Lovin' My Acclaim!

[rasmith3530]

Thanks Phases for getting this forum going!

I got my Acclaim the day after its release, and I am seriously enjoying this phone. I'd had a G1 for a brief period, a competent phone in its own right, to test out Android and because I'd grown impatient. Now I have the real deal, Android on my favorite carrier, US Cellular.

So far, the only downside I've found is that the phone, and Android, doesn't seem to play well with Yahoo, and that does not really surprise me; it's Google after all! My Yahoo mail does work well with the Yahoo-designed app, available from the Marketplace as a freebie.

So, what do you think about your Acclaim?

 

[dcollins23]

Glad to see you're enjoying it. I'm thinking about picking one up fairly soon, but I do have a few questions.

1) How is the battery life? I heard one user complain it's pretty poor.
2) Call quality? CNet wasn't impressed with this, what are your experiences?
3) $30 a month for data at 5GB per month, correct?

 

[ZDPalmer]

I'm lovin' my Acclaim, quite far the best phone I've owned period. The battery life lasts a good 12 hours and that's only if I'm on it all the time. (YouTube, Facebook, Downloading testing Applications etc.) Call quality is better then any of the Razrs and LG phones I've used in the past and I'm not sure what my data plan is, but I enjoy the phone a lot! I just want to figure out how to root it!

 

[dcollins23]

You'll probably have to wait for a 2.2 root or downgrade to 2.0.1 and root it from there.

 

[barefootpoet]

My wife and I got ours Saturday and are truly amazed by them. This is my first smart phone and she had a Blackberry previously. I like the slide out keyboard to text and email. The battery life doesn't seem as bad as I heard. Of course we've both been using them non stop checking out the Android features and surfing all the available apps all weekend so we'd have to recharge half way through the day. But today I used my phone more "normally" and I've got a 54% charge left and its 8:30 PM.

I think I'm going to be enjoying Android platform and appears to be the next wave of the future. I'm already looking forward to upgrading to 2.2.

 

[rasmith3530]

@dcollins - Battery life? Well, I keep a charger in my car, and a wall charger in my book bag. I have three mail accounts on the phone, syncing regularly. I also have Facebook, and I send a few text messages during the day. There are currently over 30 additional applications loaded on my phone, several of which run in the background. At idle though, the battery life is pretty decent. It's not quite BlackBerry territory, but nowhere near as bad as the old Moto Q! Call quality has been very good, and RF seems decent as well. Yes, the data package is $30 per month, which includes the Your Navigator app.

 

[dcollins23]

Thanks for the information guys, appreciate it.

 

[driftwood]

i suppose ill chime in...

got this phone the Sunday after release (had it for over a week now)

been with us cellular for years so im glad they finally got a droid (they will also be getting the HTC desire in august if i recall correctly)

anyway to answer a couple questioned posted in this thread

1. the battery life is short... i have used mine non stop & if i dont charge every night i would probably only get 2 full days worth of battery life... its not a huge deal though, i just charge it over night... obviously the more you play with it the faster the battery drains... if you use it as a phone first & dont play much, it'll probably last 3-4 days

2. call quality... ive have yet to have any issues with any phone including my acclaim from USCell, never any dropping calls, no cutting reception, nothing... the only minor thing that could be better on the acclaim is sound output from the call speaker (as it seems a little quiet @ full blast)... but the speaker phone is plenty loud, so no complaints with that

3. yes $30 a month for data... apparently they are charging $30 instead of $25 because of the preinstalled 'your nav' app (they must have some contract with them)


my overall thoughts are that the phone is great... personally i like the ability that it comes with a full QWERTY keyboard so your not stuck with only typing on the touch screen & significantly minimizing your view of the page... the fact that i can do anything on the acclaim as i could on the droid X & all the other hyped droids makes me wonder what the big deal is?

the only real knock is the camera being 3.0mp (but thats what i have my canon for)... the built in camera on the acclaim will be just fine for point & click on short notice, & i didnt really buy the phone based on the camera capabilities anyway

also, the battery cover seems very hard to take off... i feel like i will break the phone if i try any further... anyone else have this issue?

 

[rasmith3530]

First, to address the increase to a $30 data charge, yes, you do get Your Navigator Deluxe, and it is light years better than Google Maps, at least IMHO. It has a very cool feature that allows you to add favorite addresses and map out trips, from your PC, which will then be sync'd to your phone the next time you open YND. Here's the URL for the site, linked below. Log in using your 10-digit mobile phone number, with the last four digits as your PIN.

Your Navigator Deluxe Login

BTW, keep in mind that AT&T has gone to a data cap of 2GB for $20, and, according to Engadget, Verizon may be following suit. So, $30 for 5GB, with YND, is actually a pretty sweet deal!

Battery life has been, for me at least, pretty much what I would expect for a phone with the advanced capabilities this phone has. I installed an app, downloaded from the Android Market, called Advanced Taskkiller, and using it has helped quite a bit in conserving power. It remains resident on your phones Task Bar, so it is easy to grab and use.

It was just a couple years ago that we went to 1.3MP cameras, so 3.0MP isn't so bad, especially at a phone with the Acclaim's price point.

For the battery cover, what I have done is that I get my thumbnail under the slot, pry upwards slightly, then move my nail around to one edge. Again, I pry up slightly, then go to the other side (still on bottom of phone) and do the same. Once the two corners are free, the rest is easy. I reinstall the cover, top first, working my way along the sides until I get to the bottom. No problem at all!

 

[Cythrawl]

3. yes $30 a month for data... apparently they are charging $30 instead of $25 because of the preinstalled 'your nav' app (they must have some contract with them)

This is a misconception..
US Cellular has upped ALL smartphone data prices for new contracts to $30.00 a month with a 5gb cap.
Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Android. You renew or get a new contract they are all $30.00 a month now..

The Your Navigator Deluxe only works well on the Android phones. The other's work just the same as they do on regular Cellphones with EasyEdge.

 

[rasmith3530]

@Cythrawl - My friend has YND on a US Cellular BlackBerry, and it seems to work pretty much as it does on the Acclaim, giving turn-by-turn voice navigation, plus warnings for traffic situations. Having the Samsung Caliber in addition to my Acclaim, I know what the EasyEdge version of Your Navigator works like.

 

[bryandrummer]

i was told that the one of the reasons for the upped price in the data place was because ynd will now work on roaming networks. i personally have had a tom tom and used that for years so never really used the phone navigator but that was what i was told after i asked someone in customer service after clearing up some other issues

 

[btfsplk83]

All the talk about bad battery life had me confused at first. Apparently some people haven't used smartphones before?
They are little computers! They run multiple functions, they connect to the internet once in a while and they get drained pretty fast.
I've had several Blackberries over the years, and the "probably only get 2 full days worth of battery life" cited by driftwood sounds pretty awesome to me. I used to have to keep an extra usb cable at work in case my phone was looking particularly low around lunch.
Just make sure to close out applications you aren't using, and you'll be fine.
As for the data charges, we're getting 5 gb for 30 bucks instead of 2 gb for 20. Looking at that math, I'd say it's still a pretty good deal. Tack on almost never dropping a call, and I'm sold.

 

[rasmith3530]

AFAIK, Android stays connected to the network 24/7. Google really believes in the cloud, and the phone of course is Google-centric, Google being the operating system's father, so to speak.

There were probably a number of reasons for the data price increase. YND, the expansion of data roaming capability, intro of Android phones, and general equipment cost increases. Like btfsplk83 said, $30 is still a pretty good deal, and yes, I don't need no stinkin' cover on my Android phone just to make a call!

 

[JimboMidge]

To the best of my knowledge, AT&T's data plan is currently 200MB for $15 per month or 2GB of data for $25, making 5GB for $30 all the sweeter!!!

 

[Deleted User]

What AT&T and Verizon charge matters nothing to me because they don't provide coverage in this area. Out here in North Carolina east of Greenville, we call AT&T and Verizon phones "city phones" because they lose coverage as soon as you get out of town. They don't work at home (if you live outside of town).

$30 for 5GB *seems* high, but I have zero intention of ever using YouTube on my phone, though, I may at some point just to show that I can. My wife brought up a video of her playing Rockband, that was pretty neat. For the longest time though, we paid $10 a month for unlimited EasyEdge access, and EasyEdge is, frankly, trash. We were on vacation and it was fine to keep up with Facebook, but having to log in every time, and for it to randomly discard your post and kick you back to the main screen... yeah... trash.

Anyway, it's what they charge. I look at it this way... Internet access costs "about that" ($30/month) and you're getting Internet access on a phone that you can use driving down the road. Thinking about the applications, and dividing by days (a dollar a day) all of a sudden it doesn't sound so bad.

 

[rasmith3530]

The Facebook problems with EasyEdge are, to the best of my knowledge, being addressed by Facebook. I will agree, there is no comparison between the basic EasyEdge and a smartphone's browser. I like the dedicated Facebook app too!

 

[scorpie]

Love the phone only thing I was wondering about is the vibrate seems a bit light. Most times I can not tell it is vibrating in my pocket. Any thing that can be done about this?

 

[rasmith3530]

Sorry scorpie, I too was unable to find a setting that would increase the rate of vibration. I don't know if it increases the intensity of a call's vibration, but I did see an app in the Market called Pleasure Droid. There's also something called Volume Setting or cVolume.

 

[Deleted User]

The Facebook problems with EasyEdge are, to the best of my knowledge, being addressed by Facebook. I will agree, there is no comparison between the basic EasyEdge and a smartphone's browser. I like the dedicated Facebook app too!

To reiterate, and every Android user should be aware of this, any time you can get a good app to replicate the functions of a site, the better. Depending on the app, of course. The Facebook app that comes on the Acclaim is good, but for one problem. When you click on Notifications... it's cached, it's not current. So you click the menu soft key, then Refresh. Urban Dictionary has a good app, too, as well as IMDb. Wikipedia needs one -- Wikidroid is useful but there is room for improvement.

And of course Opera Mini absolutely obliterates the default Acclaim browser, but that should go without saying. Speed dial FTW.

 

[rasmith3530]

I haven't tried Urban Dictionary or Wikidroid. I'll have to check them out.