Took The Plunge!!!

[countrygirl23]

Like what djsbad said who is my husband we both got the Iphone because I use the Ipod touch daily for my Nike + etc and thought how nice to have it all in 1. I was wrong. Don't get me wrong Iphone is a good phone but not for my need or usage. I really love the flash and the widgets.

When I go in for my surgery I don't want to have to lug my laptop to the hospital for a 3 day stay and have the Iphone with no flash. Now that I have the Droid charge I can use it for everything in my 3 day or so stay.

You will not be fooled by the Charge it is a sweet phone, very light weight which I love. I wear a leather pouch while I work and I don't even feel the phone at all on my hip, with the Iphone I feel it without the Otterbox case and using the otterbox case tends to drag your belt down a bit.

[mamawm]

Good luck with your surgery, I pray all goes well for you.

[EARL97850]

Hope all goes well with the hospital stay.

The longer I have the charge the more I like it. The only thing that might change my mind would be the release of the Motorola Bionic. If it releases before my 14 day return policy expires I might be tempted. We'll see.

Cya

[alboboy10]

The charge is great phone. Best 4G phone on Verizon by far because its battery life slaps the thunderbolt upside the head. The inc2 is the best phone on Verizon imo though. The extra RAM makes a huge difference.

Sent from my Droid Bionic

the iphone slaps both upside the head for battery but I don't own it...no one here does. Ram, memory, processor, sense, build quality...these are things that make the charge second place lte phone.

I personally like the incredible 2 as a 3g only phone. If there was no 4g in my area I'd go for that most likely.

[EARL97850]

The charge is great phone. Best 4G phone on Verizon by far because its battery life slaps the thunderbolt upside the head. The inc2 is the best phone on Verizon imo though. The extra RAM makes a huge difference.

Sent from my Droid Bionic

the iphone slaps both upside the head for battery but I don't own it...no one here does. Ram, memory, processor, sense, build quality...these are things that make the charge second place lte phone.

I personally like the incredible 2 as a 3g only phone. If there was no 4g in my area I'd go for that most likely.

Speaking of ram & memory...why does it seem to be running on 3/4 full? I routinely check and make sure no programs are running and also clear the memory, but it still hovering around 200-225...what's going on?

My wife loves her charge and while I'll have to admit I like it too...the battery issue concerns me.

On an iPhone after you jailbreak it they have a whole separate app store that specializes in jail broke iPhones...is there a market that specializes in rooted android phones?

I'm thinking I need to learn a little about rooting a charge so I can make a really informed decision of weather or not to keep the charge.

Cya

[CTownDroid]

No different market for rooted users, for the most part, only apps available to your device show up in the market. While we can go to 3rd party places for apps rooted or stock. As far as my jailbroken iPod touch, its crap compared to my rooted Droid. And I don't like to steal from the developers which is what the jailbroken apple market is doing.

[EARL97850]

That's a good point about stealing from the developers.

I really am thinking I should root my charge to really see if I want to keep it or not. If I root and freeze all the bloatware from running in the background does it increase battery life that much?

Cya

[alboboy10]

No different market for rooted users, for the most part, only apps available to your device show up in the market. While we can go to 3rd party places for apps rooted or stock. As far as my jailbroken iPod touch, its crap compared to my rooted Droid. And I don't like to steal from the developers which is what the jailbroken apple market is doing.

Ye actually they had but it crashed recently.

[rbess1965]

For battery life, try turning off Google Location Services or at least make sure Latitude is not running. If you don’t want to do that, at minimum, remove any widgets that use location services like weather or ‘Rate this place’ or at least make sure they are not automatically using it to locate your position. Use your zip code or something. I make sure all 3 location services are off and only enable one when I run something that asks for it.

Apparently people knew about this issue long before it hit the smart phone market. http://gigaom.com/mobile/google-latitude-will-it-kill-your-phones-battery/

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Mobile/thread?tid=6bcdbe3c9425039c&hl=en

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google%20Mobile/thread?tid=65078e909326f3e6&hl=en

Also turn off Background Data in Sync. Unfortunately that is what puts the ‘smart’ in smart phone because it sync’s everything and makes everything run automatically which in turn is one of the main reasons these phones drain batteries faster than a non smart phone. So if you can find a balance between having automatic email notices and better battery life, then maybe this will help a bit.

I’ve had my Droid Charge for about 2 months now and personally, I was averaging 11-12 hours of basic use which I thought was good. I turned off my Google Location Services for the first time, deactivated the Background Data, took the unit off the charger at 6:30pm and found myself looking at 24% battery left after 22hrs.

I use ‘My Profiles Lite’ to have one touch controls for Home, Car, Work & Night modes. Works great. If you try other apps that do this automatically, catch22, they require location services to sense where you are.

[EARL97850]

I tried some of those things to help battery life but every time I check the ram usage it is running around 200-260 out of 328, and there is almost always 3-9 programs running in the background.

I've shut down everything before...I mean no location devices running at all and get about 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 hrs and I'm down to 20% battery left.

That is just crazy. IMO that is unacceptable.

I really think I should send this thing back and either get the Bionic when it comes out (assuming it has good battery life) or go to the iPhone when it's new model shows up.

Cya