yeah I know, I just set that there as a placeholder more or less.... I will update theses as I go along.
Verizon Droid....iPhone killer??
- Thread starter thowe21
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 117
- Views 11K
yeah I know, I just set that there as a placeholder more or less.... I will update theses as I go along.
What digi said. I have been discussing this over at androidforums.com with other new android users. It is very apparent that this is espevially true with android OS. Coworker with a G1 said his battery life and meter were. f'd up for about 2 weeks
I turned off the GPS to try to see what it does with the battery consumption. I did charge it, but after an hours play it was down 20% according to a battery widget I installed.
I have been playing with it pretty extensively, and its kind of amazing how responsive the device is.
I need to read some sort of Android user guide or something though, as I put a widget on my home page for The Weather Channel, and I really don't want it on that screen - since you can just drag to a blank screen, I wanted it there. BUT for the life of me I have not figured out how to remove it from the home page. I am sure I can, just need to figure out how.
The one thing that surprises me - and I guess it comes with it having such a powerful processor - is that it runs warm when you use it. But not like a laptop of anything; you can tell its working.
I wish I had more initial control over the contacts it brought in from gmail; it ended up giving me a whole bunch of old contacts that I never use anymore. Clean up is in order.
The voice dialing and voice commands have great potential.
I also downloaded a few applications, including a voice recorder, which you can then send the file you record to a gmail account. Tried it and not bad.
Much to learn, that is for sure. But first couple hours' review is :up :up :up
I have been playing with it pretty extensively, and its kind of amazing how responsive the device is.
I need to read some sort of Android user guide or something though, as I put a widget on my home page for The Weather Channel, and I really don't want it on that screen - since you can just drag to a blank screen, I wanted it there. BUT for the life of me I have not figured out how to remove it from the home page. I am sure I can, just need to figure out how.
The one thing that surprises me - and I guess it comes with it having such a powerful processor - is that it runs warm when you use it. But not like a laptop of anything; you can tell its working.
I wish I had more initial control over the contacts it brought in from gmail; it ended up giving me a whole bunch of old contacts that I never use anymore. Clean up is in order.
The voice dialing and voice commands have great potential.
I also downloaded a few applications, including a voice recorder, which you can then send the file you record to a gmail account. Tried it and not bad.
Much to learn, that is for sure. But first couple hours' review is :up :up :up
Cool. Will do. Thanks!
Just got an invisible shield at Best Buy; they apparently just arrived; they didn't have them for the rush of people this morning. Lucky me. Now if I can do a decent job and get it on the device without screwing it up.
I love the phone... very snappy and works great. Only complaint so far - how do you keep fingerprints off it
-Mike
privacy screeen 12.99 I am telling you its great!
Invisible Shield -- Zagg has improved their product in the past year. The install was easy (oh I am still working out a few air bubbles) and it eliminates finger prints and really protects the screen. Does not seem to impact the touch screen at all in terms of sensitivity.
BTW, this phone has truly been an all-day long productivity killer.
Oh, and when I was checking out at Best Buy with the Invisible SHield, the kid at the checkout said "cool, we have the Droid now" - I pulled mine out, and he started drooling over it. I showed him the voice search. I said "Best Buy" and not only did it find the Best Buy website, it automatically (based on my location) found the BB we were in, complete with a map.
NOW that is one cool application!
NOW that is one cool application!
I would facebook like this statement if we had that button...I have searched for pizza chinese, softball, sports, movies, I am really impresssed by this phone.
Yes, the google voice search is very cool especially with location services. I first saw it on the G1 my co-worker has and thats when I started getting very interested in android based phones
Found another thing that won't work on an iPhone -- Google Voice. I setup my account, it asked me if I wanted to make my calls using it. Cool.
if anyone wants 25.00 off there droid to buy at letstalk.com email me at buzzdar1@gmail.com and ill get you 25.00 off ill send you a coupon
It doesn't work right now on the iPhone but I had heard that AT&T pulled back their objection to the app. Maybe soon.
Ok, I've been running it for a day or so since I got it... here are my thoughts.
- GET A SCREEN PROTECTOR
I was foolish and figured it was Best Buy trying to oversell, but boy does the screen collect fingerprints like crazy.
- GPS is really good! Even inside it seems to be able to lock on pretty close. At work inside the metal building it seemed to be using the closest Cell tower location which is still very reasonable.
- Battery life seems good so far, no complaints yet
- Syncing Music... well I was able to use Windows Media player and Winamp, but since I have several lossless WMA files, it's been a PITA. Need to rethink those a bit.
- Cellular reception seems better than my PPC XV6800. We have poor coverage only at the house, and even here no problems on the first floor with 3G.
- Speaking of coverage, the Wifi is pretty slick too. No problems switching between the two, and it seems pretty snappy.
- On screen dialing/hanging up is taking some getting used too, I do miss my dedicated buttons, but it's not the end of the world
- Browsing seems to work very well so far, and I don't seem to miss multitouch as I've never had it.
- MarketPlace has a few gems on it, many for free! (I leave these comments to the other thread on here about favorite Android apps)
- Call quality seems fine, and speaker phone is definitely better than the XV6800 I had, even in a moving car
- Incoming call intelligence is pretty slick too. I had head phones on listening to music, incoming call came in, it autopaused the music AND routed the phone audio automatically thru the head phones, though watch the call volume or you may blow an ear drum
- Not a fan yet of the main screen and widgets, seems a bit cumbersome, but still playing with it.
- Google Voice Integration is NICE... played a bit and no problem. Just wish I could figure out why incoming calls go to voice mail?
- Voice Search is as good as everyone says it is! It seems to be very accurate, and does a good job figuring out what you want to do (ie call a person vs look up a location)
- I really miss the lack of direct (free) Outlook contact syncing, but I did export the CSV to Google Contacts, and I do like how it updates instantly
- If you use GMail, the integration is quite good so far.
- No issues with text messaging, seems to work fine, and the built in smilie was nice
- Camera so far is pretty buggy. Both for just taking pics, as well as the barcode app. Takes quite a few tries to get it to work just right. Hopefully this is a software fixable thing
- Also as other have mentioned it feels solid like a brick, but doesn't feel too heavy or akward, I think that they got it right. The thiness is appreciated, and no clumsy feel to the sliding keyboard
- Speaking of keyboard... drop the nav pad! Not sure why it's there as it has a touch screen, wish the keys were bigger or relaid out instead.
- I found a neat feature my WM didn't have was I can invidually route contacts direct to voice mail... wish I had this one in the past
:
- Facebook / contacts integration is nice, but still a bit buggy when associating to contacts. Even if name matches it works for some, but not others. But when it works, it's nice to autoassign the pictures.
Final .02... is it an iPhone replacement? Not sure as I've only played with an iPhone a couple times. I think it's probably not the phone for the average person, but for techies it is pretty slick and worth a look. So far I'm not regretting the switch from Windows Mobile.
-Mike
- GET A SCREEN PROTECTOR
I was foolish and figured it was Best Buy trying to oversell, but boy does the screen collect fingerprints like crazy.- GPS is really good! Even inside it seems to be able to lock on pretty close. At work inside the metal building it seemed to be using the closest Cell tower location which is still very reasonable.
- Battery life seems good so far, no complaints yet
- Syncing Music... well I was able to use Windows Media player and Winamp, but since I have several lossless WMA files, it's been a PITA. Need to rethink those a bit.
- Cellular reception seems better than my PPC XV6800. We have poor coverage only at the house, and even here no problems on the first floor with 3G.
- Speaking of coverage, the Wifi is pretty slick too. No problems switching between the two, and it seems pretty snappy.
- On screen dialing/hanging up is taking some getting used too, I do miss my dedicated buttons, but it's not the end of the world
- Browsing seems to work very well so far, and I don't seem to miss multitouch as I've never had it.
- MarketPlace has a few gems on it, many for free! (I leave these comments to the other thread on here about favorite Android apps)
- Call quality seems fine, and speaker phone is definitely better than the XV6800 I had, even in a moving car
- Incoming call intelligence is pretty slick too. I had head phones on listening to music, incoming call came in, it autopaused the music AND routed the phone audio automatically thru the head phones, though watch the call volume or you may blow an ear drum
- Not a fan yet of the main screen and widgets, seems a bit cumbersome, but still playing with it.
- Google Voice Integration is NICE... played a bit and no problem. Just wish I could figure out why incoming calls go to voice mail?
- Voice Search is as good as everyone says it is! It seems to be very accurate, and does a good job figuring out what you want to do (ie call a person vs look up a location)
- I really miss the lack of direct (free) Outlook contact syncing, but I did export the CSV to Google Contacts, and I do like how it updates instantly
- If you use GMail, the integration is quite good so far.
- No issues with text messaging, seems to work fine, and the built in smilie was nice
- Camera so far is pretty buggy. Both for just taking pics, as well as the barcode app. Takes quite a few tries to get it to work just right. Hopefully this is a software fixable thing
- Also as other have mentioned it feels solid like a brick, but doesn't feel too heavy or akward, I think that they got it right. The thiness is appreciated, and no clumsy feel to the sliding keyboard
- Speaking of keyboard... drop the nav pad! Not sure why it's there as it has a touch screen, wish the keys were bigger or relaid out instead.
- I found a neat feature my WM didn't have was I can invidually route contacts direct to voice mail... wish I had this one in the past
:- Facebook / contacts integration is nice, but still a bit buggy when associating to contacts. Even if name matches it works for some, but not others. But when it works, it's nice to autoassign the pictures.
Final .02... is it an iPhone replacement? Not sure as I've only played with an iPhone a couple times. I think it's probably not the phone for the average person, but for techies it is pretty slick and worth a look. So far I'm not regretting the switch from Windows Mobile.
-Mike
What follows is a draft of the review I am working on for the Droid. Suggestions welcome. I pretty much agree with what Mike said above this. Is it an ipod killer? Well, nothing short of a stake in the heart will kill those fanboys, but this thing is one impressive piece of equipment. As my wife said, its practically a tricorder.
Anyway, my preliminary review follows:
24 Hour Review: The Verizon Motorola Droid
The first thing I noticed about the droid upon opening the box was that it is a solid piece of machinery. It is mostly metal, and is a bit heavy. That is a positive, in that it does not feel like a toy; it is not in any way flimsy. The screen is huge with 854x480 resolution, and is sharp and extremely bright. The first thing I noticed with the droid was the picture quality. The best comparison is to go back a few years to the first High Resolution Palm PDAs and compare it with the original Palm III color. It is that apparent. While I do not own an iphone, I do own an ipod touch and a Samsung Omnia, and neither phone’s resolution comes close. Why Apple continued with QVGA graphics in the latest model is beyond me, but I digress... this is a review of the Droid.
The droid has a fully qwerty keyboard that slides out under it. It has a flat keyboard, which takes a little getting used to, and it has a 4-way “joystick” (of sorts) on the right, with four directional buttons and an enter button. The keyboard is a bit small for my thumbs, but it is 100 times better than not having a keyboard, and I found that I could type with little errors with just a little training. My only complaint is that the space key is a bit small, and there are two unused keys on the left and right that are unexplained, and the space could have been used for larger keys. When the keyboard is open, the screen is automatically put in landscape (or widescreen) mode. If you close the keyboard and turn the device to a landscape position the accelerometer will automatically turn it, and just touching a text entry screen will open the virtual keyboard. The virtual keyboard is very easy to use in widescreen mode, although in portrait mode, the text is too small. The keys – and the soft touch buttons on the device all have “haptic” response – i.e., the machine has a small vibration in response to the pressing of the key. Very easy to use.
When you first setup the droid, you can either create a gmail account or link to an existing one. I did the latter, and it took about five minutes to initially sync all of my contacts. But once done, it did not require any configuration. That one step not only provided me with gmail access, but also gave me access to google calendar and google talk. For my university email, I clicked on the separate email app, and very quickly setup an IMAP link. It was much easier than on windows mobile. The program gave me total customization on how often to sync with the server.
There is also Facebook integration, which is very impressive. You enter your FB login, and then decide whether you want to sync all of your facebook friends info into contacts. Since I play Mafia Wars and have a couple hundred friends who I only know through the game, I did not select that. Yet, for the individuals in my google contacts, it recognizes any friends on FB, and provides an easy link to their profile in the contacts page. This also grabs photos for contacts. Again, easy to use, and extremely powerful.
The Droid runs on Google’s Android 2.0 mobile OS. As such it marks a substantial change for folks running Windows Mobile, Blackberry, or the older Palm OS. Android comes with a marketplace of over 10,000 “apps” with which the device can be customized. Android is open-source, so there is a lot of potential for future development. I have only started to play with Android apps, but there are several good ones, such as Google Voice (for a complete VOIP solution), Pandora streaming radio, as well as a wide variety of other things, like The Weather Channel’s weather app, and Amazon’s mp3 store.
The Droid features three home pages. The main page that opens after you unlock the device (with a swish of the finger on a virtual dial) has default application shortcuts. You can drag up a full program menu from the bottom (or side – depending on orientation) with all installed programs. You can also drag the main screen to the left or the right for two additional screens which can be customized with application shortcuts as well as “widgets.” I have added a widget for The Weather Channel and for Google Calendar on one screen, and shortcuts to my wife and son’s contacts on the left screen.
The main screen also has a notification bar on the top of the screen, which lists new emails, missed phone calls, voice mail, etc... You drag on the bar and pull it down and it opens (like a blind) and you see all of your notifications. It is very easy to use. When done, you close the blind by dragging the button up. Finally, the main screen has a google search toolbar with a buton for voice search. Voice search is impressive. You hit the button it brings up a box and says “listening.” You say “Call Joe at home” and it opens the phone app and places you one click away from dialing. Or say “Best Buy” and assuming the GPS has been turned on, it will bring up a google search page with Best Buy’s page for the local store, complete with a google map. Very cool. Speaking of GPS, Droid comes with the new Google Maps GPS-enabled mapping software. It can identify where you are and provide point to point directions. And the map quality just shines on the high resolution screen.
The OS feels like it was designed for a touch screen from the ground up, unlike Windows Mobile 6.1, which is so Windows-like, you absolutely need a stylus to get almost anything done. In this sense, Android is similar to the iPhone’s interface. The difference in Android is that you can multi-task and run several applications at once. The other difference is that you cannot use multi-touch features like on the iPhone. From my experience with the ipod touch, that feature is over-rated.
The Android OS includes a full-featured browser. The browser is one of the “wow” factors, given the huge screen. For many websites, you can load the “full” site as opposed to the mobile version. In widescreen mode the browser is slick. You can zoom in and out with a finger touch, plus there are multiple layers of zoom with a zoom button on the screen. It is very easy to use.
The last feature I’ll touch on here is the 5 megapixel camera. So far, I am unimpressed with it. I don’t expect good results with a camera phone in dark situations, and the Droid does not disappoint. Its performance is no better than my Omnia, even though it has a dual flash feature. I am still experimenting with the camera in outdoor settings.
Finally, a bit of advice. Protect the screen. Go buy a Zagg Invisible Shield. It is incredibly high quality and does a great job to ensure that the iphone-killing high resolution screen you spent a lot of money on stays in great shape.
Anyway, my preliminary review follows:
24 Hour Review: The Verizon Motorola Droid
The first thing I noticed about the droid upon opening the box was that it is a solid piece of machinery. It is mostly metal, and is a bit heavy. That is a positive, in that it does not feel like a toy; it is not in any way flimsy. The screen is huge with 854x480 resolution, and is sharp and extremely bright. The first thing I noticed with the droid was the picture quality. The best comparison is to go back a few years to the first High Resolution Palm PDAs and compare it with the original Palm III color. It is that apparent. While I do not own an iphone, I do own an ipod touch and a Samsung Omnia, and neither phone’s resolution comes close. Why Apple continued with QVGA graphics in the latest model is beyond me, but I digress... this is a review of the Droid.
The droid has a fully qwerty keyboard that slides out under it. It has a flat keyboard, which takes a little getting used to, and it has a 4-way “joystick” (of sorts) on the right, with four directional buttons and an enter button. The keyboard is a bit small for my thumbs, but it is 100 times better than not having a keyboard, and I found that I could type with little errors with just a little training. My only complaint is that the space key is a bit small, and there are two unused keys on the left and right that are unexplained, and the space could have been used for larger keys. When the keyboard is open, the screen is automatically put in landscape (or widescreen) mode. If you close the keyboard and turn the device to a landscape position the accelerometer will automatically turn it, and just touching a text entry screen will open the virtual keyboard. The virtual keyboard is very easy to use in widescreen mode, although in portrait mode, the text is too small. The keys – and the soft touch buttons on the device all have “haptic” response – i.e., the machine has a small vibration in response to the pressing of the key. Very easy to use.
When you first setup the droid, you can either create a gmail account or link to an existing one. I did the latter, and it took about five minutes to initially sync all of my contacts. But once done, it did not require any configuration. That one step not only provided me with gmail access, but also gave me access to google calendar and google talk. For my university email, I clicked on the separate email app, and very quickly setup an IMAP link. It was much easier than on windows mobile. The program gave me total customization on how often to sync with the server.
There is also Facebook integration, which is very impressive. You enter your FB login, and then decide whether you want to sync all of your facebook friends info into contacts. Since I play Mafia Wars and have a couple hundred friends who I only know through the game, I did not select that. Yet, for the individuals in my google contacts, it recognizes any friends on FB, and provides an easy link to their profile in the contacts page. This also grabs photos for contacts. Again, easy to use, and extremely powerful.
The Droid runs on Google’s Android 2.0 mobile OS. As such it marks a substantial change for folks running Windows Mobile, Blackberry, or the older Palm OS. Android comes with a marketplace of over 10,000 “apps” with which the device can be customized. Android is open-source, so there is a lot of potential for future development. I have only started to play with Android apps, but there are several good ones, such as Google Voice (for a complete VOIP solution), Pandora streaming radio, as well as a wide variety of other things, like The Weather Channel’s weather app, and Amazon’s mp3 store.
The Droid features three home pages. The main page that opens after you unlock the device (with a swish of the finger on a virtual dial) has default application shortcuts. You can drag up a full program menu from the bottom (or side – depending on orientation) with all installed programs. You can also drag the main screen to the left or the right for two additional screens which can be customized with application shortcuts as well as “widgets.” I have added a widget for The Weather Channel and for Google Calendar on one screen, and shortcuts to my wife and son’s contacts on the left screen.
The main screen also has a notification bar on the top of the screen, which lists new emails, missed phone calls, voice mail, etc... You drag on the bar and pull it down and it opens (like a blind) and you see all of your notifications. It is very easy to use. When done, you close the blind by dragging the button up. Finally, the main screen has a google search toolbar with a buton for voice search. Voice search is impressive. You hit the button it brings up a box and says “listening.” You say “Call Joe at home” and it opens the phone app and places you one click away from dialing. Or say “Best Buy” and assuming the GPS has been turned on, it will bring up a google search page with Best Buy’s page for the local store, complete with a google map. Very cool. Speaking of GPS, Droid comes with the new Google Maps GPS-enabled mapping software. It can identify where you are and provide point to point directions. And the map quality just shines on the high resolution screen.
The OS feels like it was designed for a touch screen from the ground up, unlike Windows Mobile 6.1, which is so Windows-like, you absolutely need a stylus to get almost anything done. In this sense, Android is similar to the iPhone’s interface. The difference in Android is that you can multi-task and run several applications at once. The other difference is that you cannot use multi-touch features like on the iPhone. From my experience with the ipod touch, that feature is over-rated.
The Android OS includes a full-featured browser. The browser is one of the “wow” factors, given the huge screen. For many websites, you can load the “full” site as opposed to the mobile version. In widescreen mode the browser is slick. You can zoom in and out with a finger touch, plus there are multiple layers of zoom with a zoom button on the screen. It is very easy to use.
The last feature I’ll touch on here is the 5 megapixel camera. So far, I am unimpressed with it. I don’t expect good results with a camera phone in dark situations, and the Droid does not disappoint. Its performance is no better than my Omnia, even though it has a dual flash feature. I am still experimenting with the camera in outdoor settings.
Finally, a bit of advice. Protect the screen. Go buy a Zagg Invisible Shield. It is incredibly high quality and does a great job to ensure that the iphone-killing high resolution screen you spent a lot of money on stays in great shape.
You might try playing with the ISO setting on the Camera if it has same. The Hero from HTC does, and it makes a BIG difference in the photo quality of the camera. (and any other settings the camera offers. It's a camera!).
Droid won't be yet since most people, who use iphone are not techquie such as my girl friend. They only want simple and easily use phone such as iphone. But to me, Droid, nokia n900 are iphone killer.
