Switching the wife over soon

[DaveInFL]

Put my name down for an Epic for the wife. We both have Pres and she hasn't been too impressed by it. I love WebOS and even did an App for the Pre, but too much time has passed with not enough activity on the Palm side, sadly. I know that other people have mentioned that Palm need a new phone, new hardware, but with no news forthcoming it might be time for me to look as well.

This would be my wives first glimpse at the Android OS. We had a quick play in Sprint and seems decent enough. Just wanted to ask what are some of the first things we should be looking at on this phone as complete noobs to Android?

I've read the Pre to Epic thread and most of the complaints seem to be around the Email & Calendar functions, as well as adjusting from WebOS. Since my wife didn't like her Pre too much perhaps the WebOS thing won't be that big of a deal for her...probably will be for me, but that's the beauty. I'll get to play with her Epic for a while and compare side by side and see how I like it.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

 

[DaveInFL]

Ok, guess I need to ask some specific questions.

Sounds like there isn't a great email app for Android Which email app would people recommend for Hotmail? Is there a specific app for Hotmail or would it be better to just go to the Hotmail webpage?

What's the Spring Nav like on the Epic? Pretty much the same as on the Pre?

 

[AndroidOne]

Ok, guess I need to ask some specific questions.

Sounds like there isn't a great email app for Android Which email app would people recommend for Hotmail? Is there a specific app for Hotmail or would it be better to just go to the Hotmail webpage?

What's the Spring Nav like on the Epic? Pretty much the same as on the Pre?

It would be foolish to use Sprint Nav on an Android device; Google map for Android comes with the Navigator which is a full featured voice turn-by-turm guidance system fully integrated with your contacts and every single listing in google. You can even use the speech capability to tell the app where you want to go and it will search for you and start navigation automatically. Believe me, it doesn't get any better than that.

In so far as the calendar and email, it depend entirely on your needs. Whenever you make the move from one OS to another, you need to be prepare to adapt as the core applications will be different. Sometimes you can make it work with the native apps, but if not, you need to search the market for a more appropriate solution.

I made the move from Paper Planner > Palm OS > Windows Mobile > WebOS > and now Android... so I now. You have to get the device and try for yourself.

In regards to Hotmail, there are several apps on the market to access this email service. However, if you are planning to make the move to Android, you need to strongly consider moving to Gmail, after all this platform is optimized for everything Google, and that includes Gmail.

Since I moved to Android, I migrated most of my email activity to Gmail, others (Yahoo mail) I forward to Gmail to simplify my life, moved all my contacts, calendar and documents to Gmail as well. I did this originally when I got the Evo: when I activated the Epic, everything was so smooth, all my vital info, email, contacts and docs was seamlessly synced to my new Android device as soon as I entered my gmail address - simply fantastic, I was up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Hope this helps...

 

[DaveInFL]

Thanks for the info. I wasn't aware of the Google Map and Navigator but will be sure to give it a good try out.

Wife won't switch over from Hotmail so I guess we'll just have to play around once she gets the phone. I have my own domain and email so I won't be switching over either, if I make the switch to an Epic.

 

[AndroidOne]

If your email offers POP or IMAP capability, you can fetch it with the native app or others freely available from the market that offer much improved functionality.

 

[caliskimmer]

It would be foolish to use Sprint Nav on an Android device; Google map for Android comes with the Navigator which is a full featured voice turn-by-turm guidance system fully integrated with your contacts and every single listing in google. You can even use the speech capability to tell the app where you want to go and it will search for you and start navigation automatically. Believe me, it doesn't get any better than that.

In so far as the calendar and email, it depend entirely on your needs. Whenever you make the move from one OS to another, you need to be prepare to adapt as the core applications will be different. Sometimes you can make it work with the native apps, but if not, you need to search the market for a more appropriate solution.

I made the move from Paper Planner > Palm OS > Windows Mobile > WebOS > and now Android... so I now. You have to get the device and try for yourself.

In regards to Hotmail, there are several apps on the market to access this email service. However, if you are planning to make the move to Android, you need to strongly consider moving to Gmail, after all this platform is optimized for everything Google, and that includes Gmail.

Since I moved to Android, I migrated most of my email activity to Gmail, others (Yahoo mail) I forward to Gmail to simplify my life, moved all my contacts, calendar and documents to Gmail as well. I did this originally when I got the Evo: when I activated the Epic, everything was so smooth, all my vital info, email, contacts and docs was seamlessly synced to my new Android device as soon as I entered my gmail address - simply fantastic, I was up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Hope this helps...

Whoa, whoa, whoa hey there! I use SprintNav way more than Google Maps. SprintNav can get a lock on my location with my GPS almost immediately, while GoogleMaps can't. However, I only tested indoors from now.

 

[thekarens]

I'd have to second that. I much more prefer Sprint Navigator over Google Maps. We both had Pres and now I have an Evo and my partner has an Epic.

 

[DaveInFL]

Well, it's good that there'll be the choice for her then I have an IMAP email account so I'd imagine that there wouldn't be a major issue with the setting that up. Still not sure if I'll switch, but playing with the wives Epic (when we finally get it) will help me decide. Still no news coming from HPalm so not sure what the heck is going on or if we'll see another WebOS phone in the near future or not.

 

[AndroidOne]

Well, it's good that there'll be the choice for her then I have an IMAP email account so I'd imagine that there wouldn't be a major issue with the setting that up. Still not sure if I'll switch, but playing with the wives Epic (when we finally get it) will help me decide. Still no news coming from HPalm so not sure what the heck is going on or if we'll see another WebOS phone in the near future or not.

Been following the Palm/HP saga with interest. Would be a real shame to let WebOS fade into irrelevancy, Palm hardware choices were not intelligent, but the OS UI is certainly brilliant with lots of potential.

 

[AndroidOne]

Whoa, whoa, whoa hey there! I use SprintNav way more than Google Maps. SprintNav can get a lock on my location with my GPS almost immediately, while GoogleMaps can't. However, I only tested indoors from now.

I'd have to second that. I much more prefer Sprint Navigator over Google Maps. We both had Pres and now I have an Evo and my partner has an Epic.

I don't use Google Maps to navigate, it sucks at that. I use the Google Navigator (the program with the blue arrow), have you actually used this one and you don't like it? There is nothing wrong with you not liking it (is a free country and choice is great) but need to be sure we are talking about the same here.

 

[drfrank]

The battery life on the Epic is abysmal. My wife told me that she's avoiding using hers because she's afraid that the battery won't last until she gets home.

 

[DaveInFL]

Battery life sucks on the Pre too. Thankfully I'm at my laptop most of the day so I can keep it charged up, but the wife is not. Can be 1pm/2pm and the battery is close to dead

HPalm will be releasing WebOS 2.0 in the future. I don't know when exactly but since I'm a WebOS developer I do have the Beta running in the SDK. Looks nice, so neat little improvements but nothing major. My concern with HPalm is the lack of new hardware and keeping up with the competition in the smart phone market. Every month that goes by without any information just means that they are sinking more and more into the mire. It's a real shame because with some good, solid hardware HPalm could have a real winning phone.

 

[AndroidOne]

The battery life on the Epic is abysmal. My wife told me that she's avoiding using hers because she's afraid that the battery won't last until she gets home.

Define abysmal... I took my phone off the charger at 0900 and have not charged all day. Is 2310 locally and my battery now reads 41%.

There is substantial variation regarding battery life among different headsets. Some are very poor ~ suspect yours is one of those ~ others are quite good. I feel my battery life is quite good, but it was much lower the first four days or so.

There is a theory floating around regarding poor porting of the firmware from other Galaxy builts that, as I understand it, seems to cause the radio to seek for a GSM signal while on the CDMA network - this seems to be reflected by the time without signal statistic on the battery menu; the higher this value, the worse your battery life gets (mine right now is 6%) do to the radio hunting a non-existent GSM signal.

I have also made an observation that this phone does not seem to charge the battery beyond around 95% no matter how long I leave the charger connected. Something similar happened with the Evo but with some tricks it was easy to "top it off" to 100%, so far I haven't been able to do so with the Epic... may not seem like much but that extra 5-8% charge on the Evo made a huge difference in battery life.

 

[AndroidOne]

It's a real shame because with some good, solid hardware HPalm could have a real winning phone.

I agree... a shame indeed.

 

[DaveInFL]

Can anyone else that moved from a Pre let me know how they converted their contacts? My wife has Hotmail so all her contacts are on the Pre, more than likely under the Pre profile. What's the best way of getting these contacts onto the Epic? We're picking the phone up from Best Buy and I really don't want to spend too much time in their, just want to pick the phone up and go.

 

[DaveInFL]

Another question. What's the best golf app that's out there for Android platform? One that has a good number of courses, let's you track stats, handicap, etc.

 

[AndroidOne]

Can anyone else that moved from a Pre let me know how they converted their contacts? My wife has Hotmail so all her contacts are on the Pre, more than likely under the Pre profile. What's the best way of getting these contacts onto the Epic? We're picking the phone up from Best Buy and I really don't want to spend too much time in their, just want to pick the phone up and go.

Palm profile, ouch! I tried to access my palm profile multiple times and was never able to get anywhere with that.

Don't know on Best Buy, but on a Sprint store they have a utility to transfer contact and other info from your old to your new phone. This will make the contacts record on the phone part of the contact manager wher they can be used regularly as with any other phone.