Your honest opinions

[d2wheelz]

I have had my driod2 2.2.10 - now for a little over a week now, download a bunch of apps, rooted/unrooted / factory restore etc. basically alot of stuff to get a feel for the phone and to see what needed to be done to keep or improve the "normal workflow" of how I used my phone for daily business activities.

Yesterday I got 3 hours out of a fully charged battery, ( I know there are apps running ) and taskkiller or titianum can free up some resources.

Yesterday was mostly alot of calls, short calls but alot ( i mention this because the screen then needs to activate, go back to sleep , activate again etc etc. and used NFL scorboard a half a dozen times or so to check scores. By about 6pm this was nothing more then a paperweight

Sysncing with outlook is a MUST, Missing sync today started giving me "desktop not found" errors so that might be buggy since it just updated.

went to the VZ store to today and spoke with my original sales person, he sent me to the tech guy to get answers. I already knew them, thanks to this forum. but I knew the right questions to ask.

coming from a blackberry I know I was a little bias, so that was the reason for playing with the phone for a week I wasnted to give it a fair shot.

Some of the basic things I need in the phone,
- Sync with outlook
- Different notification tones
- Different general profile settings
- Specific settings per contact to overide general ( exceptions )

Now maybe these can be overcome with different apps ( some free some not) VZ was willing to credit me the 40.00 for Markspace to sync outlook so im sure they would do that for any other app i needed.

The tech had a HTC rooted and outrighty told me without rooting this phone its just an expensive toy. Great for if you want to facebook, share photos etc. the social networker. If your more business oriented stay with a BB.

Is this phone right for everyone. Is it worth rooting and runing different apps like Document2go for heavy excel use. MarkSpace/Touchdown for outlook sync. etc


My other choices: I could trade this for a BB Storm2 or Bold and stay with VZ ( customer for 8 yrs ) However looking into the BB's i really like the new torch which VZ doesnt carry, and have to switch to ATT and port my number.

Im just looking for some honest feedback. Expecially from BB users that switched

Thanks

 

[Redflea]

2.2.20 (the current Android release for the D2) syncs perfectly w/Outlook Exchange for me - you should not need a separate app to do that. Email, contacts, and Calendar all sync both ways.

If you've used the BB profiles and want that back there really isn't an Android version of that...

You can have contact-specific ringtones, etc., just edit the contact and scroll to the bottom for those settings.

Droid is a great business phone - I used to be on a Blackberry and will never go back.

The D2 does not need to be rooted unless you want to do things that root allows (run custom ROMs, under-clock the CPU, remove some of the VZW/Moto apps that you don't use). I'm rooted but have done little so far other than make a backup and use setCPU to clock down my CPU when the D2 is asleep...the D2 is a powerful and fully functional smartphone out of the box, what the VZW rep told you was plain stupid.

The Storm2 was already old/too late when it was updated last year, that would be a big mistake. The Torch looks good (haven't seen it in person or read reviews), but the screen is too small for me and I don't like being tied down by Blackberry - that OS/Phone is locked down tighter than a drum.

 

[hookbill]

I have had my driod2 2.2.10 - now for a little over a week now, download a bunch of apps, rooted/unrooted / factory restore etc. basically alot of stuff to get a feel for the phone and to see what needed to be done to keep or improve the "normal workflow" of how I used my phone for daily business activities.

Yesterday I got 3 hours out of a fully charged battery, ( I know there are apps running ) and taskkiller or titianum can free up some resources.

Yesterday was mostly alot of calls, short calls but alot ( i mention this because the screen then needs to activate, go back to sleep , activate again etc etc. and used NFL scorboard a half a dozen times or so to check scores. By about 6pm this was nothing more then a paperweight

Sysncing with outlook is a MUST, Missing sync today started giving me "desktop not found" errors so that might be buggy since it just updated.

went to the VZ store to today and spoke with my original sales person, he sent me to the tech guy to get answers. I already knew them, thanks to this forum. but I knew the right questions to ask.

coming from a blackberry I know I was a little bias, so that was the reason for playing with the phone for a week I wasnted to give it a fair shot.

Some of the basic things I need in the phone,
- Sync with outlook
- Different notification tones
- Different general profile settings
- Specific settings per contact to overide general ( exceptions )

Now maybe these can be overcome with different apps ( some free some not) VZ was willing to credit me the 40.00 for Markspace to sync outlook so im sure they would do that for any other app i needed.

The tech had a HTC rooted and outrighty told me without rooting this phone its just an expensive toy. Great for if you want to facebook, share photos etc. the social networker. If your more business oriented stay with a BB.

Is this phone right for everyone. Is it worth rooting and runing different apps like Document2go for heavy excel use. MarkSpace/Touchdown for outlook sync. etc


My other choices: I could trade this for a BB Storm2 or Bold and stay with VZ ( customer for 8 yrs ) However looking into the BB's i really like the new torch which VZ doesnt carry, and have to switch to ATT and port my number.

Im just looking for some honest feedback. Expecially from BB users that switched

Thanks

I'm going to be honest, and maybe a bit brutal. You do realize this is a google phone right? Have you tried going to gmail and looking around in their help on how you sync Outlook? It's not hard to fine, and it doesn't cost anything.

Different notification tones, you set them up the same way as you would with the D1 You can customize them for every person you have in your contacts.

Is this phone right for everyone? Absolutely not. Some people just don't get it and are better off with a (pardon me I need to laugh) Blackberry Storm 2. Now I'm being sarcastic but honest. To me the Blackbery Storm 2 is an absolute joke. Maybe consider the Torch, but someone on twiiter just told me that it doesn't even have a 1 ghz processor.

Some people can't make the learning curve from a Blackberry to a Droid. You're a smart person, you've rooted the phone and been around the block with it a bit but you haven't gotten into some of the basics. Visit your gmail and see how you can get Outlook to work with the D2. If you've already done that and it doesn't float your boat then go to a Blackberry.

Whatever you decide, good luck and I mean that sincerely. It's hard for some people to make the switch and you wouldn't be the first person I know to go back to Blackberry. To me however that's like going back to 20th Century technology here in the 21st Century.

 

[d2wheelz]

Thanks these are the type's of feedback’s I’m looking for.

I’ve hit some of the basics, yes I realize its a goolge phone but gmail really isn’t an option, keeping business/personal information on my clients is more of my business then Googles. I’m sure they data mine their server at times.

I have also synced in allot of ways with it, directly from Gmail, importing vcards directly to the sd card, csv's etc. - Syncing with an exchange server would be seamless but as a small business owners have an exchange server setup $700 minimum for standard is out of budget.

I do like the fast processor; the phone is no slouch by any mean.

Most of the bloat can be remove with root and I don’t see a need ( yet for a custom rom ) the stock should be fine killing some running task, and I’m sure that will extend the battery life, how much I don’t know, but 3 hours is unacceptable and should be for anyone, unless you are watching blockbuster movies - There's trade off in everything. Im sure powering the 1g processor and the big screen account for allot of it.

The notifications/profiles I was concerned about ( or an app ) for example:

You don’t want to be bothered for a few hours so you can get some work done or sleep, phone goes into silent or being charged, however certain contact I would like the phone to ring regardless of phone profile, kids/wife etc the important calls you need to take, last thing I want is for them to have an accident and I missed THAT call. I just didn’t see a way to do that, assigning a custom ringtone in this situation doesn’t work, and without root and moving your tone to the phone memory, a unmounted card you only going to get the default tone anyway.

I don’t think I would go with the storm or the bold, most likely if I switched it would be carriers too and go with the torch ( switching is not really on the top of my list )

I have 22 days left to decide, so ill still play with the phone some more, I wanted the opinion of current users that stayed with it simply figuring anyone that did switch back most likely may not be on the driod forum any longer.

 

[Dragoro]

I had ATT when I lived in Chicago. Never again, thats for sure.

 

[Redflea]

Didn't realize you only want sync to outlook client on a PC...I would not call that "business phone use" (more like home use) so never realized you weren't talking about Exchange server sync.

Go to syncdroid.com to read up on Android outlook client sync options...you can set up your email account on your droid as an imap account, and then sync other items (contacts, calendar, notes) via usb (and maybe BT) using the third-party SW offerings...there is no free program like what comes w/BB to sync outlook clients from the PC, the Android phones are ALL about the cloud.

Go to the android market and search on keywords like "profiles" and related terms to find apps that can provide some of what you want in terms or profiles...again, if you want the full BB profile capability you are just not going to find it on Android - if that's a must you might as well move on now and save yourself some time.

Battery life on my Droid 2 is ending the day (10PM) anywhere between 30% and 60% depending on where I've been and what I've been doing - I call that very good for a smartphone, as good or better than my Blackberry ever got. If you're getting 3 hours you're either beating the crap out of the phone w/it on almost all day, or you have a messed up setup and need to do a factory reset (Settings>Privacy) and a reboot...that doesn't work take it back to VZW. Do NOT use task killers...android does not need them, they just get in the way of the OS managing things.

 

[DeniseSays]

I came from a BB as well.
There's an app simply called 'profiles' which is as close as I've found to a BB-profile like app.

And the battery life on this phone sucks. And is MUCH worse then on my BB which I used WAY more then this D2. It's ridiculous how poor this battery is.

 

[Redflea]

I came from a BB as well.
There's an app simply called 'profiles' which is as close as I've found to a BB-profile like app.

And the battery life on this phone sucks. And is MUCH worse then on my BB which I used WAY more then this D2. It's ridiculous how poor this battery is.

I'm at 30% to 50% (sometimes more) at 10PM. Wifi/GPS/BT enabled all day (but not necessarily used all day). Wifi network at home and work that phone connects to while in either location. Usually make/receive several phone calls, general texting throughout the day, web browsing, just some playing around, 'cause I love my Droid too much.

Phone is set to custom power profile - data turns off after 15 minutes 24/7. Launcher Pro w/six screens, lots of LP widgets and D2 widgets.

Much better battery life than my D1 w/the same battery.

Sucks is a relative measure... What battery life are you getting w/your D2?

What settings are you using, what widgets, etc.?

 

[ReyZero]

Put the following folders on your Droid 2's SD Card
Media / Audio / Notifications
Place the tones you want for notifications in that folder, or make it Alarms if you want new alarms.

There's also an app called ringdroid that's free and will take songs from your phone and make custom lengths for you for those 2 + ringtones