Berryberry

^Wish I could rep you more than once for that! Thanks for the awesome reply. And ROFL@ the silk smitha/Deepika comparison. So I guess, Fascinate it is for me. Thanks a bunch, Bro!

Thanks! That goes a long way in clearing my confusion. Haha..Nice way to put it. I guess I'll have more 'fun' for now. But I guess, from a future point of view, Epic 4G makes more sense because of its Wimax capability. Although its a different story as to when we get 4G here in India through RCDMA.

Thanks a lot. Thanks for your input,bro. By the way, apart from the physical keypad, is there anything else in favor of Epic over the Fascinate?

That Answer is displayed in BOLD LETTERS in my Signature.....And Smart Bees Should Collect The Honey While it lasts... Thanks a lot! Hope there is still some honey left for me.

My bad. Moderators please remove this thread. @Rajan : It was not so much about likes or dislikes, but more about which one would be the best bang for the buck. Considering people here have already purchased these phones, just needed their feedback on these models. And thanks for that little piece of info regarding the Moto droid 2. That was actually the purpose of this thread, to find the pros n cons of each of these models, so that I dont have to regret the purchase later. I dont think I would've got to know about that issue with Droid 2 if I had not posted this thread.

I'm trying to come to a decision, but it seems easier said than done. So thought it would be good to know what fellow members here would choose among these 4 Android phones. Please do provide a reason as well as to why you would choose a particular model among these. Thanks!

That is because Nokia is in a mess and left far too behind because of its complacency and excessive reliance on Symbian. You see, difficult times lead to difficult decisions.This is a do or die situation for Nokia. Apple on the other hand is not in a vulnerable position like Nokia.They have no reason to move from iOS to Android when they are enjoying a near market leading status. They will probably evolve and add more features to iOS to stay in the fight with Android. Thats more like an easier solution than a radical move to a rival platform. This way they get to keep their snobby noses held high, like they've always had. A move to Android means acknowledging the superiority of Android over their iOS, which, in their current industry leading position, they will never admit(Even if they know its true)! Anyways, yeah..lets wait and watch.

You have to understand that Mac OS and Windows are pretty much similar, in that they are both closed ecosystems. There is a difference between what I meant, and your above example.My point was more about closed ecosystem vs open ecosystem. To say Apple will embrace Android for its iPhone is like saying Microsoft will acknowledge Linux and accept it. That hasnt happened since Linux came into the foray almost 2 decades ago, and probably never will. Not as long as Microsoft is going strong and Linux doesnt start to seriously damage its market share (Though that has begun to happen.) And even if one were to consider your 'Profits' point of view; Apple is already doing well with its iOS (In part thanks to the hype, and fascination of people with everything 'Apple', no matter even if its a paper weight). There is no reason to even consider a move to Android (no matter how far-fetched the idea itself sounds). Nokia might embrace Android sooner or later, because they are seriously in a mess with symbian. But Apple is riding high on market share and isnt in the same position as Nokia. So it doesnt need to take a step in that direction. Not now, not 2 yrs from now.

I would beg to differ on that, bro. For many its about ideology rather than the affordability thing. In the US the iPhone4 16GB is available for a mere $199 on contract. Thats like 9000 bucks! Many android phones cost as much or more than the iPhone4. But people do buy them. Its only in 3rd world countries like ours, people are fooled to believe it is a 'premium' product, and that naturally makes it a status symbol, when it is just another phone for people in developed countries. Unfortunately, people in this country are too naive and gullible.They easily fall for such media created hype.

No offence, but its a wrong assertion, ill-researched and ultimately misleading. A little bit of research on the part of the buyer goes a long way in thwarting these misconceptions. The higher end android phones have better,bigger, pixel-rich super AMOLED screens, snappy performance with 1+ Ghz dual core processors,dedicated graphics core,and more than adequate RAM. They can beat an iPhone left, right and center on benchmarks. And its only a matter of time before the applications on Android start utilizing the new dual core processors and the GPU properly. And given the brilliant open source community of developers working actively on that, expect that to happen sooner than Jobs raises his fingers and give a go ahead for his slaves to do the same. Sorry, but if you are thinking that Apple will embrace Android, that dream will remain a dream forever. Thats a wrong understanding of Apple's core ideology. Apple is a closed ecosystem. They have always created their own operating systems to run on their hardware. They remain hush hush about the technical specifications of the hardware they use. Thats the part I hate the most about them. And let me tell you, Apple and Google are not the best of friends. Over the years, the animosity between the two has only gotten uglier.. Android being a Google initiative,and an open ecosystem, that dream you are talking about will never turn to reality due to ideological differences.

ROFL, couldn't agree more! iPhone will make a nice gift for GFs/wives. They will be more than happy, even if they use it only for calls/sms,facebook-ing and music. Its an iPhone afterall,right? Has definitely more 'bling' value than an Android, Lol!! As for me, i have a natural aversion to everything 'apple'. I say, why be stuck with a closed platform which you cannot tweak beyond what Jobs would want you to, and a phone which doesnt even let you perform a basic task of replacing the battery? Thats plain rude and snobbish of Apple to think that their customers are so dumb (blondes?) that they cannot even change a battery? With Android, you are not stuck with a phone vendor. You can choose your hardware, and an OS that you can tweak to your heart's content. There are no rules. You are in control of what you do. Thats openness. That's freedom. Thats how we were supposed to be. Android. P.S. This thread deserves a Poll.

I dont see any reason why it shouldnt, that is, as long as you are thinking of upgrading to OS 5. I have no idea about OS 6, or if its even possible to make it work on 8330. Although if you ask me, I wouldnt do it even if it were possible. The reason being less amount of onboard memory in 8330. FYI, I have reverted back to OS4.5.186. Works great for me. It worked fine with OS5, but I would usually have only 25megs of free memory even after reboots. It goes down futher if you have a habit of keeping your BB on for days without reboots. Now that certainly slows down things. With OS4.5.186 I have 45 megs of free ram. I'll trade speedy performance anyday over some glossy but sluggish new OS. Besides, I hated the new sms messaging system on OS5. I'm a frequent texter and I just coudnt get the hang of that new layout or the way it would stack messages. I would end up sending messages intended for someone to someone else. That alone was a big enough reason for me to revert back to 4.5. Must say I'm happy now. Try the OS5 using the method above if you want. But if you are anything like me, you'll revert back to 4.5 in no time. :-P

I'm sorry to hear that you've had to face these problems, but it seems I havent faced any of these problems after the upgrade. My messages stay fine, am not getting any Java error (as of yet). Names display fine. And yes, it did take a hell lot of time to boot the first time after a clean install, but it didnt happen after that. I hard-rebooted it twice just to check and it boots under 1-1.5 minutes. Faster than it would on v4.5. Perhaps you can try to install it again the way I did. 1. Backup phone through DM. 2. Wipe clean ur phone with BBSAK. 3. Install the Boost mobile OS on your PC 4. Instead of using BBSAK to install the OS, just go to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research In Motion\AppLoader and install with the Loader.exe. (There was no Vendor.xml file in the folder when I installed. I dont know why! ) 5. The first boot after the install may be slow(tries your patience like hell ). But anyways,just wait..it will boot up. 6. Run the setup wizard once you boot up. 7. Hard reboot after that. (Take out the battery) Should work fine after that!

^OOPS! Please ignore my previous post. Seemed it just happened on the first boot after the install. I just did a hard reboot again and it boot up within 1-1.5 minutes. Perhaps even slightly faster than v4.5. Couldnt've been happier! Thank you so much for all the help. Just one question! The free file memory after the v5.0 install is approx. 21mb after a hard reboot. If I remember correctly, the free files memory after a hard reboot on OS v4.5 would usually be in the range of 40-45mb. Can I delete some unnecessary applications to free more memory? I installed the help files as well. Will deleting that free up considerable amount of memory? Thanks.

^Dear Hitesh, Thanks for the reply. Funny, I did somewhat similar. Since it wouldnt let me install through BBSAK, so googling a bit helped me pinpoint where the OS got installed on the PC. I did check Dr. Mufaddal's thread, and searched for the vendor.xml file. Only, it wasnt there! I infact did a search for it in the entire Research in motion folder (and not just the app loader), but it wasnt there ! :s Is that normal? :S Anyways, I used the loader.exe to install the OS. It installed fine. Now, the only problem I see is that it takes long, and I mean WAY LONG to boot. Almost close to 20-25 minutes.. Again, is that normal? Is there a workaround to this problem? Cos, if this stays, I'll be forced to downgrade again, cos this can be dangerous in an SOS situation if the mobile reboots and then wouldnt come alive for almost 1/2 hour!