Verizon - upgrade now or wait?

[slackerinabox]

I'm up for an upgrade and absolutely hate my blackberry curve and am itching to upgrade, but worry about the impending onslaught of dual core phones - wait or jump on a droid x? I have a droid that I use as my fun phone but my blackberry curve needs to stick around because of it's stellar battery life as a work phone. Are the dual core beasties going to make decent work phones with good battery life (charging daily is ok, every 5 hours is not)? The droid x's life seems pretty great so I'm tempted...

 

[alent1234]

if you want good battery life wait for the iphone 5 which will have dual core. unlike the rumors i think it's coming out in June. i think the september rumors are apple PR "leaks" meant to keep people buying iphone 4's since apple releases only once a year

 

[Bateluer]

I'm up for an upgrade and absolutely hate my blackberry curve and am itching to upgrade, but worry about the impending onslaught of dual core phones - wait or jump on a droid x? I have a droid that I use as my fun phone but my blackberry curve needs to stick around because of it's stellar battery life as a work phone. Are the dual core beasties going to make decent work phones with good battery life (charging daily is ok, every 5 hours is not)? The droid x's life seems pretty great so I'm tempted...

While Verizon does have some really good phones coming down the pipeline, I would most certainly not buy a Droid X now. The X, ignoring Blur and its locked bootloader, is at the end of its life cycle. Buying a phone thats a year old is going to give you some serious buyer's remorse very quickly.

Is LTE important to you, do you live in an LTE city? Then I'd be looking at the TB or Charge. Charge was delayed slightly, but both of these phones easily trump the X in every way except battery life.

If you don't, then the Incredible 2 is out now and is a very solid phone. The Droid X2 should also be coming down the pipeline before too much longer.

 

[OS]

i've had a BB storm, droid 1, droidx.

yes, i was happy to be rid of the bb storm, but in my experience the droidx battery life isn't better than the original droid;

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3826/motorola-droid-x-thoroughly-reviewed/18


plus the droidx is twice handicapped now, it's a single core phone and 4G is available now. I would not buy one now.

 

[Saint Nick]

I am looking at picking up the Thunderbolt this weekend. 4G isn't in my area until around the end of the year, though.

 

[alent1234]

OP said battery life is important. i heard on the thunderbolt you can see the battery meter drop in real time

 

[shortylickens]

This issue comes up many thousands of times every year on Anandtech.

General consensus is if you see a phone you like you should just get it. You can ALWAYS wait for the next big thing, and you will never actually get a phone.
And they wont last forever either. Even if its top of the line today in two years you wont wanna look at it. Just get used to buying a new one every so often.

 

[smartpatrol]

Dual-core processors are actually very power efficient, and from what I have seen, they don't suck any more power than single-core CPUs do. Check out some reviews of the Atrix to see what I mean.

Verizon's 4G LTE, on the other hand, seems to be a major power hog. The battery life on the Thunderbolt is terrible. We'll have to see how future LTE phones perform.

Personally, I'd wait to get a dual-core phone. You're going to be stuck with it for 2 years. Might as well get one with a cutting edge CPU.

 

[Saint Nick]

I've decided I'm going to wait until my area gets 4G.

 

[Bateluer]

I've decided I'm going to wait until my area gets 4G.

Thats probably a good idea, let them them build out the coverage, workout the kinks, and build the LTE product line.

OP said battery life is important. i heard on the thunderbolt you can see the battery meter drop in real time

Its not quite that bad. If you max the screen brightness, and stream YouTube under LTE, don't expect it to last very long though.

 

[s44]

I've decided I'm going to wait until my area gets 4G.

If you're planning to use a lot of data, note that Verizon will likely have pulled the plug on uncapped 4G by then.

It will happen this summer. Probably before any dual-core 4G phone launches.

 

[Ika]

Yeah, even if you don't have 4G I'd recommend getting in on an unlimited plan before they kill it. I was chatting with the Verizon store employees and one of them slipped that I should pick up unlimited before "May 15th". I asked for clarification and the manager quickly interrupted, saying that "well, there's always rumors of tiered plans and yadda yadda..."

It does help that my school and my home both have LTE coverage, though.

 

[edro]

if you want good battery life wait for the iphone 5 which will have dual core. unlike the rumors i think it's coming out in June. i think the september rumors are apple PR "leaks" meant to keep people buying iphone 4's since apple releases only once a year

I agree. It just feels like a scam to sell more iPhone 4s, especially on Verizon.
I will be waiting for the iPhone 5 on Verizon.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Do you all have any idea at all if the next version of the VZW iPhone will be global or CDMA only?

 

[fbrdphreak]

If you don't care about updates and rooting/ROMs, the Droid Charge is probably a good choice for you.

The Thunderbolt wouldn't be a good choice.

The Motorola Bionic replacement that is coming should be a great choice, but there's no reliable word when it's coming out.

I'm in a similar situation and am waiting as long as I can before I have to order to lock in "unlimited" data.

 

[PowerYoga]

Depending on what you use your droidX for, the battery life is pretty great. I've talked on it for over 4 hours and still had over half of my battery life left. It can idle for about 2 and a half days before running out of batteries... only downside is all verizon phones are CDMA and have no indications of switching to sim cards any time soon. In any case I'm pretty happy with mine, and like others said... get a phone if you need it now. There's always a new hot thing around the corner, that's how marketing works.

 

[sciwizam]

Rumored dates on Verizon from Droid Life.

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/05/0...or-the-droidx2-lg-revolution-and-xperia-play/

• DROIDX2: May 12 – Reps are being told to sell through the remaining inventory of the original DX to make room for the DX2. And remember that the DX2 is expected to be Verizon’s first dual-core Tegra 2 phone.
• LG Revolution: May 12 – The next 4G LTE device, which will follow up the DROID Charge. It’s also expected to be the first Android phone to launch with Netflix support.
• HTC Trophy: May 12 – The first Windows Phone 7 device for Verizon. Possibility of a limited supply.
• Sony Xperia Play: May 26 – You all know it as the PlayStation Phone. It looks like it’s finally ready for the States. Should be offered in all VZW stores.

 

[slackerinabox]

Rumored dates on Verizon from Droid Life.

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/05/0...or-the-droidx2-lg-revolution-and-xperia-play/

May? I'll wait! Though they're offering me a tablet (galaxy tab) as an upgrade option. I could always "upgrade" my blackberry to a tab and have google voice xfer calls to my droid until that's up for upgrade in december (in time for the next iPhone).. HmmmMMmmmm..

 

[Chess]

Tbolt is great, but on 4g the battery sucks I wont lie... but you cant beat the 29.99 a month for unlimited data

But the Bionic is coming out, the new iphone is coming out, etc

 

[shah456]

GO ANDROID! I upgraded from the Droid 1 to the Thunderbolt. Yes the battery life is ~ 4 hours with heavy 4G usage, but it is well worth it. The Bionic looks awesome and I like Motorola phones, coming from the Droid 1.

iPhone if you want Apple in control. Droid if you want to be in control.