[jdwx]

Still working on an informed decision and I'm so on the fence...

Reason being, is that I text, Yahoo IM, as well as I use Yahoo and multiple other site based emails a LOT. So, BB is cool there. I could go Gmail somehow if I really had to.

I Also surf a lot of forums and tech sites when there's slow times at work. And a lot of apps, GPS and Google maps. Droid.

In particular tho, I've read a LOT about less than steller call quality with the Droid. You guys are pretty vocal. Please discuss a bit and fill me in a bit about your experiences.

Thanks so much.

[thinkamp]

I took my droid back because the call quality wasn't good and I'm a heavy texter and my threaded sms kept getting screwed up. I also personally didn't like email on it...I don't use gmail so it wasn't instant and I didn't like having to go and refresh it.
Good luck to you tho.

[jdwx]

Yeah.. I really need both it seems!

A traditional QWERTY physical BB for email/IM/text. Not that the Droid doesn't do that, I'm just really down with the BB physical keys, not even wanting a Storm II for that reasoning.

And a Droid to do all my entertainment and misc cool apps. I don't play games, but some days are really slow and I surf lotsa sites.

Only another what $40 bucks a month to do both? Sigh... I'm driving myself nuts with researching this decision.

[thinkamp]

The droid is a great phone and I am waiting out for the 2nd gen of that phone.
Droid does everything great, just has a couple bugs that they are working on pretty fast, but wasn't enough to keep me around.
The internet is what I miss the most about that phone, super fast and super sexy!!
Its actually only $30.00 a month like the bb data plan.

[jdwx]

Haha, no, I meant $40 to run both, haha... 10 additional line, 30 for data.... haha...

$10 bucks a week to have exactly what i want... Hmmmm....

[graymulligan]

I'm seeing excellent voice quality, on par with my Tour, and a little better than my Storm1. I'm also seeing really solid quality on my bluetooth car stereo connection, which was spotty with the tour.

[jdwx]

Did you change any settings? Or is this running like it came?

Wonder if some units are just "not right"? People that have the issue, and tracvel say it always the same, so, probably not local network related I'm assuming.

[ccoady750]

Yet another added item thats on the Dec. 11th software update. It will address the call quality issues. I know it's tough to be patient when you only have 30 days to make your decision, but so many people are jumping the gun. I don't blame the Storm users I guess, but this is definitely no storm.

[ccoady750]

I took my droid back because the call quality wasn't good and I'm a heavy texter and my threaded sms kept getting screwed up. I also personally didn't like email on it...I don't use gmail so it wasn't instant and I didn't like having to go and refresh it.
Good luck to you tho.

I set my yahoo to 5 minutes to auto refresh. Not instant but soon enough, haha. I haven't had an issue with SMS though.

[jdwx]

Yeah, I just don't know. Hence asking I guess. Trying to get some unbiased info and make a decision. I will look forward see what all happens when the update comes.

I'm sure they'll keep dialing it in. At least it seems like they're doing stuff quickly. I'm pretty sold on the Droid other than email thing and well the keyboard when it comes to texting/IM.

[x1208x]

I took my droid back because the call quality wasn't good and I'm a heavy texter and my threaded sms kept getting screwed up. I also personally didn't like email on it...I don't use gmail so it wasn't instant and I didn't like having to go and refresh it.
Good luck to you tho.

you had a lemon. i had one. the lemons are coming out in batches. Basically core apps force closing, phone randomly rebooting, and phones turning off by themselves and need battery pull to turn back on.

i exchanged mine and now its working wonderful.

FYI Droid has one of the highest ratings for call quality. Also depends on your location and if yer in a 3G area. But for me call quality has been better than my old storm.

[x1208x]

Yeah, I just don't know. Hence asking I guess. Trying to get some unbiased info and make a decision. I will look forward see what all happens when the update comes.

I'm sure they'll keep dialing it in. At least it seems like they're doing stuff quickly. I'm pretty sold on the Droid other than email thing and well the keyboard when it comes to texting/IM.

I was a 200% Blackberry Addict. 8830 > Storm 1. Using leaked apps, shrinking OS, checking forums twice an hour for updates (I have a lot of free time at work)

I can tell you now, the droid is not perfect, but its freaking wonderful. I miss the screen click, but everything else is great. Its the next evolution of phones in my opinion.

A few major reasons to get the Droid is it has RAM and ROM. Not just ram like blackberry. Blackberries use app memory for both programs (program size) plus the app's resource memory.

Thats why the Droid is so much faster and more efficient than other phones. The Droid also has a dual processor. Even when the snap dragon (1 ghz processor) hits the market, its going to be a single processor. And they are having major issues with over heating and burning through the entire battery in a matter of hours.

The physical keyboard on the droid kinda sucks. And the directional pad is useless. But people who get used to the physical keyboard really like it. personally I like the on screen keyboard in landscape. its extremely easy to type of it. And the Auto Correction is MUCH MUCH better than the blackberry auto correction. The downfall is auto correction does not work when using the physical keyboard. But this is supposed to be fixed soon.

If you decide to get the Droid, Handcent is a MUST HAVE APP. it replaces the standard SMS app and has tons of options, functionality, and customization. you know how regular phones can only send 10-20 texts at once? I sent 500+ texts out on thanksgiving at one time. one text, mass texted.

Also try PURE Messenger. its a messenger widget that shows texts on your home screen. Its wonderful. The widget also shows email, gmail, twitter, facebook msgs and something else. The way I set mine up is i have one widget for my texts and a separate one for emails.

I have a whole list of the most useful and functional apps. I will start a new thread this weekend and share everything with everyone. with full details n stuff.

90% of my time at work is downtime, so i experiment with tons and tons of apps on the Droid.

One more great thing about the droid is the app store. You can buy premium apps, and if you don't like it, it allows you to get a refund. You have to refund it within 2 days I think, but this allows you to try out any app, even if they don't have a trial offer.

The one thing android doesn't have, is a great forum site like crackberry. ( Even crackberry's affiliate android site sucks. So i come back here a few times a week.

[thinkamp]

I set my yahoo to 5 minutes to auto refresh. Not instant but soon enough, haha. I haven't had an issue with SMS though.

Weird, mine did not give me a five minute opption...I only could do 15 minutes. I like instant tho.

you had a lemon. i had one. the lemons are coming out in batches. Basically core apps force closing, phone randomly rebooting, and phones turning off by themselves and need battery pull to turn back on.

i exchanged mine and now its working wonderful.

FYI Droid has one of the highest ratings for call quality. Also depends on your location and if yer in a 3G area. But for me call quality has been better than my old storm.

My droid never rebooted on me or anything that you listed. My SMS just started acting funking and the call qaulity was bad. I'm sure I did get a lemon, but I'm back to black and gonna wait on the 2nd gen.

[jdwx]

Yeah, like anything, good ones, bad ones huh? Happens when ya make a million of something I suppose.

x1208x:

Thanks for the great straighforward informative and non-biased post. I so didn't want a pissing match here, haha... I just wanna get the real facts and decide.

I really look forward to hearing more of your thoughts and seeing the new thread.

Thanks guys!

[gwtiff54]

I have my primary email forwarded to my gmail and I get it within 10 to 15 secs. Then you can cut out the searching every 5 or 15 minutes which wears down the battery. Maybe an idea to help you guys out. To be honest, I have had a Curve,Storm 1, Tour the call quality on my droid is alot better. Everyone told me I sound muffled on my berries. But my Droid is crystal clear.

[photoeditor]

I'm in a very good Verizon signal area, and for me the Droid mostly delivers good call quality, but it is struggling the whole time. Normally it's landline-clear but every now and then the caller's voice gets distorted just enough to make comprehension impossible. The problem is that while it's getting great 3G signal, for 1x voice calls it's showing about -100dbm or so -- what you'd expect in a marginal rural area, while my old phone is showing about -80. And the battery information tells the story. With a smartphone, especially this particular smartphone, you'd normally expect Display to be the number one usage of the battery, by far. Not on my Droid. It's voice calls. And I'm lucky to get a workday out of it even with light use.

For whatever reason, either the phone software or the network software is fighting with itself over the Droid on voice calls. It's obviously struggling to decode the call or something and cranking the power way up to compensate. It has been the same way on both samples I've tried. Note that my phone has mostly been handling voice calls AND data on 1900MHz; I've only occasionally seen an 800MHz channel show up in Test Mode. One thing I noticed on the FCC SAR report for the phone was that the radiation output on 800MHz was impressively low and the 1900MHz radiation was on the high side, near the legal limit. I wonder if there are some software bugs with 1900MHz or if it's a physical problem. I do know that the reception is very sensitive to where you have your hand on the phone; if my hand is at all close to covering up the antenna (which is in the "chin") the reception drops off by 10 to 15dbm. I don't ever recall having a phone that was this sensitive before, and yes, I check out the test mode in every phone I get.

[csreborn]

Still working on an informed decision and I'm so on the fence...

Reason being, is that I text, Yahoo IM, as well as I use Yahoo and multiple other site based emails a LOT. So, BB is cool there. I could go Gmail somehow if I really had to.

I Also surf a lot of forums and tech sites when there's slow times at work. And a lot of apps, GPS and Google maps. Droid.

In particular tho, I've read a LOT about less than steller call quality with the Droid. You guys are pretty vocal. Please discuss a bit and fill me in a bit about your experiences.

Thanks so much.

I personally think the call quality is good, but the update in Dec further improves it according to Google's press release today about 2.0.1 Android being released in December.

http://www.androidcentral.com/androi...ta-update-soon

[whostoblame]

Call quality is good with my Droid but I hate the echo I get.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[x1208x]

I'm in a very good Verizon signal area, and for me the Droid mostly delivers good call quality, but it is struggling the whole time. Normally it's landline-clear but every now and then the caller's voice gets distorted just enough to make comprehension impossible. The problem is that while it's getting great 3G signal, for 1x voice calls it's showing about -100dbm or so -- what you'd expect in a marginal rural area, while my old phone is showing about -80. And the battery information tells the story. With a smartphone, especially this particular smartphone, you'd normally expect Display to be the number one usage of the battery, by far. Not on my Droid. It's voice calls. And I'm lucky to get a workday out of it even with light use.

For whatever reason, either the phone software or the network software is fighting with itself over the Droid on voice calls. It's obviously struggling to decode the call or something and cranking the power way up to compensate. It has been the same way on both samples I've tried. Note that my phone has mostly been handling voice calls AND data on 1900MHz; I've only occasionally seen an 800MHz channel show up in Test Mode. One thing I noticed on the FCC SAR report for the phone was that the radiation output on 800MHz was impressively low and the 1900MHz radiation was on the high side, near the legal limit. I wonder if there are some software bugs with 1900MHz or if it's a physical problem. I do know that the reception is very sensitive to where you have your hand on the phone; if my hand is at all close to covering up the antenna (which is in the "chin") the reception drops off by 10 to 15dbm. I don't ever recall having a phone that was this sensitive before, and yes, I check out the test mode in every phone I get.

*228 then option 2 to update your cell tower cover. see if that works.

[jdwx]

So, for anyone that was having any issue, did any changes come about with call quality with the 12/11 update?

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com