love hate

[Mamaperk]

Warning: This post contains a bunch of complaining ... I've been holding much of this in because I don't want to ADMIT this many problems with the Droid to 'outsiders' ... I have to come here to vent so beware and don't read on unless you want to offer support.

I admit that I have a love-hate relationship with my Droid ... I want to LOVE LOVE LOVE this thing ... and compared to past phones there are so many things I love about it ... customization is awesome, the screen is amazing, etc ... but I really do question so many choices made with the design of the phone ... I hate the double lock feature and think that should have been a choice for people who want that feature.

The camera ... yikes. It's not great and I've been fooling around with the different settings and various apps to get it to work better but the camera kinda sucks and I think that's a known complaint from many users. Just quickly comparing pics in low-light conditions to my friend's pics that she took of my newborn with her iPhone last year, they are both similar in that they are grainy, look like 'camera phone' pics rather than clear and crisp and what you might expect from the way the droid was promoted. "With a 5MP camera, dual LED flash, image stabilization and 4X digital zoom" ... did not live up to my expectations at all and I rarely ... I mean maybe one in 30 or 40 pics, am able to keep a pic that I take with the Droid so I pick up my digital camera instead. It's SO slow between shots and unless I'm outside or in very well lit conditions, the camera just does not take great pics.

I am still struggling with the faulty sensor or whatever the issue is where my phone wakes up during phone calls and my cheeks or wind or ghosts start pushing buttons and mute the call which ultimately ends in a disconnected call. People that know me KNOW I'm talking to them via Droid and keep hanging up on them so this looks pretty bad for Droid IMO. This is my third one and nobody from Motorola or Verizon seems to have any answers so I had to 'rig' the damn thing myself with a freakin' piece of electrical tape to hide the proximity sensor and train myself to lock the phone immediately during calls. (there are several threads here and other places with many people experiencing the same issue) After I had the second one replaced during my initial 30 days, the Verizon tech support said an update was coming out mid January and that perhaps this issue would be covered. NOT! The electrical tape fix has helped a lot but it's still not 100% and I am more than frustrated with this issue.

I have the gmail and email set up on this phone and 'email' (is that exchange ? that I keep hearing complaints about) is set for comcast mail ... it is terrible. Doesn't load new messages, and when it does and I scroll to get older new msgs. it says "Load more messages" but no matter how many times I click it, spin a dead cat over my head three times and do a freakin' dance it still does not load those messages correctly. It's not a make or break issue so I basically
ignored it and checked email from my laptop but still...

When I try to place a shortcut on the home page, it is SO laggy ... sometimes it takes 35 - 50 seconds to load the applications for me to choose ... I thought maybe it was too many apps so I did a factory reset but it was still really slow. How many apps are too many? I go in and clean house every so often but probably have 75 in the drawer.

grrrr... maybe I'm just grumpy but it seems to me that a phone that cost this much money should at least work as it's supposed to.

I hate to sound negative ... I wanna love this phone and show it off to people but I have a lot of issues with it that keeps me from doing that. I have never owned a smart phone or iPhone or anything so I have no point of reference for comparison but when my brother and SIL were here with their iPhones over the holiday, my screen was better and bigger, and the droid has the physical keyboard but other than that, it seemed much more laggy. I kept blaming it on myself saying I had not had it long enough to learn how to do anything with it but jeez, I've now had this thing for 2 mos and have played with it for hours each day so I'm not taking the blame anymore. LOL! I mean, user error and learning curve aside ... the phone does not work as it should to make calls.

VZW will replace it but damn, I want to have a phone that works and keep it ... this is my 3rd Droid already ... all replaced for the faulty proximity sensor and two minutes after I got this one on 1/2/10, it was doing the exact same thing as the other two with the cheek dialing, muting, etc.

Did people with iPhones have this many issues out of the box? Just wondering.

Ok, rant over. Thanks for reading if you have gotten this far.

 

[nerdbox08]

Hey there

I think there are many people around here who have a love hate relationship with the Droid, it happens, as it will with any major device.

First and foremost, as with any piece of equipment that can almost cook you breakfast, there are going to be issues. We have to consider the fact that we've backed a young idea and are the primary 'alpha' testers so to speak. I've never heard of a company being able to get all the bugs worked out of their products before they go live; it's the nature of the beast.

Apple had it's bumps over the course of time and that's what they have behind them that Google doesn't, right now. As time goes on and Google/Motorola listen to what their customers say, much as Apple did, the product will grow. The OS will grow to meet the expectations of what we expect this phone to already be.

The camera, I agree, could work much, much better. While I was rooted, it did work better. You could consider rooting to unleash the full potential of the phone. Or you can wait for 2.1 and see if that helps at all. I would say 'It's a phone not a camera, go get a camera if you want stellar photos" BUT they toted this camera and it was one of the features they always threw around, so I'm mad about this one myself. I don't think you should upsell something if you don't want backlash about it.

There has been some issue with the sensor and it sucks you're on the third one, I've personally never had this problem. That's not one I know how to fix or give you any advice for, other than with time, Moto will sort it out. Will there be a fix on this version of the Droid? I would probably say no, but evolution is a wonderful thing.

I realize people are saying 'I shouldn't need to get an app for that', but that's another wonderful feature of this phone/OS, you can get an app. It's open source. It is living up to the potential here. For the email, have you tried an app? I use K-9 and it pushes from Gmail instantly. Much faster than the stock application. I'm not sure how well it works with other providers, I don't have any other email accounts to push to. You could also try forwarding your Comcast mail to Gmail and see if that helps in the delay? I know the stock application is garbage.

The icon placement, again, I've not personally experienced issues but I might just be very lucky. Some people do experience some lag. There is a huge debate on task killer apps, some say you don't need them, some say they work great. You can try one of those to see if it helps with lagginess. I've tried a couple, but I can't say I noticed a difference.

It's okay to rant! I might be a little bit more apprehensive to say that if you were complaining about how you were promised something with the phone, but I think these are legitimate concerns and frustrations. I just would like to reiterate that this is very much the maiden voyage of such a young group of companies. It might not be the first android phone, but pumping so much into the phone itself, then throwing the fledgling OS on it will make for some interesting situations.

For all the problems you said you had, I don't think 4 is such a huge number when you compare them against everything that works well, if not good. And while four might SEEM like a huge number based on what they are, it still isn't that many

My suggestion: While rooting voids your warranty, I would suggest rooting. If done properly you can always go back to your stock, out of the box installation if need be(It's almost impossible to brick a Droid. *Almost* But I think I've read about a single actual brick, no more). Also pick up K-9 and see how that works out for you.

Good luck

 

[hookbill]

See your whole issue really extends over the fact that you've never had a smart phone before. If you had ever experienced a Blackberry Storm or some of the other phones that are out there, you'd be singing a little bit of a different tune.

These phones are not computers, despite what people may think, say or want and they are going to have issues. Trust me, I'm having a major signal issue right now and I want to throw mine against the wall. But you got to understand that you may need to lower your expectations some. I'm not belittling your rant, and it's a good one, I'm just telling you from personal experience that you do have the best available.

I keep saying it all the time, everybody should own a Blackberry Storm before owning a Droid. Then you can truly appreciate how good the phone is.

 

[OyVOid]

Mamaperk,

I hear you. I did make it to the end of your post. Doing the ritual dance before use may not be too far-fetched. LOL!

You'll probably get posters down the line telling you to suck it up and return it if you don't like it, but I believe you have a right to express your opinions. Hear is my 2 cents.

I've had my Droid for going on 2 1/2 months. I do have a love/hate/love relationship with my Droid. It's grown on me. I am still learning. But for the most part I am loving my Droid.
- It wakes me up in the morning to face another dark cloudy yet lovely day.
-The commuter train app lets me know I am about to miss my train in 1 minute.
- The music player keeps me happy at work so that I don't act on implusive to strangle my co-workers sending me on a permanent medical leave.
-The calorie counter lets me know that the chocolate covered cookie I've been eyeing would be a deteriment to my already losing battle of the bulge.
-The Google search allows me to search anything I want so that by boss doesn't have to know what I am searching on the work computer.
-I love being able to go anywhere take my pictures and use it as my wallpaper. Cool. The print out isn't too great but on my phone it's clear.

I could go on for pages of all the things I do with my Droid, but I won't lest bore the other readers to zzzzzzzz. On the flip side, there are things I don't know the Droid "can do" just because I haven't had the time to find out. And mainly because I don't want to be that person glued to phone 24/7. I have a BF that requires feeding and watering sometimes, besides my plants. The Droid has endless possiblities and it really depends on the end-user to make it work the way that best fits their needs. My advice: stay on this forum and learn as you go. Good luck and happy Droid-ing.

 

[Detonation]

Haven't had any problems with the proximity sensor. Been on calls that have been an hour+ without any issue. Did a quick search and found out hair affects the sensor. Do you have sideburns or long hair over your ear? If you're on your 3rd phone and its still happening, it sounds like it has something to do with the way you're using the phone, not necessarily a defective one each time.

I experienced the same email issues where it would stop loading my messages (I was using a POP account). Apparently if you have a large inbox on the email server this happens. I found rebooting the phone fixed this, but I ultimately just had my POP email be received through Gmail instead. One inbox makes things a lot simpler.

Adding app shortcuts via long press > shortcuts > apps does seem to take a while to load, but its much easier and quicker to just long press the icon in the drawer and drag it onto the homescreen.

 

[nerdbox08]

Adding app shortcuts via long press > shortcuts > apps does seem to take a while to load, but its much easier and quicker to just long press the icon in the drawer and drag it onto the homescreen.

Sometimes the apps have a widget that can only be put onto the screen via the long press, so if it's a widget you have to deal with the 'lag'. =\

That's another thing, widgets are a constant load. Less widgets = less load = less lag.

Shortcuts are different, they are just... shortcuts, lol.

 

[Mamaperk]

Thanks for the support! I appreciate having this place to come to for knowledge and support ... this is the best forum! I really do want to

I have considered exchanging this Droid and hoping that my 4th would have a working proximity sensor ... if that in and of itself was resolved I'd probably not feel this way. I just hate that I have to go through the process of exchanging and then customizing again, setting up my preferences, accounts, etc and 'redecorating' (LOL) a new Droid when there is a chance that my 4th would have the same issue. I desperately tried to get people from Moto and VZW to listen to me on this issue ... someone suggested printing out the many pages of complaints on the forums and taking it in so when they claim they have not heard of it and look at you like you are insane, you have some proof to help back up your claim. VZW customer service when I call but I'm not crazy about the support you get in person at Verizon stores. I've collected a bunch of links where people have discussed the issue and nobody has gotten any true help other than being told we can return it, blah blah blah. Moto said it is not a known issue and VZW said I could exchange my Droid for a different phone if I want to. What? NO!!!!! :icon_eek: Let's not get CRAZY!!!!!

True, this is my first smart phone and I have not suffered through blackberry issues like others ... I gave myself lots of room to grow and learn and realize there is a huge learning curve involved but I'm pretty techie and even used Bitpim to hack my razr a couple years back. I went from that to a Dare and then EnV Touch so I have no previous smart phone gripes!

I guess I just hate that I have to root and void the warrantee and would much prefer VZW or Moto to fix this issue! I mean, what does it say about this Droid when people find out I have a piece of electrical tape on the top corner of it? :icon_eek:

 

[kylo77]

Bad experiences will happen as well as good ones. For those of us who use smart phones for business, they allow us to get away from our computers and still be responsive and productive.

My main use for my Droid is for my corporate exchange email and calendar during the day as well as all the other programs. I've had Palm Treos and the HTC 6900. The 6900 is a great device but they both ran Windows OS so the all out customization, functionality and capabilities is no where near the Droid. I've never owned a Blackberry but have heard the horror stories about the Storm (my sympathies to those of you who have).

I can tell you that I have not had any of the problems that you mention. Still on my first Droid that I got when they were first launched, no issues with the sensor, my exchange email and gmail work fine, GPS is accurate, shortcuts work fine and I've only dropped one call since I've owned it. The camera well...yeah it leaves a lot to be desired.

Iphone users went through their own issues as well, especially before exchange support came out..and they drop calls all the time but that's AT&Ts fault not necessarily the phone's.

I've read other rants similar to yours on this forum. Being on your third phone I have to think there were some lemons that came out after the initial production.

Stick with it if you can (yeah I said it) but hookbill has a point, you may want to lower your expectations a bit until more updated software comes out. We are the test bed for this new device. Good luck.

 

[nerdbox08]

Thanks for the support! I appreciate having this place to come to for knowledge and support ... this is the best forum! I really do want to

I have considered exchanging this Droid and hoping that my 4th would have a working proximity sensor ... if that in and of itself was resolved I'd probably not feel this way. I just hate that I have to go through the process of exchanging and then customizing again, setting up my preferences, accounts, etc and 'redecorating' (LOL) a new Droid when there is a chance that my 4th would have the same issue. I desperately tried to get people from Moto and VZW to listen to me on this issue ... someone suggested printing out the many pages of complaints on the forums and taking it in so when they claim they have not heard of it and look at you like you are insane, you have some proof to help back up your claim. VZW customer service when I call but I'm not crazy about the support you get in person at Verizon stores. I've collected a bunch of links where people have discussed the issue and nobody has gotten any true help other than being told we can return it, blah blah blah. Moto said it is not a known issue and VZW said I could exchange my Droid for a different phone if I want to. What? NO!!!!! :icon_eek: Let's not get CRAZY!!!!!

True, this is my first smart phone and I have not suffered through blackberry issues like others ... I gave myself lots of room to grow and learn and realize there is a huge learning curve involved but I'm pretty techie and even used Bitpim to hack my razr a couple years back. I went from that to a Dare and then EnV Touch so I have no previous smart phone gripes!

I guess I just hate that I have to root and void the warrantee and would much prefer VZW or Moto to fix this issue! I mean, what does it say about this Droid when people find out I have a piece of electrical tape on the top corner of it? :icon_eek:

I just thought of something.

DO you have long hair?

It's a known issue that long hair can mess up the proximity sensor.

If this is the case for you, trying tucking your hair behind your ear?

 

[gatewayad]

Yes there definatly is a Love-Hate relationship with any smartphone (see my avatar) Ha!
Here is the simple answer (not fix) for the proximiry sensor problem.
My phone has been doing this alot and when I know it has gone to mute I feel a thump most of the time, I think it's is from moving it away from my face and putting it back again. When it does this move it away from your face and hit the back (sideway U) button and it will take you right back to the call. I have done it so many time its just natural and i can get the call back without anyone even knowing i'm gone. Again this isnt a fix (and I am very upset there isnt a fix yet) but its a way to get the call back without people going Hello...Hello....Can you hear me now!
Another thing for this same issue, I call alot of numbers where I have to get to the keypad and hit an extention. always try and push the hide keyboard before you put it back up to your face

Camera, yes I totally agree if they promote a 5MP camera make one that works right. It does work pretty well in sunlight and I think (given you have the time) it takes decent pictures in a dark place, allbeit most the time you have no idea what you took a picture of until its taken
then one more gripe whats with the no light for video (but there is an app for that).
I had a BlackBerry Storm and Storm2, other than POP email this is the best well maybe 2nd. best smartphone out there ..... (Nexus1) amazing speed
PS the Storm's camera sucked too.


EDIT::::: Nerdbox08... I do have long hair! ...... I'll try the tucking behind ear thing..... HA!

 

[Mamaperk]

Detonation,
Yes I do have long hair and have read those reports ... VZW tech support laughed at that idea but I went ahead and spent two weeks being so careful to make sure it was not my hair ... I would answer calls and keep my head still, try not to switch ears during long calls, or move much ... but one day I was walking from Best Buy to my van while talking to my daughter ... I had a hat on and no hair blowing in the way ... the wind blew and I lost my call. Ugh. Someone who complained of this issue was bald and said it was definitely NOT hair. Others said they used the phone in their left ear and switching to the right may help ... others had the opposite result. Some had screen protectors while others were naked droids ...

seems crazy that I would have to work so hard for a simple feature like phone calls. I even checked the manufacture date of my Droid(s) compared to others who are complaining of this issue and that didn't seem to be a factor. <sigh>

 

[nerdbox08]

Detonation,
Yes I do have long hair and have read those reports ... VZW tech support laughed at that idea but I went ahead and spent two weeks being so careful to make sure it was not my hair ... I would answer calls and keep my head still, try not to switch ears during long calls, or move much ... but one day I was walking from Best Buy to my van while talking to my daughter ... I had a hat on and no hair blowing in the way ... the wind blew and I lost my call. Ugh. Someone who complained of this issue was bald and said it was definitely NOT hair. Others said they used the phone in their left ear and switching to the right may help ... others had the opposite result. Some had screen protectors while others were naked droids ...

seems crazy that I would have to work so hard for a simple feature like phone calls. I even checked the manufacture date of my Droid(s) compared to others who are complaining of this issue and that didn't seem to be a factor. <sigh>

That's bum

Sorry I can't think of anything else to help you with it. >.<

 

[Mamaperk]

Thanks for all the support and suggestions. Maybe I'll call VZW and try replacing this unit again ... it seems there are so many more people who don't have the cheek dial thing happening that maybe I just got three phones with faulty proximity sensors ... I don't know if that's possible though.

I appreciate the help!

 

[PridgNYC]

The reason long hair causes a problem is that the phone compares the light coming in from the proximity sensor and the light coming in to the camera lens to determine if you have it up to your face. So make sure you aren't also covering the camera with your hand or finger. It does the same thing for the auto-brightness, using both the camera and proximity sensor to sense how bright the environment is. You can tell it does this by placing the phone flat on a surface and turning auto brightness on, now put your hand or finger over the proximity sensor, the phone dims, now pick it up (without covering the camera) and try the same thing, the phone does not dim.

 

[Mamaperk]

The reason long hair causes a problem is that the phone compares the light coming in from the proximity sensor and the light coming in to the camera lens to determine if you have it up to your face. So make sure you aren't also covering the camera with your hand or finger. It does the same thing for the auto-brightness, using both the camera and proximity sensor to sense how bright the environment is. You can tell it does this by placing the phone flat on a surface and turning auto brightness on, now put your hand or finger over the proximity sensor, the phone dims, now pick it up (without covering the camera) and try the same thing, the phone does not dim.

Ok, I just tried what you said here and it once it worked, but after that ... it did not dim the phone while flat on my laptop ... i tried calling my voicemail and covering the phone's camera lens but that did not make a difference.

Is there somewhere I can read more about this? I wonder if this means I have a faulty proximity sensor.