Froyo Update - First Impressions

[ChadJ55]

I'm still finding myself on the fence as we enter day 3. Yesterday my battery life was PHENOMENAL. It also just so happened that my extended battery arrived ysterday, which I charged last night and am using today. I'll be curious to see how far I can make this thing go. After yesterday though, the extended battery seems entirely unnecessary.

The two things that are really frustrating me right now though are the fact that they STILL have not fixed the exchange email problems with synching and notification.

The other issue, which I have not seen anyone post yet (that I recall) is how much slower the phone reacts to changes from landscape to portrait. Even when I am on a call and take the phone away from my ear to hang up or press a key, it sits there a bit longer befiore the screen comes on. It's like they did something to slow down the reaction of the accelerometer. Maybe it's just me... but I don't think so.

 

[timrock]

The other issue, which I have not seen anyone post yet (that I recall) is how much slower the phone reacts to changes from landscape to portrait. Even when I am on a call and take the phone away from my ear to hang up or press a key, it sits there a bit longer befiore the screen comes on. It's like they did something to slow down the reaction of the accelerometer. Maybe it's just me... but I don't think so.

this i just noticed yesterday. before, when i would pull the phone away from my ear, the screen would already be available. now its about a fraction slower.

however, when switching from portrait to landscape, its still the same speed. i have no complaints with that.

 

[vtsteevo]

Auto Sync in 2.2 for gmail

Hey guys, I just upgraded to 2.2. In 2.1 there was a separate option under gmail to disable auto sync. Now this option is gone. The only options that I see is the global background data and the battery saving options.

My goal is to be able to set gmail and face book to sync manually. Everything else automatically. What do you guys think?

 

[sulaco]

I updated yesterday and followed the instructions on the web to root and all is well so far. I can see some definite improvements in the update, but I wasn't unhappy with 2.1 anyway since I was rooted. I use Titanium Backup to "freeze" all of the stuff I don't want running or showing up and it works great. Now once Google gets some real "offline" apps for things like Docs and Tasks, I'll really be happy! In the mean-time, I use Dropbox and (Dato) Gtasks.

 

[abe7333]

I am loving or. Especially the flash

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[alboboy10]

Im losing my mind with this internet problem I wanna throw my phone against the wall...it's SOOOO laggy. And on texting I can't scroll up and down if it's a long text. My battery didn't get better, matter of fact I think it worse. And the two screen locks is really annoying too.

 

[djzachtyler]

So far so good

Well the phone seems much snappier and most transitions are smoother for the most part. still have a bit of mucking around to do but I ran benchmarks right off the bat with linmark, and also An3dBench.

Seems there is no noticeable difference in graphics processing. if any it dropped by a couple FPS.

CPU processing seems to have taken a hit and dropped from 15-16 MFLOPS down to 13-14 MFLOPS. (these are rounded numbers). Considering where the nexxus scored with Froyo on the MFLOP test I am a little disappointed as this phone is supposed to be far superior.

I also am a tad disappointed aboput some of the additional bloatware... VZ Navigator in particular... I do not want or need it and like many others cannnot get rid of it or stop it from loading into phone memory... When I kill it using ATM... it just starts right back up... FAIL!!!

270 deg rotation is awesome love it... was one of my biggest gripes with 2.1 was I could only rotate the screen one direction..

Flash is cool but seems a tad buggy. I tried loading a flash bbased game site which loaded but glitched out quite excessively... definitely needs work to be stable Flash based sites all seem fine, but flash games are no bueno.

overall browsing speed is improved pages seem to load a bit faster.

Camera functionality is better I like the improved picture interface, video is alot smoother after a small test run... camera roll is smooth, and transitions nicely from portrait to landscape.

In a nutshell I am happy with this update. It could have been better considering the extended wait, but hey just gives us something to look forward to in the next release.

Cheers!:icon_ banana:

 

[Juicemane]

Its not what It could have been. Runs similar to 2.1, with a few fixes. Only real complaint is the tilt delay when switching orientation. Other then that its solid.

 

[Schlitzy]

I had a stock 2.1, manual download over WiFi and install, total time about 20 minutes.

I have to say, after the install, I was skeptical because it was very jumpy and seemed choked for the first 10 minutes I'd say.

After it calmed down and I guess after all of the initial changes and services finished loading, it definitely smoothed out and its very snappy and smoother as most describe, on my phone at least, and the battery power consumption is much much better.

My only complain so far is the creeping of the bloatware services that keep sneaking back in. Now after the upgrade, I'd like to root and start digging that stuff out.

Short of that, I like it. Smoother, a bit faster in most aspects, 270 degree turn is great and the battery life is much improved.

 

[mgico]

Love the update...

I'm absolutely thrilled with the update. My phone is working beautifully. Much faster. Much better battery performance. No quirks. Hard for me to understand what the griping is about.

Stock phone. Not rooted. Upgraded from 2.1 to 2.2 (which, yes, is version 2.3.15).

By the way, one thing I learned last week from a pretty sharp Verizon Tech at a Verizon store in midtown: Advanced Task Killer is not the way to go! He demonstrated to me that Advanced Task Killer simply does not kill a whole slew of apps, services and processes. (It was a little embarrassing!) Anyway, he removed ATK and installed Astro instead. The Process Manager in Astro does a much better job.

 

[Amazonfemme]

I'm still finding myself on the fence as we enter day 3. Yesterday my battery life was PHENOMENAL. It also just so happened that my extended battery arrived ysterday, which I charged last night and am using today. I'll be curious to see how far I can make this thing go. After yesterday though, the extended battery seems entirely unnecessary.

The two things that are really frustrating me right now though are the fact that they STILL have not fixed the exchange email problems with synching and notification.

The other issue, which I have not seen anyone post yet (that I recall) is how much slower the phone reacts to changes from landscape to portrait. Even when I am on a call and take the phone away from my ear to hang up or press a key, it sits there a bit longer befiore the screen comes on. It's like they did something to slow down the reaction of the accelerometer. Maybe it's just me... but I don't think so.

You're not the only one who's noticed the lag time in switching from landscape to portrait (or vice versa). It takes a full three seconds to think about it before making the switch, and then the apps and widgets take another second or two to fully appear. Overall, I'm finding the transitions between homescreens to be jumpy where they used to be very smooth (running LauncherPro Plus). I used to be able to swipe very lightly to get to another screen, but now I'm having to apply more pressure, and for longer. Sometimes I'll swipe and nothing happens. It's annoying.

So, like you, I'm still on the fence. If my battery life has improved, it's negligible. I had the phone off the charger on my way to the office on Thursday (an hour drive), with music playing the entire time and GPS turned on, and was at 80% when I got to work. Not horrid, but not great, either. By lunch time, though, without music playing, battery was at 50%. Right now, I'm at 80% less than 45 minutes after unplugging from a full charge; I've sent/received a few texts, checked e-mail, and have GPS, WiFi, and several widgets (Facebook, NY Times, WeatherBug, ESPN ScoreCenter) running, but nothing that should've chewed up 20% battery life in under an hour. I was hoping for better results.

 

[drunkclever]

Yeah the screen lock gets annoying.. it needs a longer swipe to unlock. I kept my root though.. I use adfree and barnacle still. Phone is alot faster.. battery life has increased. Phone has had yellow/orange bars since yesturday... 2 in the afternoon. I guess all dc are not created equal. I got mine launch day.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

 

[Scubamike]

Couple of observations...

On the whole, I am quite satisfied with the improvements that came along with 2.2. Battery life has improved for me as well and the GPS-no-sleep bug is gone. I now leave GPS on the all the time and check my sleep status using Spare Parts to confirm it does sleep. Sure enough, this it isn't an issue anymore.

Minor complaint:
-When I take a picture and then click on the thumbnail in the corner of the camera screen to view it, the picture is simply black. I have to get out of the gallery entirely and back into it to view the picture. This happens maybe 1 out of 4 times. My dad has the Droid 2 (tiny screen I tell him) and he experiences this as well. I guess it's a Froyo thing instead of just a Droid 2 thing. It is infrequent and easy to correct so it isn't a big deal.

Many, not all, but many, of the complaints in this thread about laggy phones are followed with "after using my task killer". The Android gurus on this forum go in depth about why to steer clear of task killers and how they can negatively affect performance and battery life. As a rookie, I won't try to convince anyone to give them up, but more knowledgeable people than I certainly will.

 

[Scubamike]

In almost every post I read, the word "Blur" is preceded by the words "Man, I sure do hate..." or "Boy, I can't stand..." Do all the Blur haters (everyone in the world except me??) still see all of the things they hate about Blur in this update?

After doing some reading in this forum I learned that Blur allowed to us "pull" the update unlike the D1 crowd who waited for a "push". I also enjoy my little Facebook widget showing status updates from the select few people I follow. For the record, I am a virtual non-Facebook(er) so this is "kind of a big deal" <voice of Ron Burgundy>. Blur is "ok" in my book.

 

[gnumexiko]

One very minor installation problem with 2.2 which was resolved merely by powering the phone off and back on. Now, everything works great, including wi-fi, & GPS. Battery life is much improved, and, perhaps this is my imagination, but voice recognition seems better as well. I have no beef with the new Swype keyboard look, actually I like it, and it works just as well as with 2.1. Swipe is a real innovation. Browser seems faster on 3G. I do not notice any slowing under 2.2 when changing phone orientation.

I have a bunch of apps and they all seem to work after 2.2 install. I have not noticed any problems at all with 2.2 and am really quite surprised that others seem to be having so many gremlins. My DX is a stocker, no root, no ATK and I don't have all the screens loaded up with widgets. Maybe that's why? I expected lots more trouble with the upgrade but it just didn't happen.