OT:Smart Phones

[TheGamer2]

Tjung...best app is replacing the stock browser with the Dolphin Browser HD. That's first and foremost. It's ridiculously good.

That was the first thing i downloaded! It's a huge phone for sure!

I have this phone also, along w/ 4 of my co workers and my sister also. We all love it. tjung, try the skyfire browser. I tried Dolphin, and skyfire seems to run better. I may be late to the party on this, but has anyone tried the Orb app. It gives you access to all the media on your pc to your smartphone. Also, something that's helped with the battery life on the Evo, is the Advanced Task Killer. It kills those apps that are running in the background that can be eating up your battery life. As far as the video chatting, we've been using the Fring app. It really has been working like a champ. I really love the huge screen, I figure, if I'm going to be using this for video, may as well have a bigger screen. Great phone!

[dbdynsty25]

Well, got my X...and this sucker is big...and fast. It pretty much beats the EVO in all of the performance benchmarks I've seen and the EVO is certainly no slouch, so that's always a good thing. Of course, the Galaxy S phones will kill both the X and EVO so there's that.

I definitely like Motorola's interface more than HTC's. I'm not a fan of the SenseUI and Motorola left most of the interface standard Android which I like better. They added a few of their social networking blur type stuff but that's easily disabled and removed. All in all a good first impression...we'll see how it goes for the next week or so and if I can adjust to the size of it. I've got like two weeks before my Verizon bill is due with the phone on it so I'll have a decision made fairly soon. Both the X and Incredible are fantastic hardware-wise...so I suppose it's just a matter of software taste and size at this point.

[tjung0831]

Well, got my X...and this sucker is big...and fast. It pretty much beats the EVO in all of the performance benchmarks I've seen and the EVO is certainly no slouch, so that's always a good thing. Of course, the Galaxy S phones will kill both the X and EVO so there's that.

I definitely like Motorola's interface more than HTC's. I'm not a fan of the SenseUI and Motorola left most of the interface standard Android which I like better. They added a few of their social networking blur type stuff but that's easily disabled and removed. All in all a good first impression...we'll see how it goes for the next week or so and if I can adjust to the size of it. I've got like two weeks before my Verizon bill is due with the phone on it so I'll have a decision made fairly soon. Both the X and Incredible are fantastic hardware-wise...so I suppose it's just a matter of software taste and size at this point.

Yeah...I'm rollin 4G with my Evo ....so suck on that!

Tim

[dbdynsty25]

Yeah...I'm rollin 4G with my Evo ....so suck on that!

Quite true...tho, I'd much rather be on LTE when it comes out at the end of the year on Verizon. New Android upgrade time!

[dbdynsty25]

Anyone running Android...you MUST download this stuff:

Nesoid (4 bucks)
Rom Buddy (2 bucks)

Basically...those two things give you access to virtually any Nintendo game known to man. If you've got a phone with a keyboard, then you can map the buttons or if you've got a touchscreen only phone, you can put the virtual d-pad and buttons anywhere that's comfortable to you. Literally HOURS and HOURS of enjoyment. Of course, there are also emulators for Genesis, SNES, Gameboy and more. But Nesoid is by far the best...and they are available on the Android market, so I'm not violating any TOS here.

[dbdynsty25]

For anyone on At&t that doesn't want an iPhone...the Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S) is FANTASTIC. It is one slick phone...fast as hell, nice and thin and light...it's beautiful. So...basically it's time to dump the iPhones and start switching over. My buddy went from a 3GS to the Captivate and he's stoked as hell. They did a fantastic job with the phone and there was no line to get it on Sunday when it was released either!

[jLp vAkEr0]

For anyone on At&t that doesn't want an iPhone...the Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S) is FANTASTIC. It is one slick phone...fast as hell, nice and thin and light...it's beautiful. So...basically it's time to dump the iPhones and start switching over. My buddy went from a 3GS to the Captivate and he's stoked as hell. They did a fantastic job with the phone and there was no line to get it on Sunday when it was released either!

Saw the Captivate today @ Att and it looked amazing.

Super fast, gorgeous screen.. My friend is switching over to Att so he's between the HTC Aria and the Sammy. I told him the Sammy is a much powerful device. He did like the Aria cause it's a bit more compact.

The Sammy Vibrant is available @ Tmobile so I maybe FINALLY upgrading from my MT3G.

The only think I don't like from those Sammy phone's: no camera flash.

[dbdynsty25]

DO NOT get the Aria. At&t locked it down completely. It's not nearly as customizable...you can't even install Applications that aren't directly from the Android Market. That's a huge fail. Seriously, the Captivate is soooo much better. The rest of the At&t Android offerings are almost laughably bad.

[jLp vAkEr0]

DO NOT get the Aria. At&t locked it down completely. It's not nearly as customizable...you can't even install Applications that aren't directly from the Android Market. That's a huge fail. Seriously, the Captivate is soooo much better. The rest of the At&t Android offerings are almost laughably bad.

I wont, it's my friend who's considering it.

I told him that the Sammy was a better phone all the way.

I'm thinking of getting the Vibrant since it's on Tmobile.

[Slumberland]

My Incredible just arrived. Never had a smartphone and I am excited to jump into the deep end.

Reading that battery life is a concern. Looks like there's a 3500 mAh battery coming down the pike that changes the form factor a bit but might still be desirable. What are people's experience with the stock battery?

[dbdynsty25]

My Incredible just arrived. Never had a smartphone and I am excited to jump into the deep end.

Reading that battery life is a concern. Looks like there's a 3500 mAh battery coming down the pike that changes the form factor a bit but might still be desirable. What are people's experience with the stock battery?

Stock battery is sh*t. You need the extended. The 1750mAh from Seidio is perfect and it fits in the stock chassis...no need for an ugly ass battery cover sticking out. I wish I would have known you were getting your phone so soon or I'd have sold you mine. Here it is from their online store:

http://www.seidioonline.com/product-p/basi17hhrv.htm

It's simply a necessity on the Incredible. I couldn't make it through a day without it. Sucks it's another 50 bucks on top of the cost of the phone, but it's a small price to pay for a significant battery life bump of like 25%.

[Naples39]

I wish I would have known you were getting your phone so soon or I'd have sold you mine.

Just out of curiosity, how much do these typical go for used? I've thought about getting that one, but Verizon makes you buy a $30/month data plan with purchase, which is simply too much for me.

You know if Verizon will let you activate these without buying that data plan if you bring your own phone to them?

[wco81]

Verizon is expected to have tiered data plans so there may be a lower monthly rate available, but for less data allotment.

[Naples39]

Verizon is expected to have tiered data plans so there may be a lower monthly rate available, but for less data allotment.

I've heard those rumors too, but as of last week, for 75% of the phones in their store, you are required to buy $30/month data plan upon purchase. There are a few phones with which you can buy $10/month plan, but those are pretty basic smartphones.

They hardly have any phones which have no data plan purchase required.

I also suspect that when the tiered data services comes out it will just be an excuse to charge $40 or $50 for unlimited data, and the preexisting $30 plan will then get a data limit.

[dbdynsty25]

You cannot buy a smartphone or even activate it on Verizon without having a data plan attached to the account. They just won't let you do it anymore.

As for the Incredible and the used prices...I got 440 for mine on eBay. They are still pretty hard to come by because of OLED screen shortages, so their price is artificially high for a few more weeks most likely. They changed them over to an LCD screen so the new ones should start shipping in August.

My dad was going to buy my Incredible from me until he saw the Droid X, so he's getting one of those now too. He's old so the bigger screen is very helpful.

Tiered data plans are a VERY good thing in my mind. People up in arms about them are stupid.

Who's going to use 2GB of data on their smartphone? Like 2% of the population. On At&t, 2GB of data is 25 bucks. 5 bucks cheaper than the 30 dollar unlimited plan (which was capped at 5GB if you read the TOS). So basically 98% of all users will save 5 bucks a month when they switch over to tiered...assuming Verizon uses the same basic pricing structure At&t does. I'm all for it.

[Naples39]

You cannot buy a smartphone or even activate it on Verizon without having a data plan attached to the account. They just won't let you do it anymore.

As for the Incredible and the used prices...I got 440 for mine on eBay. They are still pretty hard to come by because of OLED screen shortages, so their price is artificially high for a few more weeks most likely. They changed them over to an LCD screen so the new ones should start shipping in August.

Well that ends my curiosity.

[mixdj1]

Any of you Android phone users have issues with Activesync?

I just got a new Droid X to replace my iPhone. I made the switch because of all of the praise that Android has been getting and the fact that AT&T coverage can be spotty in some of the places I travel. But I need to have immediate email delivery for my job and the Activesync on the Droid X seems to be spotty as best.

I would say that about 40% of my work emails get pushed to the phone, another 20% will come in on what seems to be the 15 minute pull interval, and the rest of the time it doesn't pull anything unless I manually go into the inbox which forces a refresh with the server. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a solution?

I love just about everything else on the phone but if I can't get my exchange email to deliver reliably I'm going to have to take it back.

** Update **

Just downloaded the trial version of an app called Touchdown that seems to sync every time. Plus it has a lot more customization options than the default android Activesync app. Looks like I get to keep my shiny new Droid X.

[dbdynsty25]

Activesync works fine on my Droid X. So much so that I'm deleting my exchange account...hate getting work emails on my phone. It's made for NES and Genesis emulators.

[Darkbandit]

Got my X on Tuesday, was DOA. Now waiting for X number 2...the cost of being an early adopter of tech *sigh*

[dbdynsty25]

Got my X on Tuesday, was DOA. Now waiting for X number 2...the cost of being an early adopter of tech *sigh*

I don't know if that's an early adopter cost...it's just an electronic cost in general. I know plenty of people with perfectly functioning X's. It just sucks sometimes...especially when stock is low and you've gotta wait a week or so before you get your replacement. My sympathies.

[Darkbandit]

The good thing is that even though the phones are on backorder, they are still shipping out even though VZW is saying by 8/4. So I got my replacement device today and so far everything seems to be working fine.

[bdunn13]

Did you keep the seido battery?

Was it that much better than the stock battery?

I am sort of interested in one.

[dbdynsty25]

Did you keep the seido battery?

Was it that much better than the stock battery?

I am sort of interested in one.

I went with the extended battery when I had the Incredible. I found it completely necessary and worth the 40 bucks. Without a doubt. The X does a little better with the stock battery so I'm making it fine with the standard X battery. However, if Seido comes out with an extended that doesn't change the size of the X, I'll probably get it, even though it's probably only going to be 15-20% bigger. The Incredible battery was almost 35% more capacity, so the jump was significant. Get one if you're keeping the Incredible.

[tjung0831]

Froyo....Android 2.2 was released this evening for the HTC Evo! Downloaded and installed! Woot!

[Badger_Fan]

Should have Froyo on the Droid some time this week. Flash will be nice, but I'm most excited about the automatic software updates.