comments about droid eris

[goater1220]

I am thinking about buying a used droid eris and want to know if I should? Can anyone give me some feed back if I should or not. Thanks in advance!!!

 

[doogald]

It's hard to say; it depends on what you are expecting to do with it, I guess. The Eris was rather old hardware when it was released by Verizon 13 months ago - it's basically the same hardware as the G1, expect more RAM and slightly more storage. Phones released in the last year are all faster and more powerful, with better and higher resolution displays. The Eris's battery life is rather low, many users have trouble with the trackball - for example, it starts to sense a constant roll to the left, so your home screen is always moving all the way to the left and it is impossible to type anything, as the phone thinks that you are trying to roll the cursor left. (There was also once a problem called the silent audio bug, where some phones would stop sensing the microphone when you are in a call, making it impossible for others to hear you while in a call until you restarted the phone. However, I believe that Verizon and HTC fixed that problem, so it was just a software bug.)

All that said, I have had the Eris for a year now and I have had no trouble with it myself. If you do buy it, since it will not be under warranty, I strongly suggest rooting it (rooting is basically the same as an iPhone jailbreak - it gives you the ability to install customized software or, at the very least, remove some pre-installed apps.) There is one called xtrSENSE which is much, much better than the stock Eris and will probably make you happier if you go forward.

 

[goater1220]

thanks for the reply. I forgot to ask if I bought this with it be able to update to froyo or at least 2.1. I dont understand rooting and wouldnt know how to do it.

 

[doogald]

thanks for the reply. I forgot to ask if I bought this with it be able to update to froyo or at least 2.1. I dont understand rooting and wouldnt know how to do it.

It will come with 2.1, but a stock Eris will never get Froyo. That will only happen if you root the phone and install a Froyo ROM.

It's really not that hard to do. That said, I would never encourage anyone to do anything like rooting if they are not comfortable with the process.

Since you are buying it used, I would ask, though, if the seller has already rooted the phone or if it is running the stock Eris build.

 

[goater1220]

its running stock

 

[doogald]

Ok, so here are some things that you will have to do periodically:

- delete call logs. As call logs get larger, the phone's performance as a phone tends to lag considerably. There are apps that can automate this, or you can clear them once a week or so. If there is some reason why you need to keep call logs, there are apps that can back them up for you.

- the same with SMS and MMS messages. The larger the message store, the slower the phone will be, and, if the number of messages gets too large, it takes a long time to delete them. Agan, if there is some reason why you must save messages, there are apps that back them up, either to your SD memory card or to gmail.

- in my experience, the browser tends to close when it is first opened after the phone has been running for a while. This can be fixed either by restarting the phone, clearing the browser cache, installing an alternate browser app, or just living with it (it will always open on the second launch.) This happens whether you launch the browser from it's app icon or if it is launched when you tap a link from another app or email message, or open a bookmark from the bookmarks widget.

Otherwise, the phone is pretty solid. Don't install too many apps and you will be fine. Be aware of the trackball issue and be careful when you press it, if you ever do, and also be careful with the USB power cable - the trackball is just above where the cable plugs in and I would think that moving the socket too much, by jiggling the usb cable up and down while it is plugged in, causes many of the trackball problems that people report.