Thinking about buying the Charge. Wondering if new phones worth the wait

[thomasterrible]

I need a new phone for my Verizon account.
I am considering the Droid Charge most right now.
I am only hesitant as I don't know if the new Motorola or Iphone which are supposed to come out soon would affect my needs in a phone.

Those primarily are having the VZ navigator work as well as possible. I use that instead of a stand alone navigator on my motorcycle and in my car. I don't know if the type of GPS the Charge has or the dual core processor or anything different on the new phones will affect how well the navigator works?

I like the Charge because the keyboard is easy and accurate for me to use. The screen seems nice and large. I don't really use many of the smartphone features now, maybe an app will come out I have an interest in but none really now. I like the ability to check my regular email account on occasion. Really good call quality and voice activated features along with the VZ navigation working well are my primary needs in a cell phone. I use a helmet mounted bluetooth headset when on my motorcycle for calls and using the navigator. It seems to make sense to me to get a 4G phone just to have the newest technology.

Is there anything in my case that would be beneficial to wait for the new phones vs buying the Charge now?

Thanks in advance.

[mortixer]

ummm i dont think a smart phone is for you....You seem to struggle with the concept of forming coherent sentences.

[tjmonkey15]

I say if you tried the Charge and liked it, then go for it now. Why wait for new phones (that may or may not have upgraded and/or new features) if you are happy with one that is offered now? I've never used the Charge, but read that it has good voice quality.

[jeff98ny]

well, im bringing my Charge back to VZW in about an hour. I can't take it any more. A full charge is good for about 4 hours, thats without using the phone, and no, I have nothing running thats using it up, battery info says the display is eating it alive.
Aside from that, I feel its slow, almost Eris slow. You click things, and it waits about 3-5 seconds before it clicks what to do.

Not for me, going back to my broken DX till something else comes out

[jbinbi]

mortixer: your comments shouldn't be allowed. who made you the resident genius. people come to this forum to learn, not get dissed.

jeff98ny: sorry to hear your problems. I do not see these issues with my charge. I did get the extended battery, but with a day of heavy use, abouat 20 emails, 100 txts, facebook update, listening to music for an hour, and some phone calls I still have 30% left after 14 hours.

thomas: you don't need vzw nav anymore. the charge has google nav, which gives turn by turn directions using google maps as it's basis. It turns your phone into a gps that looks just like your garmin/tomtom. This is not what iphones have unless they buy the real app. Android offers this at no charge. I find this to be a great phone, i think it is the best of the LTEs. If you don't need LTE, and you WILL use more battery when using LTE, then you might want to go with aX2. LTE won't help with nav.

Newer phones, maybe at xmas, but prob next summer will have newer lte chips made on a smaller semiconductor process that will save power, and lte will be more widespread then.

[RYOBI]

I looked extensively at and did quite a bit of research on the Charge and Thundebolt. Haven't looked at the LG Revo in person, but did my reaseach. Can't say as I can recommend any of them.

Here are a few of my key reasons why:

1. Battery life is terrible on all of these, primarily because of 4G. The TB being the worse, followed closely by the LG. The Charge is suppose to be the best of the lot right now. By how much, I don't know. Anyone who tells you different is either lying, doesn't use 4G or has that huge humped back extended battery.

2. 3G to 4G and back again tends to be very buggy.

3. Build quality on the devices seems to be subpar. Paying $249-$300 I expect better

4. All still running Froyo, ridiculous.

I am patiently waiting for something better.

[mgerbasio]

I rarely wait for the next big thing when I've made up my mind to buy something. There is so much vaporware, you'll never purchase as the next big thing is three months away. Looking at the current lineup of LTE phones, there is nothing compelling me to ditch my Droid X. Now that Verizon is offering $30 unlimited data hotspot tethering for 4G phones, that's enough to get me to bite.

So, I've decided to wait until the first week of August. If the Bionic is available as rumored, great, that's most likely my next phone. Otherwise, I'll get the Charge.

[theoak]

Other than ... if you are a new customer, you will only get tiered plans. If you are upgrading (which it looks like), and you have unlimited, then you should be okay.

[Louise2005]

Before you get the Charge, google Samsung Droid Charge and voice quality. Many people, myself included, have had complaints from people who say it is hard to understand them and that their voice is muffled. For some people this has been helped by changing the codec - others don't find it makes much difference. Blue tooth devices are better than direct phone, but voice quality is definitely on the edge of not ok. OTH, the Motorola, from what I read and from my own experiments, is a lot worse and the Charge is usually "passable".

Louise

[theoak]

The Thunderbolt can do SVDO, simulaneous voice and data over 3G. Right now I believe this is the only Verizon phone capable of doing this. Having come from AT&T, and the apps that I use ... I could not live without this.

I have heard the Bionic will be able to do this also.

[thomasterrible]

Thanks for all the information. I like the Charge, the reason I did not pull the trigger and get one is that I did not think that it was such a standout that it was worthy of commanding the premium price tag. Now that the Bionic is coming out I suspect the Charge will be priced lower, just as the Tbolt has, if in fact I am still interested in it vs the Bionic. I will have to check to see my plan details. I have a "retiree plan" since I had worked for Verizon long enough to qualify (not than I am retired) so plans and prices are not exactly the same as regular consumer plans. I can also see how the features and apps are going to integrate in to other products I have at home through wireless connections. I appreciate some of the information that I was not aware of. The cellular world changes so quickly that one needs to know what is both current and in the process of being upgraded and I no longer have that connection to new systems and products and plans like I did when I was an active employee.

Certainly sales people at the Verizon stores were of no help, not being able to answer questions that I knew to be the answers to by just reading their website information. The answer to all my questions were always "you can return it in 14 days if you don't like it"...pathetic. So it is nice to have a forum with people that can answer those questions.