I've used Blackberries for awhile...and while they're obviously nowhere near some of the other smartphones when it comes to multimedia and web browsing, I think they still have email on a lock...even if you don't have a BES server

10/24/2009 7:45:02 PM

Quote :

"what do you mean true two-way sync?"

Quote :

"probably deleting mail from the server = message removed from phone. believe yahoo has it and gmail will soon. Or he might be talking about folder sync, etc."

That's correct. What I see in my e-mail client is what I should see on my device. I shouldn't have to scroll through a bunch of stuff that I've already read elsewhere. Like I said before, push e-mail is nice, but it's not useful unless you make your BlackBerry your primary mail device.

10/24/2009 9:14:31 PM

BB email is nice but it lives and dies with RIM. They have an outage and you have no email or internet which has been happening at a more than acceptable rate.

10/24/2009 10:39:16 PM

you mean like how AT&T seems to have a data outage at least once per month in some part of the country?

10/24/2009 10:47:46 PM

some part of the country once a month is better than the whole damn country..

10/24/2009 11:09:25 PM

i enjoy watching RIM and AT&T fail equally

10/24/2009 11:13:55 PM

Anyone else using cyanogens stable rom released tonight? Good Lord it is fast.

10/24/2009 11:27:01 PM

no we are all still waiting for it to come to verizon

10/24/2009 11:59:37 PM

Even after the project dark rumors with t mobile? They could have the best network very soon, and very cheap everything plans.

10/25/2009 10:47:51 AM

A Blackberry on a BES Server is THE best email there is...I literally get an email on my BB within a couple seconds of when it pops up on my Outlook...and with the wireless reconciliation feature you can set it to where if you delete it one place, it gets deleted in the other...it seems like you have misconceptions about Blackberry email

I can think of maybe once in the last year when I couldn't use email or the internet, and it lasted about 2 hours

10/25/2009 10:22:14 PM

perhaps, but i'm not just looking at deletion features. i'm also talking about having access to messages that are in folders, things that are already being automatically being redirected away from my inbox, etc. i was doing all of this with two google mail accounts, so maybe that's part of the trouble. anyway, my experience with the software was frustrating.

don't want to derail the thread though, i'm just hoping for something closer to a full mail client w/ android.

and they need to hurry up and release that shit!

10/25/2009 10:34:40 PM

^^ I usually get the email on my G1 before it shows in my gmail online. With a rooted phone you can get Enterprise as well, though I do not use that so i cant speak on it.

10/26/2009 12:02:15 AM

BES is way overpriced and not an option for most people. The sync using OWA for exchange is horribly slow and I've just started forwarding things to gmail which pops up almost instantly on my phone. RIM needs to get with the ActiveSync program like the others.

^^ the new enhanced gmail plugin available on OS 5.0+ allow you to search messages stored on the server. It's kind of a pain though since you have to know what folder the message is in since there seems to be no "All mail" search option.

[Edited on October 26, 2009 at 7:27 AM. Reason : ]

10/26/2009 7:25:39 AM

Great read for those interested in Eclair/2.0 and the features. Any developers on here?

http://androidandme.com/2009/10/news/google-drops-android-2-0-sdk/

10/27/2009 4:39:14 PM

i wanna know when the hell google is going to open a new domain for registering google accounts.

like username@gm2.com or something

it is impossible to register anything without bastardizing your name anymore. .. .a gmail acct is required to setup your android phone, and all of the calender syncing works with your gmail.

10/27/2009 5:17:47 PM

In other news all of your PIM dada (contacts, calender, etc) is actually stored on the google server so if your phone takes a swim you do not lose data......with most smartphones cable syncing is required to accomplish this.

With android all data is synced OTA and stored on the system and if you replace your phone all you have to do is login and the data will re download to your device.

10/27/2009 5:51:10 PM

Quote :

"Verizon's HTC Droid Eris to run Android 1.5 on a 528MHz CPU We can certainly understand why Verizon wants to brand all of its Android devices under the "Droid" label, but at this point we can't say we understand why it's launching the HTC Droid Eris alongside the Motorola Droid at all -- BGR says it's going to run Android 1.5 on a 528MHz Qualcomm CPU, which means it'll be instantly obsoleted by Android 2.0 on the Moto's OMAP3 at launch. What's more, it sure seems like Verizon knows it's mismanaging this situation, as we haven't heard a single peep about the Eris in the runup to the Droid launch tomorrow, even though Eric Schmidt and Lowell McAdam were waving both devices around a few weeks ago. We'll see how this all plays out -- HTC certainly has Android 2.0 phones of its own in the works, so the Eris might not be long for this world."

epic fail by HTC especially with the Droid and Eris supposedly both launching on Nov 6th.

[Edited on October 27, 2009 at 6:03 PM. Reason : ]

10/27/2009 6:02:22 PM

HTC for $99 maybe? I cant imagine theyd both be $199

10/27/2009 6:31:30 PM

^^^^ you got a domain handy? get yourself some delicious Google Apps for your domain, and you can have whatever addy you want.

10/27/2009 9:06:25 PM

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/google-adds-free-turn-by-turn-navigation-car-dock-ui-to-android/

Quote :

"Google adds free turn-by-turn navigation, car dock UI to Android 2.0 (video) by Ross Miller posted Oct 28th 2009 at 10:00AM Those nat service providers' fears were actually quite justified. Google today unveiled Maps Navigation (beta, of course), an extremely upgraded version of its current Maps software that'll be free and, from what we understand, available by default on all Android 2.0 devices. All the usual Maps features are present, including the ability to search by name of business and have it suggest the closest matches, both semantically and geographically, and traffic data. We're also now looking at turn-by-turn navigation, female robotic voice and all, and integration with satellite and street view, the latter of which will be able to show you what lane you need to be in when exiting the highway, for example. Instead of just searching nearby, it'll also now search along the route for when you're looking for upcoming gas stations or fast food joints that won't take you too far off your beaten path. Select addresses can be added to the Android home screen as their own icons, and given the limits of living in the cloud, trips and their respective visual feeds will be cached just in case you hit dead spots along the way. Still no multitouch, but as VP of Engineering Vic Gundotra noted at a press conference, there's nothing stopping a company like HTC from adding that feature à la Sense UI. In addition to demonstrating the basic navigational functions, Gundotra also showcased a new user interface that appears when the device hooked up into a car dock, one that is intended for use "at an arm's length away." Essentially, it means much larger iconography and a convenient "voice search" option front and center. We later got confirmation from a Google product manager that car dock detection was definitively a hardware-based feature, which we take to mean Android devices currently on the market won't necessarily have the same convenience. If Android 2.0 takes off how Google (and Verizon!) hope it does, companies like TomTom and Garmin are going to seriously need to worry about their bottom line. Watch Gundotra demonstrate the app after the break."

10/28/2009 10:28:14 AM

very interesting.... even more so if map updates are free (and expansions to other parts of the world), tie in ratings and other ever changing points of interest (custom?) and you have a very interesting GPS mode....

10/28/2009 10:53:44 AM

Quote :

"We knew good and well this thing was coming sometime in November, and now Verizon Wireless has made it official: the Motorola DROID will hit Big Red on November 6th for $199 on contract (after a $100 mail-in rebate). Naturally, the DROID itself is just the first of what could be many Android-laced phones coming to the carrier, and Verizon Wireless CMO John Stratton even stated that the phone "is wide open" -- pretty big words from a company like VZW. Android 2.0 will be front and center, along with Visual Voicemail, a 3.7-inch display (854 x 480 resolution), 5 megapixel camera (with dual-LED flash), a bundled 16GB memory card and a beta version of Google Maps Navigation(!). For those wondering, yeah -- the DROID is the first phone to offer that, which transforms Google Maps into a turn-by-turn routing system that'll have your dedicated TomTom / Garmin trembling in fear. There's also a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 3G, WiFi, voice-activated search and over-the-air Amazon MP3 downloads. With all that, who needs the iPhone, right Ivan?"

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/motorola-droid-first-hands-on/
video-http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/motorola-droid-official-on-verizon-199-on-contract-coming-nov/

[Edited on October 28, 2009 at 11:11 AM. Reason : ]

10/28/2009 11:06:29 AM

wonder what the price will be off contract

10/28/2009 11:08:52 AM

Getting Ordering my Samsung Moment Sunday!

10/28/2009 11:28:44 AM

So is there a touch screen keyboard and a slide out keyboard on this thing? I can't wait to play with one of these

10/28/2009 11:55:36 AM

seems to be. touchscreen keyboard is a standard feature of android now, and the side-out physical keyboard is self-evident. it's like the t-mobile google g1 phone, except with less suck!

10/28/2009 12:12:22 PM

The second link I posted at the end has a video that shows the on screen keyboard. And after playing with the storm2, an android will be my next phone. Rim had lost me

10/28/2009 12:44:28 PM

it's settled, my next phone will be android powered.

Google GPS App (gotta watch the vid):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGXK4jKN_jY
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/10/28/google-set-to-offer-free-turn-by-turn-gps-mobile-app
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=16654

[Edited on October 28, 2009 at 1:21 PM. Reason : .]

10/28/2009 1:21:36 PM

^yeah that GPS nav demonstration video is pretty insane.

i'm kind of locked into AT&T (not b/c of contract, more b/c the people i call most are all on AT&T) so i hope there comes way to get an android phone on there (besides paying out the ass for an unlocked phone).

10/28/2009 2:21:38 PM

good lord, that's almost worth paying full retail for

10/28/2009 3:19:16 PM

do want

10/28/2009 3:28:40 PM

more pictures and videos
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/motorola-droid-first-hands-on/

10/28/2009 4:34:11 PM

please someone tell us as soon as you get to play around with the Google GPS apps, i cannot wait to drop VZNavigator

10/28/2009 5:36:15 PM

Weirdly enough, my VZnavigator as never steered me wrong where other navs have.

10/28/2009 5:49:12 PM

it's definitely been wrong for business addresses. for example, ill ask for a home depot and itll take me to a home depot distribution warehouse or something like that.

either way FREE >>>>>> 9.99/month

10/28/2009 5:56:46 PM

wonder if verizon will create a special android data plan that's $50 or so to recoup the lost money from no one using vznav. Cause if it works as good as it looks, you'd be stupid to pay for vznav.

Droid Specs

Quote :

"3.7-inch WVGA (854x480), 16:9 touchscreen Arm Cortex A8 550 MHz Processor 5-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash DVD-quality video capture and playback (720x480) 16GB microSD (32GB expandable) 3.5mm headphone jack QWERTY keyboard 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS (with Google Maps Navigator) 1400 mAh battery 6 oz (169g) 2.4 x 4.6 x.5 inches (60x115.80x13.70mm) Android 2.0 The full spec sheet after the jump! DROID by Motorola with Google™ Talk and Standby Time4 TT: 385 mins/6.4 hours SB: 270 hours/11.25 days Form Factor Capacitive Touch; Full Qwerty Side Slider Band/Modes1 800/1900, CDMA EVDO rev A OS Android 2.0 Weight 169 g / 6 oz Dimensions 60.00 (x) x 115.80 (y) x 13.70 (z) mm 2.4 (x) x 4.6 (y) x 0.5 (z) inches Browser1 Webkit HTML5 based browser; Flash 10 ready Email Support1 GmailTM, Exchange, IMAP, POP, Macmail, GmailTM, MSN Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL® Battery 1400 mAh Connectivity1 Bluetooth® v2.1+EDR, 3.5mm Headset jack, USB 2.0 HS Display 3.7”, 480x854 WVGA Display Resolution WVGA display houses 400,000 pixels Messaging1 SMS/MMS, Full HTML5 Browser Audio AMR-NB/WB, MP3, WAV, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA Video Advanced Video record/playback at D1 resolution (720x480) with up to 24fps capture and 30fps playback, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264 Camera 5.0 megapixel, AutoFocus, dual LED Flash and image stablization Memory 16GB card included in phone, Up to 32GB microSD expandable Location Services1 aGPS, sGPS Extras 802.11b/g, 3-axis accelerometer "

[Edited on October 28, 2009 at 6:22 PM. Reason : ]

10/28/2009 6:10:22 PM

Quote :

"High-Speed Mobile Browsing See the Web at break-neck speed on the largest high-resolution display with a Flash 10 ready HTML browser. Look up favorite sites, video and music fast with a high-speed, cortex A8 processor and lightning-fast connection. View it all on the 3.7” display with more than 400,000 total pixels, which is twice that of the leading competitor. Work faster on the Web with double tap to zoom in and out. Google Searches Beyond the Web Type your search to deliver results such as contacts and music offering a complete search experience on a mobile device. Use voice-activated search to serve up both your contacts and Google search results, based on your location. Find your way with free spoken turn-by-turn directions with Google MapsTM Navigation (Beta), with Street View and LatitudeTM. View geographic information, such as My Maps, Wikipedia entries and transit lines, right on the map. Customize Your DROID Access thousands of applications and hundreds of widgets from Android MarketTM. Customize your home screen with preloads like Facebook™ and Google MapsTM or download1applications for music, news, sports and games.2 Toggle back and forth between up to six applications at a time. Multitask Messaging Integrate work (Exchange) and personal (GmailTM) e-mails into one inbox with emails pushed directly to you. Plus, undo common operations in GmailTM for fast corrections. Find your contacts using a universal list that pulls in work, personal and Facebook™ contacts Slide out the full QWERTY keyboard to comfortably text, IM and e-mail1 Have your work calendar right at your fingertips at all times Additional Bells and Whistles DVD quality video recorder features quick and easy playback plus optimized YouTubeTMuploading for sharing with friends.2 5 megapixel camera loaded with the works like dual-LED flash, AutoFocus, and image stabilization Features 16GB of storage space (or upgrade to 32). Stereo Bluetooth® gives you the option of wireless connectivity3. Or if you prefer traditional, headphones utilize the 3.5mm headset jack. Easily copy text and URLs to simply paste them into an e-mail, text or status update1 or copy images off the Web directly to your gallery. Optional Accessories Use the multimedia station5 to transform DROID into an alarm clock, movie player or digital picture frame. Place DROID in the car mount5 to instantly launch a full-blown GPS navigation device."

http://www.androidcentral.com/official-specs-motorola-droid

10/28/2009 6:23:10 PM

Quote :

"HTC for $99 maybe? I cant imagine theyd both be $199"

looks like my guess was correct:

Quote :

"HTC Android phone should cost $99 (likely $100) on a Verizon contract when it ships November 6th"

10/29/2009 12:32:53 AM

So by "GPS" do they mean true GPS, or is it off of 3G?

10/29/2009 10:44:09 AM

It has the aGPS which uses the towers and the standalone gps.

10/29/2009 10:46:14 AM

the google GPS is turn by turn but requires a data plan...however it will cache your route for you incase you go in and out of service areas. (ideally for AT&T customers )

10/29/2009 10:52:20 AM

I'm considering making the switch to droid from an iPhone and got curious about what apps I might be missing. I found this site that will let you browse the market, just thought I'd share if anybody is interested:
http://www.androlib.com

10/29/2009 10:59:08 AM

^^ yeah, I'm guessing it will use the real gps and just use the data to download the maps. Caching the maps will be nice since it will still work like some of the third party ones that store the maps on a memory card.

And apparently it's available at best buy for pre-order for $199.

[Edited on October 29, 2009 at 11:02 AM. Reason : ]

10/29/2009 11:02:12 AM

^^^That's exactly what I was thinking. 3G "GPS" is entirely pointless with iPhones/AT&T.

[Edited on October 29, 2009 at 11:06 AM. Reason : ]

10/29/2009 11:04:42 AM

^I agree...if google rolls this out for the iPhone maps app it would instantly crush TomTom and the likes. Who will actually pay $100 for an app when google maps does the same thing for free.

[Edited on October 29, 2009 at 11:40 AM. Reason : crush their app sales not the business entirely for you sticklers.]

10/29/2009 11:40:14 AM

^^^^ cryket.com is preferred for searching the market.

10/29/2009 12:36:48 PM

Droid Eris

Quote :

"Whilst the exact specs of the Droid Eris are still unknown, the latest batch of leaks reveals that the handset will run Android 1.6 and will feature 528MHz Qualcomm CPU. The Droid Eris also includes a 5 mega-pixel camera, and Wi-Fi connectivity. Latest reports also suggest that the handset will be priced at just $99, which when compared with the HTC Hero ($180 on Sprint for 2-year contract) seems like a good deal"

http://www.talkandroid.com/

and lol. It begins.

Quote :

"Shares in GPS manufacturers Garmin and TomTom fell today following the announcement from Google that upcoming Android handsets will include free navigation software. The new Google Maps Navigation app will be included on Motorola's upcoming Android phone, the Motorola Droid, and will provide turn-by-turn directions based on up-to-date maps and business listings from Google Maps. The Google Maps Navigation software will also be made available to other Android devices running the newly unveiled Android 2.0 software. Following the announcement shares of Garmin fell 17.2% to $31.88 and TomTom shares fell more than 20% to €8.11."

10/29/2009 2:55:42 PM

srsly? 1.6? why not go ahead and roll with 2.0? durrr

10/29/2009 3:10:44 PM

I think they're still adjusting SenseUI to work on 2.0 or at least that's the hold up on 2.0 for the Hero.

10/29/2009 3:15:51 PM

^^^Yeah I found that one too but I couldn't ever get it to load. Thanks though.

10/29/2009 3:16:41 PM