Motorola Droid Ultra FAQ

[cLovis_ll]

wow, this is a very informative thread!! does the call quality procedure really works?

 

[lennywc]

fell on my droid

I was on my bicycle the other morning and I took a fall. I had the Droid in a belt clip with the backside facing out. When I fell ,I landed on my left side where I hung the Droid from my belt, and my full body weight , 190 lbs, landed on the phone. Fortunately the ground was soft soil. The phone impacted the dirt and dug in about an inch or so. The back battery cover popped off and the battery flipped out and the battery compartment became jammed with florida soil. I picked myself , the bike and the phone up and in my haste dropped the phone, from waist height onto the concrete sidewalk. I settled down and gathered all my implements of destruction to assess damages. I cleaned the dirt out of the Droid and readjusted the bags and derailuer of my bike. I imagined the phone to now be a dirty dinged brick. Well after I cleaned it up and put it back together it worked just fine. No problems. Never had a cell phone stand up to a beating such as that. Can you beat that?

 

[windstrings]

Added tip about changing the voice codec for better call quality and how to turn automatic text formatting off.

Seems like I get the echo problem more often with the -B codec on... but I"ll try it again.

Is it possible that towers in my area don't use -B well?

Is it an all or nothing thing.. .if so, why aren't all the phones running that?

What are the negatives?

 

[ChrisK15]

Some cities don't have support for EVRC-B. I didn't think it would actually make it worse if you weren't in a supported area, so maybe it depends on location. The codec is just supposed to improve compression quality in the same amount of bits. If it does sound worse, I'd change back.

 

[cereal killer]

not to pick on you ChrisK but if this is going to be a FAQ and stickied it should be accurate.

What you have below needs to be changed to: the phone was not designed to go into landscape mode unless the keyboard is deployed.

Why won't my home screen switch to landscape mode when rotated?
Nobody knows yet, but so far everybody has this problem. This fix might be included with the next update.

Again it's not a problem and there is no fix.

 

[ChrisK15]

I edited it to mention the fact that a lot of people did in fact have it rotating at one point, but then stopped. I removed the part about it being a bug or problem.

 

[cereal killer]

Here's a post from the Motorola Support Forums from a company rep.

Yes SOME people MAY have experienced that but MOST did not . Your FAQ should reflect what point number 3 says


jmm -- I work for Motorola. I have posted on this thread several times. However, I know the thread is long so I will reiterate my previous posts.

1. We are very aware of this thread and the points raised here.
2. We are eager to see this performance in action, though we understand that is not an easy request. Nevertheless, documentation of this would be very valuable. This desire to verify this Droid behavior in no way is meant to imply that it isn't happening. It would help us understand what is happening.
   
3. The no-rotatation on the home panel and other well-documented panels is the expected behavior of the Droid. This is in no way to imply that landscape rotation on these panels may not be desireable.
4. There have been no software updates to any Droids sold to consumers since the launch, secret or otherwise.

 

[SoCal65]

Add Slacker to the audio section - I've heard people like it better than Pandora.

Listen to free personalized radio on your Android smartphone. With millions of songs from thousands of artists, Slacker Radio is the best way to discover new artists and hear your favorite songs. Listen for free to over 100 expert-programmed radio stations from every genre or create your own custom stations.

Free application and free service
Over 100 expert-programmed stations
Create your own custom stations
Convenient radio widget mode
Integrated Twitter support
Vertical and horizontal modes
Displays album art, reviews and bios

http://www.slacker.com/everywhere/mobile/android/

 

[hendrix]

How can I transcode video to play on the Droid?
Some people have had luck with a program called Handbrake, but I use SUPER even though it's a bit complicated to use.

I just want to point out that transcode is not what you are looking for here. The proper term is reencode. You only transcode when you are converting a file from one format to another while streaming to make something the correct file type for the thing you are streaming to.

 

[vonfink13]

excellent...excellent thread...thank you for doing this....

 

[04rob]

I've got the desktop rotated right now! Here's how I did it...

1) Go to web browser, switch to landscape mode.
2) Wait until the backlight times out and the screen locks.
3) Unlock and.... voila! You've got a landscape home screen.


EDIT: Nevermind, just sliding the droid open on the home screen rotates it, is that what people are saying won't work?

 

[drewshaver]

Another addition:
Q: How do I add a contact/direct dial/direct message shortcut to the desktop for a non-gmail contact
A: Start typing using the physical keyboard. This triggers a search through all your contacts (note those without phone numbers will not show up)

Also, this should be a wiki!!! I tried searching for a moto droid faq wiki and couldnt find anything, it would be a huge help, makes common info much more accessible than in forums.

 

[ChrisK15]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll add them.

 

[Backnblack]

Question.. for the background images.. since there are 3 home screens, shouldn't it be 480 x 3, or 1440 in width to fill the 3 screens?

Nope...One Image 854x480

 

[raisinblind]

Andorlib

You said if i have any questions so here we go... first of all im not very computer savvy, im trying to download a new keyboard like the hero on my droid from Androlib.com and i cant figure it out. PLEASE help!!