I officially retired my Eris yesterday

[Gato]

Got a shiny new Droid 3 so I'll be hanging with those folks. I'm sure I'll lurk in here from time to time as always.


Many thanks go to the "elders" here in the Eris forum. TONS of things I would have never known or tried without you folks.

 

[doogald]

This afternoon I was deciding between the Droid 3 and the Bionic, but went with the Bionic. The Droid 3 is too thick, I was too inaccurate with the keyboard (I was more accurate with the touch keyboard), they had none in stock, and the 1 GB of RAM vs. 512 in the Droid 3 (in addition to the thinness) is how I decided.

To everybody who says that the pentile displays in these two phones are crappy - I don't see it. They are plenty good enough.

I'll still be here for sure....

 

[dmast205]

Retired my Eris 3 weeks ago and went with the Bionic.
the little guy was not a bad phone(still use it), but the new Moto is crazy good. All the better when the bugs get ironed out.

Big thumbs up to all on AF, both here and on the Bionic forum

 

[metlcat]

This afternoon I was deciding between the Droid 3 and the Bionic, but went with the Bionic. The Droid 3 is too thick, I was too inaccurate with the keyboard (I was more accurate with the touch keyboard), they had none in stock, and the 1 GB of RAM vs. 512 in the Droid 3 (in addition to the thinness) is how I decided.

To everybody who says that the pentile displays in these two phones are crappy - I don't see it. They are plenty good enough.

I'll still be here for sure....

Good luck with the Bionic. The Eris has lost one of its greatest users.

Motorola makes quality phones, so you're both in good hands.

 

[mamawm]

This afternoon I was deciding between the Droid 3 and the Bionic, but went with the Bionic. The Droid 3 is too thick, I was too inaccurate with the keyboard (I was more accurate with the touch keyboard), they had none in stock, and the 1 GB of RAM vs. 512 in the Droid 3 (in addition to the thinness) is how I decided.

To everybody who says that the pentile displays in these two phones are crappy - I don't see it. They are plenty good enough.

I'll still be here for sure....

i'm so glad to know that as i move over to the bionic forum there will be a voice that i trust and respect over there. i may be a relatively new member of this forum, but i've lurked for almost 2 years. you have both helped and inspired me and you will never know how much i appreciate all you've done.
my little eris thanks you too.

 

[doogald]

That's very kind of you to say.

I do now see what people mean about the pentile display - hold the display at an angle and the colors look washed out. Still, hold it head-on and it looks just fine.

Two quick comments about the Bionic, for Eris users considering the upgrade:

- it's too big. Thank goodness it's as thin as it is.

- battery life is great on the Bionic, at least using 3G. With slightly more use than I allowed myself on the Eris yesterday I went to bed with a battery between 60% and 70%. (One weird quirk of the Bionic is that battery left is reported in increments of 10%.) The Eris with slightly less use would have been about 50%. (I had the 1750 mAh battery in the Eris, so battery capacity is equivalent.) I think it's the better radios, esp. the WiFi radio. The real test may be when I get to my summer house in rural NH, where there is little signal. I was always flopping between 3G and WiFi up there, based on where I was in the house. Hopefully it can hold WiFi.

 

[mamawm]

doogald, check out the circle battery widget for the bionic, it shows battery left in 1% increments and it's very accurate.

 

[scary alien]

Yeah, the 10% thing is fairly typical in the recent Moto Droid devices...

There's a couple of apps that will report the 1% charge delta (reported in the battery status directory's charge_counter file).

Circle Battery Widget (which is the first app that I knew of that implemented this), Battery Monitor by SIMMO Publications (new update just released today...great dev that I know, BTW), and my app all utilize the 1% charge_counter file.

You'll get a really cool widget for Circle Battery Widget with the % charged value inside (lots of nice config options).

For the above Battery Monitor, you'll get a numeric status bar notification and an optional numeric widget (config options, too). This app is especially useful for those that have extended / large batteries since it can calculate battery % based on voltage (many have reported that its the only app that accurately reports for extended batteries).

My app can display a status bar notification icon with the % charged and optionally light your devices LED indicating the current battery state and/or percent charged (depending on the monitoring mode). I've read that the Bionic has a pretty small, recessed LED, so this functionality might not interest you.

Cheers!

 

[dlh1970]

I'm officially retiring my Eris next Friday. It's been a great little phone and a nice introduction into smart phones.

 

[nomarsgirl]

Last one out please turn out the lights.

That may be me. Still using my Eris.

 

[bberryhill0]

I have an Eris 3 now but I still come back here.

 

[sarwiz]

I have about 3 months left on my contract, but after rooting and rommimg, I actually am liking this little phone, and there are so many out there, my prime choice will be a rootable phone.

 

[scary alien]

I have about 3 months left on my contract, but after rooting and rommimg, I actually am liking this little phone, and there are so many out there, my prime choice will be a rootable phone.

I think rooting will still be likely for most phones, but not necessarily guaranteed since the manufacturers and carriers seem to be closing the loops (or at least giving the appearance to).

We're likely to see a continuation of the locked bootloaders, which makes custom kernel's impossible and custom ROMs certainly more difficult (unless exploits like 2nd init are found).

I've actually started using my Eris as a day-to-day replacement of my iPod Touch--so, my little guy has a bit of life left in him .

Cheers!

 

[doogald]

This afternoon I was deciding between the Droid 3 and the Bionic, but went with the Bionic. The Droid 3 is too thick, I was too inaccurate with the keyboard (I was more accurate with the touch keyboard), they had none in stock, and the 1 GB of RAM vs. 512 in the Droid 3 (in addition to the thinness) is how I decided.

To everybody who says that the pentile displays in these two phones are crappy - I don't see it. They are plenty good enough.

I'll still be here for sure....

Never mind. I have a Droid 3 after all.

 

[bberryhill0]

What was wrong with the Bionic???

 

[dmast205]

My Bionic would occasionally drop signal or shut down. Battery pull restored operation til last Sunday when I woke up to find it locked on the boot screen. Nothing wouls restore it. VZ sent me a replacement, but inadvertantly retired my sim card. Awaiting a new one, so we'll see.

 

[doogald]

What was wrong with the Bionic???

Several things, not in order:

1. The phone is bigger than I like. I was figuring that I would get used to it; I was getting used to it. Still, looking at that thing and at an iPod Touch - it's almost ridiculous. I expect that a Galaxy Nexus is going to look like you are holding a flip-flop sandal against your head when you talk on the phone.

2. The phone kept dropping data. I had hoped by keeping it on CDMA only (as opposed to LTE/CDMA automatic) it would be better, but I would be out and about and randomly see no data (and get errors when trying to browse, for example) in places I knew there was a good 3G signal. Last weekend there was a 4G LTE network outage but, unfortunately, it also took down 3G data for the 4G phones. That was pretty much the major reason.

3. The Droid 3 is an excellent 3G phone. It has a great signal - I get no more stuttering calls, no more worries about "holding it wrong" (I was always grabbing the phone and covering the top half, which made people I called not able to hear me. My daughter knew enough to tell me to change the way I was holding the Eris.) The display is the same resolution on a 4" display as the Bionic on a 4.3" display - so, more dpi on the D3. It's bright and readable in bright sun (as is the Bionic.) With the Bionic, if I looked at the phone at an angle, colors would be washed out a bit - not so with the D3, or less so if it is happening. The Bionic and the D3 have a really flimsy-feeling back cover, but the Bionic creaks a bit with the cover on - the D3 feels solid all around. Of course, the D3 has a keyboard, and it's actually quite nice. In the past I've had a Psion Revo and Psion 5mx, as well as a Moto Q9 WM phone, so I've used keyboard mobile devices before, and this keyboard is probably the best that I've used on a mobile device. Despite having a smaller battery (1540 vs. 1735), the D3 seems to have slightly better battery life than the Bionic, and better than my Eris (which had an extended 1750 battery.) The D3 is still dual-core OMAP at 1 GHz, so it does not lag at all. (It is 512 MB RAM vs. 1 GB RAM on the Bionic, but I haven't had problems with that at all. Coming from an Eris, how could I?) Lastly, the D3 is a world phone, so if I travel - we may be taking a few trips - I'll be able to use the phone abroad.

The D3 is still a bit bigger than I'd prefer, and certainly thick - though exactly the same thickness as the Eris. It's strange how our perspective changes.

After hearing about the new Razr (thin, but even longer and wider than the Bionic) and the Nexus (pure Android ICS, but dramatically longer than the Bionic even) - both are 4G phones, so presumably will have those network issues plaguing the other 4G phones - so I'm happy to let Verizon work out the 4G bugs for another twenty months or so and use a solid, solid 3G phone with high-end Android specs.

I'm going to avoid rooting for as long as possible. I may never - I still haven't found a really good reason to root it.

 

[Amy5000]

Can I ask what made you go with the Droid 3 rather than the Droid X2 ? I'm feeling like I need to save myself the $100 difference in price.

Thanks, Amy

 

[doogald]

Can I ask what made you go with the Droid 3 rather than the Droid X2 ? I'm feeling like I need to save myself the $100 difference in price.

I think that the Droid X2 is a good phone. So, it was these things:

- I like the slightly smaller size of the D3

- I like the global phone

- This is a bit technical, but when I bought the Eris, I was choosing between that and the original Droid. I decided on the Eris for the size, but I've since decided that I made the wrong choice. The Droid continued to receive support and updates from Verizon, while the Eris was brought only to a fairly buggy version 2.1.

The X2 comes with a dual-core Tegra2 processor, while the Droid 3 has a dual core OMAP processor. I think that the OMAP phones are more likely to receive Android updates going forward than the Tegra2 phones. I could be wrong about that, of course.

Anyway, it was the size and global phone - that's it. The X2 is Gingerbread now as well. I'm not sure that it has the same customized Motorola interface, though.

 

[Amy5000]

I think that the Droid X2 is a good phone. So, it was these things:

- I like the slightly smaller size of the D3

- I like the global phone

- This is a bit technical, but when I bought the Eris, I was choosing between that and the original Droid. I decided on the Eris for the size, but I've since decided that I made the wrong choice. The Droid continued to receive support and updates from Verizon, while the Eris was brought only to a fairly buggy version 2.1.

The X2 comes with a dual-core Tegra2 processor, while the Droid 3 has a dual core OMAP processor. I think that the OMAP phones are more likely to receive Android updates going forward than the Tegra2 phones. I could be wrong about that, of course.

Anyway, it was the size and global phone - that's it. The X2 is Gingerbread now as well. I'm not sure that it has the same customized Motorola interface, though.

Thanks for your thoughts. What struck me most was what you wrote about updates to the Eris and that you think the processor for the D3 is more likely to be updated. I have a feeling that I'm going to repeat and buy a phone that they will cease to update shortly after my purchase. Unfortunately, I don't really like the form factor on the X2 (after all this time, the Eris is still a totally cute phone) but I think $$ is just going to win out on this one. $50 vs $150. I could possibly wait until the Holidays and see if they have a better promotion going on.

Anyway, thanks and good luck with the D3!

Amy

 

[MrDangerous]

This afternoon I was deciding between the Droid 3 and the Bionic, but went with the Bionic. The Droid 3 is too thick, I was too inaccurate with the keyboard (I was more accurate with the touch keyboard), they had none in stock, and the 1 GB of RAM vs. 512 in the Droid 3 (in addition to the thinness) is how I decided.

To everybody who says that the pentile displays in these two phones are crappy - I don't see it. They are plenty good enough.

I'll still be here for sure....

I was really having a tough time between the DX2 and the Revolution and I was talking to a guy at work who has a D2 and he hates the screen and was pointing out the griddyness of the pentile display so when I played with a Dx2 I couldn't stop staring at the pentile artifacts.

And I actually liked the slightly bigger feel of the Revolution. (just because the slightly lower res screen)

 

[doogald]

My post two years ago about why I decided to trade in my new Bionic for a Droid 3 is hilarious to read today.

Several things, not in order:

1. The phone is bigger than I like. I was figuring that I would get used to it; I was getting used to it. Still, looking at that thing and at an iPod Touch - it's almost ridiculous. I expect that a Galaxy Nexus is going to look like you are holding a flip-flop sandal against your head when you talk on the phone.

I am now using a 5" display Motorola Droid Maxx. That makes the Galaxy Nexus look pretty small. It's amazing how much my thinking changed - but it's the battery life on the Maxx I was after this time.

After hearing about the new Razr (thin, but even longer and wider than the Bionic) and the Nexus (pure Android ICS, but dramatically longer than the Bionic even) - both are 4G phones, so presumably will have those network issues plaguing the other 4G phones - so I'm happy to let Verizon work out the 4G bugs for another twenty months or so and use a solid, solid 3G phone with high-end Android specs.

I think those LTE network issues are fixed now for sure. I really did have problems with the Bionic, though.

 

[xx_bishop_xx]

I am now using a 5" display Motorola Droid Maxx. That makes the Galaxy Nexus look pretty small. It's amazing how much my thinking changed - but it's the battery life on the Maxx I was after this time.

Took my Eris out of the case last week just to power it up for old time sake. After switching to the Eris from a BlackBerry Curve back then, the screen seemed to have so much real estate. Now I've moved on to the HTC One, and...so much real estate.