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Why I'm Returning My Droid and Going Back to My Blackberry Curve

These two things drive me crazy too. I hate setting my volume to high and putting my phone in my pocket and an hour later seeing that I missed several important calls because the ringer turned itself off again. :mad:

And the stupid auto-correct function when typing is a pain in the butt too.


you do know you can turn off the auto correct function?

go settings then language & keyboard. then you should be able to figure out the rest.

instead of complaining. accually fool around with your phone and you will be amazed at how many of your gripes can be fixed by you. this coming from a droid user of 3 weeks.:eek:
 
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I bet all these former BB users that now has droids and hates them and wants their BB back. needs to look back when they first got their BB and I bet they all was the same way of how do you use this thing. I cant find nothing on the BB. then over time they learned how to use the BB and taylor it to their needs. Well the droid is a new phone and people are still learning it but griping about it isn't going to solve nothing. like it has been said in the past try learning your phone. if you have a problem the fix might be in the phone already, or if you cant find it try asking on a forum on here and make it a question and not a this phone sucks the batt life sucks and yada yada yadda. I bet if you ask hey guys my battery life is non existent and is there a way or a fix to extend it. I bet you will get the answers to help you.

I have never owned a BB so I cant comment. but for the people that cant adapt to a new phone. I hate to see the companies you work for ever go to a new way of doing things or computer layout. because if you cant adapt to a new phone. no way you will to a new system you company adopts.

you just need to shut up your complaining and sit down with your droid and just play with it. your droid wont bite you and you be amazed at what you can learn. for the stuff you cant figure out. try asking a question nicely. you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

I don't have nothing against the BB phone.I never got one because didn't want too look like I had a brick up to my ear. I hope you enjoy going back to your BB but don't talk trash about the droid when you all obviously don't know squat of what the phone can do.
 
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Curious, how do you fix the battery life, flat keyboard, lack of speed dial keys (dont give me widgets lol), crappy android notifications, and the extra steps required find contacts and make calls?

80%? Really? :rolleyes:
I went from a Curve to a Droid, and after a few days of playing around on it, I got it almost exactly how I wanted. All it takes is some patience and some searching, and you can customize this phone beautifully!

The droid has a lot of settings that enable you to create shortcuts and whatnot. For me, I have Dialer One--it allows you to assign speed dials and search for contacts with the letters on the keypad as well as the numbers. You can download whole new apps that completely overhaul not only the notifications but the entire theme of your phone, and the installation is quick and painless. The browser is excellent (way better than my Curve's IMO), and there are even replacement browsers that are considered even better (Dolphin).

BBs are great phones. I just really liked the droid and all it had to offer, but you do have to be willing to sit down and explore the options it opens up as far as phone customization goes. Like a lot of others have said, these two phones are very, very different, and only personal preference can dictate which is "better" for you. It's all subjective :) Enjoy whichever one you end up with!
 
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As the OP of this thread, I can give you an update and tell you that I'd never go back to a BB now. I can't stop playing with this phone, either constantly updating it, trying new ROMS, or using the apps. I totally love it. It's the last thing I put down before I go to sleep and the first thing I pick up when I wake up.
 
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As the OP of this thread, I can give you an update and tell you that I'd never go back to a BB now. I can't stop playing with this phone, either constantly updating it, trying new ROMS, or using the apps. I totally love it. It's the last thing I put down before I go to sleep and the first thing I pick up when I wake up.
thats included in update 2.2. so just keep waiting :D
 
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I work 12 hour shifts and make and receive calls, check all email, am online, and listen to music and occasionally watch videos on youtube. I rarely have to charge my Droid while i'm at work.

Perhaps your phone has an issue. exchange it and try another.

Be patient and try to learn the phone. Wait until the last day before giving up on the Droid.

But if you really don't like it, that's your choice. Use what you feel most comfortable with, because you're the one having to use it.
 
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I am on droid number three now- last one was getting so hot it bubbled the battery door covering- and as much as I like it, I do switch back to my bb when traveling, I even have different color bodies so I can switch them and have a totally different looking phone. Makes me wonder what sort of phone we'd have if different levels of tech skilled and users designed a pda phone? I NEVER use the droid keypad, they could have made one without it and saved weight and complexity from my point of view. But both phones are very good at what they are designed to do.
 
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I've had two curves through work. I don't know the model numbers off hand; to be honest I've always found them to be lackluster devices. The old one was grey and the current one is black. While I can see their merits, I'd never want one as a personal phone. I feel that the Droid outshines the Curve in every respect.

Battery life on the old curve was great. There's no doubting that. The current one not so much. I get better life on my Droid.

The Droid's battery life is good, but you have to watch what you run. I've found that many third party chat programs will destroy battery life.

Add to this that the tendency for the first few weeks with the Droid is to play with features and install lots of apps. I did this and initially saw about a day worth of battery life. Initially I was concerned but once I removed a few offending apps battery life went to a few days with the same use. I even tried to avoid using it and got four days on a charge once. I could have gotten five but I didn't want to risk it dying the next day so I threw it on the charger.

With respect to the keyboards, it's all subjective. I liked the old curve's keyboard. The new one is horrid. You have to put so much pressure on the keys that your finger's surface area increases and invariably results in extra buttons being pressed. Touch screen keyboards have a learning curve, after four months with the Droid I much prefer it over the physical keyboard on the curve. Spelling mistakes (fat fingering especially) will happen on both which makes the Droid's real-time spell checking a nice touch. It will ultimately come down to preference but personally at this point I don't see anyone owning a curve with all its paint intact and a decent keyboard.

Another thing to remember when comparing a curve to a Droid is that the form factor necessitates different OS functionality. Sure you can tie a key to a contact on a curve; half of the device is buttons. There are no such buttons on a Droid (assuming we all have our Droids closed when on the phone) so that functionality will by nature be different. Adding an icon for a contact is the rough equivalent to RIM's quick keys and I feel works very well within the context of the device.

Most other complaints have been addressed, such as locking the phone before putting it in a pocket and using the search button (the hardware one). As for the phone turning on randomly through the night, I'll offer this for consideration.

A few months ago I went on a business trip to England. In a bonehead move I forgot to take my Verizon phone out of my pocket and it got to take the trip as well. I put the phone into airplane mode then turned it off. My hope was that if by some means it did turn on it wouldn't transmit any data. Lo and behold however it never turned on. I was there for ten days with an additional day in the air and it stayed off the whole time. When I got back to the states and turned it back on I had plenty of notifications coming in, but none of them arbitrarily turned the device on.

So yes there's a learning curve, and there are differences in functionality, but I guess what I'm saying is that in over three years no Blackberry device has truly impressed me. After a few months with a Droid I honestly don't think there's anything a curve can do that a Blackberry can't do better, faster, and on a bigger screen.
 
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Good effort, but I dont think that is the issue though. Anyone can open contacts and see their favs list for quick dial. The most complaints are about the long standing feature of smart dialing which is pretty much in every handset that now exists, even the Hero and Eris. Where you open your dialer and start punching and it smartly narrows down your list of potential people/numbers you are trying to call. No filling up your homescreen, no clicking over to another tab and scanning or scrolling. Just the dialer.....

Try the app "Dialer One"
 
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OK - I realize that the paradym for BB and Driod are different. I expect to change the way I work to fit the phone - slave to the device.

Pro:
Calendar and contacts sync are great.

Con:
Music, camera, etc. are of no value.
BB browsing while not great, rarely failed my purposes.
Missing lots of pieces: Notes, Phone Lock, Etc. No notes app that will sync to Outlook - GDocs do not provide the quick, simple interface, offline, no graphics.
No power off while charging.
Constant 'app failed' errors.
Noises for all sorts of things even in Silent mode and after all settings changed to no sound.
Locking during a call even when time out is longer than call - really sucks because you cannot hang up!!!
Using the Droid means going through more steps to access functions - more needless busy steps.

The biggest reason - unintended dialing. (Refer to my post of earlier today.)
Droid dials contacts from phone log. After nearly every call, it will dial some contacts - repeatedly. This has happened while the phone was place on a table untouched. After each call, I return to home screen then sleep the phone. Checking the log shows dozens of calls I did not initiate.

While the BB is far from perfect, it worked - more often then the Motorola Droid. Access to apps was fewer steps. More standard features. Yes Driod has a bazillion apps that all 'almost' do what I need and you have to pay for them as well.

All I want is a phone that works. I do not care who makes it or how 'cool' it is. Cool does not get business done. I do not have the time to search the market place for apps that will replace missing features.

Using a phone should not be a hobby.
 
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I came from a BB Pearl...so I know something of how you felt when you posted this. Couple of sugegestions:

nydrumboy said:
CON'S:
- Can't bring up a contact and dial as quickly as BB (important for me)
- No speed dial keys

As (finally!) noted a post or two above - get Dialer One or AContacts (same dev on both, I believe)...provide you BB style speed dial, as well as other useful features.

nydrumboy said:
- Ringer volume keeps changing when I don't want it to. Won't stay where I set it

Volume Locker or RingGuard

nydrumboy said:
- When you plug the phone in at night to charge it, it won't stay powered off, meaning you'll get all kinds of unwanted notifications and/or phone calls at all hours

Foxy Ring (as someone else noted) along with Ring Toggle (allows setting Ring/Vibe, Ring, Vibe, or silent from a widget.

Hope you continue to enjoy your Droid...BB does some stuff much better than the Droid, but the overall trade-off for me has been solidly on the Droid side.

Oh - and if you want your BB ring tones, notifications, etc., search for a thread started by me in this forum - it has a zip file attached w/all the BB sounds. I could not live w/out my BB Lightspeed notification... :)
 
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CON'S:
- BATTERY LIFE IS ABYSMAL! My #1 complaint. Keep it plugged in at all times, or carry multiple spares
I personally didn't have much problem with battery life, but I suppose I don't use this as frequently as others might, so I understand how that could be a problem. Also, when I am using the most draining features I'm usually at home plugged in anyway :)

- All keyboards make it very prone to misspellings, and very frustrating
virtual keyboard is useless for me, I actually have gotten quite good at the physical though.

- Can't bring up a contact and dial as quickly as BB (important for me)
Agree

- No speed dial keys
Agree but not a big problem for me

- Lack of search feature for email
Meh

- Ringer volume keeps changing when I don't want it to. Won't stay where I set it
Never changes for me

- When you plug the phone in at night to charge it, it won't stay powered off, meaning you'll get all kinds of unwanted notifications and/or phone calls at all hours
Put the phone in airplane mode is all I can suggest
 
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Anyone who is upset that a customizable phone doesn't work the way their blackberry did out of the box has no business getting an android phone.

Yeah, I said it. I will also go on to say that if you expect a OEM PC with nothing added to it to work like your Mac, you have no business using a computer by yourself.

I will not bother trying to defend a tool that is made for someone to make a device work for them instead of one that acts like all of the other nanny/babysitting peices of hardware out here. I would only say, it is not for you. Don't try to make it like a blackberry. There are many different variants of blackberry and KIRF'd versions of it.

If you wanted a blackberry, you should have bought one. If I got an android phone that worked like a blackberry, I would take it back faster than you took your Droid back (meaning, I wouldn't even have time to post about it, it would have been gone!)
 
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As with all technological changes, a learning curve (no pun intended) is envolved. Let's examine computer OS's for a moment. Anyone remember what we used before Windows ? (Apple is a whole other story for another time) Remember DOS and/or Basic? What sort of learning curve did you have going to 3.11 for Work Groups from Basic? Not as great as say, going to 95 or 98 from DOS. It's all about learning a new OS and getting it to function the way you need it to. Granted, I have only had the Droid for 2 weeks, but as of now I can't see going back. I've still got 2 weeks to go if I want to change it out and if I decide to - it might be for the Incredible. As I said in another post, my Curve has been gathering dust in the closet since day 2.
 
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How do you manage that? Mines at 40% and below by the end of each day!

It might be backlight settings. It could also be signal strength (that has been a huge player for me.) There are so many variables it isn't even funny. Mine is at 40% everyday, but I really beat on it, have the brightness turned up and I also run a lot of apps that keep the screen on. I also have it doing a bunch of stuff over the network, so I am not at all suprised.

I haven't experienced good battery life since I started using my phone for more than just a phone.

PS: I think he's also rooted and uses an app that turns down the processor when it isn't needed.
 
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