Android comes to Verizon

CJones said:
I hope Droid v2 does away with the physical keyboard. That would save a lot of space and weight. Just playing with Rachel's phone, the physical keyboard is pretty difficult to use - and this is coming from a BB user!
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There's an HTC version that lacks physical keyboard and flash available now. Think it's 1.5g, though.
 
CJones said:
I hope Droid v2 does away with the physical keyboard. That would save a lot of space and weight. Just playing with Rachel's phone, the physical keyboard is pretty difficult to use - and this is coming from a BB user!
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As a fat dude, on screen keyboards (even the magical iPhone keyboard) do not work for me.

One of the features I love on my (now outdated) g1.
 
gprellwitz said:
There's an HTC version that lacks physical keyboard and flash available now. Think it's 1.5g, though.
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Yeah, we saw that one. It seemed to be pretty far behind the Droid as far as features. I liked it's foot(?hand?)print size, though.
 
CJones said:
I hope Droid v2 does away with the physical keyboard. That would save a lot of space and weight. Just playing with Rachel's phone, the physical keyboard is pretty difficult to use - and this is coming from a BB user!
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THEY HAD BETTER NOT! If the phones get as secure and enterprise management as BB I would want one, and probably an Android over an iPhone because I want, no DEMAND, a physical keyboard. Do you know how many emails I type a day on the BB? I MUST have a physical keyboard! :yesnod:
 
tdager said:
THEY HAD BETTER NOT! If the phones get as secure and enterprise management as BB I would want one, and probably an Android over an iPhone because I want, no DEMAND, a physical keyboard. Do you know how many emails I type a day on the BB? I MUST have a physical keyboard! :yesnod:
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OK.. Let me rephrase by saying that I hope they IMPROVE the current keyboard, then. For me, it's difficult to type on their current physical keyboard. I'm not sure why - keys are too 'flush', too small, too ??? I don't know what, but I'm not a big fan of it as it sits right now.
 
CJones said:
OK.. Let me rephrase by saying that I hope they IMPROVE the current keyboard, then. For me, it's difficult to type on their current physical keyboard. I'm not sure why - keys are too 'flush', too small, too ??? I don't know what, but I'm not a big fan of it as it sits right now.
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I would bet its the screen offset. Every PDA I've used with an offset keyboard leaves me with massive typos and a horrible experience.

I gotta get my hands on a Droid and see how it works.
 
SkyHog said:
As a fat dude, on screen keyboards (even the magical iPhone keyboard) do not work for me.

One of the features I love on my (now outdated) g1.
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We're of similar stature. I have to use my fingernails on the physical keyboard to keep from pressing multiple keys simultaneously. Plus, the screen keyboard has predictive capabilities lacking in the physical keyboard.
 
gprellwitz said:
We're of similar stature. I have to use my fingernails on the physical keyboard to keep from pressing multiple keys simultaneously. Plus, the screen keyboard has predictive capabilities lacking in the physical keyboard.
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Yeah, every once in a while, I use the onscreen keyboard on my Android device, and its pretty good, but its slow, because I have to be deliberate.

It is easier when the phone is in landscape mode though.
 
SkyHog said:
Yeah, every once in a while, I use the onscreen keyboard on my Android device, and its pretty good, but its slow, because I have to be deliberate.

It is easier when the phone is in landscape mode though.
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On-screen keyboard in both portrait and landscape modes.
 
The G1 Keyboard is superior to the Droid, IMO.

The BlackBerry physical keyboard is still the best for fast typing.

The iPhone soft keyboards are quite nice, and work very well. The Android ones still need some polish.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
Well I just got mine.

I have the contacts from my old phone in a CSV file, anybody know a quick way to get them into the Droid easily?

Joe

edit: way too easy. Import into gmail and it's on my phone.
 
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tdager said:
THEY HAD BETTER NOT! If the phones get as secure and enterprise management as BB I would want one, and probably an Android over an iPhone because I want, no DEMAND, a physical keyboard. Do you know how many emails I type a day on the BB? I MUST have a physical keyboard! :yesnod:
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I just find it somewhat hilarious how many people bagged on the iPhone for not having a physical keyboard, and now they've bought Droids with the physical keyboard but they're talking about how much better the on-screen keyboard is. :rofl:

astanley said:
The iPhone soft keyboards are quite nice, and work very well.
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What he said.

SkyHog said:
As a fat dude, on screen keyboards (even the magical iPhone keyboard) do not work for me.
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There's a trick to the iPhone keyboard: DO NOT correct your mistakes. Fat-finger it all you want (and I'm as fat as you) - It's astonishingly good at figuring out what you meant to say. I've typed words where I only got 2 out of 9 letters correct, but it still auto-corrected to the word I meant to type. However, working that way was a big change for me, as I normally (on a computer keyboard) immediately delete back to a mistake while I'm typing.
 
I'm having better luck with the physical keyboard. I'll have to try the autocorrect
 
I bet I'm the only G1 owner here with Google Maps with Navigation installed :D :D

I'm out the door to work/try it out. Hooray for turn by turn in street level view
 
I've had my first problems with the Droid, though I still very much like it. I've had a few instances where applications seem to stop responding and I'm prompted whether to kill them. More concerning, I had an incident where the ring volume went to just about zero; basically coming out only from the earpiece, not the speaker. Restarting the phone solved it, so I'm hopeful that there'll be a fix possible.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Pretty good objective head-to-head of the iPhone 3G and the Droid:

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My rooted G1 supports multitouch (in fact, all Android devices do, provided the software supports it). BetterBrowser does multitouch, including pinch gestures.
 
SkyHog said:
My rooted G1 supports multitouch (in fact, all Android devices do, provided the software supports it). BetterBrowser does multitouch, including pinch gestures.
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Point still goes to Apple, because it supports multitouch all around without having to root it or find a different browser. That's OK for geeks, but the average user will get a better experience out of the box with the iPhone.

I'll say I was pretty impressed with the Droid, though. They did a good job. I wonder how many patents they had to license from Apple? (Over 200 patents on various iPhone stuff.)

One thing I think is worth pointing out: Even though on WiFi the Droid loaded the page "faster", the content was still available on-screen faster on the iPhone. Kinda shows Apple's focus on the user experience, and that speed is a point of great emphasis in Apple's Mobile Human Interface Guidelines, that content should be presented on-screen as fast as possible rather than showing a splash screen or otherwise delaying things to finish processing. They repeatedly state that the content is king, and it should be shown ASAP while processing continues in the background. Because really, is it about making benchmarks, or is it about making the device feel fast to the actual end user?
 
Wow Kent defending the iTurd. Who would have guessed that? :D

I'm due to upgrade - but I don't see the point. I've got internet at home, and at work, and generally anywhere I am at, I can borrow it.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
One thing I think is worth pointing out: Even though on WiFi the Droid loaded the page "faster", the content was still available on-screen faster on the iPhone. Kinda shows Apple's focus on the user experience, and that speed is a point of great emphasis in Apple's Mobile Human Interface Guidelines, that content should be presented on-screen as fast as possible rather than showing a splash screen or otherwise delaying things to finish processing.
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I gotta agree with you there; the iPhone put content I could start reading "on the screen" much faster than the Droid did, in that demo.
 
TangoWhiskey said:
I gotta agree with you there; the iPhone put content I could start reading "on the screen" much faster than the Droid did, in that demo.
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I am torn here. On the one hand, the bias towards 'content on screen faster' is a good thing. On the other, there are a number of websites that push ads first, hold your connection open, and then finish the delivery process. The Droid makes those dumb ad tricks transparent to me, which I like.

I call it a even race on he rendering count.

I will say this - the iPhone soft keyboard is the best I've ever used. I have spent 3 weeks with it and I am amazed at how fast I can type with it; especially with two fingers.
 
There is no touchpad on the one I got. There is a zoom overlay, but I'm still getting used to it.
 
Motorola, what I meant was it doesn't do the two finger zoom like the iTurd.

A double tap will zoom you in/out, if you hold your finger on the screen a zoom overlay will pop up.
 
Interesting Droid vs. iPhone data point.

I have a very large Google Spreadsheet that I use for tracking some health issues. Each morning, I update four rows with some information. I usually do it from my phone - last night, the iPhone was on my nightstand. This morning, when updating the doc via Safari, I noticed the iPhone was slow to render.

I grabbed Jessie's Droid and performed the same task. The iPhone, hanging on wifi, took 7 seconds from the time I clicked 'edit'. The Droid? 3.

Hardly conclusive, but interesting....

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
astanley said:
Interesting Droid vs. iPhone data point.

I have a very large Google Spreadsheet that I use for tracking some health issues. Each morning, I update four rows with some information. I usually do it from my phone - last night, the iPhone was on my nightstand. This morning, when updating the doc via Safari, I noticed the iPhone was slow to render.

I grabbed Jessie's Droid and performed the same task. The iPhone, hanging on wifi, took 7 seconds from the time I clicked 'edit'. The Droid? 3.
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Clearly this is the work of evil Google slowing things down for mobile Safari users as revenge for Steve giving Eric Schmidt the heave-ho from Apple's board. :D
 
LOL. I think they have the same implementation of WebKit under the hood, and I was comparing a 32G 3GS to the Droid...

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
Hey, all I can say is that, for the $30/month "unlimited" data plan (yeah, I know it ain't), I can sync with my Exchange e-mail and calendar via the OWA server and tether my laptop to the Droid. In fact this message is part of my test. Working on the laptop while tethered to the Droid. It's a lot easier to type on a full-size keyboard (or at least a laptop keyboard!) Not something I expect to use frequently, but for those times when I really need to make a connection, it's handy!

On the negative side, unlike my old "dumbphone", when hooked in with BlueTooth I cannot just hit the button on the BT headset and say "CALL LESLIE" to initiate the call. I have to pick up the handset and start the Voice Dial app. Nor is there an external button on the unit that I can use to accomplish the same thing. I have eliminated the need to slide the "unlock" icon across the screen to bring it out of sleep mode, though.

Also, as of yet (though it may change in the next 6 months), I don't have full VPN support or Flash 10 support.
 
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gprellwitz said:
PdaNet
http://www.junefabrics.com/android
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Interesting. When Rachel got her Droid the second day they were out, I asked the sales rep if it was possible to tether to the droid. He said it was 'techincally' possible, but not supported by VZW yet b/c they didn't have a fee structure in place for it.

Do they have a fee structure available now or are you just working around it?
 
If you root your Android device, you can bluetooth tether and wifi tether it :)
 
No rooting required for this. They do not have a fee structure. I just don't do a lot of high bandwidth things to draw attention to myself.
 
What I've read is that with VZW droid:

You pay $30 per month for "unlimited" (5GB) data.
You will pay an ADDITIONAL $30 per month for the VZW option to tether it, and that gets you an additional 5GB of unlmited data.

So for $60 per month (which, surprise, is the basic montly cost of a VZW PC card data plan), you'll be able to use your Android instead of a USB or PC data link device.

With PDAnet, you're essentially running a proxy on the Android, tethered to the laptop. In this case Verizon likely has no idea it's happening. There may be limits - will SSH/IPSEC/other run through PDAnet?

I'm in the purist camp that says "you sell me 5 GB of IP connectivity per month for $30. Doesn't make a damn bit of difference if I use the phone, a laptop, or a LAN to consume that data - you give it to me. It's none of your damn business what devices consume it."

Wireless pricing is the biggest con/shell game I've seen in ages.
 
I have a very large Google Spreadsheet that I use for tracking some health issues. Each morning, I update four rows with some information. I usually do it from my phone - last night, the iPhone was on my nightstand. This morning, when updating the doc via Safari, I noticed the iPhone was slow to render.
Click to expand...
What version of the iphone software are you running? There are supposed to be some significant performance improvements in the iphone 3.0 release.
-harry
 
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