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"Really good with minor flaws"
4.5 starson by weeblesuePros: Large screen size, lightweight, good selection of apps available - even free. Easy to set up and use.
Cons: Short as heck battery life. Hard to set up after the initial power on. Requires data plan.
Summary: I bought this phone over a lunch break so I didn't have time to run through the initial setup when you first power it on. I skipped a lot of steps so I could get back to work. Later, I couldn't find how to get back to the initial setup, and it was difficult to find out how to set things up like facebook. I eventually figured it out, but don't skip that first setup.
I've had the phone a few weeks now, and here's what I don't like about it:
1. When you connect the USB cable to a USB port on a computer for power, you have to connect it as USB storage. You can't just power the phone with a USB cable. When you connect USB storage, anything stored on your micro SD card becomes unavailable. So you can't play games on your phone when it is being powered by a computer via USB.
2. The automatic facebook/twitter updates don't seem to work. I have toyed with the setting for how often it updates, but usually when i scroll to that panel, the screen is empty and i have to manually update them.
3. This is probably the worst thing about it - each text message, in or out, counts as a phone call! When you go to your Call Log, you not only see phone calls, you see text messages too! And there is NO WAY to filter this. I do not want to see logs of my text messages. I ONLY want to see my calls in/out/missed. I really dislike this. I text more than I call, so this has made the entire call log feature unusable. I cannot sift through 100 items looking for the one phone call I made yesterday.
4. I'm still getting used to the 'touch screen only' feature. There's no stylus. Sometimes using my finger is ok, but for some games I play, a stylus would give better control. You can only use your finger pad - you can't use a fingernail like my old HTC phone let you do. The vertical keyboard is very difficult to use because of this - the touch keys are too small for normal fingers to be precise. I have to turn it horizontal to type. I am a girl with dainty fingers, too. Men with large fingers will have difficulty.
5. Battery life stinks. If it is fully charged when I get home from work, the next morning the battery is half empty already. I cannot leave it on but inactive in my purse over a weekend or it is dead Monday morning. My older phone could still have half power over a weekend. I realize this is because it's updating much more frequently, but with the screen off, it shouldn't drain the battery overnight.
6. Talking on the phone is difficult when you hold it up to your ear - you get too close and the touch screen thinks you're trying to interact with it. You can easily hang up on the person just by holding the phone too close. A bluetooth headset is mandatory.
Now for the benefits -
I'm not young anymore, so the huge screen is a big plus. It's also very light. It is very easy to use. I let a friend look at it. She has an iphone, and she started playing around with my phone like she'd had one for months. I've never had someone pick up a phone and use it that easily before.
I LOVE the great camera - both of them. I haven't used the front-facing one for visual chatting yet, but the rear camera is amazing.
I love that it has a regular 3.5-mm jack for headphones.
I don't love so much that I *had to* get a data plan for the phone. I don't get it - if I could have unlimited web with my old HTC phone, why is that only available as an Add On for this phone? I didn't change my plan otherwise. It's just a way for the phone companies to gouge us out of more money.
I don't love so much the media player app that comes with it. Music sounds "tinny." Find a better app to play music files.
The "great 4G" speed is just as variable as 3G - depends on where you are, strength of signal, and what you're trying to do. So far, in the heart of Houston, I'm not seeing a big improvement in internet speed with 4G over 3G.
I love everything else about it. These really are minor complaints and i would still recommend the phone highly to anyone who was looking for something new.