So I just spend over an hour hogging the Fascinate and the Droid X demo phones at the Verizon store. Here is my take on them.
Camera:
Fascinate seems to take a crisper, more "digital camera" like picture, where the Droid X takes a really really nice camera phone picture. The panoramic on the Fascinate is interesting how it works (scroll the phone and it auto takes a pic). I didn't test the video quality, but I'm sure they are very similar.
Hardware:
Upon first impression, the Fascinate looks like an older iPhone with 4 bottom touch buttons (sorry, it just does).
- It also feels a bit plasticy (sp?) and cheap , and it does feel noticeably lighter than the Droid X.
- The volume buttons pressed a little too easily, maybe they stick out a little too far, and are easy to press.
- I like how the Droid X has a dedicated camera button that has 2 clicks - focus and capture. Fascinate has no button.
- The hardware buttons on the front of the Droid X compared to the on-screen buttons on the Fascinate are all preference. They both function and press well.
- The data port is on the side of the Droid X, where it is on the top of the Fascinate. No big deal, but my concern is for a car dock. The Droid X car dock looks nice, but the Verizon sales rep said there is also a Fascinate car dock.
- Droid X has HDMI out, Fascinate does not (I don't care about this. I have an HTC video out cable for the last 2 years from the TP1, and never, ever used it except to show it off).
- I held the Fascinate most of the time next to the Droid X. I probably should have tried to hold both.
- The LED flash works great on both. Didn't matter that the Droid X had 2 LED's. I installed an LED flashlight app on both phones (took me a few tries to find on that works on the Fascinate), and they both worked great. The Droid X is a bit yellowish, and the Fascinate has a cool white look. (I wonder if that affects the color of the picture when flash is involved...)
- Both phones are very close in overall dimensions. Droid X is a bit bulkier though (especially with that camera lip).
Screen:
- The screen on the Fascinate is wider than the Droid X, but shorter. I like the wider better.
- 4.0" size on the Fascinate compared to 4.3" on the Droid X, but it's really not a huge difference except the Droid X screen is taller and thinner.
- I browsed the internet on both phones, and they both show just about the same content (I went to PocketNow.com). The Droid X formatted the text better than the Fascinate to where I could actually read the text in full zoom out mode. Fascinate is not legible in full zoom out mode. Comparing the two, it's because of the font format. Maybe it's a software thing.
- The skin of Android 2.1 on the Fascinate seemed a bit different than the skin of Android 2.1 on the Droid X. I turned up full brightness on both phones, and the Droid X seemed to have a brighter backlight (maybe it was just the skin).
- To compare the screens, I ran Angry Birds and Blow Up (installed from the market), and yes. I could definitely tell a difference between the two. Fascinate looked much more vivid and colorful. The Droid X looks like the colors stayed out in the sun too long and were faded a bit. A very noticeable difference.
- Both were very quick and responsive, but the internet was not impressive on the Fascinate. It was just regular cell phone 3G speeds (I tested it at MobileSpeedTest.com and got 600k download). I think something was wrong with the Droid X, because it was horribly slow on the internet. Horribly. ...horribly. Downloading Blow Up took maybe 10 minutes, where it was a few seconds on the Fascinate, so I think there was a problem with that particular phone.
Not sure what else to compare. I personally am leaning towards the Fascinate now after playing with the phones. My only gripe is it feels cheap and light. Other than that, it's an awesome phone.
Hope this helps out some people.
Note: The 'p' button on my keyboard is messed up, so if I am missing a 'p' somewhere, sorry. hoe = hope, seed = speed, etc...
