Help me love my Fascinate! Notifications, keyboard, email.

[lolreconlol]

Hi, so there's a few things that are keeping me from really loving the Fascinate over my ex BlackBerry.

1. The notifications - most of the time I won't get any notifications from Facebook or Twitter unless I actually open up the app, then all of a sudden it realizes that I have things.
2. The email - I have a school email, and it's always giving me errors, not loading the emails when I clearly have new emails there.
3. The keyboard - I'm having a LOT of trouble getting used to the all touch screen, since I've always had a full qwerty keyboard at my disposal. People are always talking about important a keyboard that's on one of the other GS phones (don't remember which), but would that help? If it would, could someone give me the steps I need to take in order to get it?
4. Battery life - even with light texting, and some Facebook/Twitter use, it usually's dead by 5-6 P.M.

Thanks! I really want to like this phone, but there are just a few things that are standing in the way. If I can't get over these things, I might have to go back to BB..

 

[packerbacker]

1. I get the notifications via my email. Never fails.
2. I forward my school email to my gmail, which again never fails. I had trouble on my original Droid setting it up so I just did that.
3. Have you tried Swype? It came on the phone as a built in alternative to the keyboard. You might like that. I downloaded SwiftKey for .99. You might like that also.
4. There are multiple things you can do to increase battery life. Adjust the screen brightness and keep it as low as you can handle. Put it on airplane mode for times you absolutely don't need your phone (aka in class, driving, any place like that) because that stops all data transfer and saves battery. Use Wifi instead of 3G when you have a really solid Wifi connection. Live wallpapers are also battery hogs. Sometimes apps you have or widgets that auto update that drain the battery also.

Android is so much better than Blackberry in almost every single area. Hopefully you learn to love it.

 

[Skyeclad]

I am/was also seeing issues with Facebook notifications not showing up until I loaded the app. Seems like a bug, maybe installing the widget will keep the app open enough to allow notifications to be more active.

Have you checked Facebook's settings to see if you have active notifications set?

Also, +1 on consolidating e-mail through Gmail first.

 

[nickf126]

Im with packer with the screen brightness tip. Lower that down as far as you can stand it. You will get used to it, and you will find great improvement in battery life.

As far as the keyboard thing. That is something that just takes getting used to. I had a phone without a keyboard awhile back, and I hated it. I went to blackberry and swore that I would never own another phone without a keyboard. Then I got the original Droid. I found that I almost never opened the keyboard, and I realized that I just really didnt need it. Give yourself time to get used to it, and try out Swype. It is very good, and I use it exclusively now. Good luck, and give this phone a little time to "break in" like you would some new shoes.

 

[Adiliyo]

facebook notifications (or lack of them) are due to an extremely sub par facebook app. while android is the fastest growing and potentially the most widely used OS, we have one of the crappiest facebook apps.

the keyboard you are thinking of is the captivate's keyboard, it's setup much closer in design to the iphone's keyboard, it's quite fast and i liked it more than the stock keyboard or swype.

Captivate keyboard - xda-developers

there's also the multi touch keyboard from the droid x, which has been ripped and works on the fascinate

Multi-Touch Keyboard - xda-developers

as for me, i've been using smart keyboard pro, which can be found in the market. it's quite fast, and has multi touch input as well.

as for the other questions, they seem to have been adequately answered.

my battery goes for 16-20 hours before it gets to below 20% and i have to charge it. check to see what apps you have installed, if you have a task killer, remove it, and lower your brightness (although i've been using the autobrightness with my current battery life)