Thinking of getting a Droid.. have some concerns...

[xythil]

Hey. I current carry around an Env Touch as my phone and a ipod touch as my PDA/music/apps/internet(when I have wifi)

However a smart phone will make my life a lot easier thanks to my new job.

I love the ipod touch. I realize the iphone is a bit bulkier but still it is very sleek when compared to the boxy/bulky droid.

Aesthetics aside I notice a few things when playing around with a Verizon store Droid model.

1) Web browsing was atrocious. On my itouch moving around pages is like gliding over air. I just brush and it is perfectly accurate. By comparison the droid laged.. it was delayed enough to make me question why I would drop 200 bucks on this thing. I mean the screen looks nice but the flow of moving around a fully loaded page just felt jittery/laggy...
2) Web browsing, google maps.. ect.. is all missing multitouch zoom? What is this the stone age? Seriously why have a sleek capacitive touch screen and not include this most basic feature.. is there a work around?

3) Can the droid be used to tether my PC to the internet? Either through USB or BlueTooth?

4) Could I use blue tooth to tether my jail broken ipod touch to my droids 3g?

5) Perhaps my biggest concern is this... should I wait? Are better phones close on the horizon? I don't want to impulsively jump into this phone and see verizon get an iphone next month. I especially don't want to be left in the dust if full flash support is coming to new phones anytime soon to allow for megavideo/youtube watching on the go.. ect.. or even an overhauled faster network that I won't be able to take advantage of with a droid.

If droid can provide me with a sleek, browser experience without the jittering.. . and especially if it can tether other devices through blue tooth I would probably be interested.

My plan doesn't come up for a new phone for 6 months but they are willing to give me the 1 year price on a droid plus rebate so about 260$ for the phone. I figure this is a pretty decent deal. although if someone knows a better one I am all ears. Or maybe I should pressure verizon for a better deal?

and I guess lastly... anyone who has had experiance with both iphone/itouch and droid.. could I get a list of pros and cons from your personal experiance?
For me personally the itouch/iphone just seems like a sleeker/sexier/quicker product. It is the first phone interface I ever used that didn't have that jittery/slow lagged feeling. I want something that can capture that.

Thanks for any help/insight you can provide.

 

[mwhartman]

I'm a former iPhone use. At first, I was not sure that my Droid would provide me with the same functionality. Well, that perception change in less than two weeks.
I'm rooted, so I have pinch and zoom browser. I'm over clocked and the pages load really really fast. I have wifi in my home but I keep my phone on 3G and do not experience any performance issue. Since I'm rooted, I am abel to connect my Mac Book Pro to my Droid and have internet service.

The Droid is a solid device. I would not hesitate to make the switch.

Mike

 

[johall07]

Hey. I current carry around an Env Touch as my phone and a ipod touch as my PDA/music/apps/internet(when I have wifi)

However a smart phone will make my life a lot easier thanks to my new job.

I love the ipod touch. I realize the iphone is a bit bulkier but still it is very sleek when compared to the boxy/bulky droid.

Aesthetics aside I notice a few things when playing around with a Verizon store Droid model.

1) Web browsing was atrocious. On my itouch moving around pages is like gliding over air. I just brush and it is perfectly accurate. By comparison the droid laged.. it was delayed enough to make me question why I would drop 200 bucks on this thing. I mean the screen looks nice but the flow of moving around a fully loaded page just felt jittery/laggy...
2) Web browsing, google maps.. ect.. is all missing multitouch zoom? What is this the stone age? Seriously why have a sleek capacitive touch screen and not include this most basic feature.. is there a work around?

3) Can the droid be used to tether my PC to the internet? Either through USB or BlueTooth?

4) Could I use blue tooth to tether my jail broken ipod touch to my droids 3g?

5) Perhaps my biggest concern is this... should I wait? Are better phones close on the horizon? I don't want to impulsively jump into this phone and see verizon get an iphone next month. I especially don't want to be left in the dust if full flash support is coming to new phones anytime soon to allow for megavideo/youtube watching on the go.. ect.. or even an overhauled faster network that I won't be able to take advantage of with a droid.

If droid can provide me with a sleek, browser experience without the jittering.. . and especially if it can tether other devices through blue tooth I would probably be interested.

My plan doesn't come up for a new phone for 6 months but they are willing to give me the 1 year price on a droid plus rebate so about 260$ for the phone. I figure this is a pretty decent deal. although if someone knows a better one I am all ears. Or maybe I should pressure verizon for a better deal?

and I guess lastly... anyone who has had experiance with both iphone/itouch and droid.. could I get a list of pros and cons from your personal experiance?
For me personally the itouch/iphone just seems like a sleeker/sexier/quicker product. It is the first phone interface I ever used that didn't have that jittery/slow lagged feeling. I want something that can capture that.

Thanks for any help/insight you can provide.

1) idk my browser seems to work almost identical to my touch

2)2.1 update is supposed to bring multitouch browser....google maps has multitouch now....if you dont wanna wait for the browser you can always root

3) Yes 100% on usb....idk about bluetooth and again if you root you can also tether wifi

4) dunno about bluetooth but if rooted you can use wifi

5) other than knowing the iphone isnt coming to verizon anytime soon i know nothing about any new and upcoming phones

and about a better deal ive seen places that have the droid for 49.99 but with an update you would have to talk to them/verizon about that i think it was like amazon, sears, wirefly etc..

 

[superglen99]

Flash is coming to the driod by the end of the first half of this year so soon. You can root to make everything multi touch like mine is. My browser is smooth as glass. My buddys at work tether their ipod and unlocked iphones off my droid all day long and at the same time as I am surfing the web, works great. I recently learned that the Droid was the only Android device recently built to be hackable. It has soooo many rom choices its ridiculous and all of these offer all the things you are looking for and things you CANT do with a regular iphone. I.e. overclock, wifi hotspot from your phone and of course the network! Verizon+droid way better iphone at&t.

 

[xythil]

Flash is coming to the driod by the end of the first half of this year so soon. You can root to make everything multi touch like mine is. My browser is smooth as glass. My buddys at work tether their ipod and unlocked iphones off my droid all day long and at the same time as I am surfing the web, works great. I recently learned that the Droid was the only Android device recently built to be hackable. It has soooo many rom choices its ridiculous and all of these offer all the things you are looking for and things you CANT do with a regular iphone. I.e. overclock, wifi hotspot from your phone and of course the network! Verizon+droid way better iphone at&t.

Wow thanks for all the replies guys!

Can somone explain rooting? Is this like jailbreaking an ipod touch or homebrewing a PSP?

Is there any risk? does it make me unable to get firmware updates like the ipod touch jailbreak?

and also you can 100% confirm I could tether my ipod touch to my droid VIA wifi and use its internet?? I mean WOW I am completely sold if this is true.

I am not a fan of Apples DRM bull so an open source device is appealing to me.

Id like a bit more info on the safety of rooting and overlocking also how difficult is it to root or overclock

What exactly is rooting? Custom firmware? Or what

 

[Dxun]

Make the switch. You will more than likely not touch your Iphone again.

 

[hookbill]

Here is a thread with more information on tethering without rooting.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-news/28590-tether-turns-one-year-old.html

And here is a thread on rooting.

http://www.droidforums.net/forum/droid-hacks/632-what-root-means-stop-asking.html

 

[LtKen]

Can somone explain rooting? Is this like jailbreaking an ipod touch or homebrewing a PSP?

Is there any risk? does it make me unable to get firmware updates like the ipod touch jailbreak?

and also you can 100% confirm I could tether my ipod touch to my droid VIA wifi and use its internet?? I mean WOW I am completely sold if this is true.

I am not a fan of Apples DRM bull so an open source device is appealing to me.

Id like a bit more info on the safety of rooting and overlocking also how difficult is it to root or overclock

What exactly is rooting? Custom firmware? Or what

Rooting grants you superuser/admin privileges on the phone, which in turn allows you to do more with your phone than the manufacture intended.

There's of course risk, but if you're educated, it's extremely minimal. I dont know of anyone yet who's ruined their Droid by playing with root. Flashing ROMS (changing operating systems) is the same -- if you educate yourself, you're fine, if you screw up, we can probably (99.99%) help you fix it. It's very easy now, with plenty of guides and videos.

As far as wifi tether with the iTouch, I dont think so. The phone when wifi tethering, acts as an ad-hoc network, not an access point like a router does. This may change in the future, but right now, I dont think you can.

 

[bdbraaten]

One of the other great things about Droid is you're not locked into the default apps that come pre-loaded on the phone like some other phones are.

If Multi-touch is so important you might want to check out this video for the Xscope browser for Android.

Android App Review: xScope Browser | Droid Life: A Motorola Droid Blog

Its far superior to the browser that comes on the phone and offers multi-touch as well as multi-touch using only one finger which is demonstrated in the video.

 

[nerdbox08]

Can somone explain rooting? Is this like jailbreaking an ipod touch or homebrewing a PSP?

It is similar in the fact you are taking control over root files, but it's nothing the same in the fact that you destroy the phones ability to upgrade.

Is there any risk? does it make me unable to get firmware updates like the ipod touch jailbreak?

There is risk, but the the majority of the risks are mitigated by the fact we can always return to stock platform and have the recovery image that Verizon uses to return the phone to stock.

and also you can 100% confirm I could tether my ipod touch to my droid VIA wifi and use its internet?? I mean WOW I am completely sold if this is true.

My cousin connected her touch to my wifi tether capable, rooted phone this morning and I still ran the web.

Id like a bit more info on the safety of rooting and overlocking also how difficult is it to root or overclock

There are threads all over this forum on how to root and overclock. Every ROM runs a little differently in the fact that each developer is removing or adding little tweaks they like.

Rooting is fairly easy, but I must say read, read, READ about how to do it. I can easily root, install a ROM, install a second ROM, unroot the phone all within roughly 20 minutes because I have been doing it for some time.

While I say it's easy and I can do it almost sleeping, I've spent a lot of time learning the verbage and the steps on how to do it.

Overclocking is simple, most of the ROMs produced are OC capable, you just need to have an OC kernel installed with the ROM. That ROM might come with one or you can pick one up from another developer. Be careful, we have a couple versions of Android running around these boards and the ROMs/OC kernels are generally build specific.

I've never used Apple products myself and while there are some quirks about the Droid that could be ironed out, I would never give it up.

 

[huskur]

Hey. I current carry around an Env Touch as my phone and a ipod touch as my PDA/music/apps/internet(when I have wifi)

However a smart phone will make my life a lot easier thanks to my new job.

I love the ipod touch. I realize the iphone is a bit bulkier but still it is very sleek when compared to the boxy/bulky droid.

Aesthetics aside I notice a few things when playing around with a Verizon store Droid model.

1) Web browsing was atrocious. On my itouch moving around pages is like gliding over air. I just brush and it is perfectly accurate. By comparison the droid laged.. it was delayed enough to make me question why I would drop 200 bucks on this thing. I mean the screen looks nice but the flow of moving around a fully loaded page just felt jittery/laggy...
2) Web browsing, google maps.. ect.. is all missing multitouch zoom? What is this the stone age? Seriously why have a sleek capacitive touch screen and not include this most basic feature.. is there a work around?

3) Can the droid be used to tether my PC to the internet? Either through USB or BlueTooth?

4) Could I use blue tooth to tether my jail broken ipod touch to my droids 3g?

5) Perhaps my biggest concern is this... should I wait? Are better phones close on the horizon? I don't want to impulsively jump into this phone and see verizon get an iphone next month. I especially don't want to be left in the dust if full flash support is coming to new phones anytime soon to allow for megavideo/youtube watching on the go.. ect.. or even an overhauled faster network that I won't be able to take advantage of with a droid.

If droid can provide me with a sleek, browser experience without the jittering.. . and especially if it can tether other devices through blue tooth I would probably be interested.

My plan doesn't come up for a new phone for 6 months but they are willing to give me the 1 year price on a droid plus rebate so about 260$ for the phone. I figure this is a pretty decent deal. although if someone knows a better one I am all ears. Or maybe I should pressure verizon for a better deal?

and I guess lastly... anyone who has had experiance with both iphone/itouch and droid.. could I get a list of pros and cons from your personal experiance?
For me personally the itouch/iphone just seems like a sleeker/sexier/quicker product. It is the first phone interface I ever used that didn't have that jittery/slow lagged feeling. I want something that can capture that.

Thanks for any help/insight you can provide.

Don't forget as far as internet pages loading that your ipod touch is using wifi where the droid was likely on 3G. Big difference.....wifi (most of them) are faster than 3G

 

[xythil]

I know that is why I stated fully loaded pages. The loading on 3g was about the same. It was when the page is fully loaded moving around felt jittery/skipped frames/lagged.

Does Rooting change the GUI? the visual interface ect..? Or does it just effect the back end like jailbreaking? Can you get custom interfaces?

 

[nerdbox08]

I know that is why I stated fully loaded pages. The loading on 3g was about the same. It was when the page is fully loaded moving around felt jittery/skipped frames/lagged.

Does Rooting change the GUI? the visual interface ect..? Or does it just effect the back end like jailbreaking? Can you get custom interfaces?

It can effect both. If the dev of that ROM wants to change the UI, they will.

But there are some ROMs that just change the files, OCing, etc.

 

[xythil]

I know that is why I stated fully loaded pages. The loading on 3g was about the same. It was when the page is fully loaded moving around felt jittery/skipped frames/lagged.

Does Rooting change the GUI? the visual interface ect..? Or does it just effect the back end like jailbreaking? Can you get custom interfaces?

It can effect both. If the dev of that ROM wants to change the UI, they will.

But there are some ROMs that just change the files, OCing, etc.

Is there one that is the most popular? What kind of things does it add to the device? Does it improve the web browsing/mail/menu experiance?

My main problem with the droid is the interface seems to lag unlike the ipod touchs interface which feel as smooth as air.

 

[dredge]

well uh...i had an itouch and ive been using my droid so much i cant even remember what i did with it if that says anything:motdroidhoriz::heart:

to question above...yes - check out droid hacks ultimate droid 6.5, smoother than anyone iphone/touch ive seen