On the fence, please help.

So my contract with AT&T is up and I REALLY like the droid x but I read an article online that said verizons data plan will end up costing you like $350 more over the two years, so that's one issue...

The other thing is can someone explain to my droid is superior to iPhone os? I'm not one of these people that thinks the sun shines out Steve jobbs ass, nor do I think he is evil. I've played around with my friends moto droid and it didn't seem to really understand the interface, cuz I'm so used to the iPhone os. My only real gripe with the iPhone is the battery and ATT.

I'd really like your guys advice, why does apple suck and droid kick ass?

iPhone doesn't suck despite what people say in this forum. From what I know it's a decent smart phone, one of the best. What makes Droid different (notice I didn't say superior) is the fact that the Droid is highly customizable. You can jailbreak an iPhone but that is a far cry from what we can do when we root our phones.

Overclocking the speed of the Droid, custom ROMs, themes. Open source platform so any developer can contribute to it not just what Apple says. We're only limited by what we want to attempt to do.

And we really do have a better network then AT&T so you've got more 3G coverage.

As far as tier pricing for data, it will be competitive to what AT&T is offering now. Right now we pay 30.00 a month, for many of us who don't use that much data if tier is offered we will actually save money.

Hook provide excellent information.

As a former iPhone owner I can tell you that when I made the switch I thought the iPhone had a better UI. After using my Driod for over 6 months I'm very comfortable with and happy with my Driod. The VZW network works better, for me. The ability to customize my Droid has provided hours of fun.


I'm glad I made the switch.

Hope that helps.
Mike

I had the Droid when it first launched. I left (due to a massive customer service failure) and went to AT&T. The only thing comparable to my Droid was the iPhone. So that is what I got and what I used for the last six months. I had to jailbreak my phone to even make it remotely capable of doing everything I needed (read: wanted) in a phone. That resulted in some serious bugginess. Like the phone nor properly charging - or at all.

The iphone is great for folks who want a flashy phone that has a lot of power but not a lot of options. If you want something you can pick up and just use - go with an iPhone. If you want something that can work for you, get an Android. I am now back to my Droid and I love it. I missed it. I considered getting a Droid X but opted to stick with the original Moto Droid. I like it - it does what I need. And when 2.2 comes, it will be fab.

if you want a phone...get an iPhone
if you want a smart phone...get an Android phone
nuff said.

Ok, but in plain terms, what does open source and customizable mean? What will the droid do that they iPhone can't? And what does that mean for the "average" person???

"average" as in my mom, your mom, people who dont care about electronics and just want something simple.

Open as in no boundary's, you can do pretty much whatever you want with the phone without someone (apple) telling you you cant do that. The droid can be rooted, kind of like being an administrator in windows 7 or vista. You have control over pretty much the whole phone, this allows you to change the look of pretty much ANYTHING you want, you can overclock (make the phone run faster), wifi teather, install different basebands (gives you better reception with vzw towers) and much much more. Thats what the iPhone cant do.

You can customize nearly everything on the android OS when rooted. You can make the phone how you like it in every possible way. If you want to overclock your phone, droid does. If you want to tether your 3g to your laptop or another wifi-compatible device, droid does. There is just so much you can do to your phone once you are rooted, it really is amazing.

I would look at it this way:
With the iPhone OS, you are less likely to encounter technical problems, be they serious or minor. The downside to this is that you can't do things like overclocking.

With Android, you are free to do basically whatever you want. Some people on this forum run their phones' processors at more than twice the clock speed they were designed for. Doing things like this can result in glitches. If you are okay with occasional glitches, then this is not a bad tradeoff.

On a more basic level, the UI customizations that Android offers are far better than the iPhones. I am a widget whore. I would die on iOS.

First time poster here. Like the OP, my contract is up with AT&T/iPhone. I absolutely love the iPhone itself, mainly because the interface makes it so easy to use. However, I can no longer take the dropped calls and lousy network. The latest iPhone 4 reception issues confirm things aren't getting any better. So I have decided to come "home" to Verizon, where I was for seven years before switching to the iPhone.

I am fairly certain I am going to get the Droid X. The size concerns me a little, so I definitely want to get a feel for it in a store to make sure I'm comfortable before making a purchase.

My concern is not so much about me, but it's more about my wife. With all of the customization you can do with these devices, will she be able to figure it out fairly easily? I only ask because the iPhone was the first phone we ever had where we did not have to read the manual to figure out what to do.

We played around with a Droid and The Incredible last week. Obviously, it wasn't anything like we are used to. I realize it's a different OS, but coming from an iPhone, how intuitive is it? I would hate for her not to get the maximum benefits from the phone. FWIW, she's not into overclocking or any of that type stuff. She just wants a reliable, easy to use smart phone. Is a Droid for her or should we look for something else?

Thanks for your input!

The Droid requires a slight learning curve, especially when coming off an iPhone, but it's not that bad. The iPhone is designed so anyone can pick it up and make calls (till they get dropped) and download whatever they want from the the app store (and give Jobs more money). Before I got my droid I fooled around with a friend's Blackberry Storm and couldn't figure out jack on it, and I've been building, repairing, modifying, using, etc, computers and technology for almost two decades now. I had the Droid figured out, basics-wise, in only an hour, though it did take about a week to REALLY have it figured out. (I rooted after one month, but only when I found out that the FroYo flavor being given us officially didn't do wifi tethering, but that's neither here nor there to you)

90% of the power of the Motorola Droid comes from rooting it, but stock is still awesome. In exchange for the learning curve you get a phone that does more, has better network coverage, can be modified heavily so it looks and does exactly what you want it to do, has a much more open framework, and so on and so forth. Furthermore, the OS is still improving! It's possible the Droid will get minor updates, if not a full-blown Gingerbread update, once FroYo is given an official release. Even though it doesn't seem likely, the Eris got a 2.1 when nobody had counted on it.

Personally I think the new iPhone is too plain-looking, and I do like having a slide-out keyboard (if not the design on this one), but that's my preference. I like the industrial look of the Droid, and I HATE the new AT&T data plan -- $20 for 2Gb of data, $10 a Gb over that :icon_eek: -- versus the unlimited data plan on Verizon. If you go for a new iPhone you'll have the new data plan. Just some food for thought for you. If you do a lot of downloading while on the go you might find yourself paying a lot more than what AT&T is saying you'll be paying.

Just because you dont root and overclock dosent mean you cant benefit from the Android OS. Far from it, the Inc. is a fantastic device for enjoying the stock OS. There is learning curve just like any other phone but once she gets the hang of it i guarantee she wont look back. I got my Droid the week it came out and stayed stock for close to 5 moths before rooting. I just wanted to be able to overclock and get wifi teather, and just wanted a stock look and thats what i did. I loved it and i started experimenting more with different looks and themes. But if i had to go back to stock i wouldn't mind it at all.

Going from iOS to Android is an eye opening experience. You have trained yourself to think you don't need something with iOS and therefore you see things in other phones and think..wow this isn't intuitive at all. But in fact you taught yourself to do without it, where others who have never used an iPhone can take an Android device and be right at home with it. Things like a back button or more than one button on the exterior of the phone, a rechargeable battery, wallpapers, menu's..etc.

Oh yeah, and the last time I checked, Wirefly.com was selling Droids for $20 with free shipping and a nice insurance plan.

Actually, as a current iPhone 3G customer, I could keep the unlimited data plan. That said, I made the decision to leave before iPhone 4 was released. What good is an unlimited data plan on an overloaded network with lousy coverage? Verizon was great before I left - I got more dropped calls in one week with AT&T than I did in over seven years at Verizon. Looking forward to coming back.

Now, about that learning curve......

Time for the seriously dumb newbie question of the day.... what do you mean by rooting it?

Thanks to both of you for your replies.

Rooting is basically like having total access over your phone, kind of like being an administrator in windows 7 or vista. This allows you to do whatever you want to the phone.

New phone, new plan. Existing phones, not customers, keep the unlimited data plan rates, at least as far as I researched it. If I'm wrong, well, I'm wrong and I apologize. Grandfathering the current phones in is good business. Grandfathering customers who buy the new phone you designed the plan for isn't.

Rooting is hacking your phone, plain and simple. It violates your warranty and allows you to do things that violate your TOS. :icon_ banana:

Like what you ask?

Wireless tethering, overclocking, themeing, full-image backups in case something goes blooey and your data gets corrupted, backup programs that let you save your apps in case an update wipes them out or makes then unavailable in the market even though they still function, full-on ROM images compiled from source by various developers that offer even more functionality and features/options than you thought possible, and more of a laundry list than I want to put in here. Should all Droid users root? No. Most of the people shouldn't, and don't. Just like some people don't realize their iPhones can take pictures, most Droid users have no need for what rooting can do, and it's still a potentially risky procedure. As with a lot of things, if you don't know what you're doing, don't!

However, this isn't a rooting discussion thread, so for more information on that look around.

If I were in your shoes I'd jump on Android platform (just not right this second and maybe not Verizon) for one reason and one reason only -- there are more Android phones coming out than you can shake a stick at. They all have their strengths, their weaknesses, benefits, drawbacks, etc. However, there's only one iPhone, and that's not going to change. Any problems you're having with it you'll continue to have, and if there's anything you don't like about it you'll continue not to like it. Look around and see what you can find. The Evo 4G is awesome, the Nexus One rawks, and Motorola is releasing new phones in the next month that might fit you/your wife to a T, and that's not counting the LG Ally, HTC Eris, Droid Incredible, Motorola Devour, Motorola Backflip, Samsung Galaxy, etc.

In short, while the iPhone might not be for everyone with its one-size-fits-all approach, a little looking might fix you right up.

Is there an app for that? No. But there might be a phone for it.

lmao, fixed it for ya

Yeah, I don't think I'd be into the rooting thing. And you're right.... there's almost too many to choose from. I am going to go with something on Verizon though - just a matter of which one. Sprint doesn't work for me. Verizon was great before and I hear nothing has changed.

Oh, and thanks for the wirefly.com tip! I just went there and they still are selling Droids for $20. My sister has been looking for a deal, so I sent her the link. She's stoked!

Thanks again for your input! You guys are great! I'm going back to lurker mode for a little while to try learn some more about these devices. Hopefully, I'll have my hands on one soon. When I do, I'm sure I'll be back with more questions!

The "learning curve", and I throw it around a lot myself, is a bit overblown on the Droid.

I, too, am a widget whore and can't imagine owning a smartphone without them. Having to physically launch an app to see email, RSS feeds, weather, etc.. is an inconvenient extra step that, IMO, defeats the entire concept of a smartphone.

I'm guessing most who spend any time on this board eventually end-up rooting. Took me a month or two. Warning: Droid can become a nearly infinite time waster. I started out with new home launchers, then rooted, more home launchers, and now I'm considering diving into themes. But I love my set-up and for functionality, speed and ease of use I'd now put it up against any phone.

The main advantage of rooting - ignoring getting new OS updates months before stock - is far and away faster performance while simultaneously improving battery life (counter intuitive, but it's because of underclocking the processor when not under load). There's also some ram mgmt tweaks that help overall performance.

Widgets are where it's really at. With widgets my Droid also has near Blackberry mail/calendar functionality. Tethering is nice in a pinch for the business traveler. I haven't been able to perfect free VoIP, but others have. Just so much that Droid does that you can't really list it all in a single post. And, truthfully, most of the value-added cool stuff does not require root (I don't get the craze over themes and the OCD obsession with tweaking stuff like boot animations). But to really take advantage of everything you will have to spend some time searching, reading and tweaking because a lot of features and apps are new and every Droid is a little different.

Bottom line is out of the box Droid is pretty much on par with IPhone, but with a little time invested there is no comparison. Great example is IOS4 now gives users the ability to create folders for apps - a stock feature on Droid launch 9 months ago. Most of us have long since moved on to live or tagged folders, custom trays and/or hidden pop-ups.

We're here to help! If you look around you'll find other people who swore they weren't going to root but did it anyway. I'm one of them. If you choose to, we'll help you out, and if you choose not to, please ignore the root-fanatics who bash anyone who doesn't want to risk bricking their phone.

Personally, wifi tethering was a must and one of the reasons I got the phone, so I had to root.

You're quite welcome about the Wirefly tip. The hardest part of ordering online is waiting for it to arrive, though!