http://twitgoo.com/yf40j

The box, because I am not taking an ugly mirror pic of the phone.

Things I've discovered thus far:

A. Better than the Palm Pre. A lot better. Android in itself even. I'll miss WebOS dearly, but Android just is far more polished.
B. Phone is hueg. But still fits in my pocket, so it works. It's so awesome browsing sites in landscape, and not even needing to zoom in.
C. The camera is amazing for a cell phone. The above pic was taken with it in rather poor lighting.

Frankly, I love it to death! Anyone else get one or considering it?

Considering...having a hard time doubling my monthly cell bill, though.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/41063/CIMG0025.jpg

The actual phone in my hand, taken with my Pre, since I discovered the Pre was still working. The Pre's camera SUCKS compared.

Looks about the same size as the TP2, except much more screen space.

I'd like one, but I'll wait at least a year. By then there will be plenty of custom software and hacks available.

Yeah I'm going to get it eventually in the next week or so

I will have mine by this afternoon. If it's slow here at work I could have it in about an hour. I've never been this excited to buy anything - what is wrong with me?

Those already exist. Root was released yesterday. Android already has a ton of software anyway.

Ok yeah this phone is ****ing sexy

Yes, yes it is.

That's barely scratching the surface. In the next 5 months there will be an army of Roms and Cabs for it, to make it twice as good as it already is. I'm in the progress of rebooting my TP2, since it's not acting right ever since the first hard crash I gave it. Not sure what I did wrong this time. Probably because I was in a hurry to use it, so was sloppy with the reinstalls.

Quite possible. But right now I'm just introducing myself to an /actual/ app store, as opposed to the Pre's pathetic one. I'm already in love with Android. It has its quirks that I'll have to get used to, but it's so much more polished overall.

I'm in love with my droid :3

App stores are nice, but Free Apps are best

I almost got the Moto Droid. The HTC Droid looks fantastic though.

Looks tasty. Assuming it will be released in time, I can get my grubby mitts on the new iPhone on or soon after June 22 - I shall post a similar thread.

(But srsly - it does look nice that)

Anyone hear about AT&T capping all new data plans after next week (i think). Apparently they aren't going to offer unlimited anymore.

Data plans were never "unlimited" to begin with. There was always kinda a soft cap of around 5 GB or so. To be honest, I don't really care, I never use more than a couple hundred megs tops in a month.

For new plans, yeah. Existing contracts will stay the same (like any cell phone contract).

Yeah, changing it for current customers would be inviting them to jump ship early with no ETF, haha.

VZW is doing the same thing as soon as they roll out their 4g network.

Definitely a bunch of BS. Good luck running pandora, or any data intensive app for that matter.

Sprint FTW.



Link?

Here's one I found:
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/get_ready_be_gouged_verizon_plans_tiered_4g_data_pricing



Apparently I was wrong about the texting bit, thank god.

x25064, have you ever looked at your usage statistics? You almost certainly don't use anywhere near 2 GB, even if you are using Pandora. I think there should be a better high end option, but the general idea of giving users more options and price points is a GOOD thing. If you don't use it, you don't have to pay for it. Even better, at least with AT&T, you can switch back and forth between plans during your contract.

No unlimited texting is bull**** though. That's why I like Sprint.

I used over a gig on my pre. I expect to easily quadruple that on this phone.

I suppose your right. As apps continue to expand usage will undoubtably increase. Its cause for concern I think, maybe its too early to tell.

Also, I am not sure about the texting thing, although it wouldn't surprise me.

Most of the staff at Ars technica looked at their statistics and realised they all used about 200MB a month. A couple of them used much more, and most of them occasionally went over the 200, but concluded that most power users would still work out better off paying less for 200MB then paying for what they used over that.

Obviously, those whose usage is in the GB range will be bum-raped for it though.

I used 83Mb last month and 62Mb the month before. My usage would definitely skyrocket...I have no Pandora/Slacker, my browser sucks, etc.

Weren't they all iPhone users though?

The iPhone's browser doesn't even let you download any random file, does it?

That's one thing I love about Android, is in apps like the browser or Dropbox, you can download anything and save it, regardless of whether that specific app knows what to do with it. iPhone, apps like Dropbox have to be specifically programmed to open your data in another app.

Ironically, the Pre had the ability to download in many cases, but no other app could access it (unless it was basic video/music). Thus making it a moot point.

Besides, the screen's perfect for video, and I know all that Picasa/Flickr/Facebook integration can't be cheap on data.

I think they were, yeah. Dropbox on iPhone still syncs even if it can't open it on your phone though - I use it on mine. True, you can't download any random file, but if it won't execute on my phone I'd have to sideload it onto my laptop anyway so I wouldn't bother anyway.

I just checked my usage with verizon for my Droid and this month I used 9 gigs of data. Thats with no file downloading, just browser and apps, while working a full time job so its not like I was on the phone all day.. it doesn't seem right but the numbers don't lie.

No see, the thing is, you could download it on the phone, but you can't open it. Say I have a Word document program on my phone, and I download a Word doc via Dropbox. If Dropbox is not specifically programmed to send that Word doc to my Word program, I can't do anything with it.

On Android, if I download that Word doc, I can tell Android I want to open it with any capable program on my phone, regardless of whether Dropbox themselves programmed it to.

Fair enough! The only thing I feel I could do to open (and subsequently print) via my phone would be dwg files that I currently can't. I can view pdfs within dropbox (I'm thinking of drawings sent to me if I'm out of the office say at a site meeting), but it'd be great to be able to then fire it to a plotter.

I suppose if I get sent files and I'm on site I can easily then email them to a local address and print from there, but I take your point.

Maybe there should be an app for that? A gap in the market?

Psh, like Apple would let you

Also, Dropbox is winnar on phones period. Just took a word doc on dropbox, synced it down, edited it in Docs to Go, saved it, synced it back, and bam, on my PC. So awesome.

It is true, the person who invented Dropbox deserves hugs from everyone he meets. Nearly as much as the person who invented beer.

Every single review I've read of the EVO says the battery life is atrociously bad, and there are already people posting articles on how you can squeeze 1-2 extra hours out of it. That's stupid.

In fairness they'll be (a) hammering them because they're shiny and new and (b) batteries take a bit of bedding in (in my experience).

As an aside, must post this link:

http://adamsdayoff.tumblr.com/post/661892488/droidscreenshot

That's more of an HTC thing. HTC has a reputation of putting piss-poor batteries in their products (sometimes only 1300mah on some of their most recent launches). And many other manufactures just skimp on battery still. Although I'd say the Droid OS gets a small part of the blame for the fact that they require the user to seek 3rd party software for any advanced process killing or power saving options. That's been a sticking point for people in most of the Droid OS phones. What? I just pointed out a sticking point of Droid OS? *Press button on limited edition CM action figure for awesome automatic "iphone hur dur" natural defensive stance!*.

Whatever, I have become completely apathetic to battery life for most usage and most devices. I'm well aware that the odds are the device you get nowadays sucks when it comes to battery life, and the way I operate (and I'm sure the way CM does as well) is that we are by a computer so often that it's no big deal for people like us. Nowadays it seems that if your device has good battery life that's an added bonus rather than a feature. If the EVO takes off I'm sure the power management/task switching will get a good software enhancement by HTC if it becomes a sticking point.

The battery life isn't /bad/. It's typical of a smartphone. I can get through a day without charging it unless I'm really hammering the crap out of it, which is the same for my Pre, and my friend's iPhone.




Now this is totally true, and sad. There are apps that can do it, but they require rooting. I think Froyo might have a better solution though, IIRC. Thankfully I don't need to take screenshots all the time.





A. EVO has a 1500ma battery.
B. MOST phones don't even have batteries over 1300ma. My Pre, for instance, did not. I would be shocked if the iPhone did as well.
C. Task killers are neither required nor recommended for good battery life and performance. People who use them don't understand Android. Ironically, this is pretty much the same situation the iPhone OS 4 will be in; only difference being that Android has more actual services.
D. The only thing I did to get better battery life was to make wifi stay on when the screen is off (wifi uses less power than cellular radios). This was not a third party option.

You CAN get ridiculously long battery life if you do insane stuff like put it in airplane mode at night (as the "power saving" options essentially do). Hell, even the iPhone would get great battery life with those settings. But it's a phone first. If you're turning so much stuff off to nerf it, there's no point.

Simply put, it gets me through the day without charging, and that's all I need.



Battery life has been poor in smartphones, because battery technology has not kept up with them.

However, I disagree about how we use the phones. In fact, I use my phone as a replacement to my PC quite often. It's my "tablet", per say.

I meant that we are by a computer or some power source that we can charge it quite easily, not as in when we are at a computer we use that instead of the phone. I often use my devices (like the iPhone) even at the computer as well. I like to sometimes have Pandora or something running on that so it's just one less app i can have going on the computer. Like I don't know one place I go nowadays where I don't have power. I have a charger in my car, obviously outlets all over the house, outlets basically wherever I go except restaurants. I can't really remember the last time battery was really a problem for me (except maybe when I installed OS 3.1.3 on my iPhone which was nomming my battery to death overnight on standby. I just restored to 3.1.2 and that was fixed though.)

I do have a charger in my car. In fact, with my Pre, I had the touchstone mounted to my dash. That was REALLY awesome.