Any tips from Droid users?

I know it sounds terrible that I have a brand new phone when we are so broke...but my husband got a loan for his company, and our phones are company phones, and our Blackberries were 2 years old and we were due for an upgrade, and they were having a BOGO offer on Droid 2 phones, so he decided to go for it now when he had the money rather than wait until he didn't.

Anyway...any Droid 2 owners out there? Any tips? I know there is a learning curve, as there was when I first got my Blackberry 2 years ago, but so far I just find this thing irritating. I wanted to get a Blackberry Torch, but right now they only have them at AT&T and we are with Verizon, so we went with the Droid instead. I managed after lots of trial and error to get Facebook downloaded...and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to call my husband. LOL It's just set up so weird. The keyboard is going to take some serious getting used to, as it is SOO much wider than the BB. I could type crazy fast on the BB but I feel like my thumbs are all stretched out on this. haha

Are there any apps you think are vital to download? Right now all I have are Facebook and Pandora. Anything else? Do you know of any good "notebook" type apps? On BB there was a notebook feature where you could keep notes for yourself and save them off, kind of like Word, and I used it a lot. I kept track of my seizures in it, so I need to find something similar. Is Quickoffice something like that?

Can you explain to me how to download new ringtones? I found the existing ones, but they are all annoying.

Thanks for any help!!

Advanced task killer in the market. It kills apps you have running so they don't waste your battery. I have the lg ally but I'm holding out on both my upgrades till spring when the 4g phones come out. Verison is rolling out 4g lte now and the 3g phones won't. Be 4g capable they will work but not as well as the 4g ones.

Anyways the task killer I highly recommend and I like slacker radio. Also I belive the droid 2 is flash compatible so I would download adobe flash plyer in the market so whenever your away from a computer you can go on casttv.com and watch tv shows or movies. If I think of anything else ill let ya know. Enjoy your phone I think you'll like droid better as an os compared to blackberrys rim software. I found it a lot better I had a curve before.

Is slacker radio like pandora? I'm looking for the task killer right now. Thanks!!

ANGRY BIRDS!

Keychain app is pretty awesome, it keeps all those annoying cards for stores on your phone, and then they can scan it
I will ask Gary when he gets home for any apps he would recommend, he has the Droid X.
I have the Iphone and these are the apps I use, and a lot are for droid too:
Shazam
Weatherbug
UYH Gold (use your hand?)
Kik Messenger
Urban Spoon
Wikipedia

Did Motorola not have that one pre "optomized" for social networking? I know my Moto phone is...

If you have a similar home to what mine defaulted with I would suggest replacing that. LauncherPro offers more customizing yet is lighter on resources than ADWLauncher - though that one is themeable.

A file manager is nice if you don't have one. I have Astro, but you may like one of the other ones. If you plan to use you phone to listen to music replace the default player with a proper one like PowerAmp. If you run into issues playing music there is a known problem with some services that run in the background. Add on task killers can affect it, too.

If you like old games get Nesoid and Snesoid. You'll have to find the roms yourself and load them to your sd card. Like wise, loading up music from you computer will give you the option to use songs as ringtones.

I forget the ringtone app I had. I think it was ringlert. That was a good one and having 2.2 should automatically add the ringtones to your sd card.

I use weather bug too I found that more relaible or accurate than others. Also in the task killer. Say your using your fb or web browser radio whatever. When you bring up your task killer to kill something but not what your using there is a check box where if you uncheck something it won't kill that. My reasoning for the app killer is that a lot of the useless bloatware verizon installs on their phones will just up and start running without your getting into it. So I need to run my app killer a lot because these droid phones are already bad enough on batteries.

Oh and if someone didn't already toss this one. Get a car charger if you didn't already. When you are away from home they come in handy. I love these smart phones but geez they could make a better battery haha.

I'm still getting the hang of my android phone that i received last week so i'm no good at the moment I've got the anvanced task killer downloaded though

Originally Posted by 3CatsN1Dog

I love these smart phones but geez they could make a better battery haha.

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What are you doing on it? Mine isn't supposed to be the greatest battery life wise but a bit of web use, texting, or listening to music on it barely puts a dent in the battery. Gaming, which keeps the screen on and really pulls on the cpu, can drain it down in 3 to 4 hours. You mentioned that your phone is a year or two old, though? So maybe your battery is starting to go.

I have the X, too, and I'm STILL learning! Did manage to get the task killer though.

I just got it in august. I do a lot of minor web browsing like eonline tcs etc on here because I have a cap on my actual computer web usage so I use the phone for basic browsing and watching tv shows and stuff I do on the computer. I am disappointed in my phone because I was under the inmpression it would get the froyo update but I'm still waiting for it to get flash player so I can watch the shows I'm into but not omg crazy about on my phone and not wasting my computer usage on the unimportant shows lol. We don't have cable where I live and sattelite is too expensive so my computer is my tv. I wish we would have sucked it up and gotten a droid x or droid 2 but we got the ally cuz we loved our previous lg phones and liked this keyboard better but its too late to go back now.

This coming spring summer verizon will be releasing 4g lte phones so we are gonna upgrade then to 4g phones that will be released with either gingerbread (2.3) or already be flash compatible froyo phones. The droid x,droid2, lg ally and incredible will be caput in march of 2011 and that's when all the new phones will start rolling out. I'm pretty geeky when it comes to cell phones I could care less if its the newest doodad but I'm crazy anal that it have all the things I want on it and it has to be able to handle everything I do web wise. That was a big drawback on continueing with a bb or switching to droid. My bb couldn't load pages or emails properly plus I couldn't send pms off my bb not to mention the rim software is in the dinosaur age compared to apple and droid. Hopefully the ally comes out with 2.2 (I'm stillllll waaaaiting verizon) and I can get flash on it ill be one happy camper then rumor is december is the magic month but they also said that about sept oct and nov....I won't hold my breath haha.


Oops down another battery level lol. I am really hard on my phones no wonder I kill them so often thank heavens for insurance.

Ok, the way you were talking about upgrading so soon made it sound like you had your phone longer.
What you could do is read up on flashing/rooting and when the two of you can upgrade flash a custom rom onto your phone- this way if you brick it you would have a back up plan. Or you could go ahead and if you seriously mess it up pretend to not know anything and say "it suddenly wouldn't turn on"

I'm on AT&T.. so I have a 2gb data limit - I use my own and "borrow" wireless as much as possible. (Note to readers: don't use WEP to secure your wireless and don't leave the password as the router default)
I'd tell you to tether, but Verizon is wise to it and usually catches people.

And yes, I'd say you really hammer your battery.

From what I've gathered, though, the really high end LG phones are good. The lower to mid are not... which is much the case with a lot of brands, really. Samsung is the same way.

To others that are confused/learning. Think of your phone as a computer, it might allow you to draw some parallels to what you've learn while using your pc.

I was debating on going with samsung for my next phone or going with a 'real' droid. I'm still up in the air but when verizon starts releasing the new line of phones for testing etc ill be doing a lot of research prior to purchasing. I thought about rooting my phone but I'm worried that without having someone walking me thru it step by step ill mess up. If I root tho can I get flash player on my phone? That would be awesome. I know the one forum has the steps to root your phone but I know zkp about the process and what you can and cannot do with it. Id love to delete all the bloatware that's for sure.

Originally Posted by 3CatsN1Dog

I was debating on going with samsung for my next phone or going with a 'real' droid. I'm still up in the air but when verizon starts releasing the new line of phones for testing etc ill be doing a lot of research prior to purchasing. I thought about rooting my phone but I'm worried that without having someone walking me thru it step by step ill mess up. If I root tho can I get flash player on my phone? That would be awesome. I know the one forum has the steps to root your phone but I know zkp about the process and what you can and cannot do with it. Id love to delete all the bloatware that's for sure.

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I think I've seen an Ally guide somewhere. Your best bet would be to find a good community with a lot of people that like to hack their phones and ask for help. This is the most popular mod and would probably be what you need for what you want to have your phone do. Again, see if you can find someone who can give you some feedback on how the Ally takes it.
Everything I've seen for rooting, flashing, sideloading and such all seems really simple to me. I'm use to doing that sort of stuff.

As for what to go with, don't get another hampered phone. Go as high as you can afford and what fits you. I could have went higher end but I do not carry a purse, wanted a keyboard, and am on AT&T. I plan to use my phone as it is for a bit and eventually flash it if I need newer build support for anything and don't want to wait for AT&T - this will also give people time to actually try it out on the phone I have since this thing just came out in October.

And we've gotten O/T here, I bet we're spooking the new android users with more technical talk.
Though I have one simple suggestion for everyone. If you have your own wireless network at home, use that for downloading as much as possible unless you have unlimited data.

Not sure if you have problems getting up in the morning or not, but we have an alarm clock that is amazing! I think its called Alarm Clock Plus V2. It has this high pitched really annoying (at least to me) alarm that I can hear across the house (but that may just be because of the pitch) and instead of just hitting snooze or just turning it off, you have to do 1 math problem to snooze and 2 in a row correct to turn it off. Not sure how good you are with math, but its annoyingly hard first thing in the morning! (you can do different alarms I believe and it has regular alarms as well, but those usually get turned off while we are still asleep)
Google Maps VERY handy navigation app!
Layars is pretty awesome to play with
Drop box is very handy if you use any files on multiple computers
Alchemy is another super addictive game
Forget where you park often? Theres an app for that. The name made me giggle! Carrrr Matey

Originally Posted by capt_jordi

Not sure if you have problems getting up in the morning or not, but we have an alarm clock that is amazing! I think its called Alarm Clock Plus V2. It has this high pitched really annoying (at least to me) alarm that I can hear across the house (but that may just be because of the pitch) and instead of just hitting snooze or just turning it off, you have to do 1 math problem to snooze and 2 in a row correct to turn it off. Not sure how good you are with math, but its annoyingly hard first thing in the morning! (you can do different alarms I believe and it has regular alarms as well, but those usually get turned off while we are still asleep)
Google Maps VERY handy navigation app!
Layars is pretty awesome to play with
Drop box is very handy if you use any files on multiple computers
Alchemy is another super addictive game
Forget where you park often? Theres an app for that. The name made me giggle! Carrrr Matey

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OMG that alarm would drive me nuts! I'm terrible at math. ! I use one of the softest alarms I can find on my phone, and I get up fairly well. Those games sound fun, I'll have to look for them. I already downloaded Angry Birds and I played it forever last night but I'm stuck on one level. *grumble*

So from what I'm reading, what we just bought will be absolete come spring?? That kind of sucks. I thought we were getting good phones, not almost junk. *sigh*

Your phone isn't almost junk....nowhere close imo. Its the way of the cell phone world every 6 mths or so something newer comes out. Honestly I think the droid 2 and x are probably the best available right now and will def stay up to date as time goes on. When it comes to the new software updates and your phone becomes un updatable (like the htc eris and potentially lg ally) that's when its time to worry. I believe the 2 will be updatable for a few more droid os updates like gingerbread (2.3) and whatever 2.4 would be so you'll get atleast 2 years out of it or more. I wish I would have said beh and gone all out and gotten the droid x or droid 2 but I didn't so now I've got to live with the ally till summer. We actually have an ugrade in dec and one in july but I won't let bf upgrade till the new line of phones come out. Lol I use my phone more than him so he is banned from getting a new phone till I can.


Don't worry your phone is a good one. Check out androidforums.com for info about your phone and any questions you might have can be answered there. I pop in there a lot to get potential updates about new software for the ally.

I don't have a droid but here's a link to an article in today's New York Times on-line that gives the author's 10 favorite droid apps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/te...t.html?_r=1&hp

Hope it is helpful.

I'm still getting used to my Android I to have angry birds and stuck on a level same with bubble blast 2 lol

I put a virus checker on mine because I started downloading music I also have a bar tender app as well for work just incase I forget how to make a drink

Originally Posted by Catapault

I don't have a droid but here's a link to an article in today's New York Times on-line that gives the author's 10 favorite droid apps.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/te...t.html?_r=1&hp

Hope it is helpful.

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That was helpful! There were quite a few things on there that I downloaded. Thanks!

Originally Posted by -_aj_-

I put a virus checker on mine because I started downloading music

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Android is linux. Any malware on linux needs root access to run and by default you're not root. I highly doubt you've rooted your phone..
You could potentially give your windows computer a virus, but using a virus scanner on your windows computer and scanning your media before copying it over is better. Your computer has more cpu, ram, and power than your phone. All you're doing is adding an app to slow your phone down.