Storm owner moving to Droid

[crucifixion]

As many Storm1 owners out there, I was thinking of switching to Storm2...however, after searching the web and debating between Storm2, Omnia II, and Eris, I found myself wanting the new Passion...unfortunately it seems to me there is no Passion, and just a Nexus. So since I'm on Verizon, it looks like the only 2.0 Android out there is Droid. Main reason for not wanting the droid, is the same as why others havent: keyboard. But I've been warming up to it lately and figured maybe the keyboard could come in handy when I'm at home and replying to work emails...otherwise when texting or other, I need the potrait touchscreeen.

So with that said, there are some things at minimum I need in the Droid and if it has it, I'll pick up a Droid this weekend.

Does the Droid have:
1. T9 in potrait? dont want QWERTY in portrait, but need T9 or equivalent
2. I keep my phone on silent all the time as I get so many messages from emails/texts daily during work. So with the Blackberry, they have a LED that I can customize and have it light up a certain color depending on the type of message. Does the Droid have an LED? If so, can it be customized for email/text/calendar alerts? If not, and I keep my phone on silent, how will I know I received a message? Will the phone light up and fade out in 7 seconds? Stay lit until I acknowlege the message?
3. Need to have a Agenda/Calendar on the home screen. From reading these forums looks like Home++ or something will let me get that?
4. Text animations/smiley- If I'm texting from the Droid to Eris and back and forth and we insert animations/smileys, will they appear on the other phone as an animation/smiley or as the text equivalent?
5. Can you text past 160 characters?
6. Can you Edit office files
7. If I make a change to my outlook calendar or task how fast will it push to phone? Instantly or every two mins it sync?
8. Can I use a stylus in a paint type program? I like to quickly jot nots while I'm out and instead of always carrying a pen and paper, I would prefer to write on the phone
9. How many email accounts can I have at once? I have Corporate Outlook, AOL, and gmail. Can I have 3 seperate inboxes on the phone?
10. Just to confirm, will all these Outlook items push to the phone? email, task, calendar, and memopad?
11. As you probably know, there are a few sites out there that let you watch free tv, so like justintv or channelsurfing...can I watch those on the droid, or do we need flash or something?
12. Is there a seperate inbox for SMS or is that combined with email? Is it possible to have seperate?
13. Common thing with Blackberry is that you have to do a daily battery pull..I assume Droid doesn't have this problem?
14. I heard there were Camera issues? As I wasn't planning on getting the Droid I didn't pay too much attention, but has this been resolved? If so, how?
15. Has there been any new updates to the phone/OS?

Thanks for answering these. If the answers are to my liking, I'll be dropping the Storm for a Droid soon.

Thanks

 

[taz55]

I would say most of these can be answered by going into a Verizon and playing with it. I would suggest doing that first.

 

[vincentp]

1. By default, there is no T9 in portrait. You can get better keyboard for a few bucks, which allows you to do just that, and is (surprise!) better than the default keyboard.

2. You can customize the color of the LED with third party apps. "Missed Call" is a good one that allows you to change the colors of multiple notification LEDs. It's free.

3. There is a calendar widget built in, and you can get CalWidget if you want different size options. I wasn't a big fan of the stock calendar widget.

4. Not sure on that one, I haven't tried sending or receiving emoticons.

5. Yes, and it should split the message up. It should show you how many characters past 160 you are and as a result, how many messages it will send. Handcent (third party messaging app) does a better job of it than the stock app, I believe.

6. If you get the DocumentsToGo paid version, it allows editing.

7. Unfortunately I don't use Outlook so I can't give you a good answer for this one.

8. Probably not, unless you can find a stylus that works with capacitive touch screens.

9. I only have 2 e-mail accounts on mine (Gmail and a POP3) and they use two separate clients. The Gmail client is separate from the e-mail client. If you want, you can put all of your e-mail addresses in the one e-mail client. There is a combined inbox as far as I know (Only have one account in there) but you should be able to filter it by account.

10. Again, can't help ya with the Outlook stuff Someone should be able to answer that though.

11. You'll need to wait for Flash for that. Hopefully we get it earlier in 2010 rather than later.

12. Separate. SMS comes into and is handled by the "Messaging" app. E-mail through the "Gmail" and "E-Mail" apps.

13. Nope. If you have to pulling your battery commonly you may have a hardware issue. This is one thing I don't miss from my Blackberry.

14. The camera's still not great. Auto-focus can be a little sketchy and the pictures come out dark. Still, it's not terrible. If you're a mobile photographer, you're not going to like the camera at all, but if you just want to take some basic pictures, it's perfectly fine.

15. 2.0.1 was released OTA on December 10th, and another update is rumored to be happening (possibly 2.1, we don't really know) in January.

 

[tsaunders]

1. T9 in potrait? dont want QWERTY in portrait, but need T9 or equivalent

I believe you will have to download an app for the T9, personally I can't stand the T9.

2. I keep my phone on silent all the time as I get so many messages from emails/texts daily during work. So with the Blackberry, they have a LED that I can customize and have it light up a certain color depending on the type of message. Does the Droid have an LED? If so, can it be customized for email/text/calendar alerts? If not, and I keep my phone on silent, how will I know I received a message? Will the phone light up and fade out in 7 seconds? Stay lit until I acknowlege the message?

I think there are some profile apps (I personally don't need them, so I haven't looked). I know with Handcent SMS you can have it change the color of the LED, also the twitter client I have (seemic), will change it to blue.

3. Need to have a Agenda/Calendar on the home screen. From reading these forums looks like Home++ or something will let me get that?

You can use the calendar widget or purchase pure calendar (I think that is the one that most people like).

4. Text animations/smiley- If I'm texting from the Droid to Eris and back and forth and we insert animations/smileys, will they appear on the other phone as an animation/smiley or as the text equivalent?

I am not sure how that works. I haven't seen a way to insert smiley into text messages.

5. Can you text past 160 characters?

I think this was fixed with the 2.0.1 update, but you can use Handcent and it will automatically separate the text messages for you.

6. Can you Edit office files?

You can download Documents to go.

7. If I make a change to my outlook calendar or task how fast will it push to phone? Instantly or every two mins it sync?

I use calendar sync from Google to sync my calendar. You can change how often it syncs.

8. Can I use a stylus in a paint type program? I like to quickly jot nots while I'm out and instead of always carrying a pen and paper, I would prefer to write on the phone.

I am not sure about a stylus for the Droid.

9. How many email accounts can I have at once? I have Corporate Outlook, AOL, and gmail. Can I have 3 seperate inboxes on the phone?

I believe you can have as many as you want. I have my gmail and my work e-mail on my phone, they are separate from one another.

10. Just to confirm, will all these Outlook items push to the phone? email, task, calendar, and memopad?

I don't think you can sync task or memopad to the phone. Your e-mail is setup on a timer. I am assuming you are using pop, might be different with Exchange.

11. As you probably know, there are a few sites out there that let you watch free tv, so like justintv or channelsurfing...can I watch those on the droid, or do we need flash or something?

If those sites use flash you will need flash which isn't available. You can download the tv.com app, but I think it's mostly CBS/Showtime shows.

12. Is there a seperate inbox for SMS or is that combined with email? Is it possible to have seperate?

SMS is separate.

13. Common thing with Blackberry is that you have to do a daily battery pull..I assume Droid doesn't have this problem?

I don't have that problem with the Droid.

14. I heard there were Camera issues? As I wasn't planning on getting the Droid I didn't pay too much attention, but has this been resolved? If so, how?

This was fixed with an update from 2.0 to 2.0.1

15. Has there been any new updates to the phone/OS?

The phone was just updated from 2.0 to 2.0.1. There are rumors that the phone will be getting OS 2.1 in January.

 

[crucifixion]

Thank you tsaunders and vincentp for taking the time to respond to my questions. Based on your answers, I think I'm safe in going to the Driod this weekend.

Altho this response doesn't make me feel good, but if its the worst thing then I can live: "I don't think you can sync task or memopad to the phone"

 

[tsaunders]

You can always use evernote for all your tasks.

I am not big on task lists or memopad, so I don't need an app for that.

 

[crucifixion]

Question about the push email.

Exactly how fast would you say Outlook email/calendar gets pushed to the Droid?

On the Storm, it's literally almost instantly. Is the Droid fast within a few seconds or minutes?

 

[ItalianScallion]

4. Text animations/smiley- If I'm texting from the Droid to Eris and back and forth and we insert animations/smileys, will they appear on the other phone as an animation/smiley or as the text equivalent?

You'll get an Android emoticon (the Android character smiling, sad, etc.). You can type it in manually or click menu > insert smiley. It is not animated (if you mean like a gif).

 

[GDroid]

Question about the push email.

Exactly how fast would you say Outlook email/calendar gets pushed to the Droid?

On the Storm, it's literally almost instantly. Is the Droid fast within a few seconds or minutes?

ActiveSync is real fast on the Droid. My Droid gets the e-mail within a few seconds (2 or 3) of my Outlook receiving it.

Some users have had issues with ActiveSync due to the way their Exchange Servers are set up (doesn't mean they are set up incorrectly), but these same users have had success with a 3rd party app called "Touchdown". I'm running Exchange 2007.

 

[TXLady]

Question about the push email.

Exactly how fast would you say Outlook email/calendar gets pushed to the Droid?

On the Storm, it's literally almost instantly. Is the Droid fast within a few seconds or minutes?

Outlook is an email client, therefore Outlook does not pust email to your Droid (nor to your blackberry). Your email service does. I use Yahoo and Gmail and both seem to be pretty fast, about as fast as it gets downloaded to my desktop Outlook client.

Ref the calendar, you must use a third party client to sync your Outlook calendar to the Google Calendar. Google Calendar then syncs almost immediately with the Droid.

The software I picked to sync between Outlook and Google is Ogg Sync. It also syncs the contacts between Google and Outlook which is very important to me. You set the frequency of the sync with the smallest time frame being every 15 minutes.

The Droid has many great features. I had the Storm 2 for 3 weeks before I turned it in for a Droid. After using BBs for several years prior to this, I miss a lot of things about the BB but could not get used to the touchscreen on the Storm 2. I think the Droid is much better but I miss a lot of BB features and may switch back in a few months.

Edit: When you said you have "Corporate Outlook", did you mean Exchange Server using BES?

 

[crucifixion]

When you said you have "Corporate Outlook", did you mean Exchange Server using BES?

Yes. I am currently using BES for my Storm to get my Outlook email, calendar, tasks, and memopad to be sync instantly.

It seems that Droid can only sync email fairly quickly.

Sounds like if I want my calendar to get to my phone, I need to jump a few hurdles to get there. And from the sounds of it, Tasks and Memo/Note pad syncing is not available?

 

[iPhone2Droid]

Thank you tsaunders and vincentp for taking the time to respond to my questions. Based on your answers, I think I'm safe in going to the Driod this weekend.

Altho this response doesn't make me feel good, but if its the worst thing then I can live: "I don't think you can sync task or memopad to the phone"

During the 30-day trial period if/when you get the Droid, hit the Market from the device. Run a search on notes sync. Several 3rd party apps have appeared within the past few weeks, near or actually free. I'm still trying out a few, but have been pleased. As an attorney, this functionality is essential for me. During the interim, I set up a few special gmail directories, companion "+" addys, and related filters to discretely segregate such items (i.e., abc+notes@gm, xyz+tickler@gm).

FYI: Email to Self = app which allows set up and choice among assorted "+" addys via drop-down list. Easy and fast to get the note out of my head and into a safe area. With Verizon's network, I've had no hassles accessing gmail, even tho I live in the boonies. (Read: thus explaining why I walked away from AT&T's NetWon't and my iPhone 3GS.)
Email To Self v1.5 Application for Android | Productivity

Last point... if you come across an app that "almost" covers your needs, never hesitate to contact the developer directly. I've done so 3 times, involving 3 developers, and have been awestruck by the friendly professionalism of each, and exceedingly quick addition of the suggested features. It's a heck of community! Never witnessed this combined effect of a great community, eager-to-please developers and a stellar device-- including my past hanging out at Treo, Blackberry, Sidekick and iPhone forums. Maybe it's the relative youth of the platform itself. Whatever, you'll likey.

 

[brocja01]

I've had some experience with the syncing of Exchange Calendar, contacts, email to the Droid. I have 3 email accounts, one gmail and two exchange accounts. I sync my calendar from gmail, but contacts from Exchange. You can have the sync on all these accounts be push sync, meaning all but instant. I used to sync my calendar from exchange as well, and found it advantagous to have all my calendar entries in a "3rd" party platform (google) because my jobs may change but my google account follows me. It doesn't sync todo or notpad, but I believe there is an app that does. Not sure though.

 

[TXLady]

Yes. I am currently using BES for my Storm to get my Outlook email, calendar, tasks, and memopad to be sync instantly.

I am not sure then exactly what syncs between Exchange Server and the Droid. I still have my BB for work and don't think I'd want to move to the Droid for that at this time. Personal is enough of a challenge.

 

[agares]

so i just switch from a BB to the droid eris and have a question. first time posting by the way.

the girl at the verizon screwed something up on her machine and was unable to switch over my contacts from my blackberry which i no longer have.

I did a back up of my files prior to getting rid of the BB but now i don't know how to or if it is even possable to restore the contacts from the desktop manager to the eris.

any insite will be much appreciated if someone anyone can help me import my contacts.

 

[bekonstructive]

There is a program called ABCBerry that is available as a thirty day trial. It will allow you to take your BB backup file and export contacts to a comma separated values (CSV) file. You can then import the CSV into your gmail account and have your phone sync. I'm fairly certain that's how I transferred mine, but that was almost two months ago.

 

[ppeoud]

My bro and I came from the storm and absolutely love the droid; we've had the droid for a few weeks now and it's rock solid with lots of awesome apps compared to the storm.

 

[agares]

Thank you for directing me to abcberry.
I am not sure where i errored but i followed instructions and my contacts transfered over blank any ideas?

 

[droidosis]

This is what I did when I came over from the Storm..

Delete all your contacts in your main Gmail acct so its empty.

Delete all your contacts off your Droid too (since you already have some there..don't want doubles)

Reactivate your BBerry --> *228, option #3?

Go to this website from BBerrys browser.

m.google.com/sync

Download the Blackberry->Google sync app!

Sync all your contacts & calendar to your main Gmail acct.

Reactivate the Droid... auto sync & done.

EDIT: Works for Iphone, Nokia, Winmo too..

Hope that helps..

-droidosis-

 

[crucifixion]

You'll get an Android emoticon (the Android character smiling, sad, etc.). You can type it in manually or click menu > insert smiley. It is not animated (if you mean like a gif).

OK so I was at VZW yesterday to play with the phone a bit and wanted to see how the smiley worked. Now, I did this on both the Droid and Eris and don't understand, so for people who have a Droid or Eris and have texted to another person with a Droid or Eris, can you please help me out here...

I went to the messaging app and then while i was typying, I clicked on the smiley button and selected a smiley to send. however, while I am reading the text I was writing, the smiley was showing in my message as the text equivalent and not the smiley. It did this for both the Droid and Eris...now, I did not send it so I don't know how it would appear on the receipents phone, but from what I can see so far, I have concluded:

1. The smiley is just for show and what you really get is just the text equivalent for you and the reciever;

or

2. The smiley only shows as the text equivalent for you, but when you send it, your receiver (assuming they have Android) will get the actual smiley of the green android robot;

or

3. Since I was at VZW, I was playing with a store model that wasn't activated and only whe you have a full running phone that is ready to go, then when you insert the smiley, the smiley will appear in your message as the little green robot for you the sender, and the person you sent it to.

So for you Droid users, which is it?

 

[ItalianScallion]

OK so I was at VZW yesterday to play with the phone a bit and wanted to see how the smiley worked. Now, I did this on both the Droid and Eris and don't understand, so for people who have a Droid or Eris and have texted to another person with a Droid or Eris, can you please help me out here...

I went to the messaging app and then while i was typying, I clicked on the smiley button and selected a smiley to send. however, while I am reading the text I was writing, the smiley was showing in my message as the text equivalent and not the smiley. It did this for both the Droid and Eris...now, I did not send it so I don't know how it would appear on the receipents phone, but from what I can see so far, I have concluded:

1. The smiley is just for show and what you really get is just the text equivalent for you and the reciever;

or

2. The smiley only shows as the text equivalent for you, but when you send it, your receiver (assuming they have Android) will get the actual smiley of the green android robot;

or

3. Since I was at VZW, I was playing with a store model that wasn't activated and only whe you have a full running phone that is ready to go, then when you insert the smiley, the smiley will appear in your message as the little green robot for you the sender, and the person you sent it to.

So for you Droid users, which is it?

#2 is how it works. In addition, if someone on a non-Android phone enters the correct formatting for a smiley in an SMS sent to your Android phone, for example:

you'll receive the robot (not the text) on your Android handset.

I'd post a screenshot, but I'm not at my PC and I'm not rooted either. I'll post one this evening.

 

[crucifixion]

^^^ thanks

So then I guess the next question is, is there an app that can allow for better smileys? Smileys that not only appear as the smiley in the text while you write, but also as better pictures? like the standard yellow faces? Or like on the old Motorola RaZr they had smilies that were emoticons that were actually animated and were these little animated people that did the equivalent of what the emotion you selected (e.g. if you selected the kissing emoticon the little character would pretend to blow a kiss to you, etc)?

 

[ParadingLunatic]

^^^ thanks

So then I guess the next question is, is there an app that can allow for better smileys? Smileys that not only appear as the smiley in the text while you write, but also as better pictures? like the standard yellow faces? Or like on the old Motorola RaZr they had smilies that were emoticons that were actually animated and were these little animated people that did the equivalent of what the emotion you selected (e.g. if you selected the kissing emoticon the little character would pretend to blow a kiss to you, etc)?

I would imagine a change like that would require a different app or a complete customized ROM (which goes well beyond the scope of this thread). Basically the way all of the cell phones work is the emoticons convert the plain txt used to create emoticon into a picture. so lets say you typed a : then a - and a ) to make a smiley face, on an Android phone you will get a picture of a green smiling robot. But if the recipient has a different phone, their phone (if it has emoticon abilities) will instead show what their phone uses for the same emoticon. So even if you were able to change the Droid into showing a different emoticon, it doesn't change what the emoticon on the recipients phone looks like. Hopefully that makes sense.

 

[crucifixion]

^^^ makes sense.

So i'm just talking about a Droid to Droid Eris (or any two android phones). I'm planning on getting the Droid and getting the Eris for the wife (or whatever two android phones we like) and my main concern in this issue is sending emoticons / smileys to each other.

 

[ItalianScallion]

#2 is how it works. In addition, if someone on a non-Android phone enters the correct formatting for a smiley in an SMS sent to your Android phone, for example:

you'll receive the robot (not the text) on your Android handset.

I'd post a screenshot, but I'm not at my PC and I'm not rooted either. I'll post one this evening.

Screenshot, FWIW. This is from another Droid owner, but as I said before, as long as it's formatted correctly, the smiley will display.