Sorry if this has been asked before… but should I buy it? Pros and Cons? I don’t need hands free dialing, and I know the battery life sucks. I am a loyal Verizon customer, or would have already purchased an IPhone. Mostly I would like to surf the net whilst waiting in Court, etc… Cheers…
Check out this recent threadwhere people are considering the Droid.
Motorola Droid. No big deal, just sayin’
This thread will probably be moved, but I have one, and it is fine for email and web browsing - and it appears to be a lot cheaper than the iPhone. I got mine for $149 after rebates. And yes, it does suck down power, though there is an app that lets you kill things that are running, which helps.
Moved from GQ -> IMHO.
-xash
Administrator
Love the Droid, does everything I wanted. I was shocked at the battery life at first, but it got better. A couple tips -
1- Charge it when it gets down to about 30%, and leave it on charge about two hours after it says it’s done. Not how I used to charge batteries (drain all the way then charge), but it has helped.
2- Manage the usage with the power widget. If you’re not using GPS at the moment, turn it off.
3- Get a task killer, as mentioned above.
4- Check the list that shows you what has been using up your battery, if it’s mostly display you need to consider turning down the brightness.
Overall, I went from a daily charge to about every three days.
I’m very happy with my Droid. As mentioned, battery life is nowhere near that of a non smartphone, but it’s really not too bad. I watch video on mine during my commute every day (public transportation! Not in the car), in addition to sporadic internet browsing throughout the day, and the occasional phone call. The battery has always been enough to last until I get back home in the evening, though I absolutely need to charge it every night. Something like 50% of the power is consumed in the display (sometimes as much as 70-80%), so if you don’t watch video at full brightness, you’d probably save a significant amount.
The task killers don’t really make a difference in battery life, unless you have apps that periodically use the data/wifi connection (some weather widgets have/had a reputation for far too frequent updates). Otherwise the tasks remain, but really don’t consume much (or any?) power if they don’t have any reason to wake up to use the cell connection, or do work. Their state is simply saved, so that the next time you open the app, you can pick up wherever you left off.
I certainly agree with shutting down wifi/GPS when you don’t expect to need it.
Take a minute to test out the Palm Pre Plus on Verizon. I prefer webOS to Android for the types of things you’re talking about. Android wins on variety of apps, but the Pre Plus wins on battery life and the smaller size travels better.
I love my Droid! I used to have an Ipod Touch, but I don’t even use that anymore. I especially love the Google Skymap.
Can you put music videos and movies on the Droid? I haven’t played around with that aspect yet.
I am heavily unimpressed with the marketing strategy: robotic appendages rotating and button-pushing, in competition with the iPhone which shows fingers pushing buttons on hand-held phones… the whole surfing movie thing is equally confusing…
can’t imagine this is the device that is going to give Apple a run…