How long did your smartphone last?

[ny biker]

I'm glad you were able to get that iPhone!!

My phone has been okay since the guy at the Verizon kiosk cleared the data from the bad facebook app. And it's been charging well with the charger that I use for my mp3 player, or at least it was until I lost it. I just got a new charger today that can charge 2 devices at once. So far it's working okay. The phone is plugged into it right now as I type this.

I keep declining the gingerbread upgrade.

[zoom-zoom]

Wise move!

BTW, there must be a lot of charging issues with the Droid. A friend of ours couldn't get hers to charge with any charger. Then when I was waiting around for help at the Verizon store I was behind a couple who was also having issues with their Android phone not charging. Perhaps these are all one model that's having the issue. I forget which phone my friend has...I want to say it's the X or 2 or something. One of the larger ones with a slide-out keyboard.

[ny biker]

So, back to this thread. I've managed to make my HTC Incredible last, and I've had it for about 25 months now. I go through the running apps several times each day to clear cache and clear data/force stop the ones that Verizon insists on running automatically even though I never use them.

But, yesterday I noticed the power cord was frayed near the plug that goes into the phone. My father is going to wrap it with electrical tape, but this is just a temporary fix. I see no point in investing in new accessories, so I'll be getting a new phone shortly.

I really don't need a giant screen. 4g would be nice. I don't really want to spend lots of money.

I have decided against an iphone -- I just really want to have navigation based on google maps on my phone. So I'm looking into Motorola phones. The Droid Razr Maxx gets good reviews but is expensive and big. The Droid Bionic and regular Razr also get good reviews and are big. The Droid X is only 3g but is cheap and reviews say it's fast and it's a bit smaller than the 4g phones. The downside for all of them seems to be poor photo quality, specifically re: color reproduction.

Anyway, I'm heading to a store to look at them now, though I'm not buying anything today.

[smittykitty]

If your problem really is just the cord, I would go buy a new charger. Incredibly they seemed to have standardized for now and all of the phones are using the same size charger!!!! About time! So you could get a new charger and potentially use it when you have to upgrade.

We have both 3 and 4G is our house and their is no comparison. The 4G is really, really fast!

I've got the original Droid, 2 1/2 yrs olds. The battery is doing great. Ms. Droid gets a little tired when I try to multitask with it (ask her to do too many things in a row). I think its the memory filling up. Its a bit frustrating when I'm in a hurry and it doesn't want to do anything for 30 sec. or so. Somewhat like this laptop! (Gee I'm complaining about waiting 30 sec. What a world we live in today!)

Its not bad enough to replace it yet, but I've done a bit of looking and if she were to give up the ghost today, I would get the Razor Max for the battery life. I'm in no rush because of the size, cost and I'm too busy right now to learn a new phone. She does make me want to toss her across the room sometimes though! I wish she would either behave herself and live on or just die so I could then justify the expense.

I find the camers good enough for quick pics. I have a DSLR for anything else.

[OakLeaf]

That's right, Incredible uses a standard micro USB cable. Same as a Kindle or a lot of cameras.

Mine is hanging in there too, and now that I see how freakin big the new phones are, I REALLY don't want to replace it. Supposedly HTC's 4G phone that's coming out this summer will be a little smaller than its competition, but still bigger than the Incredible and Incredible 2. I literally can't fit another millimeter in my running vest.

I guess that's what we get instead of a new 17" MacBook - everybody has to have 17" phones.

[ny biker]

I was wearing a red shirt today and a took a photo of it with one of the Droid phones and it looked okay. Of course my regular camera is not working right anymore, so I need to get a new one of those, too. But that will have to wait until after I replace the phone.

The Razr Maxx costs $100 more than the Razr, but since the batteries are not removable, you have to replace the phone when the battery loses it's ability to hold a charge. So maybe the Razr Maxx would last longer before you reach the point of needing to replace it.

I need to go back to a store with my bike bag to see how the Razr/Maxx fits in it. But it seems like they're pretty much the choice at this point in time if you want something from Motorola through Verizon. The Bionic would cost less but the guy at the store said the battery life is not good so I'd want to get a better one (the battery is removeable on that model).

[ny biker]

Well alrighty then. I ordered a Motorola Droid Razr Maxx today. It was only $199 at Radio Shack -- $100 less than I was seeing last week, so I figured I needed to jump. And after having to nurse the battery of my old phone this weekend while the power was out, I figured it made sense to pay for the extra battery life.

It fits in my current bento box (the LG Gel Box 2), but with not much room for other things. I am going to look into the LG Gel Box Plus. I can't find any dimensions for it online except for "40 cubic inches," which doesn't tell me if it's long enough. I had to cancel my planned trip to the LBS this weekend due to the storm (they still have no power, two days later), but soon I'll head out there to get more info and hopefully buy it.

Anyway. I'm oddly not happy about my purchase. All the press reviews are great, customer reviews are also very good, though there are some potential problems that I read about. I just really would rather not need a new phone right now. I like the user interface of the Droid Incredible and was happy with most things about it. I just don't like having to go through the apps that I can't uninstall to constantly delete data from them. I also resent the forced obsolescence in this product category.

And then there's the change in Verizon's calling plans -- I'm now paying the same amount of money for limited data that I paid for unlimited data before. And they charge a $30 "upgrade fee" even though I'm not really upgrading anything. It's like they want you to be unhappy by the time the purchase experience is over.

I did spend some time playing with the new phone today -- I had to go to Verizon Wireless to do that, but they're located in the same shopping center as the Radio Shack, so it was easy enough. It got hot pretty fast, which I hope is not typical. I was able to type some texts, enter data into the address book, do some google searches, take some pictures, etc., to get a feel for the phone. It will take time to get used to the different interface, but I hope it will be okay.

Anyway, the new phone should arrive in a few days, though it may be Friday or Saturday before I have time to take it to Radio Shack to activate it.

Meanwhile, I guess I will have to re-download the apps that I like on the old phone when I activate the new phone. I could try storing them all on the sd card and using the same card in the new phone, but I don't know if that will work. Switching from one brand to another, I assume there will be some incompatibilities. They say they can transfer my photos and videos to the new phone, but I think it's easier to just transfer them to my pc and let them live there. Most of them are already on the pc already.

I'll post my thoughts on the new phone when I've had a chance to put it through its paces, in case anyone else is thinking of buying it or a similar Motorola model.

The adventure continues...

[Miranda]

DH just got that phone and broke it about a month after.

Somehow we accidently got checked outta the Verizon store with insurance on his line. Which I don't normally get and don't want to pay for every month. However, it saved us paying just the insurance deductable, versus a whole new phone retail. Btw, it was dropped and I think part of the breaking was due to the fact it's so thin.

Personally I just got a new smart phone as well. My old Droid Incredible died (wasn't 2yrs old yet, couple months short). Just about like yours. And frankly I was happy to see it die. I hated a lot of things about it since day one. And wanted the iPhone to start. But Verizon was just short of getting the iPhone at the time my cell before that died.

So far I love my iPhone.

With Verizon you do have 14 days to exchange and or change your mind. And when you originally posted this you could have also upgraded early. You just need to check you eligibility date. Thinks it's up to six months early.

ALSO, you could have possibly kept your unlimited data package and gotten it grandfathered. That's what I did. I don't know how because I thought I was going to get screwed out of it. But, I didn't.

FWIW... Good Luck!