New to Android

[FoxRob]

I have been a BB user for the past 3 years, my wife switched to a Droid awhile ago and she has loved it so since I was do for an upgrade finally I chose the HTC Thunderbolt so now I'm a Android user as well. I joined to possibly learn how to maximize my phones use.

 

[AllenEllis]

Welcome, and congratulations . What do you think of it so far? I just got my Thunderbolt three days ago and I'm still having trouble prying myself away from it

Swiftly keyed from my Thunderbolt using DroidForums

 

[DavesPPC]

Welcome to the family....
I am a former BB user as well and have never looked back!

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

 

[FoxRob]

Thanks for the welcome. I originally had a BB curve then a Tour till the trackball jammed up the switched to a spare Storm which is the worst phone I have ever used. So far the only complaint I have with the Thunderbolt is the battery life . From what I have read so far it should get better after a few days. This morning it died after about 20-30 minutes of use surfing the web and FB as well as a little Angry Birds. So far the more I use it the more it blows away every other phone I have ever had.

 

[guidot]

It depends on a lot of things, but welcome and good luck with it!

 

[gsdreams]

There is an update for tbolt coming on May 3rd that should help with battery life.

Sent from my DROID2 GLOBAL using Tapatalk

 

[FoxRob]

I followed some of the suggestions on improving battery life I had found while searching the site and so far it is holding up, since I'm home I'm using it on my WIFI and I was finally able to pair it with my trucks Bluetooth it some how was in airport mode but wasn't showing it till I restarted the phone.

 

[rebaf]

no phone should die from a full battery after 30 minutes of use
get a widget on one of your home screens (usually settings widget) so you can see at a glance that its in airplane or whatever and turn off wifi when your away from wifi with the widget to save battery.

go to this forum, xda, and phandroid (android forum) and learn to root your phone
DO NOT do the procedure until you have studied it well and then studied it again and preferably have a knowlegable friend you can get on and get help from and it is a time when you have plenty of time to work on it and fix it if something goes wrong. (the reason i say all this is because people who try to root and mess up then panic and take the phone back cause the rest of us problems in general....especially when if they would have stayed calm they probably could have figured out how to fix it).

after root look for adfree? and other good root apps....this will remove those stupid ads on the free apps. use caution if you decide to use such things as wireless tether....supposedly this is slowely getting cracked down on....other tether options include pda net and easytether (though those will probably be next to be worked against)....i use easythether and have wireless tether as an option if needed, but i dont use much data anyway.

to avoid a tethering debate, moving on;
overclocking is an option with some phones; though if you are satisfied with its performance then its not necessary

removing bloatware is nice....i totally uninstall bloat as i have a full understanding of my phone....uninstalling it can cause problems if there is an update released later if you dont know how to go about getting back to where the phone will accept the update....or you can uninstall that bloat and figure it out when the update comes out; there will be a ton of threads with people doing the same thing to help you out when that happens. (and who knows; you may not even want whatever update your carrier is relesing anyway).
you can freeze bloat as well (to stop it from running and wasting resources)....freezing is soemthing i dont know much about.

there are plenty of other plusses to having a rooted phone. in the end if you arent comfortable trying it, dont have the time to put in to learning and dealing with it is something goes wrong, etc. then dont bother doing it.

hear its a nice phone, enjoy!

 

[Hawaiian Princess]

Welcome to the forum! Great to have u here. If ur not into doing much with ur phone, meaning customizing by changing ROMs etc, rooting may not be for some. There are workarounds to make any phone a great phone, without Root method. But for the most part yes, there are more plus than minus. And I agree, doing homework on what these devices can/can't do is good way to start.
Either way its so much better than RIM. Many of us are former users. Good luck

sent from my Hawaiian Xoom...ALOHA

 

[FoxRob]

Thanks for the input, since it died this morning and I recharged it it has been fine. I did read somewhere about it dying really fast the first 2-3 charges, and having to "condition" the battery. This phone by far is blowing away my RIM phones.

Once I get more used to what the phone can/ can not do I will begin reading up on rooting it and clocking it, I have a co worker with a over clocked, rooted Droid and he said once I'm ready to get serious with this one he would help me with it.

For now I'm trying to figure out how to freeze the bloat on the phone since there is a up-date in the pipeline for it.

Another question I have is on my BB my Gmail acct and Yahoo acct's had different notification tones can I do that with a Andoid based phone too.

 

[AllenEllis]

Another question I have is on my BB my Gmail acct and Yahoo acct's had different notification tones can I do that with a Andoid based phone too.

I'm pretty sure notifications are only customizable on a per-application basis. That said, you could probably setup your Gmail account using the Gmail app, and your Yahoo account using HTC's 'Mail' app, and set different notifications for each app.

 

[FoxRob]

Thanks for the information. Another question about notifications though can you use a ring tone or music for app or mail notifications?

What is the best Facebook app? I'm not crazy about the Friendstream app.

 

[Hawaiian Princess]

there are many apps in the market that can change ur notification sounds. I use the basics. Lol
as far as FB, I just use FB for Android.

sent from the Hawaiian D2G