Giving up on droid; back to blackberry

[rcramirez]

After 20 days with my new droid, I have learned:
- Droid does not synch with corporate (outlook exchange) contacts Global Address List. Very cumbersome to send a corporate email. They refer you to an 'Corporate Directory' application that does not exist. There is an application you can buy (Nitro), but it did not work on my phone.

- There is no way to synch my personal Hotmail contacts with the droid. Note I use a stand-alone version of Outlook to maintain my email / contacts. I can move the contacts to a gmail account within Outlook, but there is no point, as they do not synch up with Gmail, and therefore don't go back and forth to the Droid. Once again, there is supposed to be a free utility to sync these, but it doesn't work on my Windows 7 PC.

- Can't get my Hotmail Calendar sync'd with the droid. (Even if I move it to the gmail account in Outlook. Google Calendar Sync could not work with Windows 7, even if I ran it in XP compatibility mode.

- Sound is terrible.
My droid to others phones: sometimes they hear me OK, sometimes not.
My droid to husband's droid: bad
My droid via a bluetooth: Unintelligible. Used to chat in the car (via built in bluetooth), now I wait until I get home.

Supposed to be a fix for that coming, but why take the chance?

-There are no keyboard shortcuts to dialing. I used to press 'H' for 'call my husband'. Now I unlock the keyboard, scroll around to the many shortcuts on my screen, press it and hope it works. Sometimes it doesn't - touchscreen is a bit off.

- Can't see my upcoming appointments & missed calls right on the main screen - have to go look for them. I am missing things.

 

[aminaked]

Microsoft is the real culprit for most of your stuff. Your sound quality could be caused by any number of things...what have you tried? The rest can probably be solved by either installing or uninstalling some apps/widgets.

 

[Jokerz]

You can put a shortcut on your phone to call your husband so all you need to do is unlock the phone then press one button and bam...your calling your husband. thats the only answer I have for your problems

 

[rcramirez]

Thanks for the tips. I am actually on my second droid, and sound quality is still bad. Husband's is bad also, so that makes 3. Does anyone actually have good sound quality on their bluetooths & talking to other droids?

Store personnel & tech support have tried very hard to work with me on sound quality and connectivity / sync issues. Gmail does not have a contacts sync, period. The other 3rd party apps to sync things may work, may not but are not supported by Verizon or motorola, so you are on your own.

Bottom line; doesn't seem to be a good phone for corporate users. If Motorola came out with their own apps to address the missing areas in synchronization, they could maybe compete in that field.

 

[aminaked]

Gmail doesn't have contacts sync? It does on mine.

have you tried touchdown for email? and the android 2.2 update will fix some exchange problems.

 

[jntdroid]

My one complaint with Android is that you are so tied into Google's services. Don't get me wrong, I get it, but still... and yes, there are apps out there to help with that, but it's clearly not the most seamless experience for everybody.

FYI, Hotmail doesn't sync with ANYbody, same with the Hotmail calendar. Yes, there is the Outlook connector, but it's a relatively buggy workaround. However, that's all about to change when Hotmail finishes it's rollout of Wave 4. Exchange ActiveSync is supposed to be supported not only with Hotmail, but all Windows Live services (contacts, calendar).

Only sound quality issues I've had are not related to volume level, but rather muffled voice. And it's not with everybody, but sometimes I sound very muffled to those on the other end. Never messed with bluetooth.

With regard to smaller issues, like quick and easy dialing, as Jokerz said, that's easily remedied. There are also good apps out there (better than the stock one) to allow you to simply push a button, say "call husband", and it will call him. Smaller issues like that are where Android really excels b/c of it's open system.

 

[shadow man]

My google calendar syncs just fine when using it either on my Win7 home comp or XP Pro comp at work. I fortunately am not terribly tied into using my outlook for everything, so I was able to switch to google for my calendar w/o it being a big deal. Bummer you're having so many issues.

 

[huskerkate]

i bought my D1 primarily for business use. i'm a lawyer, and can't function without my email and contacts. Touchdown Exch works flawlessly for me. when i have my phone at my desk, about 80% of the time it vibrates for email arrival before the email pops up on my desktop Exchange account. TD also comes with its own calendar and contacts, all of which sync up nicely, including all of my tasks and deadlines. (just as a back up, i sync with the corporate calendar on D1, and it syncs as well.) the D1 stock contacts app i use primarily for personal and fb contacts...

as for the sound quality, when i initially got my D1, i was afraid to hold it close to my face because, on my previous phone, it would always cause my cheek to activate buttons. but with D1, the screen blanks out when you hold it up to your ear, so there is no danger. in fact, i think that D1 is designed to be held close to your cheek. once i did so, people were able to hear me better.

i don't know if any of this helps. i'd hate to see you give up and go back to driving a Chevy Nova...

 

[ezrider55]

Return It

I know your worried about the 30 day return policy. So return it and buy another one, you start another 30 days.

 

[dantheman]

Thanks for the tips. I am actually on my second droid, and sound quality is still bad. Husband's is bad also, so that makes 3. Does anyone actually have good sound quality on their bluetooths & talking to other droids?

I didn't see where you mentioned which model Droid you have, but I'm going to assume a Droid X. My wife has one as well, and she has had no issues with call quality using it alone, or with her Jawbone earpiece. She can hear and be heard. We haven't experienced any problems when she and I have spoken while I'm on my Droid Incredible. I've even spoken to her using my Dinc and Jawbone, while driving on the interstate with the top down on my SAAB. Again, no problems. You say you've swapped handsets, have you tried other BT headsets?

You voiced concern about using 3rd party apps and not getting support from VZW or Moto. That's true. However, if I load Photoshop on my laptop and have a problem with it, I'm not going to call HP or Microsoft about it. The same applies here. My experience so far with the Android dev community is that they are responsive and helpful.

I've heard good things about Touchdown. I do not have any personal experience with it though. My wife's company uses it for their email (Groupwise) and she will be getting it installed on her Droid X soon.

Regarding going back to a BB, I have to carry 2 handsets at present. My company doesn't support mobile email on anything but BB. If I had the opportunity, I would give up my Curve in an instant, if I could get email on my Dinc.

Good luck with your decision.

 

[lizm]

Gmail does not have a contacts sync, period.

It does indeed, that's how I sync my contacts.

I hardly used gmail before i got this phone. I imported all my old phone contacts to gmail (I came form a different carrier and got the phone on Amazon so had no help moving contacts form the old phone - gmail saved me there), sync'ed to my new phone from there and now sync them daily.

I also have my main email account synced to the phone, it's at my own domain with a local ISP, it was no trouble to set up or configure at all.

 

[rcramirez]

Great ideas; TouchDown truly is a lifesaver.

Voice quality improvement: ElKay's instructions on how to go to ##PROGRAM & override vocoder options improved it quite a bit -- apparently older (or deeper?) voices are interpreted as 'noise' and a lot of the voice is dropped unless you select an option without noise reduction. Still not quite as good as other phones; hoping next update from Motorola improves it.

Found 'KiGoo' to install on my PC (Windows 7 with Outlook 2007) to keep my Outlook calendar & contacts synched up in Google, so I can use Outlook instead of the Google interface to maintain them.

thanks to all.