I just ordered a Verizon Droid

[Deeko]

Now that I've had the phone for nearly a week I wanted to post some of my "issues."

1. Battery life kind of sucks. I use it about the same as my iPhone 2G yet it lasts a much shorter time period. I'm still playing with the screen brightness to find a good balance, but that beautiful display just loves power...

2. When in the docks (I have both the desk and car dock) I would like it to stay on and unlocked, as long as it is getting power. I like to put it in the car dock and play music from it, but it continually locks. I don't want to have to go into the settings every time to change the timeout to "never." What it really needs is a settings menu for each dock (as there will surely be others) that allows display and home screen settings to be set.

Other than that I simply love this phone.

Agreed about the car dock. It stays unlocked in the multimedia dock, why not the car dock - if its connected to a charger at least? That would be nice.

Does the voice recognition work well for you? If I actually have it in the car dock on my dashboard, it struggles to understand me - I have to hold it pretty close to my mouth, then it generally gets what I'm looking for.

Another nice thing to have - it can translate voice and find a contact. So if I say "call john smith", it finds that and brings up John Smith's numbers. What would be nice, if I have a contact's address stored, if I could say "Navigate to John Smith". That doesn't work - it attempts to just search Google Maps for that location, which never seems to work well.

 

[Drekce]

Now that I've had the phone for nearly a week I wanted to post some of my "issues."

1. Battery life kind of sucks. I use it about the same as my iPhone 2G yet it lasts a much shorter time period. I'm still playing with the screen brightness to find a good balance, but that beautiful display just loves power...

2. When in the docks (I have both the desk and car dock) I would like it to stay on and unlocked, as long as it is getting power. I like to put it in the car dock and play music from it, but it continually locks. I don't want to have to go into the settings every time to change the timeout to "never." What it really needs is a settings menu for each dock (as there will surely be others) that allows display and home screen settings to be set.

Other than that I simply love this phone.

I just remembered my #3:

3. They really should have built both of the docks (especially the multimedia dock) with audio out ports (and added a power port to the car dock). It is really annoying to have to plug directly into the phone when it is docked. That is the whole freaking point of a dock!

 

[Drekce]

Agreed about the car dock. It stays unlocked in the multimedia dock, why not the car dock - if its connected to a charger at least? That would be nice.

I figured out how to do this. Go to "Settings->Applications->Development->Stay Awake" and turn it on. That will keep it awake when charging, which is exactly what I want when in the docks.

 

[Saga]

My Sprint Hero > Your Droid.

Yeah.. My Moment > Your shitty Hero.

And I have both. (since my job entitles me to try all new tech and our business account is through sprint).

Go play with a Moment and you'll understand just why the Hero is lacking and nothing more than a shitty HTC attempt at an iPhone clone. There are just times where the popout keyboard on the Moment/Droid is absolutely unvaluable.

That and for christs sake it's an HTC device. It's going to break in six months!

 

[destrekor]

I figured out how to do this. Go to "Settings->Applications->Development->Stay Awake" and turn it on. That will keep it awake when charging, which is exactly what I want when in the docks.

if only you could turn off the touch button backlight. Having the phone in the dock and turning night mode on, and the screen stays on, with no touch button lights, would be absolutely perfect.

 

[Epic Fail]

What if I want something more than the pale facsimile of fulfillment brought by a parade of ever-fancier toys? To spend my life restlessly producing instead of sedately consuming? Is there and app for that?

 

[lokiju]

What if I want something more than the pale facsimile of fulfillment brought by a parade of ever-fancier toys? To spend my life restlessly producing instead of sedately consuming? Is there and app for that?

At least give credit if you're going to quote it.

 

[Glitchny]

Now that I've had the phone for nearly a week I wanted to post some of my "issues."

1. Battery life kind of sucks. I use it about the same as my iPhone 2G yet it lasts a much shorter time period. I'm still playing with the screen brightness to find a good balance, but that beautiful display just loves power...

2. When in the docks (I have both the desk and car dock) I would like it to stay on and unlocked, as long as it is getting power. I like to put it in the car dock and play music from it, but it continually locks. I don't want to have to go into the settings every time to change the timeout to "never." What it really needs is a settings menu for each dock (as there will surely be others) that allows display and home screen settings to be set.

Other than that I simply love this phone.

I haven't used the docks so I cant comment there. But as to the battery life I have had the opposite experience. Maybe I just use my phone less or have the settings different. But after a day of moderate use (texting, a few phone calls, app store, browser, 4+hours of music) I still had 60% battery after 18.5 hours.

Seems pretty decent to me, but I might be using it a lot less than you. I also have the screen set to timeout as fast as possible and have all the antenna's and gps off unless I need them, and I don't have exchange support on (damn company doesn't allow us)

 

[Fritzo]

Where the hell are you guys scoring docks at? I want one and everyone has them listed as "coming soon".

 

[Deeko]

Where the hell are you guys scoring docks at? I want one and everyone has them listed as "coming soon".

Car dock - verizonwireless.com
multimedia dock - called around a few stores in the area, all were sold out...except one, where someone had bought one and returned it the next day.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

Now that I've had the phone for nearly a week I wanted to post some of my "issues."

2. When in the docks (I have both the desk and car dock) I would like it to stay on and unlocked, as long as it is getting power. I like to put it in the car dock and play music from it, but it continually locks. I don't want to have to go into the settings every time to change the timeout to "never." What it really needs is a settings menu for each dock (as there will surely be others) that allows display and home screen settings to be set.

Other than that I simply love this phone.

does the home dock hook up to a power source?
i saw pics of it and it was just the dock with no cable. i'm assuming it does because it would be retarded not to.

 

[Drekce]

does the home dock hook up to a power source?
i saw pics of it and it was just the dock with no cable. i'm assuming it does because it would be retarded not to.

The home dock has a micro USB port and comes with a uUSB cable and wall charger. It is really nice for listening to music while at work. I love this thing so far.

I ordered a home dock at the VZ store when I bought my Droid and it was overnighted. I got it on Tuesday. The car dock was in stock at the store.

 

[rockyct]

So how are you Droid users doing after a couple weeks now? Discover any annoying things or is it overall very nice?

 

[dbk]

How the build quality?

 

[Fritzo]

How the build quality?

Built like a tank.

I've been liking mine more and more over the last couple of weeks. Three guys in the office dropped their IPhones this week after playing with mine---seeing how I can get a 3G connection in the basement of our building, and they have to go outside to make a phone call

 

[KentState]

Loving the phone so far. I'm looking forward to some apps to help with notification and ringer profiles like on a Blackberry. Also, hoping that I can get a dock and get it to work like "bedside" mode on my Storm when docked.

 

[Fritzo]

Loving the phone so far. I'm looking forward to some apps to help with notification and ringer profiles like on a Blackberry. Also, hoping that I can get a dock and get it to work like "bedside" mode on my Storm when docked.

Most apps have custom ringtones in the settings for the app (not in the general ringtone settings menu).

Also, check out the app Locale.

 

[rgwalt]

Any recommendations on must have apps / widgets? I've downloaded:

Ringer toggle widget
Flashlight
HandyCalc (looking for a better scientific calculator)
Power Control widget toolbar (on/off for wifi, refresh, gps, bluetooth, and brightness)
Sports Tap (for sports scores)
Unit Converter

Plus some games. Any suggestions would be very welcome!

 

[lokiju]

Any recommendations on must have apps / widgets? I've downloaded:

Ringer toggle widget
Flashlight
HandyCalc (looking for a better scientific calculator)
Power Control widget toolbar (on/off for wifi, refresh, gps, bluetooth, and brightness)
Sports Tap (for sports scores)
Unit Converter

Plus some games. Any suggestions would be very welcome!

There's a number of topics on this phone and apps for it in the phones section here http://forums.anandtech.com/forumdisplay.php?f=37

 

[MotF Bane]

I don't like that with VZW you pay the normal monthly plan cost, and then an additional cost for anything in the PDA/Smartphone class... an additional 30-45.

 

[zerocool84]

I don't like that with VZW you pay the normal monthly plan cost, and then an additional cost for anything in the PDA/Smartphone class... an additional 30-45.

You mean for the internet??? You have to have internet with any smart phone on any carrier.

 

[MotF Bane]

You mean for the internet??? You have to have internet with any smart phone on any carrier.

It says "data cost 1.99/MB", so I was thinking that covered it. Ah well.

 

[Drekce]

I still love my Droid and wouldn't go back to my iPhone if I had the choice. The biggest problem I have with it is the selection of apps (which I knew was a drawback before I bought it). I have found apps that replace about 90% of the ones I had on my iPhone, but would like more options in games and miss some of the niche apps like USAA, TD Ameritrade, etc.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm still liking my Droid. The flat keyboard kinda irritates me still, but I'm adapting to it just fine, the landscape on screen keyboard too. Still suck at the portrait keyboard on screen though.

My main gripe is with the battery as well, however, microUSB cables are a dollar a piece. A car charger was a dollar. Not really a big deal. The battery will last close to 36 hours if you're not constantly syncing email and surfing the web and using the GPS. At some point in that time frame, I'll be back to my PC or hotel room with an AC outlet.

 

[Fritzo]

I'm still liking my Droid. The flat keyboard kinda irritates me still, but I'm adapting to it just fine, the landscape on screen keyboard too. Still suck at the portrait keyboard on screen though.

My main gripe is with the battery as well, however, microUSB cables are a dollar a piece. A car charger was a dollar. Not really a big deal. The battery will last close to 36 hours if you're not constantly syncing email and surfing the web and using the GPS. At some point in that time frame, I'll be back to my PC or hotel room with an AC outlet.

Turn off the GPS and WiFi when you're not using them. THere's a widget to do this easily. I'm getting 2 days on a charge now.