Taking back the Eris today, going iphone instead.

[slide13]

Well, I think I'm taking back my Eris today and getting an iphone instead. There are many things I love about this phone and the Verizon service but there are a few things I'm having trouble getting over.

First is the service. Great almost everywhere except in my apartment. I have to go outside to make a phone call while my friend with an iphone has fine reception everywhere in our place.

Second, the lagging. Sometimes it takes 5 seconds or more to just open the phone function. It's also too slow to keep up with my typing on the virtual keyboard most of the time and I find it highly annoying.

Third, battery life. I can get through a day but last night it was midnight and I was down to 5% or so. I made one 30 minute phone call and surfed the net a little. That is it. I'm really afraid that during a heavy use day which I will have on weekends when i go out and such, that it just wont cut it.

What sucks is that my Verizon is on a family plan which means I was only paying the $30 data plan and now I'll be paying for everything which will mean an $80 bill instead. But, to be able to make phone calls from home and have a phone that can keep up with what I'm doing I think it will be worth it. The Eris is a solid design, if they could get the lag issues and battery issues fixed it would be a real iphone killer I think but they just aren't there with it yet unfortunately, at least not for my needs.

 

[teegale]

As far as the lagging goes, I've downloaded an app called "Advanced Task Killer" which kills all currently running programs. It seems to have helped a ton with my lag issues.

 

[smacky]

Yeah, I feel ya on the reception part. My parents' house gets me one bar, maybe two, which means leaving my phone on, it's always searching for reception, thus killing the battery life. Everywhere else, it's fine.

I think everyone has the keyboard lag and it's supposed to get fixed, but who knows when?

I don't know the technicals one what I'm gonna propose, but could you return your Eris, go back to your old phone (so you don't pay the fee for getting another new one immediately), wait for the updates to come, and see if the issues are fixed and then make a decision? That is, if you really like your Eris and feel the iPhone is the only other option. Plus, it may save you $50 a month if 2.1 ends up fixing your keyboard and lagging, and possibly your reception issue as well.

I dunno, I just threw that out there.

 

[GrdLock]

^ If he were gonna go that route, he may as well just wait and snag a Nexus One when it comes out for Verizon.

 

[micronut]

I get 2 bars in my apartment. Not a great signal, but should be sufficient, right? Ha! Verizon really sucks.

My phone NEVER rings at home... ever!
My only form of contact with the outside world is texting, and even that is screwed. Usually don't get texts for hours after they were sent.

It's not the eris in my case, though. Had the same prob before. Why would this happen despite "good" signal?
Very annoying.

And I agree about the keyboard. It is pretty useless.

The eris reminds me of a Microsoft product. Good idea, but not much good if it doesn't actually work.
I still like it alright, I guess. Best phone I've ever had(first smart phone), but I might choose something else if I could do it again.

 

[aleis]

well this particular case i would certainly say go at&t.
i mean if u cant get reception in your own kingdom (well, your case apartment) then its time for a new company.

 

[Deleted User]

I am in a similiar boat, although I cant switch carriers. I have the Droid Eris, and when I am either at work or home, I have no bars, but perfect calls and text/data. When I am at work, I can set my phone next to a Moto Droid, which has full bars, and I will still have none. But I drive a mile from work, and I have full bars. Which I get the same speedtest.net results even with no bars.

 

[Bswartz95]

I agree that the Eris has signal issues which causes the battery to drain quickly. Fortunately, I don't have that problem in my "kingdom", but I've found several black holes that will drain my battery quickly. Black holes where Samsungs and LG's have sufficient signal.

What's strange is that I can still make calls, text, and surf with no problems while displaying no bars, but the battery goes exponentially quicker.

 

[slide13]

I couldn't make calls very often and when I did it usually sounded horrible and dropped it about 1/2 the time.

I took it back today and got a iPhone 3GS which I'm liking a lot so far. Since I use a mac laptop it was super easy to set up. All my music and bookmarks transferred right over. Got my contact set up from Gmail and it's all good to go. Have made a few phone calls from home and it has worked well so far. We'll see how it works over the next 30 days of the trial period but things are looking good so far.

I will miss a few things on the Eris. The trackball came in handy for editing typed text, and I liked the overall interface very much.

 

[hrbib21]

Okbyeseeya.

 

[TJLeonard]

I had an iphone and actually went to the eris.

While the iphone is nice, and I really thought I would be disappointed with the eris....I am really not.

ATT is a lot worse to me than Verizon....everywhere. My eris always has a 3g signal, ATT.......You've seen their maps.

The idea is great, and i would get an iphone on a verizon network (maybe), but i'm finding out that I like how "customizable" the eris is compared to the iphone......EVERY app that matters for the iphone is for the eris....

As a con...the iphone battery would slightly win....but there again that was an edge network and not 3g.....in a 3g area, it would be about the same...

Lag for the iphone was almost the same for me...maybe slightly better....but I hate getting a text message while on the internet, looking at it on the iphone, then having to wait for safari to load again.....it was a pain in the ass....and was slower than the lag that the texting would've caused...

Advanced task killer does wonders for me as well...the widget is great...you just tap it and it kills everything and your phone is fast.

As for receiving calls on the verizon network? I agree....they do kinda suck since they took over alltel. I will have 5 bars and my phone will not ring....ATT wasn't quite that bad.

 

[slide13]

I think it just goes to show that nothing is perfect. Had my Eris been able to make phone calls from my apartment I would have stuck with it. The battery life sucks but I could have learned how to live with that. AT&T coverage isn't as good overall (and that is one thing I plan to explore over the next 30 day to make sure it works for me), but it's better at home and that is what counts for now since I don't have a land line.

 

[jj3699]

Sad to you see you leave us but from the sounds of it, it is for the best

make sure to comeback a do a little comparison for us

 

[tarponbeach]

I also had an iPhone 3Gs, and ditched it for the Eris, because of AT&T's horrible coverage and dropped calls.

Before you switch to AT&T, ask your friend to put his iPhone in Field Test Mode, to see what his signal REALLY is. The second firmware update by Apple makes the iPhone 3G & 3Gs show more bars that are actually present. This was done to silence the users that were complaining about poor signal & number of "bars".

Have him open the phone app and enter *3001#12345#*, then hit send. Instead of Bars in the upper left hand screen, you will see a number. -50db is almost a perfect signal, while anything over -80db is pretty unusable.

In my office, I always had 5 bars showing, however, when I would go into Field Test Mode, it showed -101db., which is essentially no signal at all.

I loved my iPhone, but it was useless as a phone, on AT&T. On a daily basis, I would drop 70% of calls initiated and received.

Since having the Eris for a little over a month, I have yet to drop 1 call.

 

[smacky]

Have you tried messing with the slot cycle? It's been thrown around a lot recently, and it helped me a little bit with at least the display of the bars. Where it would show no bars in my room, it now shows three. I changed it from 2 to 0. Not sure if that was it, but a lot of things have changed since I did that slot cycle, and most for the better.


Call ##PST
Enter in six "0's" as the password
Go to Modem
And edit the slot cycle value. Try 0 at first for the best possible chance, and if that works but your battery life is worse, bump to 1. The default value that you should be on should be "2."

 

[Needsdecaf]

Well, I think I'm taking back my Eris today and getting an iphone instead. There are many things I love about this phone and the Verizon service but there are a few things I'm having trouble getting over.

First is the service. Great almost everywhere except in my apartment. I have to go outside to make a phone call while my friend with an iphone has fine reception everywhere in our place.

Second, the lagging. Sometimes it takes 5 seconds or more to just open the phone function. It's also too slow to keep up with my typing on the virtual keyboard most of the time and I find it highly annoying.

Third, battery life. I can get through a day but last night it was midnight and I was down to 5% or so. I made one 30 minute phone call and surfed the net a little. That is it. I'm really afraid that during a heavy use day which I will have on weekends when i go out and such, that it just wont cut it.

What sucks is that my Verizon is on a family plan which means I was only paying the $30 data plan and now I'll be paying for everything which will mean an $80 bill instead. But, to be able to make phone calls from home and have a phone that can keep up with what I'm doing I think it will be worth it. The Eris is a solid design, if they could get the lag issues and battery issues fixed it would be a real iphone killer I think but they just aren't there with it yet unfortunately, at least not for my needs.

Droid will solve your lagging and battery issues. Trust me on this one, I went from an Eris (2 months) to a Droid and I am very happy. I loved the Eris, but the lag (on mine) was terrible.

As for the reception, well, that's a deal breaker. However, have you tried *228 and reprogramming the phone and updating the roaming capabilities (1 & 2). Just a thought.

 

[slide13]

Yes, I tried updating the roaming and everythign....didn't make a difference. I think the problem is there are two towers equally far away and it tries to jump from one to the other but can't get a good signal from either and it ends up dropping all the time. AT&T just works better here.

I thought about trying Droid but I really don't like that phone at all. I've played with it and I had issues with the UI and overall function. It was fast and screen is great, but the rest of it just doesn't do it for me.

Honestly, after having the iPhone for a day now I really like it but I do miss all the customization one could do with the Eris. I like all my little widgets for turning stuff on/off, those were awesome! But my iPhone is working better and I have can actually make calls from my apartment so that goes a long way.

We'll see how it goes over the next 30 days. I still have my old number active with Verizon so if it doesn't work for me I can always go back in a month and maybe HTC will have a new android phone out at that time.

 

[jlink38]

I came from the iPhone 3GS and all I can say is, carry a charger around with you, because the battery life on the iPhone is absolute crap. When I see all of these people complaining about the Eris' battery, I just think about how fortunate I am to last a complete day on one charge. I literally had to turn off 3G and use the phone on EDGE in order to hold a full day's charge. I had pretty much full bars of service everywhere I went but the iPhone was just terrible at holding a charge. Even with full bars of service, I still dropped calls everywhere I went, and I ate "call faileds" for breakfast. Good luck!

 

[Bswartz95]

AppleInsider | Rumor: Apple could announce end of AT&T iPhone exclusivity Wed.

 

[SeanCasey]

I came to the Eris after having an iPhone 3g for 13 months. I am much happier with the Eris mostly because of verizons network (have yet to drop a call on the eris) and also because of the iMusic app on the android market. Having any song at the touch of my finger tips on a moments notice without having to connect to a CPU or jailbreak my phone is such a big deal to me. As far as the keyboards I find them very compareable and the ability to pick the word on the screen makes the eris' virtual keyboard a lot better imo. The virtual keyboard on the eris is leaps and bounds better then the Moto droid. Since my lady has one (she wanted something bulkier so it woulnt be as easy to lose) she has regreted not trading it in for an eris and is going to be selling it to get the Eris instead asap. Somethings I liked a lil better on the iPhone 3g but even though I have over 4,000 songs on iTunes its still easier, quicker, and handier to use iMusic and get the song I want to hear immediately.

 

[joey3002]

I have had both phones, and am now on the eris. I do think that the iphone was a bit easier to use but it could be that I just got the eris and am comparing it to the 3gs. I love the android idea and really want it to work (am planning on making a few apps even)

If you mod the iphone, there are alot of features you can free up, you can get multitasking which was nice. The phone is a good phone but if you have 0 coverage, then its an easy choice.

I gave up all that phone contract crap and went with page plus which uses the verizon network. I just couldnt justify paying 150+ for 2 phones with att and only 1 being an iphone, the other was a dumbphone.

 

[hitdog042]

I came to the Eris after having an iPhone 3g for 13 months. I am much happier with the Eris mostly because of verizons network (have yet to drop a call on the eris) and also because of the iMusic app on the android market. Having any song at the touch of my finger tips on a moments notice without having to connect to a CPU or jailbreak my phone is such a big deal to me. As far as the keyboards I find them very compareable and the ability to pick the word on the screen makes the eris' virtual keyboard a lot better imo. The virtual keyboard on the eris is leaps and bounds better then the Moto droid. Since my lady has one (she wanted something bulkier so it woulnt be as easy to lose) she has regreted not trading it in for an eris and is going to be selling it to get the Eris instead asap. Somethings I liked a lil better on the iPhone 3g but even though I have over 4,000 songs on iTunes its still easier, quicker, and handier to use iMusic and get the song I want to hear immediately.

My wife has the eris, I have the droid. The keyboard (virtual) is no way better on the Eris, mainly because it's slow. When I use her phone, I have to wait for it to catch up.

Her battery dies with little useage before 11 pm. Yesterday for example, she made 0 calls. She was on the internet looking at something for her job for 15 minutes. That's it.

The Eris is not a dependable phone. It will leave you stranded eventually, but from all the posts I read here, it already has most people.

My wife carries a travel charger, and two batteries. That's ridiculous. But, the only thing she cares about is it's size. To each their own.

imo, the eris is another failed HTC device. All of their android phones have battery issues. Why doesn't Motorola?

A question all of you should be asking instead of settling.

 

[Scynthetic78]

My wife has the eris, I have the droid. The keyboard (virtual) is no way better on the Eris, mainly because it's slow. When I use her phone, I have to wait for it to catch up.

Her battery dies with little useage before 11 pm. Yesterday for example, she made 0 calls. She was on the internet looking at something for her job for 15 minutes. That's it.

The Eris is not a dependable phone. It will leave you stranded eventually, but from all the posts I read here, it already has most people.

My wife carries a travel charger, and two batteries. That's ridiculous. But, the only thing she cares about is it's size. To each their own.

imo, the eris is another failed HTC device. All of their android phones have battery issues. Why doesn't Motorola?

A question all of you should be asking instead of settling.

I'm curious....have you/your wife bothered to try any of the tips/tweaks for the eris? It seems that most new users all have the same battery complaints, but I really haven't had that much of a problem with mine, even in a weak signal area. The battery really isn't all that bad once you've followed the steps to make it better.

 

[Frisco]

My wife has the eris, I have the droid. The keyboard (virtual) is no way better on the Eris, mainly because it's slow. When I use her phone, I have to wait for it to catch up.

Her battery dies with little useage before 11 pm. Yesterday for example, she made 0 calls. She was on the internet looking at something for her job for 15 minutes. That's it.

The Eris is not a dependable phone. It will leave you stranded eventually, but from all the posts I read here, it already has most people.

My wife carries a travel charger, and two batteries. That's ridiculous. But, the only thing she cares about is it's size. To each their own.

imo, the eris is another failed HTC device. All of their android phones have battery issues. Why doesn't Motorola?

A question all of you should be asking instead of settling.

I have to dispute a few things in that post, especially battery life. My usage is normally around 15 to 20 calls per day, incoming + outgoing. My texting amounts to about 50 per day, incoming + outgoing. My internet usage amounts to about a total of one hour per day in 5 or 10 minute increments throughout the day. I use the weather application 4 or 5 times per day for the city my wife drives to work at, about 50 miles from where we live. I also play brick breaker (only made it to level 8 so far) about 30 minutes per evening as I relax and watch TV.

My battery comes off the charger at 4 am and does not go back on the charger until 8:30 pm. In the first two days I had the device the battery had to be charged in the middle of the day, but now it does not after 9 days of owning it and leaving it on the charger from 8:30 pm until 4 am.

I have GPS turned off and I clear my browser cache at noon and again right before turning the Eris off and putting it on the charger for the night. That's it.

The keyboard has no lag that I can notice, perhaps a split second, but that's fine, I'm not a thumb-bunny, I use my left index finger and I'm slow and I like it that way because I am 100% accurate.

"The Eris will leave you stranded?" I have no idea what you mean by that. If it's battery life then you're not managing it correctly, likely, or you need a spare; "stranded" sounds serious.

 

[Caddyman]

My phone last all day no problems.