So, when my Droid arrives tomorrow, what do I need to know right out of the box?

[checker555]

Of course it will need to be charged right away. But I'm assuming I can turn it on and play with it while it's charging? I ordered the thing Friday night, so I've been waiting semi-patiently for 3 days already.

Anything you wish you'd known right off the bat as you set it up? Lessons I can lean from?

Thanks!

 

[Mark5047]

Be careful when you open the box - the way it is packed it could fall right out when you slide the insert out of the main box. To be safe, open it over a soft surface.

 

[mth04]

Of course it will need to be charged right away. But I'm assuming I can turn it on and play with it while it's charging? I ordered the thing Friday night, so I've been waiting semi-patiently for 3 days already.

Anything you wish you'd known right off the bat as you set it up? Lessons I can lean from?

Thanks!

I setup my email and stuff right away. After that go to the market. There is so much there you can spend an hour or two looking at it. Then enjoy! FWIW letting it charge isn't necessary. Enjoy!

 

[checker555]

Be careful when you open the box - the way it is packed it could fall right out when you slide the insert out of the main box. To be safe, open it over a soft surface.

I will be very careful--I was just reading about this. Crazy package design. Thanks.

 

[checker555]

Of course it will need to be charged right away. But I'm assuming I can turn it on and play with it while it's charging? I ordered the thing Friday night, so I've been waiting semi-patiently for 3 days already.

Anything you wish you'd known right off the bat as you set it up? Lessons I can lean from?

Thanks!

I setup my email and stuff right away. After that go to the market. There is so much there you can spend an hour or two looking at it. Then enjoy! FWIW letting it charge isn't necessary. Enjoy!

Great. That is good news. I hope my kids can forage for their own food tomorrow. (kidding! mostly!)

 

[whec716]

check the screen for dead pixel, dust or anythig else wrong with the screen.

 

[HarleyDad09]

There is no manual! People on this forum are AWSOME

 

[struong57]

If you have an exchange email account, set that up first and all your contacts and calendar will automatically sync to your new Droid.

 

[checker555]

check the screen for dead pixel, dust or anythig else wrong with the screen.

Good tip. I will be so disappointed if there are any problems like that, making me wait longer.

 

[checker555]

There is no manual! People on this forum are AWSOME

I have a hard time understanding how you sell a device this expensive without a manual. I tend to learn by poking around anyway, but I sort of expect a manual to fall back on if things go wrong.

This forum rocks, though, as you say. So I'm glad it's here and that I have found it.

 

[checker555]

If you have an exchange email account, set that up first and all your contacts and calendar will automatically sync to your new Droid.

I wish. No, I just use Outlook as a simple client for my comcast email. I have set up gmail and imported my contacts. I've used google sync to start sync-ing my calendar.

That just leaves the comcast mail account itself. I'm not quite sure the best way to deal with that. I guess I can either have the phone retrieve the mail itself OR forward to gmail.

 

[lauriep]

The Motorola website is useful, and has the .pdf file of the manual that you can read or print off (don't let the high # of pages scare you off. The last 20 or so are just technical stuff and warnings that don't impact the operation of the phone). But these forums are invaluable. I got miine on the 9th and come here several times a day and there hasn't been a day that I didn't learn SOMETHING!

I make a practice of reading as many reviews of each app as possible, and try not to download less than a 4 star app. So far that has served me will. There is so much out there!

 

[checker555]

The Motorola website is useful, and has the .pdf file of the manual that you can read or print off (don't let the high # of pages scare you off. The last 20 or so are just technical stuff and warnings that don't impact the operation of the phone). But these forums are invaluable. I got miine on the 9th and come here several times a day and there hasn't been a day that I didn't learn SOMETHING!

I make a practice of reading as many reviews of each app as possible, and try not to download less than a 4 star app. So far that has served me will. There is so much out there!

Good to know on the downloadable manual--I'll be sure to d/l it. I know I'll be hanging around here a lot. I've been trying to glean as much in advance as possible.

Are there app reviews there in the market, or do you have to do the review research separately from the shopping?

 

[TheShaz]

I know how you feel. I too ordered the phone on last Friday, acording to the FED EX web site it should arrive here by 3pm tomorrow. I think I checked their site over 100 times today.

OK - got the word on the tricky box - memo to self "Dont open box if you are standing on concrete"

I have my Gmail accout ready - trying to figure out how to get my Outlook contacts WITH THE CONTACT PICTURES imported. I get the convert to csv file, but that will not include the contact pics. If I have to do new contact pics, I can live with it.

The 1st app I will get is Google Sky Map, I saw the video and and thought it was just cool.

Outside of that....my head will be spinning. I've been lurking in this forum for the last 2-3 weeks once I made the decision to jump the WinMo ship and try Android. This forum has been great for information.

I'll see if I can give Checker555 a run for his money on "WTF do I do now" questions posted to the fourm this time tomorrow

 

[Bear in NM]

I did find one way to get the contact pictures to work. My guess is that it was not the fastest, but it did work. I actually tried using Gmail and Picasa, but those two really suck. Or at least they are not intuitive.

If you have access to the pictures, copy them to the folder on the phones SD card where the phone stores it pictures when taken. Go into each contact, and select edit. Press on the blank picture Icon and it will bring up your list of photos. Add and save. then sync with Gmail, confirm that that Gmail has the photos saved for the contacts. I then went back into the phone and deleted the photos from the camera directory. On my phone the contact pictures are then stored as thumbnails in a thumbnail directory.

So far this is working, and I am sure there is some automatic way to do this, but I could not figure it out last night. Still getting used to the Cloud storing everything for me, and to be honest my computer (Windows) is not terribly friendly with Gmail. And Gmail itself is not terribly intuitive.

Craig