New user needs some help

[rstites38829]

I posted this in the General Fourm already so i hope i dont get in trouble for reposting here. Just wanted to get some feedback as soon as possible.

Thanks in advance for any comments or help. Here is my story.

Long time Blackberry user here. I have always loved the speed and ease of the email and messaging from the Blackberry. I am not a big BBM user so leaving that behind isn't a problem for me. The biggest thing for me was always the physical keyboard. Recently my blackberry has had some problems and i cant seem to get them fixed. I'm getting my emails about 20 min after they are being sent. I have contacted customer support, did all i was told to do and still having the same problem. This along with the lack of Apps, good games, and no longer being able to send group messages from an AT and T Blackberry device has got me wanting an Android device bad. I went on line a checked out the reviews on the droid 3 and everything pointed to a device i thought i would love due to the rave reviews the keyboard had. i ordered me one and i am now 6 days into my 14 day trial period. Now i don't know if its cause my fingers are short or cause I'm not used to a landscape keyboard but my experience with the keyboard was not good. I found myself reaching and struggling to hit the keys i was searching for. I don't think the Droid 3 is my answer if the keyboard is useless to me. Now i feel like my options are this.

1. return the Droid3 and stick with a lesser Blackberry phone
2. Go with a Droid Bionic and learn to live without a keyboard
3. Hold out for the Razr in a few weeks and still have to learn to live without a keyboard

Is there a GOOD/POWERFUL Adroid powered device out there with a portrait keyboard?

If i go with the Bionic or hold out for the Razr, will the slightly bigger screen be easier to type on?

One other general question. If i do stay with an Android Phone, can i assign a different sound to a specific contact when i get a text message or email from that contact? I saw how to assign a ringtone but not sure about a SMS or email alert.

Any help will be great.

 

[samdroid]

Have you checked the Droid Pro? That's an Android Phone with a BB like keyboard. That said, I have a Droid 3 and I like its keyboard. If you can teach yourself to use the onscreen keyboard then I'd suggest you wait for the Razr or the Nexus

 

[Redx]

Droid 3 has a great physical keyboard and touch keyboard. Plus swype is an amazing touch keyboard when you get the hang of it.

 

[doogald]

I wouldn't call the Droid Pro a powerful device these days - it's a year old, single core CPU - if your other options are the Bionic and the Razr. Still, you may want to try it out at the store.

i switched from the Bionic to the Droid 3 myself. The keyboard had nothing to do with it - the Bionic has major data problems right now. It's hard to say if it's the phone, the network, or both, but I live in an area with spotty 4G coverage, so I set the phone to 3G always. The problem is that the phone was randomly dropping 3G when I *knew* I was in a good 3G area. In fact, the D3 does not drop signal in those same areas at all. Honestly, at this point, I think that it's better to wait for Verizon and the manufacturers to come out with a better 4G network and better 4G hardware (as I recall, the first 3G phones had similar issues - network drops, battery drain, etc.) rather than go with a 4G phone right now. That's my opinion, anyway.

I've had an Android phone for two years, so I'm fairly comfortable with an onscreen keyboard. I'm fine with the keyboard on the D3, but perhaps I am not picky. If you're getting a phone for the next 20 months on contract, I'd get the best 3G phone that you can stand to get. For Android, that's probably the D3, the Droid X2, the Droid Incredible 2 (which is not dual core), and the HTC Rhyme (which seems to be marketed at women). You may also want to look at the iPhone 4S - it's an excellent choice as well. If it has to have a keyboard, then it's the D3 or the Droid Pro.

The Samsung Stratosphere is also a keyboard phone, but I understand that the keyboard is not as good as the D3, and it's a 4G phone.

As for custom notifications - I don't do this myself. I do know that you can assign custom ringtones for calls. The free replacement SMS apps ChompSMS and Handcent (both very popular) do allow custom ringtones and vibration patterns by contact, so the answer is that you can do this, if you wish. That would be the same for any Android phone.

 

[nathanb131]

I was a long time treo/bb user and thought I would always want the compact keyboard also. I do miss it sometimes but would never go back from my droid3. About 80% of the time I use the on-screen keyboard. The difference between soft and hard keyboards for me is about the text prediction. I use swiftkey X which does a fabulous job of predicting my words, especially after it learns from you. Generally it's 1 or 2 characters then selecting the word, as apposed to pressing every character on the hard keyboard. Once you learn to trust the software then this saves you A LOT of mileage on your fingers. You won't be able to type blind anymore (not looking at the screen) but I don't miss that as much as I thought I would. I'm so used to text prediction now that I wish I had it on my PC! Typing every letter is SO 2008.... Even when using my D3 hard keyboard I use the text prediction. That's a really nice combo!

Also, google voice input is really good...except when you have a bad connection. That's the ONLY thing I'd change about this phone is that google voice (both voicemail and voice recognition) would work better in mediocre connection areas. This is the only reason I'd want a 4G phone, but according to another post here, maybe that's not all it's cracked up to be just yet.... When I have a good 3g connection I can do gvoice and stream any music without trouble.

Sometimes I wonder why I have the d3 since I rarely use the keyboard. The reason I like it is that those few times I whip it open it just feels like a luxurious typing experience and I feel like the phone is thin enough that I'm not giving up much more pocket space by having the option. I'm not sure why everyone is so keen on thickness. If you have a 4" brick in your pocket does an extra 3mm really make a difference? The thinner and wider that phones get, the more I wonder about how easy they'd be to 'bend' in your pocket when flexed just the right way....Apparently that's not an issue for tablets, but tablets don't ride around in your pocket all day either.

My first android was Samsung Galaxy S phone (the continuum). I liked the Android OS, but the plasticky build quality was inferior. Also the fact that Samsung let it rot on 2.1 ticked me off so much that I will probably never buy a sammy again. So I wanted HTC for build quality and better updates but decided to go with the hard keyboard. I'm very satisfied, I don't do heavy gaming or data streaming so there is really nothing the newer phones can do that I'd want and wouldn't trade this for any of them straight up right now. I like the display, like the keyboard, and even like motoblur compared to samsung's touchwiz. The build quality is also fantastic. My first android had a 3.4" screen and I like the 4" screen now, especially the higher than 800x480 resolution which many 4"+ screens are still at. Not sure a bigger screen would be worth the portability tradeoff.