I've got some dumb questions..

[gbawaba]

I've had the incredible droid since about June
The battery life sucks
I don't know what Froyo is????
Am I at the right forum?
What's this about doing a "quick charge" to the phone? Something about turning it off and then pluging charger in? I don't know.
DRM Protected Content?? Settings; Applications; Manage Applications; All...I don't know what should and should not be deleted?? dcs service and utility; dm command service;EPST;Field Test; Field Trial?? etc, etc. I don't know!!!
Voice dialer cannot understand me? WTH???
I've heard Wifi on..no Off...no On? Come on now...what is it? Why do I need it on? Will it make videos play any better on YouTube? I pay a set price every month and I believe I can look at videos all month if I choose to.

Somebody let me know something.

 

[VZWBB]

Sounds like you are overwhelmed.

Battery life depends on usage or if you upgrade to a better battery. The charger dance trick or whatever it is called seems to help. If you let your phone charge all night and the led is green, unplug it, wait a minute or so, plug it back in and this time remove it right after it turns green.

Froyo is a level of android software. Yours may or may not have shipped with it. If you goto settings - about phone and look at the version level, if it says 2.2 you have it, if not then its 2.1.

This is the right forum.

Dunno about quick charge or drm crap lol.

Voice dialer should work but you may need to run through a setup to get it to work right. I don't use it. Also, if its noisy around you, it may have a hard time.

Wifi is cool if you are in an area where there is no 3g but there is wifi. It is also supposed to save on battery life I think, but for the most part I just use 3g all the time. I tried once accepting wifi everywhere i went and I couldn't really see any benefit to using it. In fact on occasion I couldn't get out to some pages on the web until I went back to 3g.

 

[mclarryjr]

For your battery i would recommend getting the Seidio 1750 which will be the same sizes as your stock one but will give you 33% more battery life.

I'm not sure what your talking about with DRM and you will not be able to delete any of your system app's (apps not downloaded from the market).

I use wifi at work, home and a few other places whenever possible.There are some benefits in using.

 

[vel7wil]

From what I can see you are coming from a completely different type phone system to one that you can understand the terminolgy, much like when I came webOS to android in June. Just give it a little time and browse as much of the forums as time will allow you. Much of the things ur wanting to know are trail and error. The DRM files I belive are pre-set apps that come with the phone and theres no way I know of to remove them without "rooting" ur phone.

For ur voice dialer/voice texting...try speaking as slow and clear as u can....I've found that after awhile the system seems to "get used to ur voice" and understands u better the more u use it.

And because of all the features of the android phones there are a lot of things running in the background....go to settings-applications-running and try turning off obvious ones ur not using...it'll help....but I have chargers EVERYWHERE for my phone to attempt to keep it charged for when I cant......hope some of this helps....just a little

 

[milominderbinde]

I'll try to add some answer not already given...

To start, take a deep breath and take these things on one at a time. The answers to many of your questions are in the the Getting Started with Android - Tips and Tricks.

* The battery life sucks...
It shouldn't. See the Battery Life Tips and Tricks.

* I've heard WiFi on..no Off...no On?
If you are near your WiFi, you for sure want it on. If you are away from your WiFi, you want it off. From the Battery Life Tips:

Try JuiceDefender
The free JuiceDefender app saves your battery by letting you automatically:
• Turn off WiFi when you are not near you WiFi hotspots, like your home
• Turn off 1x/3G//4G when WiFi is available.
• Turn off 1x/3G/4G/WiFi and set to silent mode overnight while you sleep.
Add JuicePlotter for history and UltimateJuice for full features.
​

* What's this about doing a "quick charge" to the phone?
From your context, it is charging the phone to 100%, unplugging it, and then plugging it back in again to see if it will take more charging. The phone is not always charging on the charger and may actually be back down to 95% when you take it off the charger.

* DRM;EPST;Field Test; Field Trial?? etc, etc. I don't know!!!
The good news is that you don't need to know about these terms.

* Voice dialer cannot understand me?
Apps like Vlingo include a better Voice Actions than Voice Actions plus a better Voice Dialer with multiple language support. Better still, Vlingo learns to understand you. Each time you correct it, it remembers for the next time. Speak slowly and clearly.

My best advice is to take a break and pick just one place to start in the Getting Started with Android - Tips and Tricks. I would say to start with the Battery Life Tips and Tricks.

Let us know as you have more questions!

 

[radar44]

Kind of new myself and when I got my phone it came with 2.1, battery was fine and charging time was normal or what I expected for a phone. Once I upgraded to 2.2 then my battery life became much shorter and charging took several hours even at 50% left. I remember reading that a factory reset would help with these issues but I can't find that post anymore. Is this true and will it put me back to 2.1? I want a clean version of 2.2...thanks!!

 

[PvilleComp]

Kind of new myself and when I got my phone it came with 2.1, battery was fine and charging time was normal or what I expected for a phone. Once I upgraded to 2.2 then my battery life became much shorter and charging took several hours even at 50% left. I remember reading that a factory reset would help with these issues but I can't find that post anymore. Is this true and will it put me back to 2.1? I want a clean version of 2.2...thanks!!

After upgrading to 2.2 a reset will not put you back to 2.1. What it will do is wipe all of you apps, cache, and data so besure to do a backup of your apps with AppBrain, save any pictures, videos and files that are in the phones storage to the SD card (File manager will help with that).

A reset after the 2.2 upgrade cures many ills. Once it's done you can re-install your aps and move your data back.

For the OP:

I agree with milominderbinder... Start with the Getting Started with Android thread. Even experienced users will pick up usefull information in this thread.

Also, consider an extended battery if you are not getting enough life out of the device. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that all of the new smart phones have terriable battery life compated to the "Standard" phones of the past, or even the old school Treo's. I have never even bought a replacement battery for any phone I've owned let alone an extended battery, but now that I have one for the DInc, it's a great phone.

 

[radar44]

Great information and thank you very much Pville!

 

[PvilleComp]

Great information and thank you very much Pville!

Happy to help

 

[gbawaba]

Froyo is a level of android software. Yours may or may not have shipped with it. If you goto settings - about phone and look at the version level, if it says 2.2 you have it, if not then its 2.1.

Voice dialer should work but you may need to run through a setup to get it to work right. I don't use it. Also, if its noisy around you, it may have a hard time.

I've got 2.2....so I guess I've got Froyo.
How do I go thru a setup on this voice dialer...I am speaking slowly and clearly.

 

[gbawaba]

I want to thank everybody for taking the time to answer my dumb questions...I just didn't know where to start. Thanks to everybody above for your help.

 

[milominderbinde]

...I agree with milominderbinder... Start with the Getting Started with Android thread. Even experienced users will pick up usefull information in this thread.

Also, consider an extended battery if you are not getting enough life out of the device...

Wow. Thank you.

I forgot to mention the extended batteries! I will get that added!

 

[gbawaba]

I've got 2.2....so I guess I've got Froyo.
How do I go thru a setup on this voice dialer...I am speaking slowly and clearly.

 

[davidnc]

I've got 2.2....so I guess I've got Froyo.
How do I go thru a setup on this voice dialer...I am speaking slowly and clearly.

speak Real clear , , but speaking is all you have to do once you have toggle on the voice dialer app, I didn't manually adjust the time in the settings . I dont use it but tested it just to see if it worked good or not

 

[gbawaba]

What do you mean "toggle" on the voice dialer app? How do I get there? Why would I need to manually adjust the time???
Why is my battery dropping 10 percent within 7 min. of unplugging from the wall?? How do I check what the culprit is thats sucking the life out of it????
When someone sends me a picture that has say 8 pictures; it says it has 8 attachments...I have to open up the 8 attachments; then hit the first image...then hit view....then double click picture to expand where I can see it...and it only expands to about 75% of the phone!!!!! Then to look at the second picture I have to hit return button twice then open up attachments again....then hit the second image.....then double click...etc, etc, etc, etc..... what's going on? My old droid phone and other phones didn't do this crap! Help... Help me like this phone.

 

[gbawaba]

Even the slideshow only last about a half sec..... is there not a timer to set this to last longer??

 

[gbawaba]

Somebody....please answer.

What do you mean "toggle" on the voice dialer app? How do I get there? Why would I need to manually adjust the time???
Why is my battery dropping 10 percent within 7 min. of unplugging from the wall?? How do I check what the culprit is thats sucking the life out of it????
When someone sends me a picture that has say 8 pictures; it says it has 8 attachments...I have to open up the 8 attachments; then hit the first image...then hit view....then double click picture to expand where I can see it...and it only expands to about 75% of the phone!!!!! Then to look at the second picture I have to hit return button twice then open up attachments again....then hit the second image.....then double click...etc, etc, etc, etc..... what's going on? My old droid phone and other phones didn't do this crap! Help... Help me like this phone.

Even the slideshow doesn't last long!!

 

[iBowToAndroid]

Why is my battery dropping 10 percent within 7 min. of unplugging from the wall?? How do I check what the culprit is thats sucking the life out of it????

When someone sends me a picture that has say 8 pictures; it says it has 8 attachments...I have to open up the 8 attachments; then hit the first image...then hit view....then double click picture to expand where I can see it...and it only expands to about 75% of the phone!!!!! Then to look at the second picture I have to hit return button twice then open up attachments again....then hit the second image.....then double click...etc, etc, etc, etc..... what's going on? My old droid phone and other phones didn't do this crap! Help... Help me like this phone.

Ok, as far as #1, that's a known issue with this phone. It doesn't mean that a "culprit is sucking the life out of it". It means that when the phone is fully charged, it starts using the battery for power instead of A/C like it should. To FULLY charge the phone, charge it until the LED goes green, then turn the phone off and plug it in again. The light will be orange again, and will stay that way for another 10-20 minutes while the phone finishes charging fully. Now you can power it up.

For #2, that does not happen to me. I just tried sending myself a text with multiple photos attached, and I get 1 bar that says "x attachments" and I can tap it and thumbnails of all the photos show up. Tapping on one gives me 2 options- view, or save. If I tap view, it displays the picture, and stays on the screen until I do something.