My 30 day review of Life with Droid - for the potential buyer.

[TJConnery]

I bought the device on Day 1, Nov 6th, replaced a Palm Treo (Palm user for over 10 yrs).

1. I have had continuing and ongoing issues with call quality (echo heard on receiver's end) but if you toggle the speaker button, the echo goes away. A bit of a pain, but it works.

2. I had a bent key on the physical keyboard (my fault) so I returned the device before my 30 days for a new one. The new device feels tighter, but I still have the issue with call quality, ever after the upgrade to Android 2.0.1. The OS tends to crash, and/or minor freeze on occasion, but unsolicited phone reboots are much less frequent with the new OS.

3. The camera, while 5MP, is slow and fails to focus frequently, even after the OS upgrade, although it is faster now. Most of my better pics are still from my digital compact real camera (which I had hoped to stop having to carry with the Droid) but it works in a pinch. The HD video is surprisingly quite good, and playback looks great on the Droid's screen. Battery Life is what you would expect it to be with such a large screen. I can burn down the battery to 30% on the 2.5 hr train ride from NYC to Philly, but it also charges up just as fast. If you own a touch screen phone, you should have a charger for your office, car, and a couple around the house. I keep it topped up all the time.

4. And then there is the keyboard. It will take you a while to adapt, but eventually you will. Even so, I cannot type as fast on any of the 3 keyboards (physical, virtual portrait and landscape) as on my Blackberry or Palm. But it gets the job does for a sentence or two. The predictive text helps, as do other keyboard layout you can download at the ap store.

5. Bluetooth - works fine for calls, but sucks for streaming music. However, using the headphone jack, with all the various music players you and install from the ap store (Pandora, Listen, LastFm), this device is a handy DJ machine.

6. The last thing it is, is a phone. I already mentioned the call quality issues earlier, but I find myself using it more for all the aps I have installed, and less than for making or receiving calls.

7. The link with Google is awesome if you like their products, and so far, I still do. Contacts, E-mail, Calendar, Picasa, GTalk, and Google Voice adapt well to the device.

8. I had an issue where one of the media players was causing my operating system to wipe my SD. We isolated it to the Slacker ap for now, but as it was explained to me, their needs to be a fix in the OS to overcome this issue. It may also be happening with other music aps or file utility aps. In the meantime, I upload all pics I want to save as soon as I can, and never put anything on the SD card that is not backed up in at least one of my three back-ups sites.

9. Lastly, the best thing about this device is the ability to customize your device for what you want it to do. The Android Ap store is growing rapidly (20,000 hit Dec 17th) and most of what you already need is already out there, and is most likely free (less than 40% of all Android aps are paid).

So there you go. I had fun writing this, and have enjoyed the device immensely since I purchased it. I do not know what you are upgrading from, but these new touch phones are a quantum leap in personal communication devices. My Droid is always within arm's reach. Always.

 

[MrCapcom]

Nice to hear I had my droid for 2 days before returning (just wanted to try it lol) now im going to re buy it and be among the ranks soon But within those 2 days I loved the phone I'm coming from a Omnia

 

[JaCelica2k]

I bought the device on Day 1, Nov 6th, replaced a Palm Treo (Palm user for over 10 yrs).

1. I have had continuing and ongoing issues with call quality (echo heard on receiver's end) but if you toggle the speaker button, the echo goes away. A bit of a pain, but it works.

2. I had a bent key on the physical keyboard (my fault) so I returned the device before my 30 days for a new one. The new device feels tighter, but I still have the issue with call quality, ever after the upgrade to Android 2.0.1. The OS tends to crash, and/or minor freeze on occasion, but unsolicited phone reboots are much less frequent with the new OS.

3. The camera, while 5MP, is slow and fails to focus frequently, even after the OS upgrade, although it is faster now. Most of my better pics are still from my digital compact real camera (which I had hoped to stop having to carry with the Droid) but it works in a pinch. The HD video is surprisingly quite good, and playback looks great on the Droid's screen. Battery Life is what you would expect it to be with such a large screen. I can burn down the battery to 30% on the 2.5 hr train ride from NYC to Philly, but it also charges up just as fast. If you own a touch screen phone, you should have a charger for your office, car, and a couple around the house. I keep it topped up all the time.

4. And then there is the keyboard. It will take you a while to adapt, but eventually you will. Even so, I cannot type as fast on any of the 3 keyboards (physical, virtual portrait and landscape) as on my Blackberry or Palm. But it gets the job does for a sentence or two. The predictive text helps, as do other keyboard layout you can download at the ap store.

5. Bluetooth - works fine for calls, but sucks for streaming music. However, using the headphone jack, with all the various music players you and install from the ap store (Pandora, Listen, LastFm), this device is a handy DJ machine.

6. The last thing it is, is a phone. I already mentioned the call quality issues earlier, but I find myself using it more for all the aps I have installed, and less than for making or receiving calls.

7. The link with Google is awesome if you like their products, and so far, I still do. Contacts, E-mail, Calendar, Picasa, GTalk, and Google Voice adapt well to the device.

8. I had an issue where one of the media players was causing my operating system to wipe my SD. We isolated it to the Slacker ap for now, but as it was explained to me, their needs to be a fix in the OS to overcome this issue. It may also be happening with other music aps or file utility aps. In the meantime, I upload all pics I want to save as soon as I can, and never put anything on the SD card that is not backed up in at least one of my three back-ups sites.

9. Lastly, the best thing about this device is the ability to customize your device for what you want it to do. The Android Ap store is growing rapidly (20,000 hit Dec 17th) and most of what you already need is already out there, and is most likely free (less than 40% of all Android aps are paid).

So there you go. I had fun writing this, and have enjoyed the device immensely since I purchased it. I do not know what you are upgrading from, but these new touch phones are a quantum leap in personal communication devices. My Droid is always within arm's reach. Always.

Second set of input from another user:

I bought the device on Day 1, Nov 6th, replaced a Palm Treo (Palm user for over 10 yrs).

I bought on 12/18 upgrading for an LG Voyager

1. I have had continuing and ongoing issues with call quality (echo heard on receiver's end) but if you toggle the speaker button, the echo goes away. A bit of a pain, but it works.
I have never had a single issue with call quality. It has always sounded really clear and people have often commented on how clear it is.

2. I had a bent key on the physical keyboard (my fault) so I returned the device before my 30 days for a new one. The new device feels tighter, but I still have the issue with call quality, ever after the upgrade to Android 2.0.1. The OS tends to crash, and/or minor freeze on occasion, but unsolicited phone reboots are much less frequent with the new OS.
Can count on one hand the number of time I have actually used the physical keyboard. The touch one is good enough I just don’t feel the need although the auto-correction can sometimes be annoying. I have only had 1 OS crash in the time I have used the phone. I have experienced quite a few home screen replacement app force closes though which was expected because both I am using are still in beta.

3. The camera, while 5MP, is slow and fails to focus frequently, even after the OS upgrade, although it is faster now. Most of my better pics are still from my digital compact real camera (which I had hoped to stop having to carry with the Droid) but it works in a pinch. The HD video is surprisingly quite good, and playback looks great on the Droid's screen. Battery Life is what you would expect it to be with such a large screen. I can burn down the battery to 30% on the 2.5 hr train ride from NYC to Philly, but it also charges up just as fast. If you own a touch screen phone, you should have a charger for your office, car, and a couple around the house. I keep it topped up all the time.
I do not like the camera for much of anything on this phone. It takes alright pictures……as long as your target/you are not moving at all. Does not handle motion well at all. The video camera is nice and I have used that quite a bit. Agree that you can burn through the battery fast but 2.5 hours seems extreme unless you are trying. Turn the brightness down…..turn wi-fi and GPS off and I can get about 4 hours of constant use.

4. And then there is the keyboard. It will take you a while to adapt, but eventually you will. Even so, I cannot type as fast on any of the 3 keyboards (physical, virtual portrait and landscape) as on my Blackberry or Palm. But it gets the job does for a sentence or two. The predictive text helps, as do other keyboard layout you can download at the ap store.
Not as good as on my LG Voyager but does the job. Have really had to add words to the user dictionary because it kept “fixing” my sons name and when I said “blah blah is a good app” it took that to mean “blah blah is a good apparently”.

5. Bluetooth - works fine for calls, but sucks for streaming music. However, using the headphone jack, with all the various music players you and install from the ap store (Pandora, Listen, LastFm), this device is a handy DJ machine.
I have not really used Bluetooth much. I am just not a huge fan. I charged up my jawbone and paired it, but in the end I don’t like having to keep that earpiece on my head. Maybe its just me….Im just not that into it. One point to note though is that the phone DOES NOT support voice dialing via Bluetooth which I think is ridiculous. I am sure they will fix it eventually but if this is a big deal to you you might want to steer clear.

6. The last thing it is, is a phone. I already mentioned the call quality issues earlier, but I find myself using it more for all the aps I have installed, and less than for making or receiving calls.
IMHO it does a great job as a phone…….I just hate talking on a phone so I too use it more for apps/messaging. Good to know when I need a phone its there though in one device and works great.

7. The link with Google is awesome if you like their products, and so far, I still do. Contacts, E-mail, Calendar, Picasa, GTalk, and Google Voice adapt well to the device.

Agreed. I wish google wave was supported……Maybe once OS upgrade is pushed which supports flash.

8. I had an issue where one of the media players was causing my operating system to wipe my SD. We isolated it to the Slacker ap for now, but as it was explained to me, their needs to be a fix in the OS to overcome this issue. It may also be happening with other music aps or file utility aps. In the meantime, I upload all pics I want to save as soon as I can, and never put anything on the SD card that is not backed up in at least one of my three back-ups sites.
This is good to know that you had an issue. I have no experienced anything similar but will back up all of my apps just in case.

9. Lastly, the best thing about this device is the ability to customize your device for what you want it to do. The Android Ap store is growing rapidly (20,000 hit Dec 17th) and most of what you already need is already out there, and is most likely free (less than 40% of all Android aps are paid).
I don’t think the droid market is as polished as the apple store yet but it is making great progress and has lots of great apps. The only apps I have purchased are (Beautiful Widgets (GONE NOW), Pure Grid, Pure Calendar, Better Cut). All of these are great apps and I would suggest everyone check them out…..There are good options for free that have similar functionality as well. The big thing for me about the phone is WIDGETS!! Nothing better than having most of the important information available right off the bat without having to open apps up. Lots of customization options to make your phone exactly like you would like it.

 

[JaCelica2k]

Nice to hear I had my droid for 2 days before returning (just wanted to try it lol) now im going to re buy it and be among the ranks soon But within those 2 days I loved the phone I'm coming from a Omnia

you really paid the restocking fee just to try the phone for 2 days?

 

[MrCapcom]

I didnt have to pay a restocking fee

 

[hookbill]

Outside of blue tooth not being able to do voice calls, I have no issues with this phone. I disagree with just about everything the OP said. My calls are clean and crisp. Camera works fine.

Was that suppose to be an endorsement? Because it sure didn't sound like one to me.:blink:

I kind of wonder if it shouldn't be a requirement that everyone who gets this phone isn't forced to spend a month with the Blackberry Storm. Then lets see what you think of this phone. Droid Rocks.

 

[MrCapcom]

I think the OP was more or less trying to show the fualts of the phone don't mean its bad. (I had no faults when I had mines) ITs kinda nice to see a someone negative review with all the omg this phone is hot period go get it going around lol

Oh yea this phone is hot go get it!

 

[JaCelica2k]

I think the OP was more or less trying to show the fualts of the phone don't mean its bad. (I had no faults when I had mines) ITs kinda nice to see a someone negative review with all the omg this phone is hot period go get it going around lol

Oh yea this phone is hot go get it!

I agree. I think its also important to note that not everyone is having the same experiences.

 

[myriad46]

I also, hardly ever use the hardware keyboard, though that was a big deciding factor in getting the phone. The software keyboard works well enough, with one exception...

The suggested corrections ribbon is good an determining what you are trying to say, but it's a little too close to what you are typing, so somtimes I inadvertantly select the wrong word. Also, the key you use to select the corrected word is the space bar. Many times, I type a word I want and press space, and instead of spacing, it selects the suggestd word. They need another key to select this word. What would have been a typo becomes a whole new word, spelled correctly.

Also, the keyboard in landscape mode is a great size, but the box for text gets giant too and doesn't allow you to see the headings for what you are typing in. It should render the form like it does in portrait. Fine for known entries like your address book, but annoying with obscure web fields.

Ok, thats like 10 things. Overall though, VERY happy.

 

[MrCapcom]

lol I havent had any problems with the virtual keyboard although I hear some of the kb's off the marketplace are better. I also like the hw kb more than I thought I would although I have big hands so i don't know if that plays a factor

 

[TJConnery]

It was not an endorsement, it was "User Feedback." No one needs to make a list of everything it does good, what needs to work it's way back to the designers/programmers are what some users might be experiencing.

I made this same original post over on the motorola forums, and many report no problmes at all with call quality. I am very curious why I am having continued call quality problems, even in Manhattan, one of Verizon's well covered markets.

Still, bottomline, I think it's a great device.

 

[bluedust]

Outside of blue tooth not being able to do voice calls, I have no issues with this phone. I disagree with just about everything the OP said. My calls are clean and crisp. Camera works fine.

Was that suppose to be an endorsement? Because it sure didn't sound like one to me.:blink:

I kind of wonder if it shouldn't be a requirement that everyone who gets this phone isn't forced to spend a month with the Blackberry Storm. Then lets see what you think of this phone. Droid Rocks.

Yeah tell me about it. Sometimes I think I fawn over this phone too much, but then I think about what I went through the last year with the Storm.

 

[ntrddragn]

I some what agree with the OP. My sd card did get wipe from what i think was combo of slacker and picsay since slacker was on when i was downloading picsay and playing with it. as soon as i uninstall it my card was wipe clean. the keyboard for me is abit left and im not used to it. but other then that i have no isssue with calls, texting or emailing. camera could be better but mine take good pictures and doesnt have a really issue with focusing. and a few time now i can cant access the folders i created on the desktop. only happen after the OS update. all in all im happy with the DROID. im a former blackberry user also 3 yrs.

 

[hypetech]

7. The link with Google is awesome if you like their products, and so far, I still do. Contacts, E-mail, Calendar, Picasa, GTalk, and Google Voice adapt well to the device.

Agreed. I wish google wave was supported……Maybe once OS upgrade is pushed which supports flash.

Google wave works fine on my Droid, you just have to click the "Peril" link at the bottom of the home page that warns against unsupported browsers.

 

[boatman2220]

Everyone is certainly going to have a opinion about this phone. A lot comes from experiences they've had with past phones. And some of the problems some experience, exchange that phone! Too many people are having good experiences with this phone.