again, i'd try different headphones.

7/20/2010 12:07:04 AM

Quote :

"For those who have a Droid X, have you gotten the software update yet?"

I got the update last night around 20 minutes after midnight. There have been a couple of differences. For one, my phone was sitting at 50% charge before the update, after it I was at 90%. The other thing was the font in the browser. At max zoom out before it was impossible to read anything because the font was all fucked up but now you can read at that level (tho it's small as shit). The camera didn't seem any different to me. The preloaded MyVerizon app doesn't even work anymore. It opens and does nothing.

I'm using LauncherPro Plus and Beautiful Home and it's like having a different device. The blur launcher is ass. I like a couple of the widgets but I can use most of them with LauncherPro. I still don't know if I'm going to keep this thing. No custom roms is a huge letdown. I'm bipolar with this thing, sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it and I can't really pinpoint reasons either way.

7/20/2010 7:53:51 AM

looks like deleted texts aren't so deleted.

7/20/2010 8:21:57 AM

Dell Streak Hands-On

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/dell-streak-review-redux-thoughts-from-the-new-world/

Quote :

"Wrap-up For many, high-end browsing and messaging capabilities have overtaken the importance of voice calling in a phone, and that's a philosophy that giant handsets like the Streak embrace with open arms. It's an exciting, young segment of the smartphone market where we think we're going to see a lot of growth and innovation over the next few years -- and in many ways, Dell's 5-inch monster is at the forefront of that charge. What makes the Streak such a heartbreaking device for us, though, is that the types of folks it's most likely to appeal to -- power users and road warriors who value sheer capability over portability -- are the very same people who are least likely to appreciate Dell's heavy-handed and generally unhelpful UI tweaks. We're more than willing to forgive a weak camera to carry this beauty, but ultimately, it's the firmware that's holding the Streak back from its full potential -- and we're not confident Dell is going to tone down the skin when the time comes to launch the Froyo upgrade (which, by the way, can't come soon enough). For now, we'll look to the hacker community to get us some nice, clean Android 2.2 builds for this thing -- but if Dell wants to play in the hyper-competitive smartphone market over the long term, they're going to need to remember something that they've known in the PC space for many years: they're a hardware manufacturer, not a software firm. "

7/20/2010 10:32:44 AM

has anyone tried the XBMC Android App yet? I'm looking forward to playing around with it...

http://androinica.com/2010/07/19/how-to-set-up-xbmc-android-remote/

7/20/2010 11:01:42 AM

i just tried it here at work and i didn't have any luck. directions are pretty straightforward so i'm not sure what i've missed (won't connect to my computer). i'll try again tonight when i have a little more time

7/20/2010 11:24:20 AM

eris

7/20/2010 4:51:52 PM

Droid 2 rumored to launch on Aug 12th with Froyo

http://www.androidcentral.com/droid-2-launch-now-rumored-aug-12

Quote :

"Droid 2 launch now rumored for Aug. 12 Posted on Tuesday, Jul 20, 2010 by Phil Nickinson Because we haven't had a Motorola Droid 2 rumor in the past, oh, six or seven minutes, here comes another: Engadget says it has on good authority that the Droid 2 (which reportedly has been sidelined while the Droid X gets its time in the sun) will see a soft-launch on Aug. 13. It'll then get the full force of Verizon's marketing department starting Aug. 23. That not enough craziness? How about a version with a white R2-D2 on its rear end. Regardless, Verizon's certainly built up enough steam between the Droid X and its all-but-official cousin to keep its mindshare high for some months to go. [Engadget] "

7/20/2010 5:18:51 PM

Is this site legit?

http://www.letstalk.com/promo.htm

Samsung Captivate with 2yr agreement for $99?

7/20/2010 7:53:01 PM

yeah, letstalk is legit. Remember to look at their terms of service as the likely have a secondary ETF that prohibits downgrading you plan or activating another device on the line.

7/20/2010 8:40:38 PM

looked on walmart.com for shits and giggles yesterday and it was free

is the droid 2 going to have blur and a locked bootloader like the droid x or is it more like the original droid

7/20/2010 9:48:53 PM

From the quote of the Motorola rep it sounds like all of their phones from here on out are going to be locked up tight.

It will have blur and most likely be very similar to the version that the Droid X has, which I don't think is that bad, but I'm still using launcherpro over it.

7/20/2010 10:10:43 PM

i don't mind blur at all. it isn't a bad stock ui IMO. it isn't as good as some custom UIs but it isn't terrible. of course i won't be getting a verizon phone anytime soon, possibly ever.

7/20/2010 10:25:22 PM

Droid1 4 Life

7/20/2010 10:25:36 PM

too bad there isn't one that works on ATT's network, because i'd get one of those on ebay

7/20/2010 10:36:32 PM

is there any reason to use beautiful widgets outside of the home page thing that shows the time, links to your calendar by touching the date, and gives the weather forecast? most of the other beautiful widgets do the same thing as the motorola widgets that turn wi-fi, gps, airplane mode, etc on and off.

7/21/2010 1:23:17 AM

Pretty much just the home.

7/21/2010 3:11:51 AM

It begins.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/verizon-switching-to-atandt-style-limited-data-plans-later-this-mo/

Quote :

"Verizon switching to AT&T-style limited data plans later this month? By Chris Ziegler posted Jul 20th 2010 at 7:24PM Hang on to your megabytes, folks, because it looks like the Brave New World of limited data is truly upon us. AT&T and Verizon tend to follow each others' moves pretty closely -- the two carriers regard each other as their nearest competitors, after all -- and we're hearing that Big Red intends to move to some sort of tiered bucket strategy on July 29. We don't have details on whether the pricing will be identical to AT&T's ($25 for 2GB, $15 for 200MB), but we imagine it'll be within shouting distance if not. Of course, Verizon has been sending this message for a long time -- even before AT&T was -- so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that this is going down. You might say that Droid Does Caps, eh?"

7/21/2010 8:06:26 AM

Speculation. No big deal if you need unlimited and got on an unlimited contract.

Let's talk about y'all's real-world usage, though. I use about 1.4 GB per month on the $30.00 unlimited plan. If I could save $5.00 a month by going down to a cap of 2 GB which I'm not likely to hit, I'm 'bout it.

7/21/2010 8:28:44 AM

what are the biggest mobile data hogs?

7/21/2010 8:34:02 AM

For me personally, tethering for my iPad and Pandora.

7/21/2010 8:37:14 AM

probably streaming audio or video. so something like iheartradio, pandora or youtube

7/21/2010 8:38:29 AM

people who tether heavily, meaning they use it as a primary connection, are the highest users. 90% of people use less than 2GB

7/21/2010 8:40:25 AM

assuming pandora is 128kbps its ~36.4 hours of listening on your phone to hit the cap.

7/21/2010 8:42:04 AM

I believe Pandora's default bitrate over 3G is 64 Kbps.

7/21/2010 8:49:43 AM

2hrs per day (M-F) of streaming iheartradio puts you at about 4.5GB. I've been there a few times.

7/21/2010 9:11:46 AM

Anyone got a link for swype for the droid? My wife wants to install it for one of her Clients and all the normal places I linked to for you guys have taken it down. I would really appreciate it!

7/21/2010 3:06:09 PM

I just got an HTC EVO. Rooted and installed a tendering app. I tried to put froyo on it but it wouldn't boot. What other apps should I put on here for the optimum experience?

7/21/2010 6:33:46 PM

I'll make a list and get back to you.

7/21/2010 6:36:47 PM

Also, can anybody recommend streaming video software for Linux that I can use with an Android phone? I used to use Orb 2.0 with my Instinct, but I don't think they have a Linux version. My homegrown NAS runs Ubuntu and it'd be nice to have access to all my videos from anywhere.

7/21/2010 7:12:16 PM

Verizon announced a while back that when they went to LTE they were definitely doing limited plans. ATT just jumped them after that announcement with the iphone 4...

7/21/2010 9:29:39 PM

LimpyNuts me too - I need some goddamn help

7/21/2010 11:03:42 PM

When my phone is "asleep/locked" i am not getting any notifications......no email etc.

I told friends to use my google voice number if they want to text me. I have google voice set up to "push" those texts as emails.

So i really need to find a way to make my droid(original) notify/vibrate while in vibrate/sleep mode.

any suggestions........wading through all of the google search results is taking forever.

7/22/2010 1:18:29 AM

^ reboot your phone maybe?

7/22/2010 2:20:42 AM

do you have your phone in performance mode? battery saver modes will turn off data syncing in periods of inactivity, which could cause you to not get those

7/22/2010 5:28:54 AM

Are you using a task killer?


And the Droid X HAS been rooted. Here's to hoping they can crack the boot loader
http://alldroid.org/default.aspx?g=posts&t=493

7/22/2010 8:37:05 AM

aside from googling latest keywords, is there a site that alerts/shows 3G outages? i haven't had 3G all morning (from apex to RTP)

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 8:43 AM. Reason : verizon map? Ø]

7/22/2010 8:41:56 AM

not that I know of

Blind Type coming for iOS and Android

7/22/2010 9:14:19 AM

from the 2 people I know who have the X now (as in 2 friends, not talking about people on here), the battery life seems to be outstanding. On top of that, most the reviews I read leading up to the release praised its battery life. So it makes me wonder what is different for some of these people who have rated the phone on VZW's site who make statements like "only con is the horrible, horrible battery life" or "good phone but the battery is dead by dinner" or "gotta charge the phone twice a day"

Seems like every other person's "con" for the phone on their site is the battery life. Does this happen often? are people just using their new phone a ton more than their average usage will end up being causing them to run it down faster right now?

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 9:27 AM. Reason : ]

7/22/2010 9:25:18 AM

I unplug my X around 8:30am and it will die somewhere around 8pm. This is when setup as follows:

Battery saver mode
No wifi
No GPS
~10 minutes talk time
~5 texts
~ 5 minutes of web browsing
Random email checks throughout the day (maybe 5 minutes total?)

I've used the same flip phone for the previous 4 years so I don't really have a frame of reference for how long a battery should last. If this sounds atypical I would love to know what setting to change to get more life.

7/22/2010 10:24:54 AM

well that didn't take long

http://gizmodo.com/5593594/droid-x-rooted-efuse-what

7/22/2010 10:37:54 AM

^^ wow - I surf on the thing all day and use GV for texts. Use gmail and exchange all day and have gps running. Also use pandora and npr streams for around an hour. I pull it off the dock around 8am and it's anywhere between 40-60% by 8pm.

7/22/2010 10:45:05 AM

See, those 2 separate reports on battery life are exactly what is confusing me haha. You have this ^ report which is really similar to the two people I personally know who have them. The one I work with has been messing with his a lot: streaming pandora, testing out a bunch of different apps and games, surfing a lot etc. We are in to work at 7:30am so his phone has been off the charger for a little while, and it has still been around 50% at the end of the work day when I have checked. Last night we went out after work and he was still probably at 25% at 9:30 when we were all heading home and we had been messing with it a bunch at the bar on top of his usage during the day.

But then you read ncsubozo's report who is hardly even using the phone, keeping GPS turned off, etc. it sounds like and is having it die by 8pm. Something just isn't adding up. Seems like there are big inconsistencies from phone to phone on battery life? Either related to the battery itself or software issues? I don't know. It is just strange how extremely polar the reports have been on the battery from users.

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 11:07 AM. Reason : ]

7/22/2010 11:05:58 AM

On Android phones, you can go into Settings > About Phone > Battery use and see what's been draining the battery since it was unplugged.

On my Droid, the display is always the biggest battery killer. Try lowering its brightness for bigger battery savings.

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 11:09 AM. Reason : ...]

7/22/2010 11:08:20 AM

most of the people complaining about battery life probably came from a dumb phone and expect the Droid X battery to last a week. Also may be writing the review the day they got the device. I don't give a damn what people say but it generally takes a couple charges before battery life gets to what it should. With moderate use on an Android phone, one should expect to charge it nightly. I'm usually around 40% or so with moderate use throughout the day with my Droid after about 12-15hrs off the charger before I put it back on.

Some things I've noticed is to use wifi whenever you have access. It generates less heat and I definitely notice an improvement in battery life. Possibly because it doesn't take the phone quite as long to load pages. Also could be that you're switching from 3G to 1X a lot which can kill the battery. As FroshKiller said, the screen is usually a biggie and you should try to use the lowest brightness setting whenever possible.

7/22/2010 11:14:27 AM

Hey, welcome to the late party.

7/22/2010 11:15:42 AM

ah shush. I was writing an essay.

7/22/2010 11:18:36 AM

good call on the screen brightness; especially on a phone with a screen as big as this one.

I'd be interested to see what ncsubozo's phone says about his battery usage breakdown to see what is draining his phone when he is barely using it.

[Edited on July 22, 2010 at 11:28 AM. Reason : ]

7/22/2010 11:28:20 AM

anyone know a good google voice app that does the calling card method to make calls? i added my google voice number to my fav 3 so it's free for me to call thru that. the default google voice app uses local numbers rather than my own number to make outbound calls so it uses my minutes.

i'd like it to dial my google voice number, press 2 to dial, and then dial the number and press pound.

7/22/2010 12:10:36 PM

do you not have a slot to add the number it dials? It usually stays the same for a while anyways. Mine recently changed a couple weeks ago to a new number but it's generally the same. Only other way I can think of is to just set up a speed dial for your google voice number. Also remember to turn off caller id in google voice if you want free incoming.

7/22/2010 12:15:52 PM