Trying to jump ship from BlackBerry...Any Thoughts?!

[JetJock79]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks in advance to the people who answer some of my questions. In a nutshell....over a year ago...I got into the "BB Storm" wagon and had a horrible time with the first version of the phone. I upgraded to the Storm 2 when they offered it, and I was satisfied for a while, but quickly realized it was still lacking in what I needed from a phone. I knew at the time that Android was going to develop into the iPhone killer, and it looks like that prediction is coming into fruition now. Time for me to come on over! I've been thinking about the Droid X ever since I got to mess with it at the Verizon store. Due to the history over the flop phones they have put out that I bought,.....I am reluctant to just go and buy one without extensive review. So I thought you guys and gals could shed some light on my search.

The BB was great in it's e-mail, and messaging capabilities.....and that STILL weighs heavy with me. I'm in a career that travels, and am away from home three to four days of the week so I need something dependable. That said...here are some questions I had:

1) How fast is the push e-mail from a hotmail account to the X?

2) Is text messaging threaded on the X?

3) Can I review MS Office files such as Word and Excell? Is there a mobile MS OFfice version so I can compose Word and Excell files on the X?

4) Can I sync my calendar and contacts from my Outlook on my PC to the X?

5) I know the browser is fast.....does it have Flash player 10.1?

6) I use "Tether" for my BlackBerry......what does the X have so I can tether my laptop, and I'm not looking to root my phone. PDANet? Is that like Tether?

7) What is the battery life like on the phone......I've heard anywhere from four hours to a day. I use Internet and get some phone calls, along with e-mails and messaging throughout the day. How about buying the extended battery through Verizon....how much more endurance does that really give to the phone?

8) How hot does this phone really run? Can I talk on it for an hour without worrying about blowing it up?

9) I've heard of it restarting itself several times a day.....are those just isolated instances?

10) How are the signal strengths with it? Have the radio issues been resolved?

11) Any other bugs like locking up or anything?

12) Should I just wait for some of the new phones that are coming for the holiday season...like the 1.3ghz droid pro?

I know these are a lot of questions, but these are just the top of the list that I have for this phone. I know some of the issues might have been resolved with Froyo, but I just want real world testimonies. Thanks so much again......and this forum seems friendlier than the one over at BB.

 

[xliderider]

Try the X out for 30 days, if it doesn't blow your socks off, $35 restocking fee.

 

[JetJock79]

$35 restocking fee, $25 for a case, $30 for a car charger, $20 screen protector, and whatever I would spend on apps for this phone. Not looking for a headache this time with this phone. Just looking to get some info so I can make an informed purchase, and not something off the cuff, you know.

 

[gbororats]

1) How fast is the push e-mail from a hotmail account to the X?
blackberry is faster had issues with my hotmail locking the account out and not being reliable

2) Is text messaging threaded on the X?
yes

3) Can I review MS Office files such as Word and Excell? Is there a mobile MS OFfice version so I can compose Word and Excell files on the X? yes there is

4) Can I sync my calendar and contacts from my Outlook on my PC to the X?
not easily, can from gmail to the x wirelessly

5) I know the browser is fast.....does it have Flash player 10.1?
yes

6) I use "Tether" for my BlackBerry......what does the X have so I can tether my laptop, and I'm not looking to root my phone. PDANet? Is that like Tether?
for an additional charge you can turn your x into a wifi hotspot... like 20 a month, havent figured out how to do it free though, im sure someone out there can

7) What is the battery life like on the phone......I've heard anywhere from four hours to a day. I use Internet and get some phone calls, along with e-mails and messaging throughout the day. How about buying the extended battery through Verizon....how much more endurance does that really give to the phone? i can easily get a full day out of the battery and maybe more depending on usage. I am not completely app heavy and turn wifi and gps off. If you dont require GPS and apps to update constantly there should be no problem. There is also an extended battery if you need one.

8) How hot does this phone really run? Can I talk on it for an hour without worrying about blowing it up? questionable now. When using it as a GPS in the car it gets very very hot

9) I've heard of it restarting itself several times a day.....are those just isolated instances? I have never had my phone reboot on me, although with 2.2 currently installed i find myself having to reboot the phone 3-4 times a day to fix various bugs. Takes only about a minute each time as opposed to the BB battery pull 10 minute a pop deal

10) How are the signal strengths with it? Have the radio issues been resolved? I have never had any issues with the radio, and prior to the 2.2 update it was by far the best sound quality phone i have ever talked on. New update has a bug where you cant hear anything when you try to place a call or receive one. Phone reboot solves issue, but its a pain

11) Any other bugs like locking up or anything? 2.2 is very buggy, see the forum

12) Should I just wait for some of the new phones that are coming for the holiday season...like the 1.3ghz droid pro? I would honestly wait for bugs to be worked out. 2.2 is almost unusable. 2.1 without flash was fantastic for me and blew the bb out of the water. 2.2 not so much.

***my personal notes: if you want reliability on receiving email, then stick with the bb, that thing was flawless and completely reliable. The droid blows the bb out of the water in multimedia, camera, web, apps, just about everything except reliability.

 

[ultravisitor]

I have to disagree that 2.2 is almost unusable. My phone's performance has gotten better with the update. Try a factory reset if you're having such problems with it.

Coming from a Storm, I have to say that nothing beats BlackBerry when it comes to notifications and push email. Even so, the Droid X is many times better than a BlackBerry.

 

[dougbert609]

I went from a Storm 1 to an X. I would never go back. BTW, the calendar app syncs flawlessly with the Google Web calendar. On my Storm I had tried using Google's sync app, but it never worked reliably. Now with the X, I can finally trust that my phone's calendar is up-to-date. I also keep the contacts synced with Google. One advantage is that if you have to wipe the phone, once you enter your Google account information, all your contacts and calendar and mail immediately get re-synced.

And BTW, the X has a MUCH faster EVDO data transfer rate than the Storm. In my home, my Storm would get maybe 300kbps, but the X gets 2000kbps. And on wifi it is even faster.

 

[xliderider]

$35 restocking fee, $25 for a case, $30 for a car charger, $20 screen protector, and whatever I would spend on apps for this phone. Not looking for a headache this time with this phone. Just looking to get some info so I can make an informed purchase, and not something off the cuff, you know.

All accessories can be returned with no restocking fee, except the screen protectors, but you shouldn't buy the Verizon screen protectors anyway, there are much better alternative aftermarket ones available like Steinheil.

And sorry for my "off the cuff" responsse, but honestly, what better way is there to evaluate a phone with an unfamiliar OS than to get your hands on it and do an extensive hands on test drive?

1) How fast is the push e-mail from a hotmail account to the X?
blackberry is faster had issues with my hotmail locking the account out and not being reliable

I don't have these problems with my msn account, which is basically the same as hotmail, they use the same servers. You can set the poll frequency down to as low as every 5 minutes, but that will affect your battery life.


2) Is text messaging threaded on the X?
yes

3) Can I review MS Office files such as Word and Excell? Is there a mobile MS OFfice version so I can compose Word and Excell files on the X? yes there is

4) Can I sync my calendar and contacts from my Outlook on my PC to the X?
not easily, can from gmail to the x wirelessly

5) I know the browser is fast.....does it have Flash player 10.1?
yes

6) I use "Tether" for my BlackBerry......what does the X have so I can tether my laptop, and I'm not looking to root my phone. PDANet? Is that like Tether?
for an additional charge you can turn your x into a wifi hotspot... like 20 a month, havent figured out how to do it free though, im sure someone out there can

You need root for free tethering. Rooting is easy.

7) What is the battery life like on the phone......I've heard anywhere from four hours to a day. I use Internet and get some phone calls, along with e-mails and messaging throughout the day. How about buying the extended battery through Verizon....how much more endurance does that really give to the phone? i can easily get a full day out of the battery and maybe more depending on usage. I am not completely app heavy and turn wifi and gps off. If you dont require GPS and apps to update constantly there should be no problem. There is also an extended battery if you need one.

8) How hot does this phone really run? Can I talk on it for an hour without worrying about blowing it up? questionable now. When using it as a GPS in the car it gets very very hot

My rooted X does not get hot at all when using GPS. I underclock it to 600 mhz with SetCPU and do not use the charger while running Google Navigation.

9) I've heard of it restarting itself several times a day.....are those just isolated instances? I have never had my phone reboot on me, although with 2.2 currently installed i find myself having to reboot the phone 3-4 times a day to fix various bugs. Takes only about a minute each time as opposed to the BB battery pull 10 minute a pop deal

2.2 is flawless on my X, no reboots, freezing or lockups. The only time I reboot my device is when I install a theme or rom.

10) How are the signal strengths with it? Have the radio issues been resolved? I have never had any issues with the radio, and prior to the 2.2 update it was by far the best sound quality phone i have ever talked on. New update has a bug where you cant hear anything when you try to place a call or receive one. Phone reboot solves issue, but its a pain


No problems whatsoever with calls and call quality here.

11) Any other bugs like locking up or anything? 2.2 is very buggy, see the forum


A lot of users have no problems with 2.2. Some do, and they are very vocal in the forums about it.

12) Should I just wait for some of the new phones that are coming for the holiday season...like the 1.3ghz droid pro? I would honestly wait for bugs to be worked out. 2.2 is almost unusable. 2.1 without flash was fantastic for me and blew the bb out of the water. 2.2 not so much.

Sounds like you need to do a Factory Data Reset to clear your device and start from a clean slate.

***my personal notes: if you want reliability on receiving email, then stick with the bb, that thing was flawless and completely reliable. The droid blows the bb out of the water in multimedia, camera, web, apps, just about everything except reliability.

 

[gbororats]

I have to disagree that 2.2 is almost unusable. My phone's performance has gotten better with the update. Try a factory reset if you're having such problems with it.

Coming from a Storm, I have to say that nothing beats BlackBerry when it comes to notifications and push email. Even so, the Droid X is many times better than a BlackBerry.

i did a factory reset and it didnt resolve the every day bug fixes and complete unreliability of my device. If i dont reboot my phone daily i wont receive important emails. Maybe unusable is pushing it, but 2.1 saw 0 problems for me. 2.2 has improvements, but reliability is not one of them.

 

[xliderider]

i did a factory reset and it didnt resolve the every day bug fixes and complete unreliability of my device. If i dont reboot my phone daily i wont receive important emails. Maybe unusable is pushing it, but 2.1 saw 0 problems for me. 2.2 has improvements, but reliability is not one of them.

I use K9 email, maybe you should give that a try for your Hotmail account.

 

[gbororats]

I use K9 email, maybe you should give that a try for your Hotmail account.

my hotmail was mainly for emails that i dont use on an every day basis. It kept trying to pull the email and caused my account to get locked out. Obviously the password was correct because one day it worked, the next day it didnt.

 

[xliderider]

i did a factory reset and it didnt resolve the every day bug fixes and complete unreliability of my device. If i dont reboot my phone daily i wont receive important emails. Maybe unusable is pushing it, but 2.1 saw 0 problems for me. 2.2 has improvements, but reliability is not one of them.

And this is why I advised the OP to try the X for 30 days to see for themselves.

You are unfortunately in the minority with the problems you are experiencing. You might scare off someone who might have otherwise thoroughly enjoyed the switch to Android. should you not post? No, but all I'm saying is your experience on 2.2 isn't typical of the majority of users.

Edit: Try the following to see if it is something on your sd card causing your problems:

A bad file/filesystem on the memory card can make your Android experience pretty much as you describe. Try putting another memory card in the device, if you have one, or just take the one you have out and reboot the phone. If the device works better without the lag and freezing, then you need to backup the contents of your original memory card and then format it in the phone. Then move your files and folders back to the card starting with the essential stuff and leaving the non-essential stuff for later. Most of the time, it is a corrupted filesystem, so the reformatting takes care of your problem. Test your phone and move your files back in small groups and keep testing till you have restored all the files you need/want, or you have located the bad file.

 

[JetJock79]

Wow....thanks for all the quick responses! Is Android good about pushing out fixes for their bugs? I don't want it to be like the Storm 1 where they put out the hardware,...and figure they can keep working on the software while the customer has it. It turns out that a descent product is out only after a year of it being on the market. I just want something that works like my Treo.....that thing was solid all the time.

--I'm not looking to pay Verizon anymore money for a plan I already have.....just so I can plug in my laptop. I'm not looking to change my e-mail account to something else. Had this account for too many years and it's too intertwined with my life and contacts.

--I'm just looking at Outlook as a form of backing up my contacts and calendar events.....but don't want to hop on-line to do so......what happens when I can't get on-line....you know.

--So PDANet is not like Tether on the BB?

--What kind of notifications take so long to get to this phone? I understand e-mail taking a bit....but is txt and stuff delayed also?

Thanks again everyone. This is a pretty big deal for me to switch out completely to a different platform and just don't want to make the decision too hastilly

 

[gbororats]

And this is why I advised the OP to try the X for 30 days to see for themselves.

You are unfortunately in the minority with the problems you are experiencing. You might scare off someone who might have otherwise thoroughly enjoyed the switch to Android. should you not post? No, but all I'm saying is your experience on 2.2 isn't typical of the majority of users.

Edit: Try the following to see if it is something on your sd card causing your problems:

A bad file/filesystem on the memory card can make your Android experience pretty much as you describe. Try putting another memory card in the device, if you have one, or just take the one you have out and reboot the phone. If the device works better without the lag and freezing, then you need to backup the contents of your original memory card and then format it in the phone. Then move your files and folders back to the card starting with the essential stuff and leaving the non-essential stuff for later. Most of the time, it is a corrupted filesystem, so the reformatting takes care of your problem. Test your phone and move your files back in small groups and keep testing till you have restored all the files you need/want, or you have located the bad file.

you are correct, my problems may be isolated. I love the x dont get me wrong. I love the x pre 2.2. 2.1 worked flawless for me, i loved it, i never had to reset it at all.

My x isnt slow or lagging, it doesnt freeze. Little things just stop working on it, like the ability to open created folders on the homepage; phone calls being received with no audio, email not being received until a reboot, etc. I was just stating that from a reliabiltiy standpoint, the blackberry is a far superior device. i jumped ship from a BB and havent looked back

 

[xliderider]

I'm not looking to change my e-mail account to something else. Had this account for too many years and it's too intertwined with my life and contacts.

K9 is an email app alternative to the stock email app on the device not another email provider. That's the good thing about Android and all the apps. If the stock app doesn't suit your needs, there is likely an alternative solution from the Market available. K9 is free by the way.

 

[xliderider]

you are correct, my problems may be isolated. I love the x dont get me wrong. I love the x pre 2.2. 2.1 worked flawless for me, i loved it, i never had to reset it at all.

My x isnt slow or lagging, it doesnt freeze. Little things just stop working on it, like the ability to open created folders on the homepage; phone calls being received with no audio, email not being received until a reboot, etc. I was just stating that from a reliabiltiy standpoint, the blackberry is a far superior device. i jumped ship from a BB and havent looked back

I've never experienced any of your problems while on 2.2. You must have an app or something that is causing an incompatibility somewhere on your device.

 

[LordBlackmore]

I would honestly wait for bugs to be worked out. 2.2 is almost unusable. 2.1 without flash was fantastic for me and blew the bb out of the water. 2.2 not so much.

I'm sorry. On what planet is 2.2 "almost unusable"?

Yes, 2.2 has some bugs. But every software release has bugs. Calling it "almost unusable" is comically absurd and does a huge disservice to the android community.

 

[ultravisitor]

My x isnt slow or lagging, it doesnt freeze. Little things just stop working on it, like the ability to open created folders on the homepage; phone calls being received with no audio, email not being received until a reboot, etc. I was just stating that from a reliabiltiy standpoint, the blackberry is a far superior device. i jumped ship from a BB and havent looked back

I haven't had any of those problems. I agree with the poster who suggested there is perhaps a problem being caused with an app of yours. Unlike you, I feel the X is much more reliable because I don't have to constantly reboot, which kills the battery. Seriously, during the last month with my Storm I had to do at least one battery pull every day. To me, that's not a reliable.

 

[greydarrah]

Everything you want/need to do can be done on the X, but some of the things will be done differently. For example, you can sync to Outlook like you do with your bb, but you really need to abandon these older ways and move forward with technology. Get a gmail account, sync your bb to it now (download GoogleSync to your bb) , which will put all your contact and calendar on gmail, then never open Outlook again. I used Outlook since it came out and walked away from it earlier this year. I haven;t had a single issue and I can now check my emails or schedule things from any pc, anywhere. Sign in to your gmail account once you get a droid and everything will automatically sync to your new phone. You'll never have to cable up again.

A lot of things work differently on a droid, but once you spend a few days getting used to it, it's ALL better than the way it worked on a bb. If you don't like doing something one way, download an app that does it a different way. If what you're wanting is to do all the same things, the same way as you do now, just get another bb,

Leaving RIM ( I also had the Storm1 and 2) for the Droid X has been the best and most enjoyable technological decision I can remember making.

 

[Ricky Babalu]

I guess I fall into the category of one of the lucky one's. I have had no issues with the update. My battery seems to last a lot longer, and flash works great. I came from Blackberry as well, while BB makes emailing a very simple task; the droid X does a pretty good job. I also got very tired of "truncated emails". In all other categories the X is far superior to the rim products.

 

[JetJock79]

Thanks so much for all this great info. Due to the fact that this "gadget" will be so linked to so many areas of my life, I can't just go to it quickly on a whim. I've done that before and got stuck with phones that just didn't perform like I wanted, or just didn't fit my lifestyle. I'd hate to have a bad experience with Android because I feel like I will have a long reltionship with this brand. Where else am I going to go,.....iPhone?! (ha ha)

Looks like I will have to sign up, and get integrated wih google services now so I can be ready for my Droid. Again, I appreciate the info....it's proving priceless to me right now.

As far as battery life.....anyone try the extended battery from Verizon? I'm looking to see how long this thing will last me with internet, txt'ing, phone calls, app running, etc. I need it to last at least a full day,...like from 8am until like 10pm. I know this is asking a lot, but I'm also not going to be on it all the time everyday. Just have some heavy usage days.