Any Motorola Droid users here yet?

[89911]

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

[masraum]

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.

[masraum]

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

[phoenix_iii]

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

[asphaltgambler]

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

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by asphaltgambler

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

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

Probably don't need it anyway.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by phoenix_iii

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

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.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

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.

[Rick Lee]

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.

[mossguy]

Originally Posted by masraum

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 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

[JavaBrewer]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

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.

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...

[masraum]

Originally Posted by mossguy

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

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

[Brando]

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.

[gtc]

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.

[Joeaksa]

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

[Racerbvd]

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

[Rick Lee]

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.

[Joeaksa]

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.

[89911]

Originally Posted by mossguy

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

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.

[mossguy]

Originally Posted by masraum

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

Originally Posted by 89911

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