• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

Finally...a dialer app that rivals Blackberry contact search/dialing!

Redflea

Android Expert
Oct 6, 2009
2,622
289
Check out Dialer One.

It has:

Performance - fast!
T9 Search - start typing letters and it narrows your contact list to contacts that fit what you're typing as you type. And it does it fast.
Nice looking UI with several color/format options.
Lots of other settings
Search looks very accurate and inclusive of business and personal names
Able to become default "return to" dialer after calls end (not all dialers do this)
Speed dial!! Assign contacts to 1-9 numbers.
Optional notification bar shortcut
Rotates and fully functional in landscape orientation!
And so on...

In short, haven't found a shortcoming yet...definitely the closest thing to the BB contact search/dialing experience on a Droid that I've ever seen.

Coming in second:

- aContacts not as fast, not as nice a UI, but good, able to be default dialer
- SpellDial - much simpler UI, few features, very fast and easy to use. No speed dial, and can't replace normal dialer as the "return to" program after a phone call.

Give Dialer One a whirl if you're a former BB user and miss the dialing feature, this will fill that void...

Enjoy... :D
 
Absolutely awesome! I love it. I know this is a little rediculous, but a little while back I was showing a coworker the droid. He was interested but the first thing he asked was, "let me see your call log". Confused, I showed him my call log. He immediately said, "I can't get that phone". Confused even more I asked why. He is dead set on using his call log to return phone calls. He calls his wife about 30 times a day so he can't stand how it shows each individual call. He wanted the call log to show the name once, then click on the name to see all the calls from that person. It unclutters the call log a lot and much easier to find other people in your call log instead of seeing wife, wife, wife, wife, wife, bob, wife, wife, wife, etc. This program does exactly that and the T9 is so much faster to find people. I'm all about speed and this one really works.
 
Upvote 0
That's an interesting use case.

Certainly, the call log of my old Nokia showed only the last call for each contact, and I too found that superior to the highly detailed one we have now (but then, it didn't keep those extra details (which I don't really need for anything anyway)).

BTW, I thought a signature was the "lowest" form of wit? :D
(A sarcastic signature would of course make sure. :rolleyes:)
 
Upvote 0
I've been using Nubdial recently and have been frustrated by it not clearing previously entered digits on re-entry. Dialer One seems to clear upon re-entry (which is what I prefer). However, Nubdial allows you to highlight and/or colorize matching text, and I tend to prefer colorizing with no highlighting, but Dialer One doesn't offer this (yet?).

The call log grouping is great, and really makes the call log easier to work with when each name is only presented once.

I would like to see a View Call Log item added to the context menu for a contact when selected from the contacts screen.

I had an contacts app for my iDEN phone that searched contacts in the same way (at my suggestion - I was a beta tester). I sorely missed that capability when I switched to a non-iDEN phone over a year ago. The closest I could find at the time was a multi-tap search, where to find a contact named Bob I had to type 2266622. With Dialer One I can now find Bob by typing 262, and Mom by typing 666 :eek:. I am relieved to find an app that gives me back T9-like search on my Droid.

Dialer One is definitely a keeper!
 
Upvote 0
I put this on yesterday and I am also liking it much better than the default dialer. It seems quicker to me to dial. I haven't setup the speed dials yet, but will soon.

Has anyone noticed if this dialer has helped with the phone bug where there is no sound on either end of a connected call sometimes?

My wife has this problem once or twice a day and was wondering if using Dialer One would cure this.. Would make the phone a lot better for her, even though she still loves it.
 
Upvote 0
very nice but wish there was a way to make it the default dialer.
Ah, Grasshopper, but there is a way! :D Go to Settings / Applications / Manage Applications, and pull up Dialer One. You can then set it as the default dialer. In fact, the first time I pressed the 'phone' icon within GDE after installing Dialer One, I received the usual popup prompt to select which app I wanted to complete the action, together with the checkbox for 'use this as the default action'. Works great now - and I agree with everyone that said D1 was the best dialing app out there. (Ironically, the stock Windows Mobile dialer has worked precisely the same way for years...)

Rob

PS - Perhaps everyone else has already discovered this, but when typing the name of the person you're looking for, I discovered that you can use the '*' key to enter more than one separated search term. For example, you're not sure whether it's "Smith" or "Smyth"? Just enter '76*84" to find both spellings. Or narrow a list of several "Jones" entries by entering the first initial, then an '*', and then start spelling the last name.
 
Upvote 0
...Go to Settings / Applications / Manage Applications, and pull up Dialer One. You can then set it as the default dialer...

I only see an option to clear the defaults. No option to set defaults. I'm using a Droid with OS 2.0.1. Are you using something different, or can you be more specific about what to do? And what's the advantage of making Dialer One the default dialer, as opposed to just running the app?
 
Upvote 0
I only see an option to clear the defaults. No option to set defaults. I'm using a Droid with OS 2.0.1. Are you using something different, or can you be more specific about what to do? And what's the advantage of making Dialer One the default dialer, as opposed to just running the app?

That's all I have access to on my AT&T Nexus One as well. Maybe I'm missing something, but it's definitely not an option on that screen.
 
Upvote 0
That's all I have access to on my AT&T Nexus One as well. Maybe I'm missing something, but it's definitely not an option on that screen.

Make a call, when it is finished, press end and it should prompt you where you want to go: to dialer one or the built in dialer. Check the box 'use as default' at the bottom of that screen and click on Dialer One.
 
Upvote 0
Make a call, when it is finished, press end and it should prompt you where you want to go: to dialer one or the built in dialer. Check the box 'use as default' at the bottom of that screen and click on Dialer One.

I saw that, and selected Dialer One (without checking the box to make it the default at that time - I have since checked the box). What I found frustrating was that the dialog says something like "complete action using" and gives two choices. My first thought was "WHAT action?" As best I can tell it's asking what app to use to display the call log, not a default dialing app. Regardless, I know what you're talking about know. Thanks.
 
Upvote 0
I saw that, and selected Dialer One (without checking the box to make it the default at that time - I have since checked the box). What I found frustrating was that the dialog says something like "complete action using" and gives two choices. My first thought was "WHAT action?" As best I can tell it's asking what app to use to display the call log, not a default dialing app. Regardless, I know what you're talking about know. Thanks.

Check the box next time and you are done!
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones