Ever since I got my Samsung Droid Charge there has been news about it getting an update to Gingerbread. There have been many Leaked updates to Gingerbread and all of them have had issues. Not one of the “Official Gingerbread Updates” fixed the problems with 4G dropping out frequently, GPS reacting slow, battery life sucks if you use the phone and steaming over bluetooth is choppy.
All of the leaked updates have claims of having longer battery life, better 4G connections and a “snappy” feel and all of the claims are garbage. The battery is no better than any other Android based phone as they all suck or they wouldn’t have extended batteries made for them. I would like a 50% increase in battery power before someone make a claim like that.
Claims of having better 4G connections with updated modems appear to be correct if you were looking at the Speedtest application. Unfortunately, the Speedtest application does not show a true speed every time from every server. The modems software changes the computation factors rather than the actual connection. This is obvious by just looking at how long it takes a video to load on YouTube or Netflix. If the speed was 2 or 3 times faster, then a full YouTube video would load completely in far less time which just isn’t true. With the modem updates, the modem doesn’t appear to lose it’s 4G connection as often until you start using the phone in those areas that you were losing it before. I would think that the updates to the modem would help the Bluetooth also.
Unfortunately, all of the updates have not fixed the Bluetooth or GPS issues either. The only one that feels like it has a better feel is Gummy Charge which is based on September’s leaked update. The battery appears to be better, but it still is not 50% better. All of the updates appear to slow down the phone the longer you run them without restarting your phone once a day. As a matter of fact, the Samsung Droid Charge has issues doing more than one thing at a time no matter what ROM you run on it. I have been very frustrated that you can’t do anything else with the phone when you are downloading an application or an update from the market.
So why do I say it doesn’t need an update?
I really love Samsung products and loved this phone until… story time… My father wanted a smart phone and I wanted the Samsung Droid Charge, so he took my HTC Incredible and I used his upgrade for my Samsung Droid Charge. My father really loved his phone, but was asking me every week about another smart phone with a front facing camera so he could video chat with his other retired friends with smart phones. Finally I found a HTC Thunderbolt for the right price for him to try out. I found another for me to try out too.
My father was very happy with his Thunderbolt as it was just like his Incredible, but with a bigger screen and a front facing camera. I really like that I could simply take my SIM card out of the Charge and put it in the Thunderbolt and keep going. The Thunderbolt that I am using was already rooted so I have tried a few different ROM, but they all are based on the OTA Gingerbread update.
No matter what ROM I used, the Bluetooth never cut out. The Bluetooth would cut out more when trying to use additional applications while streaming music with Charge. There is no lag with the Thunderbolt when downloading applications, streaming music and using the browser at the same time. Needless to say, my Samsung Droid Charge is now for sale.
I have come to the conclusion that the Thunderbolt is better than the Charge because it has twice as much RAM! It makes perfect sense as whenever we wanted our computers to work faster, we would just upgrade the memory and it felt like we had a new computer. The problem is we cannot upgrade the memory of a phone, only the storage memory which is not the same.
I am not saying that the Thunderbolt is the best phone out there, but for the cost of a used one without a contract from Craigslist, it makes the most sense for ditching your Droid Charge. Who knows, but the Droid Charge might get updated to Ice Cream Sandwich or it might not. I still hate the physical 4 buttons on the bottom of the phone. I prefer the touch buttons by far of every other phone out there. My experience with the Droid Charge might keep me away from trying the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and just wait for the next HTC that comes with Ice Cream Sandwich on it.
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