n_maher Posted January 10, 2011 Report Posted January 10, 2011 I want a bigger screen then my iPhone. Its the primary reason I am researching Android phones. If you go into it expecting whatever Droid to be an iPhone you'll come away disappointed. If you go into it looking for a similar device, but with an open mind regarding how it goes getting from A to B you may be pleasantly surprised as I was. Neither is perfect, if you think the iPhone is perfect for you then there's nothing to be done. Seeing that you want a bigger screen, I'd suggest taking a long look at the Droid Incredible. It's not that much bigger than an iPhone, but has a much bigger screen. The Droid X will feel enormous to you, so I wouldn't recommend even looking there despite the even larger screen. My wife has the incredible, she loves it.
Cankin Posted January 10, 2011 Report Posted January 10, 2011 This Motorola looks very good Motorola ATRIX 4G Hands-on - Phone Arena hmm......Should I sell my iphone 4 and get it?
manaox2 Posted January 10, 2011 Author Report Posted January 10, 2011 This Motorola looks very good Motorola ATRIX 4G Hands-on - Phone Arena hmm......Should I sell my iphone 4 and get it? Depends on how much you love AT&T's service. That data cap is a mother of fuck. But yeah, that is an amazing looking device.
Cankin Posted January 10, 2011 Report Posted January 10, 2011 Depends on how much you love AT&T's service. That data cap is a mother of fuck. But yeah, that is an amazing looking device. My plan is even crappier: $50, 150mins, unlimited after 6pm, 500MB, unlimited text thanks Bell Canada
grawk Posted January 10, 2011 Report Posted January 10, 2011 I use my iphone a lot and havne't ever come close to my cap (the 2gb one), even with tethering occassionally. My wife has never gone over her lower cap. Admittedly, neither of us streams video 24x7, and I don't run a torrent site on my phone.
postjack Posted January 10, 2011 Report Posted January 10, 2011 If you go into it expecting whatever Droid to be an iPhone you'll come away disappointed. If you go into it looking for a similar device, but with an open mind regarding how it goes getting from A to B you may be pleasantly surprised as I was. Neither is perfect, if you think the iPhone is perfect for you then there's nothing to be done. Seeing that you want a bigger screen, I'd suggest taking a long look at the Droid Incredible. It's not that much bigger than an iPhone, but has a much bigger screen. The Droid X will feel enormous to you, so I wouldn't recommend even looking there despite the even larger screen. My wife has the incredible, she loves it. Excellent web browsing capabilities is the only "must have" functionality I require on my phone, everything else I'm pretty open minded about. The catch is I'm currently with AT&T (grandfathered unlimited plan), and while I'm up for an upgrade in May, my contract isn't up until next January I think. So either way I've got plenty of time to mull over my options. The Motorola Atrix, which just got mentioned in this thread, has definitely caught my eye, especially since its an AT&T phone.
manaox2 Posted January 10, 2011 Author Report Posted January 10, 2011 I went over 3.5gb last month on the Droid X without much tethering. The holidays probably had something to do with it, but its nice to not have to worry about. I still wouldn't dare try torrents over a contract phone.
Dreadhead Posted January 14, 2011 Report Posted January 14, 2011 I am very excited for the Motorola Atrix Motorola Atrix 4G, HD multimedia dock, and laptop dock hands-on -- Engadget A dual core phone that I can dock and use as a nettop... frigging sweet.
manaox2 Posted February 21, 2011 Author Report Posted February 21, 2011 I tested a lot of the music apps for Android today because I was so fed up with the crappy sound quality. The newly leaked Motorola music app has damn incredible features, but same bad quality. I think I finally found what I've been looking for with the Poweramp app. The sound quality is easily a league ahead of every other app I've tried, it supports pretty much all major lossless and non-lossless formats, editing of ID3 tags, has a decent EQ if you care, and a decent interface. Scrobbles too. The only thing I see that they really need to add is retrieving album art online. The widgets are pretty nice and integrates well with the Liberty rom I use. The bad news is that the free version only has a 15 day free trial and the pay version is $4.99. I'm fairly convinced though that I will be paying for it since its the only thing I've been able to enjoy my music with on this phone since I bought it.
jvlgato Posted February 21, 2011 Report Posted February 21, 2011 (edited) Swype is the best touch keyboard I've ever seen or used. Better then a physical keyboard in my opinion. Agree that Swype is great! I also prefer it to any miniature phone keyboards. Have had a My Touch 4G a week or two now and quite like it. Battery life has been an issue, but found that Juice Defender and k9 Mail have helped a lot. Edited February 21, 2011 by jvlgato
morphsci Posted February 22, 2011 Report Posted February 22, 2011 I found that THIS extended battery did the trick for me.
tkam Posted February 22, 2011 Report Posted February 22, 2011 My Atrix 4G arrived yesterday, didn't get any of the accessories have no need for them at all. It's a nice phone, very fast no lag anywhere which is all I wanted. Also GPS that works very well (a nice change from the samsung captivate I had been using).
jvlgato Posted February 23, 2011 Report Posted February 23, 2011 I found that THIS extended battery did the trick for me. Thanks, Jim! I just got a nice case (Seidio, as a matter of fact), which would not fit if I got the extended battery. I'm getting through the whole day with 30-40% remaining now, so I think I'm ok for now.
jinp6301 Posted March 7, 2011 Report Posted March 7, 2011 Got the nook color when they were having that ebay sale. Rooted 2.1 and its pretty damn fast.
blessingx Posted March 7, 2011 Report Posted March 7, 2011 Plug In Launcher for Android makes things happen when you connect USB or headphones http://j.mp/fH6EM9
NwAvGuy Posted March 18, 2011 Report Posted March 18, 2011 For what it's worth, Virgin Mobile in the USA (Sprint) just came out with the LG Optimus a few weeks ago. It's a decent android 2.2 (Froyo) phone--especially if you like something that fits in most pockets. Sprint and T-Mobile sell essentially the same phone so there are lots of accessories already out for it. But the kicker is they have a $25/month plan with unlimited data, unlimited text, and 300 min talk time and no phone taxes and NO FREAKIN' CONTRACT. That's 1/3 or 1/4 the monthly price most I know are paying for their iPhones on a 2 year plan and still less than half the price of the closest competitor I know of. The phone is $150 which pays for itself in just a few months. The bad news is the headphone output isn't great--especially in terms of output level. You need efficient phones if you like it very loud. I suspect it meets the EU hearing protection regs. And I second the recommendation for the PowerAmp android app. It's the best music player I've found.
manaox2 Posted March 21, 2011 Author Report Posted March 21, 2011 Motorola's private keys were leaked today for the Droid X. This means signing updates for custom kernels including device drivers is in theory now unlocked. They had the same vulnerability as the PS3 and ignored warnings for three months. I expect an update will be coming OTA soon with "bug fixes" to resecure it, so if your an owner and interested, it might be a good time to root. Things to possibly come via roms: Ext4 Support for internal memory (faster, more reliable) Amazing Sound quality thanks to oversampling and completely rewritten reference-drivers directly from the sound chip's producer Optimised file system drivers, Kernel uses CPU-Features better - More battery life. Support for completely "blur-free" Roms such as Cyanogenmod or MIUI. This also means that porting new Android Versions to the Device is MUCH easier (as you can replace the Kernel and don't have to work around a Kernel intended for a much older Version of Android.) This news comes at a great time as the DROID X end-of-life is this month and it will soon be pulled from shelves (most likely the DROID X2 will be its replacement, with mainly a CPU and RAM upgrade, removal of camera hard-button, and slightly higher resolution being its only updates).
grawk Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 That conveniently allows them to sell off their remaining inventory
n_maher Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 I would like to ditch blur so I'll be watching this with interest.
manaox2 Posted March 21, 2011 Author Report Posted March 21, 2011 I would like to ditch blur so I'll be watching this with interest. I'm using the Liberty 1.5 ROM currently and all traces of Blur are completely removed. It still uses the Motorola 2.3.340 kernel, but its much faster with nice looks and a nice toolbox of tweaks. I'll have to post pics sometime. I'm worried that the leaked keys are just signatures or not real, so I'm trying now not to get my hopes up too much. Someone has already succeeded in using Kexec to sideload custom kernels and is working on writing the device drivers (already has wireless), so things are still rolling.
n_maher Posted March 21, 2011 Report Posted March 21, 2011 Can you provide a link for a newb on this whole business of loading ROMs and rooting phones?
manaox2 Posted March 22, 2011 Author Report Posted March 22, 2011 (edited) Turns out the bootloader key leak was a highly elaborate prank that even Motorola jumped at. Can you provide a link for a newb on this whole business of loading ROMs and rooting phones? Sure thing, although I don't know of a good link to cover it all, so I'll attempt to explain before you go searching forums. Download z4root.apk from here or google it. Install and hit permanent root. All done with that rooting business. You may likely wish to download titanium backup from the market to back up your apps and app data for after you install your ROM. I also highly recommend Koush's clockwork recovery which allows you to boot into recovery and install custom images from the market for $2 or from the developer for free here. Its the perfect tool for making backups of your entire system, clearing cache, factory resets, and resetting battery stats for new batteries and more. Other enormously great root apps are root explorer for exploring the entire contents of the phone with superuser options and droid overclock for overclock profiles. You can install several ROMS, such as Liberty 1.5, tranquility, and Apex which are blur limited or blur free. Liberty comes with a nice toolbox with customization tweaks and the ability to add skins and back the parts of blur you like. Instructions are in many forums (droidforums.net is a good one), it requires usually clearing the dalvik cache and installing the .zip through clockwork recovery. Then you'll want to restore your user apps with titanium. I use the mysterious beast skin with fancy widgets home and lightgrid live background. Folder organizer lets me use custom icons for folders and apps. On the DROID X, there are also a host of other tweaks to remove data throttling, tweak nvram for tethering with the 3G app, enable Sysctl for increased performance and battery life, and enable evrc-b for higher compression voice calls for both higher quality and less bandwidth needed to reduce dropped calls. Edited March 22, 2011 by manaox2
n_maher Posted March 23, 2011 Report Posted March 23, 2011 I've got the phone rooted and backed up so I may have a go at Liberty tonight.
Dreadhead Posted March 23, 2011 Report Posted March 23, 2011 I think I'm going to take the plunge on an Atrix this weekend after I found a way to sync with desktop outlook: http://www.companionlink.com/android/outlook/ I know I'm a dinosaur for wanting that but to me Tasks and Notes are 100% essential, more essential than having a fully functioning web browser or angry birds so I have been sticking with my crappy old Window Mobile 6.1 phone.
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