First time Android user.. couple questions.

[KRAZYK817]

I have been an iPhone guy from the 1st Gen, but have noticed the iPhone fall behind in the smart phone world.. so I upgraded to my first Android phone GN2.

Couple questions.

1. I plugged my phone into my laptop but do not get any sort of recognition (other than a slow charge) of the phone. I thought I would be able to drag and drop pics, movies, music, etc.. Am I missing something?

2. With the stock keyboard I used the S pen to swipe type because there was no auto correct built in for normal texting. So I installed SwiftKey3 and love it.. the auto correct is fantastic, BUT from time to time if I already have the S Pen out I would like to swipe type, which swift key does not do. So my question is, is there some sort of macro or setting I can put in that says if the S pen is out, revert to the stock keyboard?

3. Similar to my 2nd question.. I am trying to pick a good messenger app. I am using the stock messenger because I like the feature that allows you to just put the phone up to your ear and it will call that contact on the screen. I would also like to have group texting. I tried out smsgo and chomp but didnt really like them for some reason.. with chomp I got my group texting and emotes but lost the instant call function.

4. Any must have apps?

5. I thought Need for Speed was going to be a free or pre loaded game for the note2.. what happened to that?

Thanks to anyone that gives me a little advice.. I am an IT guy, so far I have been picking up Android pretty quick.. but I have alot to learn! haha.

 

[lostchild]

I just got my Note II from AT&T also upgraded from an iPhone (3G for me). I can answer a few of your questions.

1) It works out of the box for me on both desktop and laptop (Windows XP and Windows 7). Windows recognized it as a Samsung phone, and listed the name with model number under My Computer. Under the Samsung model name, it has Phone, and under that all the directories. One thing I notice is that if your phone is locked with pass code or dot pattern, the Phone won't show up until you unlock the phone. Maybe that's your problem?

4) The number 1 must have app for me is Visual Voicemail. Coming from an iPhone, you know how great it is! I just cannot imagine that I have to actually Call Voicemail to check my messages. Other then that, I just re-install all the apps I have on the iPhone.

 

[Martinezma99]

Must own apps for me: GTasks, GNotes, evernote, dropbox, sportacular, Google Reader,and Android Central.

Sent from Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (AT&T)

 

[surebuttercringe]

Coming from an iphone, I too felt that Apple was lagging behind.

As far as the computer recognizing it, mine saw it right away and drag and drop is easy as pie, even with an external SD card.

A nice app for the Note is SIGNificant. It allows you to use the s pen to digitally sign documents and then email them. No more printing it off, signing the dic, scanning it in and then emailing it back.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy Note 2

 

[Jrockttu]

Swiftkey has "Flow" in private beta right now, it's their version of the swiping that Swype and the Samsung stock keyboard do (and Android 4.2). I use Swiftkey because the prediction is the best I've ever used. Or you can keep your eye out for the Android 4.2 keyboard when someone ports it to our phone. It does swiping and from my brief experience with it on my Nexus 7 was good.

Look up "Tasker" for switching between keyboards. I don't know for sure if it has functionality for the S Pen, but it might. It's got a steep learning curve, but can automate almost anything.

I'd assume that NFS was not loaded on the AT&T version so that they could save a few bucks on every handset, just like us not getting the 50gb Dropbox space and headphones. AT&T seems to love cutting corners on their feature phones to get a discount from the manufacturer.

 

[akquad12]

Go to the samsung site and down load the drivers for it might help.

 

[KRAZYK817]

Thanks for the input everyone.. I have only tried plugging into my laptop, might be missing some drivers and I hardly ever use it. I will try again in a week or so once I get my desktop set up (in the middle of moving).