Advice

[bjmacdow]

So...I am an unfortunate first adopter of the Blackberry Storm I. Every time I use the phone I want to throw it in the river.

I have the opportunity to upgrade in October with Big Red and have read that they are rolling out their LTE Network next year and that with the rollout will come a slew of new droid phones to work on the new high speed network, possibly sporting dual core processors, etc. As a result, I don't want to burn my upgrade in October and am thinking about getting a used Moto Droid (1) from a private seller as a bandaid phone. They are available for $200 or less and now can take 2.2. Does anyone here have any thoughts on this idea? Is the original droid fast enough even though its processor speed has been doubled already? Can it run 2.2 without crashes? Can it run most android applications without crashes? Any insight to this idea is appreciated. Thanks...

 

[Droid DOES!!]

So...I am an unfortunate first adopter of the Blackberry Storm I. Every time I use the phone I want to throw it in the river.

I have the opportunity to upgrade in October with Big Red and have read that they are rolling out their LTE Network next year and that with the rollout will come a slew of new droid phones to work on the new high speed network, possibly sporting dual core processors, etc. As a result, I don't want to burn my upgrade in October and am thinking about getting a used Moto Droid (1) from a private seller as a bandaid phone. They are available for $200 or less and now can take 2.2. Does anyone here have any thoughts on this idea? Is the original droid fast enough even though its processor speed has been doubled already? Can it run 2.2 without crashes? Can it run most android applications without crashes? Any insight to this idea is appreciated. Thanks...

Depends on where you live. If not in a major city, it may not be available in your area until around 2012 so you could be fine if you upgraded now (+/- a month or so).

 

[xliderider]

You can usually do a one year contract for $70 more than the two year contract price.

 

[Droid DOES!!]

You can usually do a one year contract for $70 more than the two year contract price.

That too! Keep in mind that, if you do a two year contract, you can upgrade again after 20 months and sometimes get an early upgrade (12 months) for $20 on top of the new phone's price.

 

[furbearingmammal]

:welcome: to the forum!

The Droid does 2.2 remarkably well, even at stock speeds. Running straight stock it is stable, fast, and will make you squee with joy instead of wanting to throw it in the river like your Storm.

I used a friend's Storm. Hated it. Couldn't figure out how to get online and surf the web even after ten minutes. I was rocking my Droid in under five and had enough of it figured out I was already impressed.

App compatibility is remarkable, but keep in mind any app problems are the dev's fault and not the phone's.

 

[Droid DOES!!]

:welcome: to the forum!

The Droid does 2.2 remarkably well, even at stock speeds. Running straight stock it is stable, fast, and will make you squee with joy instead of wanting to throw it in the river like your Storm.

I used a friend's Storm. Hated it. Couldn't figure out how to get online and surf the web even after ten minutes. I was rocking my Droid in under five and had enough of it figured out I was already impressed.

App compatibility is remarkable, but keep in mind any app problems are the dev's fault and not the phone's.

Hahaha!! Yeah, I added a line to my account and paid the ETF to get out of BlackBerry and into Android and haven't looked back! I HATED my Storm2 and...well, BlackBerry in general!!

 

[Jumper2501]

Does anyone here have any thoughts on this idea? Is the original droid fast enough even though its processor speed has been doubled already? Can it run 2.2 without crashes? Can it run most android applications without crashes? Any insight to this idea is appreciated. Thanks...

Welcome to the forum.

As for my thoughts, I was you a couple months ago. I didn't want to wait any longer (plus I went through 4 Storms in 3 weeks, long story), so I went and got a great condition used Droid and I'm thrilled. Between the phone and Android, I couldn't be happier to have said goodbye to that Storm.

 

[bjmacdow]

Whoa! Thank you for the responses. To answer the first poster, I am in Columbus, Ohio and I think they have already done LTE testing here so my guess is that it will implement earlier:

Verizon pledges two cities with LTE in 2009

I did not know about the $70 year long contract option; but my wife is carrying me on her plan as she has a 20% discount through her work so it might not apply. I will check on this option.

I am droid ready. My first smartphone was a Kyocera 7135, then several palm iterations, a windows mobile treo, then the Storm I. For the available technology at the time of owning the phone, the Storm has been a complete joke and Blackberry decided to prevent it from receiving any future OS updates months ago. Has anyone ever had a problem with 'memory drain' in which the onboard RAM drains for no reason even though you have only BB apps installed that are approved on their APP marketplace (with about 300 available APPs-200 of which are themes that cause the drain to occur faster)? This causes my phone to lock about three times per day and does not make it easy to use the phone for work.

I appreciate the positive reviews of the original droid and am thinking that finding a decent one may be the best option. My date is October 13th and I am going to re-evaluate that day to see what is out and what is on the horizon; but the Original droid may be a good option.

If anyone has any other opinions (positive or negative) of the original droid as a placeholder phone running 2.2, please comment. Thanks again! (sorry about my BB rant above...)

 

[hookbill]

A couple of things. Coming from both a Blackberry Storm 1 and 2, and now using the Droid 2 I can tell you that this technology is lightyears ahead of anything RIM is offering as of today, although I hear that 6.0 is going to finally get them in the ball park.

There is a learning curve coming from the Storm to the Droid. I was never that frustrated with my Storm, but that was a case of simply not knowing any better. I thought the Storm was fine. Ignorance is bliss. But when I got my Droid I spent the first day just kind of staring at it wondering what I was suppose to do.

Fortunately I did get past the curve, realized what junk the Storm was and have been an Android enthusiast since.

I saw your link to LTE technology and I'm sorry to say that it's not accurate. To the best of my knowledge LTE won't even start until first quarter 2011, although there have been rumors here that indicated a start in September. Hey, we are at September and nothing has started.

Completion of the system will be in 2013 IIRC or 2014. Can't say when you will see it in Columbus, but you will probably see it there before we do in Cleveland or the Cincinnati area since all the politicians are there.

I'm basing my comments off a link from CNN that I did for a Blog here in the Droid Forums. Just so you know I'm not pulling this stuff out from the sky.

Anyway, I think you'll be quite pleased if you make the change and say goog bye to RIM. It will improve but it will never be open source like Android is.

 

[bjmacdow]

HookBill,

Thanks for the reply. I have heard 2011 also. The link said 2009 and that didn't happen; but it also said that testing had already occurred in Minneapolis, Columbus, and parts of Northern New Jersey by Vodaphone, a minority owner of VZW.
This is where my question comes from. Given reports, I think I read they want 70% of their American Coverage area as LTE by end of 2011, do I burn my upgrade now, or buy an original droid until LTE is up and running and get a droid lte version at that time. Also, if you have a link to your blog, I will definitely take a look at it. Thanks.

 

[Martin030908]

LTE will roll out to select markets in 2011, I highly doubt we'll see widespread adoption in 2011.

 

[Lenagainster]

I vote for keeping your options open (by not using your upgrade in Oct) and getting a Droid 1 via eBay. (That's what I just did).

 

[takeshi]

This is where my question comes from. Given reports, I think I read they want 70% of their American Coverage area as LTE by end of 2011, do I burn my upgrade now, or buy an original droid until LTE is up and running and get a droid lte version at that time. Also, if you have a link to your blog, I will definitely take a look at it. Thanks.

If that's accurate you'll be good to go with one-year pricing. I'd assume that dates will slip given the estimated timeframe you're stating and that nothing is solidly confirmed.