Hey all -
The Droid X is my first Android phone. As has been mentioned elsewhere, I really want to like it, but I have to be honest and say I'm fairly disappointed.
Here's what I like:
- The hardware is fantastic. Even on 2.1 I can really push the envelope with simultaneous apps and a lot of performance-intensive widgets.
- Battery-life is more than acceptable - coming from a dumb phone I was warned about this, but I'm not finding it to be a problem.
- The OS itself is a lot of fun.
Here's what I don't:
- The body is fairly aesthetically displeasing. The non-touch buttons are clunky and the phone itself is a chore to hold. I hate to make the comparison, please hold your criticism, but the unibody design on the iPhone really sets the bar on form, and everything about the X's body says 'Good Enough.'
- It goes without saying that Motoblur is a drag. My first goal with my X was to replace all the stock software that felt lacking. After a few hours I had accomplished this with LPP/Chomp/DialerOne/FancyWidget and a few others, but the UI ended up feeling poorly integrated. If my new browser would throw an exception, it ended up getting caught by the stock browser. Even after turning all notifications off I couldn't avoid getting double notifications on SMS, and if I received SMS while browsing I couldn't reply. I'm constantly clearing the status bar manually, even though I've already responded to the events within through non-blur apps. I could give a ton of examples; each app seems great on it's own, but all feel slightly incongruent with each other and the environment itself. I realize that I'm asking for a lot of polish here.
- The bugs. From the Exchange issue to the GPS-disabling-sleep-mode to the speaker problem, there are enough to deserve a bullet point.
I'm a week into the phone. At this point I'm fairly certain the X is going back, but I'm not ready to give up on Android. I've given a lot of thought to the Incredible and Sense, but am concerned about the battery life and voice quality issues I've heard about. I could also go off-contract for a couple months and pick something up in October/November, closer to 3.0 and the UI revamp. I do have to stay with Verizon (the family has spoken.)
Thank you very much for reading. Any recommendations are highly appreciated.
The Droid X is my first Android phone. As has been mentioned elsewhere, I really want to like it, but I have to be honest and say I'm fairly disappointed.
Here's what I like:
- The hardware is fantastic. Even on 2.1 I can really push the envelope with simultaneous apps and a lot of performance-intensive widgets.
- Battery-life is more than acceptable - coming from a dumb phone I was warned about this, but I'm not finding it to be a problem.
- The OS itself is a lot of fun.
Here's what I don't:
- The body is fairly aesthetically displeasing. The non-touch buttons are clunky and the phone itself is a chore to hold. I hate to make the comparison, please hold your criticism, but the unibody design on the iPhone really sets the bar on form, and everything about the X's body says 'Good Enough.'
- It goes without saying that Motoblur is a drag. My first goal with my X was to replace all the stock software that felt lacking. After a few hours I had accomplished this with LPP/Chomp/DialerOne/FancyWidget and a few others, but the UI ended up feeling poorly integrated. If my new browser would throw an exception, it ended up getting caught by the stock browser. Even after turning all notifications off I couldn't avoid getting double notifications on SMS, and if I received SMS while browsing I couldn't reply. I'm constantly clearing the status bar manually, even though I've already responded to the events within through non-blur apps. I could give a ton of examples; each app seems great on it's own, but all feel slightly incongruent with each other and the environment itself. I realize that I'm asking for a lot of polish here.
- The bugs. From the Exchange issue to the GPS-disabling-sleep-mode to the speaker problem, there are enough to deserve a bullet point.
I'm a week into the phone. At this point I'm fairly certain the X is going back, but I'm not ready to give up on Android. I've given a lot of thought to the Incredible and Sense, but am concerned about the battery life and voice quality issues I've heard about. I could also go off-contract for a couple months and pick something up in October/November, closer to 3.0 and the UI revamp. I do have to stay with Verizon (the family has spoken.)
Thank you very much for reading. Any recommendations are highly appreciated.