Hey, I made a post about the Droid in the Android thread, about my experience with it in comparison to an iPhone. Comments?
Here's the post if you don't want to load the other thread:
Hey, I don't want to come in and shit all over this thread, but I'm kind of in the market for a smart phone, and an iPhone is currently out of the question due to AT&T not offering service where I currently live. But I tried a Droid and was not at all impressed, so I was hoping someone could offer some counterpoints to my bad experience that might keep Android-based phones in the running.
Basically this phone had three main problems: it was slower than an iPhone, froze a lot (mainly the browser), and isn't nearly as easy to use as an iPhone.
With regard to the freezing: I got it hung on some web page, and then spent hours and hours trying to make it do a google search with absolutely nothing happening until I finally figured out that the browser had a "window" concept, and that I had never actually killed the frozen window (though I thought I had, many times! so the UI left something to be desired), and for some reason that was keeping all new windows from doing anything. This is not the kind of user experience I value in a phone.
As for speed, compared to an iPhone it just felt a little sluggish and unresponsive, slow to render graphics. Nothing else to say really.
The user interface thing is kind of the big one tbh. (I kind of expect a phone to be a little sluggish - I mean, it is tiny.) I wouldn't have considered handing this phone to my mom, for example, who is completely computer-illiterate, even though she easily figured out an iPhone and actually had fun with one. For me, this kind of ease translates into getting stuff done more quickly and with less stress.
(Minor point: the physical keyboard was a total waste since it was harder to use than the virtual one, but I imagine that only applies to that particular phone.)
Good things: complete integration with google apps, which I already rely on heavily because I use so many different computers it really became the only reasonable thing to do.
If you thought the Droid was slow and had a shit keyboard, go Nexus One, it has a faster processor. Personally I have found none of the problems you mention with the droid, and slowness and hanging up are one of my big annoyances so trust me I would bitch if that was the case.
I have gotten used to the keyboard well enough. Definitely prefer it over the two virtual ones.
If you don't want Android and can't do iPhone, you really don't have many options. WinMo 6.5 is kind of a joke imo and I am not sure when 7 is coming out. Pre looked decent, but hasn't seemed to catch in and I'm not sure how much longer it is going to be around.
Pretty much the rule with the Droid and its keyboard is that it sucks for the first week, and gets pretty okay so long as you don't have ham fists or sausage fingers. So long as you've got pretty standard sized hands, the learning curve to the keyboard is pretty much the same as a netbook.
So I haven't seen this anywhere, but is the Droid getting the 5 home screens that is standard on Android 2.1? As opposed to the Droid's 3?
No. Still stuck at 3.
uhhh... yes, once 2.1 is loaded onto the Droid, it will have the standard 5 home screens
I'm reasonably certain someone from either Motorola or Verizon confirmed it was only 3 screens on like Wednesday, back when they were all supposed to roll out today.
Yeah, I read that too, though I don't remember the source.
I'm very frustrated by this 2.1 delay, mostly because I'm excited and don't want to be led on. I read that the OTA distribution company is rushing to work with a third party to get these updates out ASAP, but I hope that it isn't a week+ delay. I reallyyy hope to have live wallpapers by the end of this weekend/beginning of next week! ...but I won't bitch on blog comment sections if that doesn't happen. I'll just be disappointed until it hits.
Yeah, I'm pretty freaking pissed too, considering how relentlessly Motorola has been fucking up with regard to this. I can bet that Bitfone company or whatever probably won't be getting more OTA distribution contracst after this.
Yeah, I'm pretty freaking pissed too, considering how relentlessly Motorola has been fucking up with regard to this. I can bet that Bitfone company or whatever probably won't be getting more OTA distribution contracst after this.
Obviously the ideal scenario is to have the product delivered working and on time.
It would appear, however, that someone somewhere doesn't quite have their shit together and is thus causing a delay. Since I rely on my phone for a whole heck of a lot of things I suppose I would rather wait for an update that works than get a half-baked one that will require a patch right away.
I know they probably don't want to resort to this, but if their OTA option is f'd, they need to have a DIY online option for those of capable enough to upgrade it ourselves.
This would be an issue with the functionality of the update process once downloaded or the update itself, not the fact that it's downloaded wirelessly.
JAEF on
0
RhalloTonnyOf the BrownlandsRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
Alright so, after being completely satisfied with the Droid for a couple months now, I went ahead and bought the car dock.
Anyone else completely unable to get the Car Home application to voice dial? Every time, it just searches for "Call _____" on Google search. Looking around, I find that this is a problem most people seem to have, but there are just enough responses on forums and comments on blogs that lead me to believe it at least works for a few people-
so, anyone want to give it a try and confirm or deny?
Simply load car home, touch "Voice Search," and try it out.
Is there anything you had to do: an option to enable, or some other random process other than what I listed?
It hasn't worked once
Well the 2 time's I've used it since my last post it has failed. And now that I think about it, it has been sketchier more recently. Don't know if it's the location I moved the mount to being noisier or something. :?
Alright so, after being completely satisfied with the Droid for a couple months now, I went ahead and bought the car dock.
Anyone else completely unable to get the Car Home application to voice dial? Every time, it just searches for "Call _____" on Google search. Looking around, I find that this is a problem most people seem to have, but there are just enough responses on forums and comments on blogs that lead me to believe it at least works for a few people-
so, anyone want to give it a try and confirm or deny?
Simply load car home, touch "Voice Search," and try it out.
i've never used it, but my mom got a droid the same time i did and she's never really been able to make much use of it.
Sick of waiting for 2.1 or is there something else you have in mind? I have no problem with rooting, but I haven't seen anything out there yet to make me give it a try.
Sick of waiting for 2.1 or is there something else you have in mind? I have no problem with rooting, but I haven't seen anything out there yet to make me give it a try.
Sick of waiting on 2.1 and ran across this video tutorial at droid-life.
edit: well with doing other stuff at work, plus the DL times, I'm finally up to Cyanogen 5.0.5. Re-installing apps. Maps active wallpaper is pretty slick
Well I pulled the trigger and ordered mine today with some accessories for a big ole 32 bucks. Now to see if I can get my employee discount even though when I called the verizon people they said it probably wasn't gonna happen since I didn't purchase from their stores.
Sick of waiting for 2.1 or is there something else you have in mind? I have no problem with rooting, but I haven't seen anything out there yet to make me give it a try.
Sick of waiting on 2.1 and ran across this video tutorial at droid-life.
edit: well with doing other stuff at work, plus the DL times, I'm finally up to Cyanogen 5.0.5. Re-installing apps. Maps active wallpaper is pretty slick
I rooted mine with DroidMod 1.0 so I could do WiFi tethering.
I didn't even know there was a version of Cyanogen for Droid. Where did you get it? I assume you can just load the ROM to your phone and just use DM1.0 to upgrade to Cyanogen?
I got Cyanogen thru Rom Manager. I think the second part of the tutorial shows it.
My 2 main complaints are that Pandora does work for me and neither does navigation. I can get directions, and it will track my location, but it won't do the navigation part.
Is there a way to install all available updates at one time? On the iphone/ipod you can do "Update all", but I can't seem to find anything like that for the Android store.
edit: To clarify, this is updates to individual applications, not the phone OS.
I got Cyanogen thru Rom Manager. I think the second part of the tutorial shows it.
My 2 main complaints are that Pandora does work for me and neither does navigation. I can get directions, and it will track my location, but it won't do the navigation part.
Yeah, I'm a silly goose for not doing my research. I have DM1.0 now, and it's OK, but I'm curious about Cyanogen. I just have concerns about switching from one to the other. I'm afraid that if I use the ROM Manager now, it will cause bad things to happen because I already have DM1.0 on it. I might have to experiment on it tonight.
I got Cyanogen thru Rom Manager. I think the second part of the tutorial shows it.
My 2 main complaints are that Pandora does work for me and neither does navigation. I can get directions, and it will track my location, but it won't do the navigation part.
Yeah, I'm a silly goose for not doing my research. I have DM1.0 now, and it's OK, but I'm curious about Cyanogen. I just have concerns about switching from one to the other. I'm afraid that if I use the ROM Manager now, it will cause bad things to happen because I already have DM1.0 on it. I might have to experiment on it tonight.
The tutorial has you go from stock to DM to Cyanogen.
The only problem I've had was that google maps nav was broken when I switched over. I uninstalled the update and reupdated and it seems to be working fine now.
Is there a way to install all available updates at one time? On the iphone/ipod you can do "Update all", but I can't seem to find anything like that for the Android store.
edit: To clarify, this is updates to individual applications, not the phone OS.
This would be a nice option. But I havent seen any more than 3 or 4 updates at one time and its just a couple clicks to start one update and a couple more to start the next one.
Has anyone ripped dvds to their droid and what do they use? I tried hand brake and got a lot of freezing. Trying to convert using VLC (I know handbrake is derived from VLC) but I still would like to know what people use as far as settings. I also want the text to speech function as quickly as possible!
Has anyone ripped dvds to their droid and what do they use? I tried hand brake and got a lot of freezing. Trying to convert using VLC (I know handbrake is derived from VLC) but I still would like to know what people use as far as settings. I also want the text to speech function as quickly as possible!
This might be helpful, perhaps not. But for my Hero, I use the Handbrake iPhone preset to rip all videos. It works fine for the resolution, and I imagine it would be similar for the Droid. The only time I get a freeze from Handbrake is from a corrupted file/bad download.
colawars on
3DS: 1049-1266-2726
0
TTODewbackPuts the drawl in ya'llI think I'm in HellRegistered Userregular
edited March 2010
200,000 at 11:59PM starting tonight and every night (or every other night) is what the release said I believe
If any one is using a car mount and hating the Car Home, I just loaded up the "Car Dock" app. It's nothing pretty but it gives you 3 pages each with 6 large apps/short cuts of you choosing. With an live wallpaper (i use waveform) it actually looks pretty cool.
If any one is using a car mount and hating the Car Home, I just loaded up the "Car Dock" app. It's nothing pretty but it gives you 3 pages each with 6 large apps/short cuts of you choosing. With an live wallpaper (i use waveform) it actually looks pretty cool.
I use the car dock every day, this sounds good. I'll check it out.
I don't know if anyone posted this yet, but now that the official update is going out, if you're impatient you can update it manually, without having to root it. Did it just now, it's pretty simple to do, albeit odd.
Crap... Should I try to apply the patch manually? There are a few people that are reboot cycling on the comments. Would be just my luck that it would happen to me.
I just did the Manual update it is seemed to go pretty effortlessly. I have no idea how something could go wrong short of the download of the update being corrupt or something. It's literally like 4 steps.
The live wallpapers and new Gallery are pretty neat. I'm definitely pretty miffed at there still only being 3 home screens. I may end up rooting now that I have 2.1 to just get more homescreens. That's really all I want more out of this phone.
Posts
Here's the post if you don't want to load the other thread:
Basically this phone had three main problems: it was slower than an iPhone, froze a lot (mainly the browser), and isn't nearly as easy to use as an iPhone.
With regard to the freezing: I got it hung on some web page, and then spent hours and hours trying to make it do a google search with absolutely nothing happening until I finally figured out that the browser had a "window" concept, and that I had never actually killed the frozen window (though I thought I had, many times! so the UI left something to be desired), and for some reason that was keeping all new windows from doing anything. This is not the kind of user experience I value in a phone.
As for speed, compared to an iPhone it just felt a little sluggish and unresponsive, slow to render graphics. Nothing else to say really.
The user interface thing is kind of the big one tbh. (I kind of expect a phone to be a little sluggish - I mean, it is tiny.) I wouldn't have considered handing this phone to my mom, for example, who is completely computer-illiterate, even though she easily figured out an iPhone and actually had fun with one. For me, this kind of ease translates into getting stuff done more quickly and with less stress.
(Minor point: the physical keyboard was a total waste since it was harder to use than the virtual one, but I imagine that only applies to that particular phone.)
Good things: complete integration with google apps, which I already rely on heavily because I use so many different computers it really became the only reasonable thing to do.
http://androidandme.com/2010/03/news/droid-does-delays-no-2-1-update-today/
Steam ID: Good Life
I have gotten used to the keyboard well enough. Definitely prefer it over the two virtual ones.
If you don't want Android and can't do iPhone, you really don't have many options. WinMo 6.5 is kind of a joke imo and I am not sure when 7 is coming out. Pre looked decent, but hasn't seemed to catch in and I'm not sure how much longer it is going to be around.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
uhhh... yes, once 2.1 is loaded onto the Droid, it will have the standard 5 home screens
PSN: HooverFanPA
Steam: HooverFan
I'm reasonably certain someone from either Motorola or Verizon confirmed it was only 3 screens on like Wednesday, back when they were all supposed to roll out today.
I'm very frustrated by this 2.1 delay, mostly because I'm excited and don't want to be led on. I read that the OTA distribution company is rushing to work with a third party to get these updates out ASAP, but I hope that it isn't a week+ delay. I reallyyy hope to have live wallpapers by the end of this weekend/beginning of next week! ...but I won't bitch on blog comment sections if that doesn't happen. I'll just be disappointed until it hits.
Obviously the ideal scenario is to have the product delivered working and on time.
It would appear, however, that someone somewhere doesn't quite have their shit together and is thus causing a delay. Since I rely on my phone for a whole heck of a lot of things I suppose I would rather wait for an update that works than get a half-baked one that will require a patch right away.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
Steam ID: Good Life
Anyone else completely unable to get the Car Home application to voice dial? Every time, it just searches for "Call _____" on Google search. Looking around, I find that this is a problem most people seem to have, but there are just enough responses on forums and comments on blogs that lead me to believe it at least works for a few people-
so, anyone want to give it a try and confirm or deny?
Simply load car home, touch "Voice Search," and try it out.
Steam ID: Good Life
Is there anything you had to do: an option to enable, or some other random process other than what I listed?
It hasn't worked once
Well the 2 time's I've used it since my last post it has failed. And now that I think about it, it has been sketchier more recently. Don't know if it's the location I moved the mount to being noisier or something. :?
Steam ID: Good Life
i've never used it, but my mom got a droid the same time i did and she's never really been able to make much use of it.
Steam ID: Good Life
it has always worked for me except when i mangle words.
Sick of waiting on 2.1 and ran across this video tutorial at droid-life.
edit: well with doing other stuff at work, plus the DL times, I'm finally up to Cyanogen 5.0.5. Re-installing apps. Maps active wallpaper is pretty slick
Steam ID: Good Life
I rooted mine with DroidMod 1.0 so I could do WiFi tethering.
I didn't even know there was a version of Cyanogen for Droid. Where did you get it? I assume you can just load the ROM to your phone and just use DM1.0 to upgrade to Cyanogen?
My 2 main complaints are that Pandora does work for me and neither does navigation. I can get directions, and it will track my location, but it won't do the navigation part.
Steam ID: Good Life
edit: To clarify, this is updates to individual applications, not the phone OS.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
Yeah, I'm a silly goose for not doing my research. I have DM1.0 now, and it's OK, but I'm curious about Cyanogen. I just have concerns about switching from one to the other. I'm afraid that if I use the ROM Manager now, it will cause bad things to happen because I already have DM1.0 on it. I might have to experiment on it tonight.
The only problem I've had was that google maps nav was broken when I switched over. I uninstalled the update and reupdated and it seems to be working fine now.
Steam ID: Good Life
This would be a nice option. But I havent seen any more than 3 or 4 updates at one time and its just a couple clicks to start one update and a couple more to start the next one.
PSN: HooverFanPA
Steam: HooverFan
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Steam: Car1gt // Tumblr // Facebook // Twitter
This might be helpful, perhaps not. But for my Hero, I use the Handbrake iPhone preset to rip all videos. It works fine for the resolution, and I imagine it would be similar for the Droid. The only time I get a freeze from Handbrake is from a corrupted file/bad download.
Steam ID: Good Life
I use the car dock every day, this sounds good. I'll check it out.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
This is the guide I used, worked fine for me, and the live backgrounds are oh so sweet:
http://www.androidcentral.com/how-manually-update-your-droid-android-21
The live wallpapers and new Gallery are pretty neat. I'm definitely pretty miffed at there still only being 3 home screens. I may end up rooting now that I have 2.1 to just get more homescreens. That's really all I want more out of this phone.
Steam: Car1gt // Tumblr // Facebook // Twitter