What Would You Have Liked To See On The Droid 2

[Bushido Brown]

Megapixels mean nothing dude. They're nothing but marketing tools .

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

im going to be getting a droid 2 soon. im just waiting for verizon to refund my 213.99 when i returned my droid x and refund my 2 yr contract.

the droid 2 is the best android phone with a physical keyboard on verizon, and since verizon is my only option right now i don't have much of a choice to get anything else.

the only thing i can complain about the droid 2 is that the camera should have been upgraded to something higher than 5.0. a 6.0 mp would have been perfect, instead of completely ignoring the camera when designing the droid 2. another thing, that i think is more important than the rear facing camera, a front facing vga camera for video chatting would have been a huge feature for the droid 2

The 5 megapixel camera isn't that bad. The lenses on these cameras are so small that higher pixels does not generally mean better pics.



Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

 

[drathos]

How is it different on there Droid 2?

Droid 2 has Blur on it, which, in addition to a custom launcher and widgets, replaces some of the functionality of stock Android with Motorola's crap.

You can chose to not use the widgets and replace the launcher if you don't like it, but many Blur services still load in the background and I haven't yet found replacements for some things to get me back to what I had on my Droid.

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

Droid 2 has Blur on it, which, in addition to a custom launcher and widgets, replaces some of the functionality of stock Android with Motorola's crap.

You can chose to not use the widgets and replace the launcher if you don't like it, but many Blur services still load in the background and I haven't yet found replacements for some things to get me back to what I had on my Droid.

Thanks for the info. I didn't know that.

 

[thebizz]

I would love to see 720p video recording and update to the blur launcher without that opening and closing animation it slows down the opening and closing animation makes it painful to use

 

[BBash]

I wish I could send a picture with audio message. I wish the camera was sharper. I wish the volume was louder (speaker phone and media). My storm did these better BUT I love my Droid2.

 

[Menno]

Stock android (I don't "Hate" motoblur, but it makes the phone seem so cluttered)

Better shutter speed on camera. Better camera overall, not just more MP

Speaker as loud as the Droid1

 

[Bushido Brown]

Stock 2.2? What do you mean by stock 2.2? It has 2.2 installed on it.

I almost forgot about this post.

Well, I can scratch FM radio off the list, since I've successfully ported the radio app over from the DX, and it works just fine. Those clamoring for HD recording fret not, because that will be coming soon as well. As far as I can tell, there are ZERO "Blur" services running in the background besides the ones that you are using. I don't know why people insist on saying otherwise.

Now, as far as Moto's software goes in comparison to stock, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I actually like it. Yes, I am no longer a "gimme stock Android Nazi" like I used to be, here is why

I thought they nerfed the camera software, but they didn't. The options are just not accessible on screen like they are in stock. You have to reach them via the menu button. It snaps pics MUCH faster than stock, and ads a night recording mode. The Media Gallery adds tagging, the ability to tag multiple pics at once, and offers a handful of editing options. You lose the ability to view your Picasa albums directly from the app like you can in the stock 3D launcher, but I feel the speed, and added features make up for that. Plus you can always snag a Picasa viewer from the market. They added a clipboard viewer-which you could also easily just snag from the market, however, its convenient that they've included one. The cursor feature that works system wide regardless of the keyboard that you're using was a great touch. Better than Sense UI's implementation that only works with other Sense related applications. The built in Yahoo mail app gives you an easy interface to setup push notifications for your yahoo account, something the default mail app fails to do.

I'd also like to acknowledge that as far as I can tell, there are no discrepancies with Market software like Sense enabled devices. So Moto's "Blur" doesn't really get in the way like other software overlays. Now, concerning the stuff I DON"T like...

The contact application. They needed to rewrite the contact to work with their social services. What Moto should have done, is left the dialer and contact list in tact, and just built all of their extra "stuff" into the social networking application. Unfortunately, they did not, so you lose the ability to specifically sync your Facebook or Twitter contacts using the official applications. You also lose the ability to make a contact shortcut on your homescreen that has access to the "quick launch" popup that allows you to interact with the contact through other means of communication (if such options exist within their contact) The app is also slow, as it seems to have build a brand new cache everytime you access it. You view a contact beginning with "R" and go back, it jumps all the way back to the top, needing to build yet another cache for your icons. Its hell on your battery, and makes scrolling slow.

The other thing I don't like is purely aesthetic-the icons. Very preschool, very cartoonish, very unnecessary. I'm not a fan of the framework they used for tabs, or menu buttons as well, since the dark gray buttons look fine in some instances, but clash with some apps like Astro File Manager and makes text hard to read. That's really no big deal, however. and can be changed with a simple Framework.res edit which I'm sure will be available soon since we already have root. Hacking isn't for everyone though, and for the mast majority of D2/DX owners, they're pretty much stuck with what Moto gives them. Misc gripes include the fact that I can no longer launch a quick SMS compose window by holding down the search key, and the flashlight feature on SwitchPro doesn't activate the LED.

I'm pretty satisfied with the overall package however. Some people are just screaming "STOCK!" because it is the new Android catch phrase.

 

[thebizz]

i must agree blur isnt bad it has some pluses to it. but saying that i purely hate the launcher its to slow i wish their were a way to speed it up or give it the old 2d drawer that was almost instant. but so far thats been my only beef the camera is good much better than my d1 and overall the extra ram is nice keeps this bad boy fast

 

[Bushido Brown]

Yea, that's the other thing I forgot to mention for my list of "don't likes." That launcher is awful. I haven't seen it since the day I activated the phone.

Another small thing I just recently noticed, was that you can use the rotate gesture on pics like the iPhone, to rotate your pictures clockwise, or counter. Another nice touch to the media gallery.

 

[ThomasT626]

I would've liked to have seen a front-facing camera and HD video recording. Perhaps no Motoblur or whatever it's being called...I can deal with the widgets and whatnot, even though they look pretty bland but I could learn to like'em. Those first two things are why I decided to go with the Epic on Sprint, but I still have the itch to at least get a Droid 2 and try it out and it's driving me nuts. I would've liked to have seen Verizon push this phone a little more and go a little farther than they did, although it still looks to be a nice step up. I think it might become too outdated too quickly though, especially if that HTC slider is coming to Verizon here soon.

 

[thebizz]

and thats the main beef against this phone they had to leave room for the droidx to shine as their flagship phone so they couldnt push this to far or their wouldn't be anything to set them apart other than the keyboard. i just wish it would have been loaded because when the htc slider realeses what the reason to get the motorola droid. your going to get a better keyboard(well atleast it looks better in the pictures) a camera that may be much better, faster processor and bigger battery. just seems like this product was made for motorola faithfuls just to keep them happy for awhile not to really push the envelope on design or performance. kinda feel the same way about the dx

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

and thats the main beef against this phone they had to leave room for the droidx to shine as their flagship phone so they couldnt push this to far or their wouldn't be anything to set them apart other than the keyboard. i just wish it would have been loaded because when the htc slider realeses what the reason to get the motorola droid. your going to get a better keyboard(well atleast it looks better in the pictures) a camera that may be much better, faster processor and bigger battery. just seems like this product was made for motorola faithfuls just to keep them happy for awhile not to really push the envelope on design or performance. kinda feel the same way about the dx

I thought that the slider is supposed to have a 1gig processor in it?

Personally, what I worry about is that the slider will be like most of the rest of the HTC line of phones. That of a battery that is simply too small for the phones they make.

Regarding the D2 itself, it seems to me the main differences between the D2 and the X is the camera, screen size and the HD.