[Vibrant General] bryon13:
I had a Nexus, and my wife had a MyTouch. She was wanting to upgrade, so we decided that I would get a Vibrant, and she would get my Nexus. We have since given away the MyTouch.

I have to say, at first, I was LOVING my Vibrant! it was incredible! The screen, and benchmarks spoke for themselves! Heck, I was even able to ditch a couple of mediocre apps for the pre-installed apps!

I've had my Vibrant for...17 days now. I've NEVER had any luck with the GPS, although it is handy for a game called "The Great Land Grab", since I can now buy land in states and countries I've never even been to before! (I bought a piece of land in CHINA!!! WOOT!) I've tried ALL of the fixes posted here at XDA and elsewhere. All of them seemed to help, but then I realized it was mostly a placebo effect. "742 people said this fix worked perfectly! It's gotta fix my GPS! Hey, it only took 17 minutes this time! YAY! It's all better!" Coming from a long line of HTC phones (G1, MyTouch, Nexus), I've come to expect good GPS performance, and I use maps and nav a LOT. (Well, I used to) I'm extremely disappointed in this, to the point that I will never buy another Samsung phone again.

The screen is AMAZING! The picture quality is intense, and it displays video so fluidly! I can't say enough good things about how beautiful it is! The screen difference is .4 inches, but it looks and feels like it's HUGE in comparison. I've never seen a screen on a cell phone that can show as deep black as this. If you set your phone up poroperly, you can have it on, but not be able to tell (ADW.Launcher/black wallpaper/no status bar/no icons/empty dock/dock open - Looks amazing!) It's such a nice display!

The phone SHOULD be WAY faster. the specs make the Nexus look old and dated. Of course, when you're used to touching an app shortcut, and it just HAPPENS, a 2-10 second lag seems like FOREVER! There are some MAJOR design flaws in the Vibrant, such as the 16 gig internal storage. It's a class 6, yes, but it's got VERY serious i/o issues, so almost everything that calls on the resources on it stalls and lags. (You'll see TONS of people who say there's no lag, but most of those people came from a dated phone, like a G1 or MyTouch. It's WAY faster than any of the older generation 1 or generation 2 phones, but it's painfully slow when you're used to the powerhouse known as Nexus. (2 seconds doesn't sound long, until you're trying to show off your phone, and you feel the need to explain that "it takes a second or two to load up, but when it does..." and you have TIME to explain that to someone while you wait. It's not nearly as snappy or responsive as it should be, considering this is a flagship device with specs to make most phones look like crap. SUPPOSEDLY, this phone is more powerful than a PSP, but the design flaws make it perform more like an NES. Once it gets going, it's GREAT, but it's the getting it up and running that sucks.

The phone does feel lighter, and cheaper, but it depends on your point of view if this is a good thing or a bad thing. I personally prefer the feel of the Nexus, because it feels more solid.

The loudspeaker on the Vibrant is WAY better than the speaker on the Nexus, although I have to think it something to do with the "hollow-ish" phone back echoing the sound, and therefore amplifying it somewhat, but I haven't tried a direct comparison with the phone backs off.

The Vibrant out-performs most phones on the market in terms of benchmark scores (linpak not included) however, if you were to perform a side-by side comparison of getting those benchmarks loaded up, you would likely have no doubt that the Vibrant is considerably slower. (I'm talking of the latest generation of 1ghz phones, like Nexus, DroidX, and EVO)

If the GPS (and compass, which is HOPELESSLY broken) and lag issues could be resolved, I think the Vibrant could be a contender as possibly the best phone on the planet, but in it's current form, it feels a lot like that funky cousin you try to avoid at family reunions. "Well, he came from a great family, and he's really smart, but he's just a bit off...I mean, look at him, he's pouring his soda into his shoes!"

Overall, I think in it's current state, the Vibrant can't hold a candle to the Nexus, and depending on the I/O issues, it may NEVER compare, but if they can get it running better, and make everything WORK, it will make the Nexus feel like a G1.

My choice for best phone: Nexus

(Subject to change)