New phone: Droid 3 vs Bionic vs Samsung GSII

[Dmw017]

Sammy has really cheap plasticky phones. I have a Samsung tv and I love it but when it comes to phones I need something durable.

Good to know Now I'm more excited about the upcoming Nexus 3

 

[lxJGTxl]

HTC vigor ftw lol

Sent from my HTC Thunderbolt using DroidForums

 

[Dmw017]

For me its either the DROID 3 or the nexus 3.
Did my research on every phone from the vigor to the DROID hd and galaxy s2 variants but really the D3 is too awesome and the only thing that might be able to kick it off its pedestal is the nexus,a pure google experience. It has to be a lot better than my d3 or im skipping it.
Great battery life, specs off the charts, design top notch, unlocked, and not too many issues with it (cuz even the best phones have at least a few at launch).

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[Arkbird]

Yeah I know the speeds 4G is capable of. I consider it a gimmick because honestly, why would you want 20mbps speeds on your phone in the first place, other than "just to have it."
Whatever heavy downloading you need done that requires a high speed connection will most likely be done on your laptop.
Torrents, games, movies and whatever else are all unlikely to be seen on a mobile phone with their small screens.
I live in NYC where 4G couldn't get any better but I have no problems with using 3g on my D3. In fact it runs almost as fast as w-fi sometimes (doing the typical browsing, downloading, etc). I cannot think of a single reason why I would need 20mbps speeds (emphasis on the word need, not want).
On top of that, if you're not on a prepaid line and/or you don't get unlimited data, whatever reason you would need 4g speeds for would suck the life out of your data plan.
Then there's also the heavy battery issue because 4G is still a relatively new technology.
If you stream videos to an insane point, maybe 4g would be for you, but other than that, 3g is perfect, and even works fine with video streaming too so.
That's why I consider 4G to be a gimmick. Its something people say they "must have" but don't really have any use for those kinds of speeds on the tiny phones with 4-4.5 inch screens.

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I have several problems with this I think I'll address. The first being 4G. 4G speeds are ridiculously fast. Why wouldn't you want that? I would love to stream video and music without it buffering all the time or having to wait for my webpages to load. Also, why should I bring my laptop around everywhere if I can just look it up really quickly on my phone? My laptop isn't connected to anything but wifi so if there isn't wifi, I can't look up something. It's not like you're going to be using 4G mainly at home. That's what you have your computer and wifi for. You use your phone's internet capabilities when you're on the go, which is why 4G is beneficial. It's like having at home internet speeds on your home.

Speaking of wifi, there is no way that your 3G speeds come close to the speeds wifi offers unless your wifi is extremely slow. I get around 30mbps on my wifi with 5 computers and a game console connected. I doubt Verizon 3G comes anywhere near that.

4G does take a lot of battery, but the Bionic has been getting great praise by Verizon testers for its battery life and the Droid Charge has great battery life for being 4G so battery isn't as big of a concern as people tend to believe. Also, the only way you're going to burn through your data plan if it's not unlimited is if you actually use more data than you normally would. Just because 4G is faster doesn't mean it will burn through your data. If you load a video using 3G vs 4G. It's still the same video that uses the same amount of data. It's just going to load fast over 4G. And if you're worried about burning through data, just use wifi whenever possible. It saves battery and is usually pretty fast, if not faster than 4G.

Finally, 512mb isn't allocated to the lapdock on the Bionic. That was just a rumor carried over from the Atrix. The Bionic will be able to use the full 1GB of ddr2 memory. The only time the Bionic won't is when it's connected to the lapdock, which obviously makes sense.

Now as for the OP. What do you want in your phone? The D3 is a great phone if you aren't worried about 4G. The Bionic will be a great phone if you want 4G and don't necessarily need a physical keyboard. The GSII is a great all around phone so even if it doesn't have 4G it will be good. But if you need a 4G phone with a keyboard, you should look into the Samsung Stratosphere that's supposed to be released on the same day as the Bionic. In the end, the choice is yours and it depends on your phone preference.

And personally, I love to watch movies so a 4.3" screen with 4G for streaming will work great for me. It's not a gimmick or a must have thing but since my area has 4G and it won't cost extra, why not get it for the convenience?

 

[JWellington]

Yeah I know the speeds 4G is capable of. I consider it a gimmick because honestly, why would you want 20mbps speeds on your phone in the first place, other than "just to have it."
Whatever heavy downloading you need done that requires a high speed connection will most likely be done on your laptop.
Torrents, games, movies and whatever else are all unlikely to be seen on a mobile phone with their small screens.
I live in NYC where 4G couldn't get any better but I have no problems with using 3g on my D3. In fact it runs almost as fast as w-fi sometimes (doing the typical browsing, downloading, etc). I cannot think of a single reason why I would need 20mbps speeds (emphasis on the word need, not want).
On top of that, if you're not on a prepaid line and/or you don't get unlimited data, whatever reason you would need 4g speeds for would suck the life out of your data plan.
Then there's also the heavy battery issue because 4G is still a relatively new technology.
If you stream videos to an insane point, maybe 4g would be for you, but other than that, 3g is perfect, and even works fine with video streaming too so.
That's why I consider 4G to be a gimmick. Its something people say they "must have" but don't really have any use for those kinds of speeds on the tiny phones with 4-4.5 inch screens.

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Following this same train of thought, 3G is also a gimmick then. If you want to talk about needs and wants, then none of us really need a cell phone for that matter. We have been conditioned into believing so by our society though. If you're going to buy a smartphone, might sd well get the one with the best features. While I'm happy with 3G, I wouldn't mine having a little more. A gimmick is something with no practical use; 4G has practical use.

Swyped from my DROIDX from Tapatalk.

 

[lxJGTxl]

Yeah I know the speeds 4G is capable of. I consider it a gimmick because honestly, why would you want 20mbps speeds on your phone in the first place, other than "just to have it."
Whatever heavy downloading you need done that requires a high speed connection will most likely be done on your laptop.
Torrents, games, movies and whatever else are all unlikely to be seen on a mobile phone with their small screens.
I live in NYC where 4G couldn't get any better but I have no problems with using 3g on my D3. In fact it runs almost as fast as w-fi sometimes (doing the typical browsing, downloading, etc). I cannot think of a single reason why I would need 20mbps speeds (emphasis on the word need, not want).
On top of that, if you're not on a prepaid line and/or you don't get unlimited data, whatever reason you would need 4g speeds for would suck the life out of your data plan.
Then there's also the heavy battery issue because 4G is still a relatively new technology.
If you stream videos to an insane point, maybe 4g would be for you, but other than that, 3g is perfect, and even works fine with video streaming too so.
That's why I consider 4G to be a gimmick. Its something people say they "must have" but don't really have any use for those kinds of speeds on the tiny phones with 4-4.5 inch screens.

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My friends try to tell me also that its pointless to have a 4g phone, but think about it, we pay the exact same price for 3g and 4g, so we may not NEED it, but if your being offered the same price for something better, why not take advantage of it? If someone offered you a Honda civic and a BMW m3 for the same price, would you not take the BMW? You don't NEED the speed or elegance of it, but if both were to be offered at the same price, why not take advantage of it? I mean id understand if someone says its pointless to have a 4g phone when you don't live in a 4g area. And I also understand if you are completely satisfied with 3g like I was at one point, but 4g isn't a gimmick.

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[Dmw017]

I have several problems with this I think I'll address. The first being 4G. 4G speeds are ridiculously fast. Why wouldn't you want that? I would love to stream video and music without it buffering all the time or having to wait for my webpages to load. Also, why should I bring my laptop around everywhere if I can just look it up really quickly on my phone? My laptop isn't connected to anything but wifi so if there isn't wifi, I can't look up something. It's not like you're going to be using 4G mainly at home. That's what you have your computer and wifi for. You use your phone's internet capabilities when you're on the go, which is why 4G is beneficial. It's like having at home internet speeds on your home.

Speaking of wifi, there is no way that your 3G speeds come close to the speeds wifi offers unless your wifi is extremely slow. I get around 30mbps on my wifi with 5 computers and a game console connected. I doubt Verizon 3G comes anywhere near that.

4G does take a lot of battery, but the Bionic has been getting great praise by Verizon testers for its battery life and the Droid Charge has great battery life for being 4G so battery isn't as big of a concern as people tend to believe. Also, the only way you're going to burn through your data plan if it's not unlimited is if you actually use more data than you normally would. Just because 4G is faster doesn't mean it will burn through your data. If you load a video using 3G vs 4G. It's still the same video that uses the same amount of data. It's just going to load fast over 4G. And if you're worried about burning through data, just use wifi whenever possible. It saves battery and is usually pretty fast, if not faster than 4G.

Finally, 512mb isn't allocated to the lapdock on the Bionic. That was just a rumor carried over from the Atrix. The Bionic will be able to use the full 1GB of ddr2 memory. The only time the Bionic won't is when it's connected to the lapdock, which obviously makes sense.

Now as for the OP. What do you want in your phone? The D3 is a great phone if you aren't worried about 4G. The Bionic will be a great phone if you want 4G and don't necessarily need a physical keyboard. The GSII is a great all around phone so even if it doesn't have 4G it will be good. But if you need a 4G phone with a keyboard, you should look into the Samsung Stratosphere that's supposed to be released on the same day as the Bionic. In the end, the choice is yours and it depends on your phone preference.

And personally, I love to watch movies so a 4.3" screen with 4G for streaming will work great for me. It's not a gimmick or a must have thing but since my area has 4G and it won't cost extra, why not get it for the convenience?

Okay after that Im honestly wondering if you even read what I said.
Your first paragraph talks about how fast 4G is but I never said it wasn't. My main point was that you would never need to USE those kinds of speeds on a simple mobile phone. Any kind of heavy downloading you would be doing would be done on a laptop anyways. And really, did you say you wanted 4G to have web pages load faster?
My 3G can be compared to wifi for things like browsing the internet or downloading apps and other small to medium sized files. Of course its not as fast but its not the super inconvenient nightmare you make it out to be, at least not in NYC or any other major city.
The bionic was only once stated to have gone 15 hours on battery with medium usage but the tester never said what "medium usage" meant or if he was even running airplane mode most of the time or using other extreme measures of battery conservation. And have you seen the Thunderbolt? Its battery life is laughable at best. I don't think 4g being a battery killer can be seriously debated.

So yeah you said 4g is a nice addition because its free and has better speeds but its not free (in terms other than money) and those better speeds are there, yeah, but its not something any average person would ever even remotely need, at least not until phones become so advanced that you basically have a laptop in your hands capable of running high emulation programs, torrents, and everything else you do on a laptop.
Video streaming works fairly well (in my area and other major cities like chicago, etc) and yeah, 3g is perfect. Perfect for everything I do on my phone.
Wanting those "blazing speeds" found in 4g just to have it is exactly why its a gimmick. I haven't seen, heard, or can fathom any serious use for 20mbps speeds other than simplely to have " wep pages load faster" and stream videos on a mediocre 4 inch screen.
Btw those dataplans, yeah 4g doesn't consume more data just because its faster. It kills your data plan because if you actually NEEDED those speeds, you would burn through data asap due to the heavy downloading you would be doing.

In NYC, 3G is more than enough and fast. Not inconvenient in any way and streams media nearly flawlessly. If you live in the middle of nowhere, yeah I imagine 3g must suck, but chances are you also dont even have 4g coverage anyways, or if you do, its going to suck your battery even more due to the mediocre reception you'd be getting

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[Dmw017]

My friends try to tell me also that its pointless to have a 4g phone, but think about it, we pay the exact same price for 3g and 4g, so we may not NEED it, but if your being offered the same price for something better, why not take advantage of it? If someone offered you a Honda civic and a BMW m3 for the same price, would you not take the BMW? You don't NEED the speed or elegance of it, but if both were to be offered at the same price, why not take advantage of it? I mean id understand if someone says its pointless to have a 4g phone when you don't live in a 4g area. And I also understand if you are completely satisfied with 3g like I was at one point, but 4g isn't a gimmick.

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Yeah id like faster speeds too if it was free but its not. Kills battery, adds weight due to the additional radio needed in your phone, and is too much of a premature technology atm to be of any serious use.
3g sucked on my virgin mobile Motorola Triumph but with verizons D3, its flawless.

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[Arkbird]

Okay after that Im honestly wondering if you even read what I said.
Your first paragraph talks about how fast 4G is but I never said it wasn't. My main point was that you would never need to USE those kinds of speeds on a simple mobile phone. Any kind of heavy downloading you would be doing would be done on a laptop anyways. And really, did you say you wanted 4G to have web pages load faster?
My 3G can be compared to wifi for things like browsing the internet or downloading apps and other small to medium sized files. Of course its not as fast but its not the super inconvenient nightmare you make it out to be, at least not in NYC or any other major city.
The bionic was only once stated to have gone 15 hours on battery with medium usage but the tester never said what "medium usage" meant or if he was even running airplane mode most of the time or using other extreme measures of battery conservation. And have you seen the Thunderbolt? Its battery life is laughable at best. I don't think 4g being a battery killer can be seriously debated.

So yeah you said 4g is a nice addition because its free and has better speeds but its not free (in terms other than money) and those better speeds are there, yeah, but its not something any average person would ever even remotely need, at least not until phones become so advanced that you basically have a laptop in your hands capable of running high emulation programs, torrents, and everything else you do on a laptop.
Video streaming works fairly well (in my area and other major cities like chicago, etc) and yeah, 3g is perfect. Perfect for everything I do on my phone.
Wanting those "blazing speeds" found in 4g just to have it is exactly why its a gimmick. I haven't seen, heard, or can fathom any serious use for 20mbps speeds other than simplely to have " wep pages load faster" and stream videos on a mediocre 4 inch screen.
Btw those dataplans, yeah 4g doesn't consume more data just because its faster. It kills your data plan because if you actually NEEDED those speeds, you would burn through data asap due to the heavy downloading you would be doing.

In NYC, 3G is more than enough and fast. Not inconvenient in any way and streams media nearly flawlessly. If you live in the middle of nowhere, yeah I imagine 3g must suck, but chances are you also dont even have 4g coverage anyways, or if you do, its going to suck your battery even more due to the mediocre reception you'd be getting

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Wow, it seems like YOU were the one who did not read what I said. What kind of speeds do you need on your phone then? 4G offers higher speeds which makes things like streaming video way more convenient and easier so in that aspect you would NEED 4g.

Dude give me a break, wifi is way faster than 3G so you can't compare them unless you have really slow 3G. I'm not saying 3G is a nightmore, I'm saying I don't know of anyone who's wifi is 3G slow unless they are using a public access point or a really old router. Wifi is generally always faster than 3G. 3G speeds rarely go over 2mpbs for Verizon.

Who are you to say what the average person NEEDS? Just because you don't think you'll need it doesn't mean the average person won't. Why should I take 5 minutes to get out your laptop for something you can do on your phone in 10 seconds on 4G? Your logic makes no sense.

And good for if you love 3G so much but 4G is the future and it's here to stay. It's obviously not a gimmick if every carrier is pushing and so many people are buying 4G phones. I think you need to stop being so closed minded and thinking about what you only need because you aren't the world. You don't know what everyone wants or needs.

BTW you're the one who said 4G will burn through data, not me. Just because someone gets 4G doesn't mean they will burn through data. They may need 4G to look up stuff for their job, or for whatever. It's not going to burn data faster, it's just going to BE FASTER.

I'm glad to see that in NYC, 3G is enough FOR YOU, but it may not be enough for others. And I love how you talk so much about battery but bring up the phone with the worst battery out of all 4G phones. The very first 4G phone for Verizon. Of course the battery is mediocre. And what about the Charge, does that get bad battery too because I've seen and have been told very different.

 

[prime]

A major reason 4G is not a gimmick is there are many places in the country with no high speed internet option available (other than satellite which is not unlimited). Your phone becomes your best option to consume the net, feeding your PC with a 20 megabit tethered connection seems rather useful.

 

[Dmw017]

Wow, it seems like YOU were the one who did not read what I said. What kind of speeds do you need on your phone then? 4G offers higher speeds which makes things like streaming video way more convenient and easier so in that aspect you would NEED 4g.

Dude give me a break, wifi is way faster than 3G so you can't compare them unless you have really slow 3G. I'm not saying 3G is a nightmore, I'm saying I don't know of anyone who's wifi is 3G slow unless they are using a public access point or a really old router. Wifi is generally always faster than 3G. 3G speeds rarely go over 2mpbs for Verizon.

Who are you to say what the average person NEEDS? Just because you don't think you'll need it doesn't mean the average person won't. Why should I take 5 minutes to get out your laptop for something you can do on your phone in 10 seconds on 4G? Your logic makes no sense.

And good for if you love 3G so much but 4G is the future and it's here to stay. It's obviously not a gimmick if every carrier is pushing and so many people are buying 4G phones. I think you need to stop being so closed minded and thinking about what you only need because you aren't the world. You don't know what everyone wants or needs.

BTW you're the one who said 4G will burn through data, not me. Just because someone gets 4G doesn't mean they will burn through data. They may need 4G to look up stuff for their job, or for whatever. It's not going to burn data faster, it's just going to BE FASTER.

I'm glad to see that in NYC, 3G is enough FOR YOU, but it may not be enough for others. And I love how you talk so much about battery but bring up the phone with the worst battery out of all 4G phones. The very first 4G phone for Verizon. Of course the battery is mediocre. And what about the Charge, does that get bad battery too because I've seen and have been told very different.

Lol calm yourself, you took the time to insult me in every paragraph.
The only thing you said 4g was good for was video streaming, which is something 3g does rather well already. Do you have anything else to add to that lis that actually matters? The post above noted tethering which is actually a pretty good reason but in major cities, wifi is available virtually everywhere. So besides those two, if you have anything that 3g is just not good enough for, please tell me.
Yeah I am not the average person, I use my phone literally all day and for the third time, 3g works flawlessy for everything. The average person, and every other person, has no real use for 4G other than tethering simply because, and listen closely, we are using mobile phones which cannot be compared to the heavy usage you can do on a laptop.
Also im not understanding how you keep misinterpreting my wifi-3g comparison. Wifi is of course faster, but on 3g, browsing and downloading run very smooth and in a manner almost as quick as wifi would do, which is virtually no time at all. A webpage doesn't take 10 seconds to load. If that's what you're experiencing, the problem is either with your phone or your location. The droid 3 virtually topped the charts in browsing benchmarks so perhaps that's contributing to the kind of ease im getting with 3g.
Lol yeah every carrier is pushing 4g, even though verizon is the only one with LTE and tmobiles is laughable and att doesn't even have 4g yet and sprint pretty much speaks for itself. Its a gimmick because people see 4g advertised in commercials or on a phone and they think its a must-have but, again, its just a gimmick. A commercial strategy. you kind of need to have an understanding at how major corporations function in order to get why 4g is being pushed immaturely.
Maybe instead of raging and working to insult me at every turn, you could man up and at least try to hear what im issing. Maybe even admit there is some truth in it. After all, I haven't seen you provide any real use for 4g other than video streaming which you claim is not too good on 3g.
New york is one of the many cities where 3g has very good speeds, and like I already said, unless you live in the middle of nowhere, you're speeds should be more than fine.
Lastly I would have thought you could accept that 4g is a battery killer but it seems even that's debatable. From what I've extensively read and have heard of, 4g does in fact kill battery unless you turn it off whenever you are not using it (but then that's not really fair competition is it lol)

Edit: oh just wanted to add that yeah, instead of spending 3 minutes (if u have a slow comp) taking out ur laptop, u could spend 10 seconds using your phone.. but that 10 seconds applys to 3g. If you had 4g, it would shave off about a second or maybe two.

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[prime]

The only issue I have had with 3G video streaming is while signal strength was at a minimum. Anything under -90dbm seems to be adequate for buffer free video streaming. I agree the 4G push was a might premature in regards to hardware available, but it had to begin somewhere.

 

[Kershaw]

Wow, I thought the point of this thread was a recommendation for a phone, not a war between opinions of 3G vs 4G.

 

[jimmiethemum]

So whch of the 3 phones would you say has better internal memory?

 

[Dmw017]

Lol the d3 has the lowest memory out of the three. The sg2 and bionic both have 1gb.
But ask yourself if your really going to be using that extra 512mb of ram. If you are a heavy gamer or intense multitasking is crucial to you, then yeah get the bionic or sg2. If you aren't having any issues related to ram with your current phone then the D3 is just as good as the other two in most areas.

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