Jim Dick
Moderator Emeritus
Jeff,
I know what you mean. Been doing that with HBO/Max for a long time. Going to drop that also. ;D
I know what you mean. Been doing that with HBO/Max for a long time. Going to drop that also. ;D
Android platform phones
- Thread starter DaveJodi
- Start date
The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
Bob Buchanan
Well-known member
Tom said:
An iPod with a browser ???
That brings up the fact that as SmartPhones move along, the need for music boxes is less and less. Have not used my iPod since I got my Omnia Smart Phone earlier this year. Being Windows based, I just drag music and videos over via WinExplorer. Happiness is saying goodbye to iTunes . . .
As far as the review video is concerned, I would check it out at a Vz store as well. In Goodyear, I was fortunate to find a Vz sales person that knew the Omnia very well. Another thing I do is ask how many of the sales force at a store have the phone I am looking at as their personal phone. In Goodyear, 4 of them had Omnia's.
Tom
Administrator
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Posts
- 51,941
[quote author=Bob Buchanan]An iPod with a browser ???[/quote]
Yes, it's the iPod that looks like an iPhone, has all the same features, but doesn't have the phone feature. While looking around for a phone recently, I bought the iPod so I could see what those features were and how well they worked, without committing to an AT&T plan.
That's what got me looking closer at Blackberry products.
Yes, it's the iPod that looks like an iPhone, has all the same features, but doesn't have the phone feature. While looking around for a phone recently, I bought the iPod so I could see what those features were and how well they worked, without committing to an AT&T plan.
That's what got me looking closer at Blackberry products.
Tom
Administrator
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Posts
- 51,941
Change of plans...
After playing around with several phones today, I ruled out the Motorola Droid because it's too heavy and the keyboard is too small. I also ruled out the Storm2 because of the clunky on-screen keyboard. I don't mean to suggest that there's anything "wrong" with either of these phones, they're just not for me.
I opted for the HTC Droid Eris. It runs the Android OS, has access to all the same stuff as the Motorola Droid, and is much lighter. The Eris cost $99 after $100 rebate, but I had to buy it at a VZ corporate store. So, instead of the Costco 90 days, I have only 30 days to change my mind.
I'll let you know how it works out. Meanwhile, I'll probably be returning the iPod whateveritscalled.
After playing around with several phones today, I ruled out the Motorola Droid because it's too heavy and the keyboard is too small. I also ruled out the Storm2 because of the clunky on-screen keyboard. I don't mean to suggest that there's anything "wrong" with either of these phones, they're just not for me.
I opted for the HTC Droid Eris. It runs the Android OS, has access to all the same stuff as the Motorola Droid, and is much lighter. The Eris cost $99 after $100 rebate, but I had to buy it at a VZ corporate store. So, instead of the Costco 90 days, I have only 30 days to change my mind.
I'll let you know how it works out. Meanwhile, I'll probably be returning the iPod whateveritscalled.
Phil
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2005
- Posts
- 982
Jeff said:
Jeff,
I ran some speed tests with the Droid tethered with PDA net and it is about the same speed as the Storm using VZ Access Manager. Verizon told me that VZ Access Manager will available "soon."
The Droid can also be used as a USB Wifi adapter while it is tethered. If the Droid has internet access from either Verizon or Wifi, it will let the tethered computer use the internet.
Phil
Jim Dick
Moderator Emeritus
Tom,
I agree with your assessment of the DROID. It is heavy and the key board is really small. I really don't need all the bells and whistles and the text is really difficult to read even at zoom. I expect I'll return mine next week. I'd like something that's easy to use but has a removable card for data. Will have to do more research.
It's going to be hard to beat my Motorola 385I for ease of use. I think that's the model. It just doesn't have extra features.
I agree with your assessment of the DROID. It is heavy and the key board is really small. I really don't need all the bells and whistles and the text is really difficult to read even at zoom. I expect I'll return mine next week. I'd like something that's easy to use but has a removable card for data. Will have to do more research.
It's going to be hard to beat my Motorola 385I for ease of use. I think that's the model.
It just doesn't have extra features.
FrontrangeRVer
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2008
- Posts
- 1,433
Im waiting on the Blackberry "Essex" which will be replacing the Blackberry Tour out now.....hopefully in a month or so!
Tom said:
Tom:
I have been using a Verizon (HTC) 6900 for a year and a half running Windows Mobile. Good little phone except the battery will barely last the day when using a lot of data. I'll be waiting to see how you like it. I looked at a Droid today and also don't care for the keyboard. I have been using Graffiti for over 10 years and will have to get used to someone's keyboard soon I guess; couldn't find mention of Android offering it.
Tom
Administrator
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Posts
- 51,941
Jeff,
Android has something called 'Gestures' which allows app developers to build their own libraries equivalent to Graffiti. See here. I haven't yet looked for any apps using Gestures.
It's been quite a few years since I used Graffiti - on one of the early Palm Pilots. I wasn't really very accurate with it &/or it didn't have enough tolerance for my poor penmanship.
Android has something called 'Gestures' which allows app developers to build their own libraries equivalent to Graffiti. See here. I haven't yet looked for any apps using Gestures.
It's been quite a few years since I used Graffiti - on one of the early Palm Pilots. I wasn't really very accurate with it &/or it didn't have enough tolerance for my poor penmanship.
Tom
Administrator
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Posts
- 51,941
[quote author=Bob Buchanan]The biggest OOPs I noticed was the speed of the Storm2.[/quote]
While I was a VZ store yesterday, I had an opportunity to run the Droid and the Storm2 alongside each other. On a test similar to the one in the video, there was very little difference in browser speed. In fact, on this limited test, the Storm2 rendered the page a fraction of a second faster than the Droid. Methinks there's something fishy about that review.
As mentioned in another message, I rejected the Storm2 for an unrelated reason.
While I was a VZ store yesterday, I had an opportunity to run the Droid and the Storm2 alongside each other. On a test similar to the one in the video, there was very little difference in browser speed. In fact, on this limited test, the Storm2 rendered the page a fraction of a second faster than the Droid. Methinks there's something fishy about that review.
As mentioned in another message, I rejected the Storm2 for an unrelated reason.
Pierat
Well-known member
I think that I read somewhere that Verizon is expected to have an iPhone by Fall, 2010 -- perhaps an upgraded one. (No Apple bashers, please; it's just one available choice.)
rhmahoney
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2005
- Posts
- 1,405
My latest favorite app for the iPhone is Cardstar.
It displays the barcode for reward program cards from grocery stores, bookstores, etc.
So far have entered about a dozen card and have used one- Fry's grocery. Fry's gas pump has laser card reader and may work there also. Safeway grocery gas pumps only have magstrip readers, so no go.
It displays the barcode for reward program cards from grocery stores, bookstores, etc.
So far have entered about a dozen card and have used one- Fry's grocery. Fry's gas pump has laser card reader and may work there also. Safeway grocery gas pumps only have magstrip readers, so no go.
Bob Buchanan
Well-known member
Pierat said:
Aw shucks . . .
An Apple Basher
Phil
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2005
- Posts
- 982
rhmahoney said:
Russ,
I'm glad that the iPhone finally got the barcode program. ;D
(Yes, it's one of the apps on my Droid)
Phil
I've had the Droid for 24 hours and have been able to explore many of its capabilities.
Pros: The large, bright, touch screen. Gestures are easy to perform and the screen responds quickly.
The home screen is actually 3 screens, with the other 2 accessible with a left or right swipe. There is room for 12 application icons on each screen, giving quick access to up to 36 applications. The Applications button gives access to all of the installed apps. It's scrollable so there doesn't appear to be any limit.
Storage is not a problem. With 34 applications and several widgets installed, there is still about 232MB of internal storage left. Pictures, videos, and songs are all stored on the included 16GB SD card.
Plugging the USB cable in doesn't automatically mount the Droid as a disk drive, you tell it to mount via a notification message. Unlike some of the reviewers, I consider this an advantage as it allows me to charge the Droid via USB and not have the device pop up as a drive every time I plug it in. Copying files to and from the Droid is simple drag and drop. No drivers were need when I connected it to my Vista 64 desktop and Windows 7 netbook.
The on screen keyboard is easy to use with a little practice. I find I rarely use the slideout keyboard for text entry.
The browser is very good, displaying web pages clearly. A double tap zooms in for pages not formatted for a small screen.
Once I entered my Google account credentials, the Droid picked up my Gmail contacts. I did have to export my old phone book from the Verizon Backup Assistant web site to a CSV file and import it into Gmail, and then all those entries showed up in my contacts as well. It even merged email addresses and phone numbers when the names matched. There is one contact list for email, SMS, and voice calls. It also picked up my Google calendars.
Setting up an IMAP account for my personal email was a snap.
The GPS mapping application is really nice. John Dvorak may have been right when he said this could spell the end of the standalone GPS receivers There's even a car mount available for the Droid.
Cons: It takes two motions to waken the phone, one to push the power button to wake it up, and then you slide a lock icon to the side to unlock the screen. I suppose this makes it more foolproof with the touch screen.
To turn the various radios on and off (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth) requires going into the settings menus and several clicks. However, a Power application solves that giving one button toggling on the home screen.
Voice dialing isn't available with a Bluetooth headset, but that is expected to be added in a future update. I've never made much use of that feature on my other phones so it isn't a real problem
Overall, I really like this phone. Oh, it does make phone calls easily and the call quality was good for the few calls I've made and received. My Jawbone BT headset paired with the Droid with no problems. I haven't done much with the camera yet, but it's 5MP with autofocus. It also takes video. I've installed about a dozen applications, all free so far, and all have worked as designed. A couple I tried didn't work will on this phone, and they were uninstalled. There is an application manager that makes all this easy. I did not install the flashlight app
Pros: The large, bright, touch screen. Gestures are easy to perform and the screen responds quickly.
The home screen is actually 3 screens, with the other 2 accessible with a left or right swipe. There is room for 12 application icons on each screen, giving quick access to up to 36 applications. The Applications button gives access to all of the installed apps. It's scrollable so there doesn't appear to be any limit.
Storage is not a problem. With 34 applications and several widgets installed, there is still about 232MB of internal storage left. Pictures, videos, and songs are all stored on the included 16GB SD card.
Plugging the USB cable in doesn't automatically mount the Droid as a disk drive, you tell it to mount via a notification message. Unlike some of the reviewers, I consider this an advantage as it allows me to charge the Droid via USB and not have the device pop up as a drive every time I plug it in. Copying files to and from the Droid is simple drag and drop. No drivers were need when I connected it to my Vista 64 desktop and Windows 7 netbook.
The on screen keyboard is easy to use with a little practice. I find I rarely use the slideout keyboard for text entry.
The browser is very good, displaying web pages clearly. A double tap zooms in for pages not formatted for a small screen.
Once I entered my Google account credentials, the Droid picked up my Gmail contacts. I did have to export my old phone book from the Verizon Backup Assistant web site to a CSV file and import it into Gmail, and then all those entries showed up in my contacts as well. It even merged email addresses and phone numbers when the names matched. There is one contact list for email, SMS, and voice calls. It also picked up my Google calendars.
Setting up an IMAP account for my personal email was a snap.
The GPS mapping application is really nice. John Dvorak may have been right when he said this could spell the end of the standalone GPS receivers
There's even a car mount available for the Droid.Cons: It takes two motions to waken the phone, one to push the power button to wake it up, and then you slide a lock icon to the side to unlock the screen. I suppose this makes it more foolproof with the touch screen.
To turn the various radios on and off (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth) requires going into the settings menus and several clicks. However, a Power application solves that giving one button toggling on the home screen.
Voice dialing isn't available with a Bluetooth headset, but that is expected to be added in a future update. I've never made much use of that feature on my other phones so it isn't a real problem
Overall, I really like this phone. Oh, it does make phone calls easily and the call quality was good for the few calls I've made and received. My Jawbone BT headset paired with the Droid with no problems. I haven't done much with the camera yet, but it's 5MP with autofocus. It also takes video. I've installed about a dozen applications, all free so far, and all have worked as designed. A couple I tried didn't work will on this phone, and they were uninstalled. There is an application manager that makes all this easy. I did not install the flashlight app
Tom
Administrator
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Posts
- 51,941
Funny you should post that Ned. I drafted this yesterday, but was going to wait until I've done more exploration before posting it.
I've only had the HTC Droid Eris for a little over a day, and I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities, but thought I'd share some immediate first impressions.
There's a lot of similarity between the user interface of Droid and iPod/iPhone.
I quickly got to appreciate what others have termed "free from iTunes". Being open source, it's so easy for folks to develop applications and make them available via Android Market. There's a huge number of apps available for download from the Market at the touch of an icon. Many apps are free, while others are relatively inexpensive.
On the flip side, this reminds me of all the apps that were available for the various Palm OS devices I've owned.I I'm also reminded that some of those apps were flaky, did not work, or caused the device to hang up. I've already experienced a couple of Android apps that are a bit flaky, and a number on the Market either have such comments in the reviews, or even have caveats posted by the author. This contrasts with Apple's philosophy of verifying software before it's released, and the software works.
WiFi works quite well, and I'm able to find and select from any sites in range. (I'm at home, so I know which ones are around us, in addiition to the one I have hooked to cable and one I have set up with my VZ air card and Cradlepoint router.)
Battery life looks like it's not much more than a day, but that's probably because I've been giving this device a workout. I'll get a better idea when I settle down to more normal usage.
So far, this looks like a keeper, but I'll be making a final decision before my 30 days is up.
[edit]Fixed typos.[/edit]
I've only had the HTC Droid Eris for a little over a day, and I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities, but thought I'd share some immediate first impressions.
There's a lot of similarity between the user interface of Droid and iPod/iPhone.
I quickly got to appreciate what others have termed "free from iTunes". Being open source, it's so easy for folks to develop applications and make them available via Android Market. There's a huge number of apps available for download from the Market at the touch of an icon. Many apps are free, while others are relatively inexpensive.
On the flip side, this reminds me of all the apps that were available for the various Palm OS devices I've owned.
WiFi works quite well, and I'm able to find and select from any sites in range. (I'm at home, so I know which ones are around us, in addiition to the one I have hooked to cable and one I have set up with my VZ air card and Cradlepoint router.)
Battery life looks like it's not much more than a day, but that's probably because I've been giving this device a workout. I'll get a better idea when I settle down to more normal usage.
So far, this looks like a keeper, but I'll be making a final decision before my 30 days is up.
[edit]Fixed typos.[/edit]
Your experience with buggy apps is consistent with mine. The few that I did try that either didn't work or crashed, had reviews reporting the problems, but none of them had any effect on the OS nor did they lock up the phone. I've had a number of lockups of my Palm T|X due to buggy apps. I stick with those rated 4 stars or better now I'll take the open source model of Android over Apple's draconian Apple store any day.
I didn't mention my speed test. I got 1166kbps down and 589kbps up yesterday and 1906kbps down and 167kbps up just now in our marginal VZW area.
I'll take the open source model of Android over Apple's draconian Apple store any day.I didn't mention my speed test. I got 1166kbps down and 589kbps up yesterday and 1906kbps down and 167kbps up just now in our marginal VZW area.
Tom
Administrator
- Joined
- Jan 13, 2005
- Posts
- 51,941
I haven't seen any apps cause the device to crash, but several got hung up. There are numerous reports of apps crashing Android devices. I too only download the higher rated apps, but obviously some of those reviews aren't accurate.
I won't debate Apple vs anything, but their software and hardware work. Remember, I'm a PC guy
I didn't mention speed, because it's more a function of the network than the device. Can't recall all the numbers I got over the last few days, but just ran a test and got 2357 kbps down and 724 kbps up.
testmy.net on my PC using the 6Mb (they call it huge) test just gave me 3194 Kbps down. Up didn't work for some reason.
I won't debate Apple vs anything, but their software and hardware work. Remember, I'm a PC guy
I didn't mention speed, because it's more a function of the network than the device. Can't recall all the numbers I got over the last few days, but just ran a test and got 2357 kbps down and 724 kbps up.
testmy.net on my PC using the 6Mb (they call it huge) test just gave me 3194 Kbps down. Up didn't work for some reason.
Jim Dick
Moderator Emeritus
I've had the DROID for about a week. It is slick and should be easy to use once you find all the pertinent information. I was at a mall today where I should have received a good signal. It wasn't until I got home that I found the phone was on airplane mode. I have no idea how it got there. That causes it not to work for anything other than apps. The "manual" is a fold out slick and glossy that shows the basic functions but you have to access the web to find the real instructions. Not something to do on the phone.
I find the screen for mapping is way too small to be visible by a driver of the vehicle. A window mount would definitely put it out of sight for most of us. I haven't found any voice prompts so one must watch the screen to see if they are on course. Voice prompts definitely would help replace separate GPS units.
I'm still undecided about this phone but it's fun to fool around with the various screens. I have not found a listing of missed calls as in most phones. It's a foreign world when compared to normal cell phones which means a learning curve that may or may not be steep.
I find the screen for mapping is way too small to be visible by a driver of the vehicle. A window mount would definitely put it out of sight for most of us.
I haven't found any voice prompts so one must watch the screen to see if they are on course. Voice prompts definitely would help replace separate GPS units.I'm still undecided about this phone but it's fun to fool around with the various screens. I have not found a listing of missed calls as in most phones. It's a foreign world when compared to normal cell phones which means a learning curve that may or may not be steep.
