Droid vs. Samsung Behold II

[Shel]

Well, I went to a Verizon store yesterday to check out the Droid.

Yes, it's a very nice device, but it didn't wow me.

Sometimes, you go to see something, and come away more impressed, and other times you see it and touch it, and come away less impressed.

The myTouch impressed me in it's size, and overall feel... very lightweight, easy to carry... it was nicer in person, TO ME, then the photos made it out to me.

The Droid for some reason didn't wow me.

Still, I checked out what the prices for Verizon would be, if I wanted to bail on T Mo and go over to Verizon... not THAT wowed me! MUCH more exprensive then the same (or actually, MORE) services then T Mobile!

Anyone know how the Samsung is? Haven't used a Samsung phone in, um, let's see....EVER.

Screen seems nice, but the overall design is eh.....

[hondamx525]

Are we talking only aestetics? If not its the same old "old" internals of all the other android phones for tmobile. Based on looks i like the mytouch the best for t-mobile. The samsung does look nice but i like the trackball it makes navigation a lot easier.

[Shel]

Yea, I was wondering what the internals were... couldn't find them mentioned on any of the reviews... bummer.

[hondamx525]

Yeah, even if it were better i wish android phones would start shipping with at least 3.5 inch screens. Wish they had a little more width too. In time haha.

[CyberStorm]

I went to a T-Mobile store yesterday and got to play with a Behold II for about an hour, I guess I can give some quick impressions.

The TouchWiz interface running on top of Android is actually pretty cool, Samsung did a decent job on it. The notification bar has a link to recent apps as well as quick links to certain settings (Bluetooth, GPS...etc). It has some very nice widgets as well, not quite as nice as Sense UI, but cool.

It still has 3 home screens, but each one has it's own wallpaper instead of stretching one wallpaper across all 3. That was good and bad, depending on preference.

They redesigned the messaging app and keyboard, which bugged me at first, but it works very well.

Physically the phone looks very impressive in person, It has a much better feel than the MyTouch or G1, it looks very good and feels very solid.

The AMOLED screen is amazing looking, and responsive, I was impressed. The only downside to the screen is that Samsung put vibration feedback whenever the screen is touched, that includes scrolling or swiping through the home screens, which causes a slight delay in doing some things, it isn't bad, just a little annoying to me.

The camera is incredible! 5mp, LED flash, it even has a good zoom! It's the first Android device with a camera I would actually USE on a regular basis.

The big thing that impressed me is besides a little home screen lag, the phone is FAST. Web browsing over Edge is faster than my MyTouch is over 3G. The speed is very nice.

After half an hour I was ready to buy it and it was the best Android T-Mobile has by far! Then I checked the settings for the internal memory.......153mb MAXIMUM and 93mb FREE! Which, if I remember, is actually LESS than the G1. That was the deal breaker for me, why have such an awesome device and put NO memory for apps or browsing in it???

[Shel]

Cyberstorm
Thanks for the review!

I didn't even know that the Behold II was out yet.

I can NOT believe that they'd put even less memory in the device then the myTouch has... amazing.

[CyberStorm]

It actually comes out on the...18th I think, but most T-Mobile stores have a demo in the back, just ask them to see it.

I want that phone so bad after messing with it, but I can't deal with such limited memory. I guess I could root it, do apps2sd, throw a Cyan or Hero ROM on it and be happy with the hardware, but I shouldn't have to do all that work just to make a brand new phone usable.