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I have a mom that has a (non-Android) LG phone from Big Red, and I'm trying to get her into Android; understandably, she likes Life's Good's phones (we have other LG products as well) and, given their features and price, I can't say I blame her; LG has become in Android what Samsung used to be...

If you have a Sam's Club near you, and are looking hard at the Fascinate, wait until Friday. (Yes; even if you are NOT a member of the Wal-mart affiliated warehouse club.) Why? On Friday, members can get a Fascinate for the un-Earthly sum of $0.96 with a two-year contract commitment. (Even...

If the phone is for an Android "rookie" (someone new to Android and not necessarily thinking about rooting their phone), the Ally makes for a great starter, especially if you're a fan of Big Red's network. If migrating from another Android phone, then the Droid 2 (possibly the X, if you need a...

Like all of Samsung's Galaxy S phones, the screen is American-made Owens-Corning Gorilla Glass (from the O-C plant in Lexington, Kentucky). What is hilarious about the glass formulation is that it's only one year younger than I am (it dates back to 1962), and thus is actually older than most...

DC area: Plenty of D2s in stock (it's cases for the D2 that are having trouble staying in stock, especially in black).

For some reason, Amazon is blowing out original Motorola Droid cell phones for $19.99USD (two year contract, naturally with VZW). Now, I have nothing against VZW (they are, in fact, my wireless provider of choice); however, that is a *massive* undercut (not merely vs. VZW's own online store...

While Android (as an operating system) is great, the real issue is that the cream of Android's app crop almost invariably goes through the Android Market. While great for developers (even shoestring developers), it's not so great for makers of MIDs and NIDs that want to use Android as their OS...

QWERTY v. non-QWERTY The difference in physical keyboards (original vs. D2) is QWERTY vs. non-QWERTY (I'm no fan of the traditional RIM keyboard because of it's non-QWERTY design; the same applies to most phone keyboards, both physical and virtual). It also doesn't help when the Android...

I DID state that it was personal preference! I agree about it being personal preference, and I prefer a physical keyboard (as opposed to a virtual one). Further, I also stated that I'm *not* a big TXT/messaging person on phones. (That in particular does not help in terms of comfort with...

No Typo Finger with the Virtual Keyboard? I visited a VZW store today, and they had D2s and original Droids in stock (and I compared the two heads-up and hands-on); for me the game-changer in the D2's favor was that physical keyboard. The virtual keyboard (with all Android phones; it isn't...

I actually got some hands-on with a D2 at a corporate VZW store (Fashion Center @ Pentagon City, VA). While it's the same size as the original Droid, it does have that slider keyboard that the original lacks (in fact, the only other Android phone in all of VZW's rather large Android lineup that...

Being as I already had the Android SDK, the actual work took less than ten minutes (including the file rename and download time) and I did it entirely within Windows 7 x64. While the original compressed file includes both the system and recovery images, since the AVD can't use the recovery...

When I saw the forum post (Nexus One forums) about some surprising souls managing to upgrade the N1 to Froyo, and given that I had the Android SDK already, I started wondering - could I actually complete the round-trip by taking the same system image and running it in the emulator? I downloaded...

Tethering Alternatives (and Why I Will NEVER Tether) What a lot of us that tether seem to be forgetting is that all tethering sends the data over the provider's network. Period. Not one smartphone from any manufacturer allows tethering over wifi (even if the handset supports data over wifi...

It's How The Data *Leaves* The Phone How bad the tether folks get whacked has to do with how the data leaves the phone (not the tethering in and of itself). Typical tethering uses the phone as a modem (that means the data enters VZW's network). It is when the first byte is entering the VZW...

LG Ally vs. original Droid? The Ally has a smaller display than the Droid (that small display size makes using the Ally as a touchscreen phone problematical); in fact, the Ally has a smaller screen than the Storm (the original one). With the ERIS and original Droid now priced identically, a...

The Relevance of Older Phones The Droid will remain relevant after the Droid 2 launches, just as the original Storm remained relevant after the Storm 2 launched; in fact, the only reason the Storm is not relevant today is because VZW first heavily discounted it, then EOL'd it (you can't even...

I would recommend the Original Droid *unless*.... The original Droid is plenty fine (especially if switching from any RIM device, including the S2) unless you absatively posilutely need the larger screen of the DroidX (the Droid 2 has the same size screen as the original Droid, which is larger...

Don't Dream (for dev/test work) In fact I would recommend *against* the G1 (now titled the Dream within HTC and the dev community) simply because it won't officially support Froyo. With VZW as your current carrier, you have a wider range of possibilities for an Android-based handset as a...

In My Case In my case, I'm sticking with the Original Droid (despite the D-X being only $50 more); however, it's because the D-X is almost *too large*, given that it's larger than even the Droid. Also, unlike lots of Android users, I won't be using it much for data (multimedia, yes; however...