Motorola Droid (hands-on) from an iPhone user's perspective

[Deeko]

yeah, you basically mutilated the battery right out of the box.
NEVER let a lithium battery go to 0%.

Well that's a bit of an exaggeration. Lithium ion batteries do last longer if you charge it when its not fully discharged, but to say the battery is "mutilated" is not just true.

 

[Deeko]

the 256 meg app install limit is the most retarded thing ever. I know Motorola isn't even going to address this, but are any hackers working on fixing this? I had 8 gigs of games+apps on my iPhone before I sold it, I couldn't possibly function with 256 megs. From what I gather apps can be written where the core app installs to phone space and the big chunk of data installs to an SD card, but this isn't common at all.

I have PagePlus and since this phone has WiFi I'd be interested in paying full price for one, but if the 256 meg thing isn't remedied they can keep it.

As I posted in the other thread on apps - this is misguided. Only the core of the app goes in phone memory. An example is the Doom game - about 374k on the phone itself, and then about 30-40MB on the SD card.

 

[basslover1]

As I posted in the other thread on apps - this is misguided. Only the core of the app goes in phone memory. An example is the Doom game - about 374k on the phone itself, and then about 30-40MB on the SD card.

I also already responded to his comments with a link. Google is already working on a solution, that allows any type of app to use the SD card when needed.

 

[slatr]

I have only read over the first three posts in this thread, but I have to say the Droid UI does not feel sluggish to me at all.

As a matter of fact it feels very fluid. Were there different revisions at launch?

Brian

 

[zerocool84]

I have only read over the first three posts in this thread, but I have to say the Droid UI does not feel sluggish to me at all.

As a matter of fact it feels very fluid. Were there different revisions at launch?

Brian

If you come from a lesser phone then it should be fine but if you've played with an iPhone or Palm Pre you'll know how fluid a phone's UI can be.

 

[lokiju]

If you come from a lesser phone then it should be fine but if you've played with an iPhone or Palm Pre you'll know how fluid a phone's UI can be.

IDK, I came from a 3G iPhone and don't see what all the fuss is about...

I think my iPhone was more laggy than this phone is overall.

 

[Glitchny]

If you come from a lesser phone then it should be fine but if you've played with an iPhone or Palm Pre you'll know how fluid a phone's UI can be.

having used both I understand what you're saying. However it still seems that the Droid is more "fluid" and the IPhone is "snappier" I like how the Droid slides between home pages more than the quick flipping around that I've experienced with the IPhone.

 

[pm]

yeah, you basically mutilated the battery right out of the box. NEVER let a lithium battery go to 0%.

This might be true if there wasn't a protection circuit built into the phone. You are correct that with a raw lithium ion cell, you never want to let it drain completely - it causes the battery to literally decompose.

But the lithium polymer batteries in mobile devices, there's a circuit that shuts off the battery well before it reaches the point of destruction. There's no harm in draining a cell phone battery - and as basslover pointed out, it can be helpful in calibrating the battery meter circuitry to drain it occassionally.

 

[maziwanka]

This might be true if there wasn't a protection circuit built into the phone. You are correct that with a raw lithium ion cell, you never want to let it drain completely - it causes the battery to literally decompose.

But the lithium polymer batteries in mobile devices, there's a circuit that shuts off the battery well before it reaches the point of destruction. There's no harm in draining a cell phone battery - and as basslover pointed out, it can be helpful in calibrating the battery meter circuitry to drain it occassionally.

cool. plus it occasionally happens that the battery will drain completely when you dont pay attention to the meter

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

yes but draining it completely should only be done something like once every 3 - 6 months. don't do it often. lithium ion/polymer batteries don't perform as well doing full drains. you're better off recharging when you can because there is no memory effect anyway.

 

[thomsbrain]

Not sure if anyone else commented on this already, but the screen brightness is defaulted to automatic control, meaning when it is indoors it automatically reduces brightness significantly. You can manually over-ride it, though, and it will get VERY bright if you force it.