Jumped from Storm 2 To Droid Pro. Suggestions?

[HollowPoint.357]

I just said farewell to my beloved BlackBerry Storm 2 9550, and got me a Droid Pro today.

What all "essential" apps would you Pro users suggest, and why?
Also, what exactly is "rooting" and what is the purpose/benefits behind it?
I purchased tether on my Storm 2, but don't wanna fork out that kinda $ again. Is there a cheaper alternative for the Pro?

So far, I love this phone! I loved my Storm2, but RIM just wasn't keeping up with the competition, and I got tired of hanging on to a sinking ship. So far, this phone is loads faster, and I've found some pretty cool games that weren't available to BB. Having been a longtime blackberry user (from the Curve 8330 days), I must admit it's a bit intimidating taking on this new device. Any help will be appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[MO3iusONE]

I never was a big fan of the Storms.. people use to say "The whole screen is like a giant button!!" Yeah.. thats a bad thing lol.


The whole purpose of rooting a phone is having the ability to install custom roms, usually people will improve Android, make it speedier, more efficient when it comes to battery life, etc. etc. I think theres a few people who already posted custom roms on here, if you click on those it will give you an idea of what it has.

I remember when I rooted my Evo and installed a custom rom called Fresh, it had given me the ability to wirelessly tether for free. Look it up.


As with apps, I guess it all depends on what your trying to do with your phone. I downloaded Launcher Pro which allows you to customize your home screens along with a few other things.

Agenda Widget- I like this since it gives you an overview of what upcoming appoinments you have in your calendar.

Bank Of America-...

Barcode Scanner- This one is useful if you want to scan an item with a barcode. A friend had given me a gift and I was curious as to see how much it cost, I used this app to scan the barcode on the present and it pulled up some online stores that sold this specific item. This also allows you to scan. For example, if you wanted to download the facebook app, you could either search for it in the market, or just scan this QR Code using Barcode Scanner

BBC News- It's a decent app for news

Dictionary.com- They have this neat "Word of the day" widget which shows you a new word every day, I tend to have this on my main screen.

Pandora- Stream music, if you have unlimited data this is nice to have.

Photobucket- I like this since I already have a photobucket account, you have the option to automatically upload pictures to photobucket the minute you take them or just upload individual ones.

Remote for iTunes: If you have itunes, this app allows you to use your phone as a controller and change songs on your computer through wifi. So, I'll have my music playing pretty loud in my room and I'll be in the kitchen skimming through songs on my phone. Pretty neat.

Home Pipe- I dont use this one much but, as long as your computer is on, your able to access most of your files from your computer, onto your phone.

Shazam- I'm sure youv'e heard of this one, if theres a song playing and you dont know the name of it, just open up shazam, let it hear the song for a few songs and more than often it will tell you the artist and name of the song.

The Weather Channel-... weather.

Engadget- I'm real big into Engadget, its basically tech news so if your into it, go for it.


I'm sure theres plenty more that people can tell you about but theres are a few which I tend to use on a daily basis.. oh and download angry birds.. its free.

 

[HollowPoint.357]

Lol angry birds was actually my first download. Already hooked.

Thanks for recommending those apps, I have use for several of them.

How difficult is it to root the pro?

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[MO3iusONE]

I haven't rooted the Pro to tell you the truth, but I didn't run into too many issues when I rooted my Evo. There should be a step by step tutorial on how to do all of this but honestly, I've never done it myself for the Pro.

 

[HollowPoint.357]

Awesome, thank you.

Would you recommend rooting?

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[jpcalhoun]

Awesome, thank you.

Would you recommend rooting?

Sent from my DROID PRO using DroidForums App

Welcome to the forums fellow Ranger.

If you are thinking of rooting your phone please take some time and read all the pros and cons. In many cases, if you've rooted your phone a number of not so good things apply: warranty issues, update issues and you can "brick" your phone if you don't really understand what you are doing. Even if you "unroot" your phone you can still have problems with updates and warranty issue. Android Central has a couple of good articles on rooting...pros and cons. I'd spend some time reading those...it will answer a lot of your questions.

As for apps...depends on how you use your phone. The Android Market has tons of apps. I personally have only downloaded a few apps...weather, sports and news app, flight status app and Docs To Go (I'm not marketing any of the those apps). Bottom line...download what you thing you want...if it doesn't suit your fancy, uninstall it.

 

[MO3iusONE]

Awesome, thank you.

Would you recommend rooting?

Sent from my DROID PRO using DroidForums App

Welcome to the forums fellow Ranger.

If you are thinking of rooting your phone please take some time and read all the pros and cons. In many cases, if you've rooted your phone a number of not so good things apply: warranty issues, update issues and you can "brick" your phone if you don't really understand what you are doing. Even if you "unroot" your phone you can still have problems with updates and warranty issue. Android Central has a couple of good articles on rooting...pros and cons. I'd spend some time reading those...it will answer a lot of your questions.

As for apps...depends on how you use your phone. The Android Market has tons of apps. I personally have only downloaded a few apps...weather, sports and news app, flight status app and Docs To Go (I'm not marketing any of the those apps). Bottom line...download what you thing you want...if it doesn't suit your fancy, uninstall it.

You bring up very good points. Also, some of these custom roms are in the early stages of being developed so at this stage, you'd be the guinea pig so if your gonna be rooting your phone and installing some custom roms, I say hold off on it for now.

I myself I'm pretty happy the way the Droid Pro functions all stock. With the Evo, a lot of people didn't like HTC's Sense interface and therfore installed custom roms to get rid of all of that. I dont think I'm gonna root my phone any time soon, I think the only reason I'd do it is to be able to tether wirelessly.

 

[jpcalhoun]

Awesome, thank you.

Would you recommend rooting?

Sent from my DROID PRO using DroidForums App

Welcome to the forums fellow Ranger.

If you are thinking of rooting your phone please take some time and read all the pros and cons. In many cases, if you've rooted your phone a number of not so good things apply: warranty issues, update issues and you can "brick" your phone if you don't really understand what you are doing. Even if you "unroot" your phone you can still have problems with updates and warranty issue. Android Central has a couple of good articles on rooting...pros and cons. I'd spend some time reading those...it will answer a lot of your questions.

As for apps...depends on how you use your phone. The Android Market has tons of apps. I personally have only downloaded a few apps...weather, sports and news app, flight status app and Docs To Go (I'm not marketing any of the those apps). Bottom line...download what you thing you want...if it doesn't suit your fancy, uninstall it.

You bring up very good points. Also, some of these custom roms are in the early stages of being developed so at this stage, you'd be the guinea pig so if your gonna be rooting your phone and installing some custom roms, I say hold off on it for now.

I myself I'm pretty happy the way the Droid Pro functions all stock. With the Evo, a lot of people didn't like HTC's Sense interface and therfore installed custom roms to get rid of all of that. I dont think I'm gonna root my phone any time soon, I think the only reason I'd do it is to be able to tether wirelessly.

Yeap...I agree...the Pro is setup pretty nicely...I don't see a need for ME to root anytime soon...if ever.

 

[hookbill]

I never was a big fan of the Storms.. people use to say "The whole screen is like a giant button!!" Yeah.. thats a bad thing lol.


The whole purpose of rooting a phone is having the ability to install custom roms, usually people will improve Android, make it speedier, more efficient when it comes to battery life, etc. etc. I think theres a few people who already posted custom roms on here, if you click on those it will give you an idea of what it has.

I

I disagree with this part of the statement. The purpose of rooting is to give the owner more flexibility and command over their Droid. If you chose to add a custom ROM yes, you need to be rooted. But that is not the purpose of rooting.

I do not run a custom ROM and I'm rooted. I want the flexibility to remove bloatware, the ability to overclock, and the ability to access apps that you cannot have unless you are rooted.

 

[tennvol]

Wireless tether, titanium backup, and set cpu are all great reasons for me to root. I used z4 root and have not had any issues with software updates. Some users who have removed alot of the bloatware seem to though.

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[MO3iusONE]

I never was a big fan of the Storms.. people use to say "The whole screen is like a giant button!!" Yeah.. thats a bad thing lol.


The whole purpose of rooting a phone is having the ability to install custom roms, usually people will improve Android, make it speedier, more efficient when it comes to battery life, etc. etc. I think theres a few people who already posted custom roms on here, if you click on those it will give you an idea of what it has.

I

I disagree with this part of the statement. The purpose of rooting is to give the owner more flexibility and command over their Droid. If you chose to add a custom ROM yes, you need to be rooted. But that is not the purpose of rooting.

I do not run a custom ROM and I'm rooted. I want the flexibility to remove bloatware, the ability to overclock, and the ability to access apps that you cannot have unless you are rooted.

Good point, this is also very true.

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[DroidToro]

As a former BB user myself, I recommend touchdown if you are using MS Exchange at work. It costs $20 but it still doesn't do everything the BB does. However, using it along with some Exchange mail filtering rules has gotten me pretty close to all the features I had on BB. Aside from that, this phone blows away BB in just about every other category.

 

[HollowPoint.357]

Thank you everybody for your recommendations. Is there any way I can receive an audible alert when receiving a text while talking on the phone? So far that's the only thing I miss from my blackberry.

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[evltwn72]

I have the Droid X and I rooted it using Z4root, very simple. I have kept the phone stock. I only rooted it because I wanted to use an app called Wireless Tether. It's free from the Android Market. If you don't want to root, there's an app called PDAnet that will allow you to tether the phone to your computer using the USB cable. Also there's another app called Easy Tether, does the same thing as PDAnet. The whole point of rooting is to be able to run the phone the way I want to. I also downloaded Launcher Pro to run as my home launcher. Gets rid of all that bloatware off the screen and it's smoother in my opinion. Good luck with your Pro, I'm sure you will like it.

 

[HollowPoint.357]

Bump

Is there any way to receive an audible notification thru my blutooth earpieces when receiving a text while talking on the phone?

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