Android Phones?

[rpgdemon]

I now have the money to pay for the data usage plan, and my phone has a mostly free upgrade from my service.

So, here's my problem: I've done no research into the phone market, since the whole, "Hey, you can upgrade your phone for cheaper every few years." thing jumped up on me. I really want a physical keypad, so I'm leaning towards the Motorola Droid 2, but is there a better option? Does anyone know anything about Windows Phone 7 phones?

[Fifthfiend]

My experience with Android has been overwhelmingly positive, barring some gripes which have largely been sorted out either by Google's fairly rapid advancement of their platform or by improvements on the hardware end of things.

[rpgdemon]

Quick question: How does updating the Android OS go? The Droid 2 ships with Android 2.2, and I hear good things about the new version.

I'm used to a dumb phone, where I don't need to update my OS, so I don't know how easy or annoying it is to do.

[Sithdarth]

I pretty much woke up one morning and my Droid X had updated. It's almost that simple. It was certainly much simpler than updating my Blackberry Storm or my Storm 2. In general I like my Droid X much better than my either of the Storms I had as well. But I've never had experience with an Iphone so I can't really to a comprehensive comparison.

[rpgdemon]

I haven't used an iPhone either, nor do I plan to, so no worries there about comparisons.

[Fifthfiend]

If you ARE interested in the iPhone there's VAGUE BUZZINGS that, if it were going to be announced as coming to Verizon, it would be doing so by the end of this month, so, there's that, if you do care, which you apparently do not.

Updates aren't a big thing with Android; there may be a wait if Motorola takes a while to convert from stock Android to like their own fiddled-with version of Android BUT once they have it done they pretty much just push it out to your phone and a popup says "do you want updaetz Y/N"

[Lost in Time]

While I'm not much of a fan for physical keyboards, so I can't help you much on that, but I haven't heard anything bad about the Droid 2 so might as well go with that. On the Android front, I'm pretty much loving it. I have a Galaxy S phone and can't find many gripes, and the ones I do have are being worked on all the time. Google basically grabs you by the hand and says "Do you trust me?" You nod and Google throws you off a building and you have a wonderful time. It's like that.

[rpgdemon]

An odd question: Do you know if the Droid 2 uses a proprietary charger, or just a normal mini-USB one? The latter would be convenient.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

Not that it'll necessarily swing you either way, but I think you can (or at least could) get Angry Birds & Angry Birds Holiday edition free, for the Verizon Droid. If you go with a Droid, you should really pick this one up.

Must. Kill. Piggies!

SWB

[Azisien]

I enjoy my Android phone. HTC Desire at the moment. Upgrading the OS depends on the phone company, too. If you out and get the Nexus S, when it comes out, you'll get OS upgrades immediately and really fast. Mine shipped with 2.1 and HTC recently released 2.2. It was no more complicated than patching a video game, and it took about 5 minutes.

I love all the Google apps. But don't be fooled. Smartphones are not phones. They are laptops with the ability to call people, occasionally, sometimes, but not really.

[Bells]

Just tossing that out there for you guys, taking cue from this thread just in case anyone here thinks about going iPhone this year, there is a pretty strong feeling going around that apple might release an iPad2 sometime in 2011 and taking cues from that depending on how the market reacts, it would release the iPhone5 Short after that.

I wouldn't wait anything before Q3 2011, but you never know... also, there are plenty Droid phones out there right now that you can actually pick something besides an iPhone and don't loose much in features

[rpgdemon]

Well, I really have zero interest in an iPhone, no matter what revisions they make to it. I care more about the functionality than anything else, and Apple's whole closed platform thing makes it hard to say that an iPhone is more functional than an Android based phone.

[Fifthfiend]

An odd question: Do you know if the Droid 2 uses a proprietary charger, or just a normal mini-USB one? The latter would be convenient.

The Droid uses a micro usb, which is basically mini-usb but 1. less common and 2. exactly the same size, which is annoying, but still infinitely better than if they used some sort of proprietary bullshit. I can't say with total certainty what the D2 uses but I can't imagine they would have changed that of all things.

[rpgdemon]

Alright, I can pick up a mini -> micro USB adapter off of Newegg or something. No big worries there.

Anything bad that you can say about the phone? Like, the worst parts that bug you?

[Fifthfiend]

HMMMMMMMMM probably the main thing would be battery life, the Droid tends to do kind of a shitty job holding a charge. This is generally the case with touchscreen smartphones although I think the Droid is worse than average about it. Of course a large part of this is due to the fact that I'm doing so much more with it but it's also the case that if I have it fully charged and just leave it sitting around unplugged it'll die in like... a day-ish? Whereas a standard dumbphone in my experience will usually be fine for like, a week or so.

Also, it's kind of heavy? I don't mind this but it is noticeable and does bother a couple other people I know who have the same phone.

I have a couple of gripes that shouldn't affect you since they relate to hardware performance which shouldn't be an issue for the significantly higher-specced Droid 2. Though at the same time the Droid 2 probably has its own minor annoyances. I think Motorola included a couple bits of unremovable bloatware on the phone, I don't know how annoying/ignorable any of that is.

Aside from that it's pretty much just resisting the temptation to do voice-to-text twitters on the way home from work.

[Marc v4.0]

on the WP7 side of things, I have an LG Quantum and I am really enjoying the WP7 OS a hell of a lot more then I did the iPhone and Android. It is very different, but I didn't really like the iPhone style menu interactions much anyway and there are a few things set up a bit more intuitivly then on the others.

[synkr0nized]

It was my understanding that some kind of regulation/standardization was put in place that required chargers to all be compatible with micro USB cords. So the phones use the same kind of cable you'd use on a camera or GPS device to connect it to your computer, and that connects into the AC adapter plug that goes into the wall (or directly to the computer instead).

Updating is done over-the-air. I suspect you could download them to a computer and transfer them, too, but it's easy enough to do on the device directly (especially if you are at home and can just use the wifi instead).


Get a screen protector of some kind. I would also recommend a case, but I tend to baby my electronics. And learn to accept that every few minutes you'll be wiping smudges off the screen. Well, I do, but I am OCD about it.


HMMMMMMMMM probably the main thing would be battery life, the Droid tends to do kind of a shitty job holding a charge. This is generally the case with touchscreen smartphones although I think the Droid is worse than average about it. Of course a large part of this is due to the fact that I'm doing so much more with it but it's also the case that if I have it fully charged and just leave it sitting around unplugged it'll die in like... a day-ish? Whereas a standard dumbphone in my experience will usually be fine for like, a week or so.

Also, it's kind of heavy? I don't mind this but it is noticeable and does bother a couple other people I know who have the same phone.

I have a couple of gripes that shouldn't affect you since they relate to hardware performance which shouldn't be an issue for the significantly higher-specced Droid 2. Though at the same time the Droid 2 probably has its own minor annoyances. I think Motorola included a couple bits of unremovable bloatware on the phone, I don't know how annoying/ignorable any of that is.

Aside from that it's pretty much just resisting the temptation to do voice-to-text twitters on the way home from work.

- sounds like you have the original Droid? My 2 goes 3-5 days on average unless I really browse a bunch on it or make a lot of longer calls. No doubt, though, that it's nothing like a dumphone. Some of those can go a couple weeks.
They released a firmware update in November for the 2 (and I assume the X as well) that did a few things, one of which allegedly increasing battery life. Did the original get anything like that?

- Heavy? I guess so. Aren't they all, though? Well, the Incredible is really light, actually. Maybe I've just gotten used to it.

- My friend with a Droid has shown me times when scrolling between desktops has noticeable lag, or when applications are taking a while to load; she usually just turns it off and back on. I have yet to have these issues with the 2. I think the fact that it's at least twice as powerful is probably why, though ;)

- pre-installed and non-removable software is mostly the fault of the carrier, in my understanding. In any case, without rooting the phone it will continue to sit there and take up kilobytes of space, though that's not a problem relative to the amount most have built in now (~8 GB, then whatever you have in your SD card). Just don't run it and it won't be in memory.

- I have recently realized how accurate the voice-to-text features of Android are! Holy crap, I can talk my texts while driving, which is actually not really any better than texting them....


Basically as much a I love a lot of my possessions, the Droid 2 was probably the best thing I've purchased in a long time.

[Fifthfiend]

OH bit of a complaint as far as apps, nobody has yet released a music player app that I personally am 100% happy with.

Cubed ("boring mode") gets closest.

[rpgdemon]

I'd probably buy a case, as the last phone I had (The one I'm using now) had an outer touch screen, which got cracked and unusable after being in my pocket when I was moving bulky/heavy objects.

Also, are you able to install anything you want to it, without rooting?

[rpgdemon]

An update: I got one, and am enjoying it. Any great apps I ought to install?