Greetings. Droid incoming.

BillTheCat

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In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that I am a 14 year veteran of Verizon. But I work on the landline side of the business, and have no connection to the wireless business.

I currently use a Blackberry Storm 9530. Not a bad phone, but the Droid really caught my eye. I just got the Storm in May, so I was not eligible for a contract price upgrade on the Droid.

I called *611 to ask how much they would charge me to activate a Droid if I managed to get a deal on eBay, etc. To my surprise, they offered me the Droid for $199. Not even the "$299 minus a mail-in rebate" deal- just $199 straight up.

So it is due to arrive Thursday via FedEx, and I'll have to drop by the local VZW store to have my contacts transferred over. (Unless something has changed since May, VZW doesn't have an online contacts backup for Blackberry, and I don't know if the Droid has it... I'll poke around here for that info.)

So that's my story in a nutshell. I'm going to go and start perusing these forums for reviews, thoughts, issues, surprises, etc. before I start asking questions of anyone.

To whoever set up the forum- thank you! Very glad it's here.

Bill
 
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BillTheCat

BillTheCat

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Thanks for the warm welcome, Tigger! Will you be holding onto your Storm for a while... just in case? I will. But I don't expect to ever bring it back to life. At least, not on my account. I might see if I can get $50 for it somewhere.

I work the graveyard shift, so I made my intro post from work. As I was getting ready to leave at 7 a.m., a co-worker on the day shift walked in & started waggling his Droid around just to remind me that I don't have one.

Then I told him that I am less than 48 hours from getting mine, and he mostly STFU. It's all in good fun with that guy, though, and tomorrow morning, I plan to request a Droid inspection.
 

heem

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Get the "Google Sync" app on your blackberry now. Then, once you get your droid you just put in your google account in the initial setup and you have all your contacts automagically.

Scared the crap out of me when I went to just "test" my phone before even leaving the store and it already had my wife's name and picture when I called her.
 
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BillTheCat

BillTheCat

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Get the "Google Sync" app on your blackberry now. Then, once you get your droid you just put in your google account in the initial setup and you have all your contacts automagically.

Scared the crap out of me when I went to just "test" my phone before even leaving the store and it already had my wife's name and picture when I called her.

Whoa, wait... whiskey-tango-foxtrot?!?! Google will synch your entire contacts list from the BB??? OK, here I go... if this works, I'll owe you a beer.
 
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BillTheCat

BillTheCat

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Get the "Google Sync" app on your blackberry now. Then, once you get your droid you just put in your google account in the initial setup and you have all your contacts automagically.

Scared the crap out of me when I went to just "test" my phone before even leaving the store and it already had my wife's name and picture when I called her.

Whoa, wait... whiskey-tango-foxtrot?!?! Google will synch your entire contacts list from the BB??? OK, here I go... if this works, I'll owe you a beer.

Not finding a "Google Sync" app in the BB app store. :frown:

Will keep looking/searching.

EDIT: Looking online @ Google now instead of BB App store... I'm not 100% addled. Yet.

EDIT 2: Downloading now. I may yet owe you a beer.
 
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BillTheCat

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LOL... still trying to get Google Sync to work properly. I can't force the cursor from the e-mail address field into the password field on the sign-in screen. Wonder if it's incompatible with BB OS 5.0?

I'll keep trying. Thanks for the heads up!
 
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BillTheCat

BillTheCat

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Found the problem with Google Sync on Blackberry OS 5.0.

After upgrading to 5.0, Sync will not work, even if you reinstall it. It's a simple permissions fix. This allows the app to run both portrait and landscape & allows you to place the cursor in the password field, which it would not do previously.

Be sure Google Sync is not running.
On the home screen, click "Options."
Click the upper left drop-down menu to filter for "3rd party" apps.
Highlight (do not click) "Google Sync" on the list.
Press the "menu" button. (BB logo/2nd button/next to green Phone button)
From the menu, choose "Disable Compatibility Mode."

Presto! It works.

Assuming this all syncs up with the Droid later today, I will buy a Heem a beer the next time he/she is in the greater Tampa area.
 
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BillTheCat

BillTheCat

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Droid arrived a few minutes ago. Happy to report that I owe Heem a beer. Gogle contacts synched right up. TYVM!

Now I need to go get started on some apps.
 

heem

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Glad it worked for you. It took me by surprise, since I had the google sync app already on my BB with no thought that it would do what it did. I was actually scared for a minute that verizon somehow had a picture of my wife attached to her phone number in some database ;) then of course I remembered that I had synced that stuff up to google and duh.. this is a google phone! ;)
 
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