Any Motorola Droid users here yet?
 

I picked up a Motorola Droid a few weeks ago and it is so much better then my former Blackberry Storm (odd touch screen, limited apps, browser speed woefully slow, battery life short, phone quality poor). At&t coverage (despite their lame commercials) here is not an option, so no Iphone comparisons please. The Droid is like having a brand desktop built into a phone. I had a patient yesterday that "jail breaked" or "rooted" his and he showed me the difference. All the apps were flying up and down with touches, plus he overclocked it so that it was processing had almost double the speed. Just wondered if anyone else has done this to their droid?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/184077/the_motorola_droid_gets_rooted.html

I don't have a Droid, I've got a G1. I have rooted it, and it is overclocked, but I haven't really noticed a speed difference. That's because now that it's rooted, I've got it doing a lot more than it could do before it was rooted. So for me it's about more features with the same speed.

There are other threads here about the Droid. Do a search and you might find more info.

Any links / explanations of rooting it, and why overclock? Battery life while OC'd?

I love it!! i am thinking of some how getting it surgically attached to my right hand for more convenience !!

Naw... wait for the cranial implants... it will be way kwel!



I want a droid... T-Mobile (my carrier) even has them... but they won't let me upgrade :mad:

Silly because I am on a basic plan and would change to Internet plan and I would be paying them more every month.:rolleyes:

Probably don't need it anyway. :p

google is your friend. If you go to google, type "root motorola droid" and hit enter, you'll get

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,470,000 for root motorola droid with Safesearch on.

I got a Moto CLIQ as my last upgrade (from a G1). It's so much faster than the G1 it's like night and day. I don't use any of the "social networking" crap that came with the CLIQ but I like the fact that I can manage all 5 of my Gmail accounts with it. :)

I did a side-by-side with a coworker's Droid and came away preferring my CLIQ anyway, despite the gorgeous screen on the Droid. The clincher was the keyboard, which IMHO sucks on the Droid. I need a physical keyboard to be able to use the phone effectively, and the CLIQ's, while not as good as the G1's was, is lightyears better than the Droid's.

I wrestled long and hard with this decision. My wife wanted an iPhone in a bad way and I was grasping for Xmas present ideas. While stuck in the middle of the desert with a flat tire in the 993 last summer, only my work Blackberry on AT&T saved me, while our Verizon phones got no signal. So I signed up with AT&T, got an iPhone for her and decided on a BB Bold for myself, as it would never be cheaper than when signing up as a new customer. So far we're both very happy with them. Might switch back to Verizon in two years if they ever get with the program and make GSM phones without charging and arm and leg for them.

I did this and also "root cellphone" and got a tremendous amount of responses. However, a simple question: Is root the same as jailbreak?

Thanks,
Tom

Same deal here. I just changed jobs and lost my old company provided Verizon BB. Thing about Verizon is the coverage here is outstanding & dropped calls were rare. Our road trip to SLC further enforced that - my wife's Sprint phone spent portions of the trip without signal where my Verizon phone was always live.

So wanting a GSM based phone I went with ATT. I REALLY wanted an Android based phone (as a SW developer how could I not) but ATT only had the Moto backflip which I really disliked. So...after much agonizing I went with a iPhone 3GS. Had my phone for a week and so far ATT is 'ok' - of my 23 calls thus far 4 were dropped. Home signal (and this is important) is strong. The iPhone is cool but I am hyper careful with it - feels like it will shatter on the first drop. If ATT offered a 'real' android phone I would have been all over it. Guess they don't want to screw with Apple business...

It seems that most iPhone folks call it Jailbreaking, and Android users call it rooting. Probably because Android is a Linux based OS that you get root (administrator) access to. I think the iPhone stuff is a little different.

When referring to Android, I am 99.8% certain that jailbreak and root are synonymous

Using a droid eris here with verizon. Best phone I've ever used. More G3 coverage than AT&T and the overpriced iphone. Plus, it runs on a flavor of BSD (google's os). The only thing it needs is a good flash player for web browsing and I'd be even happier (I could stream TV shows and movies). IMHO, save the $$ and get the Droid over the alternatives.

I haven't bothered to root my droid (lol) yet. Being able to overclock sounds nice. Sometimes the phone just lags out and has to be rebooted, which is a pain.
I'm a little disappointed that more apps aren't being released for android.

But overall I'm still pretty happy with the phone.

Rick,

Anyone who does any overseas stuff like you do, cannot see how you could live with Verizon in the first place. Either ATT or T-Mobile would be my first pick.

They just offered me the new Blackberry that comes out next week as a replacement and not sure. Still on the fence about getting the Droid...

Joe

I just got one a few weeks ago, a HTC Hero, still getting use to it, but I do like it so far..

I'll never use AT&T or Verizon for overseas duty. I have an old RAZR phone I take with me and just buy SIM cards for once in-country. I was driving to Vancouver last Friday and my wife called AT&T from the car to see what it cost once in Canada. Holy sheet, was it expensive. We kept our phones off after that. However, upon our return, I was a good two miles inside the US, turned my Blackberry on and got "Rogers Wirelss" on my screen. So I hope I don't get charged for that. I was well inside the US then.

I do the same but the company pays for any incoming calls on the BB.

My RAZR with a local SIM is for MY calls and so on but always keep the BB with the home chip in it so if there is an emergency someone can get ahold of me.

Android phones are rooted, not jailbroken

In Android lingo a hacked phone is said to be rooted as opposed to being unlocked or jailbroken. With a rooted Android phone you can change the handset's visual theme, customize the operating system and add multi-touch gestures. You could also use applications or functions that may be forbidden or restricted by your carrier such as tethering.

Thanks for the information! It sounds like a subtle but very important difference.

Best,
Tom

Tom, so what are you leaning towards? As a SW developer I wish I had an Android based phone but I have no complaints thus far with the iPhone. Just installed a screen protector and rubber case to protect this turkey.

The upcoming Windows Mobile (WM7?) smart-phones are supposed to be pretty sweet. Totally revamped OS, and features/content that the others still can't run, or have trouble with (flash, silverlight, etc.). Very attractive for .net developers.

The best root and overclocking is "Sholes Mod" It may even be in the paid apps under your market folder. Mine was. If not google that and git-er-done.

WAAAAAAy better and much faster. No negative results. I caution not to select the absolute max overclock...................there have been some reported problems. Select the speed below.

Hi David - My wife and I have been away for a few days celebrating our Golden Anniversary. Neither of us use a cellphone because they never became a necessity in our lives, but we both have one that we keep in our cars for emergencies, AAA and such. About a year ago, we both got iTouch iPods, based on a friends recommendation. I am really impressed with all the features and programs! So, last December, we both switched from PC to Mac (1 PC, 1 Laptop). We are really enjoying Apple, without becoming cultish about it.We are paying about $35 a month for both our cell phones. I would like to have the email, internet access with googling, and the map feature of the iTouch, in a cell phone but the iphone runs about $100/ month each. So what I am leaning toward is an iPhone for less than $100/month, and then drop the other cellphones. Possible? Or just wishful geezer-thinking.

Thanks!
Tom

Check out the ATT family plan with 2 iPhones.

You have to purchase 2 data plans (internet and email) for about $30 each, say no to the texting plans and then you can buy the lowest minute package which is shared between the (2) phones.

You can get (2) iPhones for about $130 a month- total- as long as you don't use the cell phone portion all that much. Any calls to and from any other ATT customer (land, cell or office) do not count towards your minutes and ATT rolls over your unused minutes every month.

Downside is that the (2) iPhones - 3GS 16g - will run you 4 bills.

Don't get the 3G even though it is cheaper. The 3GS is worth the extra hundred bucks due to having twice as much ram. Everything runs faster on the 'S'.

I have a Blackberry Bold and my wife a 3GS on the AT&T family plan. We have the texting and lowest minute plan and the bill is around $130 a month. I don't really need more minutes that that, since we build up a lot of rollover minutes that cover us in the heavy months. And if I think it's gonna go over that, I'll use my work Blackberry.

Thanks Randy and Rick. That is food for thought.

Tom

I got 4 ATT phones that share a 700 minute family plan + unlimited text - one iPhone 3gs and 3 Samsung Solstice phones. Total bill is $130/mo and all phones minus my iPhone are excluded from web access. Sadly that disables games on the Solstice phones...but hey are damn nice for texting which my wife and kids are dedicated to.

Now of course fate would have it that I CANNOT jailbreak my latest 3gs iPhone running 3.1.3...waiting for the smurfs to figure that one out...

JB for 3.13 will most likely not happen.

Exploit will be saved for 4.0 in June - at least that what the rumors mill says.
I know that Geohot is not working on one and I believe the Devteam is holding off as well.

Thanks Randy. So educate me on iPhone biz... when 4.0 comes out will iTunes prompt me to upgrade? BTW - how hard would it be to 'downgrade' my 3.1.3 iPhone to a Jailbreak happy 3.1.2 or is that just crazy talk? I'm guessing ATT frowns on all of this yes?

Itunes will prompt you to upgrade. As a rule, never upgrade unless the Dev Team says its all good. Apple uses its upgrades to fix very minor issues and of course to close up the exploits and kill jailbreaks.

3.13 is a JB killer masked as a battery meter improvement.

Downgrading to 3.12, assuming you were never JB on 3.12, is not possible as far as I know.
If you JB on 3.12 and had your hashes saved on Cydia's server, then you have options.

Check out the following sites for lots of info.

Dev-Team Blog

iPhone Modifications

Bottom line is you're probably out of luck.

Roger that. So it sounds like my only option is to wait until 4.0 rolls out and the more forward thinking folks in cyberspace find a way to JB it...

And folks wonder why I don't 'love' Apple products...

Yes you will. On Pt Loma in San Diego, about 20 miles from the Mexican border, I picked up a Telcel signal. If I had used the phone, it would have been as though I was in TJ.

When driving into El Paso, it is very common to pickup Movistar.

I'm switching my phone to AT&T and leaving the wife on T-Mobile until November. Her phone works for her (flip Blackberry), but I want 3G for my Treo Pro.

I'm coming up on 2 years with the Treo Pro, getting time to find a replacement. I think it will be the the HP Glisten and I expect it will be free or nearly free as I switch.

Ha ha,

You guys all owe George Lucas $100 each :p

"Glisten"? Really? Who are the ad wizards who came up with that one? :eek:

On second thought, having a cellphone whose name conjures mental images of wet naked women might not be so bad.

My "rooted" G1 did what I needed it to do for several months. It was very stable and had the extra features that I wanted that I could only get by rooting. I was running a version of software based on the 1.6 software. Last Fri I checked around and decided to try one of the new versions of software that was out. I'm now running a version that's based on the 2.1 software (1 rev down from the latest and greatest, but they'll have that out before too long too, I'm sure).

Wow, not only is the GUI much, much improved, but so is the speed. Wow, can you imagine that, after several software upgrades the stuff actually speeds up rather than slowing down (USING THE SAME HARDWARE no less).

I love this phone and Android!

I work with several iphone folks. One in particular is a major Apple Gadget Freak. He got an ipad right away and has a new iPhone 4 to replace his 3GS. He handed me his iPhone 4 today with "It's much thinner than the old one!" What? Seriously, that's what they're going on about. Personally, I prefer the shape/feel of the old smoothly curved iPhone to the new square edged iPhone. Still, I do like Apple stuff, I think they do a good job on the hardware and the UI. I don't feel the need to get an iPhone, but I would really like an iPad.

It'd be nice if someone came out with an iPad competitor based on Android software, but I think that if someone does, the hardware will be inferior. But hey, you never know.

I ended up with the HD2, btw.

Dell is selling a 5" and 10" Android based iPad-like tablet in Europe now. These should be available in the States in 2 to 4 months.

RPKESQ, I'd heard that. Have you gotten your hands on one so you can give us a review?

How do you like it? I'm still using my CLIQ. Waiting patiently for the upgrade to 2.1 (or 2.2, or whatever-the-hell they upgrade it to).

My biggest complaint about it is having to hit "ALT" to enter numbers on the hardware keyboard. But I try to avoid doing any spreadsheet work on my phone. ;)