored (all application are stored here until this phone gets 2.2). What gets me more annoyed is the fact that the Captivate (the AT&T version of the same phone) has 16GB of internal memory. That allows that phone to have a maximum of 48GB of memory where the Fascinate caps out at only 34 GB.

The GPS works pretty well for me, but others have talked about having really long fix times and inaccurate readings. The compass seems to be very erratic for me in most software, but works fine in others. Samsung has acknowledged these problems and is supposed to release a fix relatively soon.

Most of the software issues can be fixed with rooting the phone, the rest will hopefully be fixed once we get a new recovery and can start making custom ROMs for the device, so that was why I wasn't really worried about them.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the phone. It's give and take but I'd definitely say this phone has what it takes to be the best phone on Verizon and probably the best successor in modding community to the original Droid and the Nexus One.

 

[Googleaddict]

The Fasinate is so much better imo. I just played with both at the Verizon store and the Fascinate seemed soooo fast and vibrant (Screen) while the X seemed not as fast and the screen was incredibly dull compared to the fascinate. Games also were alot better on the Fascinate. The camera also is better in the fascinate i think. More megapixels doesn't mean better pictures... So yeah... Fascinate all the way haha

 

[him]

I have to disagree with the fascinate being better than the X. I happen to own both. I find the fascinate plasticky and cheap feeling. Almost like its about to fall apart in my hands. Droid is built solid. Fascinate does have a flash.

One thing i noticed about that sweet super AMOLED screen...it's grainy. Especially when looking at text. Gaming is similar to where you cant really tell the difference.

I too thought the fascinate was a better phone after playing with it in the store for a few mins but owning one i realize i was wrong. You cant really get a true feel of the phone until you handle it without that security thing on it.

Colors on the fascinate look wiered too. I cant really put my finger on it but its just something about it.

 

[Googleaddict]

I have to disagree with the fascinate being better than the X. I happen to own both. I find the fascinate plasticky and cheap feeling. Almost like its about to fall apart in my hands. Droid is built solid. Fascinate does have a flash.

One thing i noticed about that sweet super AMOLED screen...it's grainy. Especially when looking at text. Gaming is similar to where you cant really tell the difference.

I too thought the fascinate was a better phone after playing with it in the store for a few mins but owning one i realize i was wrong. You cant really get a true feel of the phone until you handle it without that security thing on it.

Colors on the fascinate look wiered too. I cant really put my finger on it but its just something about it.

Sorry lol but i have to disagree with what you said.Build quality on the Fascinate seems alot better than the X (imo). Gaming is a LITTLE better on the Fascinate from what i've seen. The hummingbird is proven to be a step above the omap.. Also the text isn't grainy at all... If you put your face right on the screen maybe, but i couldn't tell. Colors also look amazing on the super amoled screen. They looked so dull on the Droid X. Again, all of this stuff is what i think, so this is just my 2 cents.

 

[Shill]

Should I let the 2GB vs 8GB be a determining factor? What sort of things can I do if it is unlocked?

 

[him]

Dont know...i have been using things such as iphone and first droid and build quality on those devices were magnificent. Build quality like i said is plasticky and feels very cheap.
And from about 8-10 inches even from the home screen i can see the grain in the screen. Dont really think that counts as having my forehead on the screen. Its a lot grainier than my X. Just giving my view on what i have noticed from my time with the facinate.

Could you tell me which game the graphics on the fascinate are better than the droid on. I would like to try them out.

Like i said colors on the facinate just look really strange.

 

[him]

Should I let the 2GB vs 8GB be a determining factor? What sort of things can I do if it is unlocked?

I wouldn't...once you add 16 or 32 GB card it wont really matter.

 

[Shill]

I'll have to go test the fascinate tomorrow then. If anyone else has tips, please let me know.