Evolution to Droid

[jlgraham]

I'm not sure how relevant this is, but I'm curious to see where Droid/Android users are coming from.

I've had a cell phone for about 9 years (since December 2001). Here's the breakdown of phones I've had, chronologically:


Sprint LG 4NE1 http://dynamic24.cellphoneforums.net/phonedb/images/main_LG_4NE1_1.jpg

Sprint Samsung SCH-1000
(then back to the LG because I dropped the Samsung off a boat.)

Sprint Sanyo SCP-5150 (gave it to my aunt in 2003 and she still has it)
http://img.phonescoop.com/img/p/245/h46.jpg

Sprint Samsung A900M (I went through 4 replacements, I kept breaking them, first 3G phone I had)
http://nextelonline.nextel.com/asse...00/samsung_a900_thumbnails/SPHA900ZKS_180.gif

Sprint Motorola Krzr (Piece of ****. Most sluggist and pointless device I've ever used)
http://www.bigberries.com/images/digital/2006/nov/bb_sprint_moto_krzr.jpg

Sprint Samsung M610 (Brilliant. Only had to have 2 replacements, and then my mother used it for a year)
http://nextelonline.nextel.com/asse...ung/samsung_m610/m610_thumbnails/m610_180.gif

ATT Apple iPhone 2G (I bought it right after it came out, for that ridiculous price, and then couldn't handle a touch screen only phone, returned it after a week)

T-Mobile Sidekick LX (wanted to be like the cool kids. Great phone, only 2G though and T-Mo service sucked in my area at the time, sold it after 4 months)

Sprint Blackberry Pearl 8130 (I had this phone for about 2 years, 1 replacement, longest I've ever had a single cell phone and I still have it in a drawn just in case)
http://www.reviewzine.com/images/cellphone/blackberry-pearl-8130.jpg

Sprint Palm Pre (I had to have it, the hype surrounding it sucked me in)

Verizon, DROID.


My first smartphone was technically the Sidekick, which had copy paste and some multitasking. Before that I was happy with the dumb/feature phones of the time. It still amazes me how many things I do on my phone now, that I wouldn't even have done on a computer back when I first got a cell phone. I stuck with Sprint for a long time, even when I had ATT and T-Mobile, I kept my Sprint account going just in case. Now that I have a Droid, I officially cancelled my Sprint account, and am sticking with it. The Droid is the first phone I've had that actually does everything I want it to, seamlessly. I can honestly say I haven't had a moment where I've wanted my Droid to do something, and it was unable (very unlike my Palm Pre). Actually, one thing it could do is sync music better out of the box.

How about you guys? What brought you to the Droid.

 

[prometheus]

What brought me to Droid?

Pretty boring, My BB died and I was due for an upgrade - fell in love with Droid intending to just use the 30-day trial to the full.

After discovering what a smart phone can do I am mad at Blackberry for having me convinced that device was so good.

Hamburger is great.... 'til you've had steak.

 

[Zorro1]

I came from Palm land, never had anything else...until they ditched me. I'm a VZW guy, would never consider Sprint...and if that wasn't bad enough, they ditched themselves, i.e. Palm software. So...since I had to have something new anyway, retrain, all that, it opened up the world of options, of which the Pre was one. Frankly, I'd been waiting for it to come to Verizon, nixing Crackberry and that cultish world over there...WinMoHell was never an option. And then the Droid showed up, with a perfect phone, a maturing OS with many manufacturers (read: lots of developers instead of one!), and an open community.

Thanks, Palm. I owe ya.

 

[simp_10]

"Sprint Motorola Krzr (Piece of ****. Most sluggist and pointless device I've ever used)"

I had the Krazr, but mine was a very solid phone. Mine was with Verizon, but don't think that would make much difference.

"After discovering what a smart phone can do I am mad at Blackberry for having me convinced that device was so good."

Very well put. Crackberry.com had me brainwashed into thinking my old blackberry was the best thing since sliced bread. The Blackberry does not give anyone a true smartphone experience.

 

[mclarryjr]

I came from the land of battery pulls, slow boot times ,and an OS that hasn't really changed in a life time. I've had Blackberrys for the last 4 years from the curve>storm>tour with the tour being the best by far.

To the land of THE DROID and I love it!!!!!!!

 

[Roy Aguilera]

I came from the land of battery pulls, slow boot times ,and an OS that hasn't really changed in a life time. I've had Blackberrys for the last 4 years from the curve>storm>tour with the tour being the best by far.

To the land of THE DROID and I love it!!!!!!!

Same here.

 

[Dapke36]

"Sprint Motorola Krzr (Piece of ****. Most sluggist and pointless device I've ever used)"

I had the Krazr, but mine was a very solid phone. Mine was with Verizon, but don't think that would make much difference.

"After discovering what a smart phone can do I am mad at Blackberry for having me convinced that device was so good."

Very well put. Crackberry.com had me brainwashed into thinking my old blackberry was the best thing since sliced bread. The Blackberry does not give anyone a true smartphone experience.

Haha that describes me to the T. I thought my curve was the be-all, end-all of phones, and my roommate & Crackberry led me to think that this was the best smartphones could do.

While ... decent ..., I moved to to Droid. And it finally killed my gadget lust. No phone has done that in 5 years (when I first really started caring about smartphones).

 

[DeeMat]

I came from the land of battery pulls, slow boot times ,and an OS that hasn't really changed in a life time. I've had Blackberrys for the last 4 years from the curve>storm>tour with the tour being the best by far.

To the land of THE DROID and I love it!!!!!!!

Came from the same place, and the one that had a few long outages late last year...

 

[stefanl]

Started out in 2001 with a Kyocera. For a phone from that time, it actually had a ton of features. Looking back its funny, but i loved it back then.
http://www.silverace.com/smartpig/issue3pics/13menus.jpg

Next was the LGVx7000. My favorite dumb phone EVER. You could even almost call it a smartphone really.
http://pageplusdealer.com/PagePlus//catalog/images/LG%20VX7000-2.jpg

Then on to the Razr. It was okay. I just had to jump on the Razr bandwaggon, even if it was a year too late...damn Verizon and thier phones
http://news.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/10381/180761.jpg

It broke so i baught the LG Chocolate 2. I hated that phone
http://www.wired.com/images/article/magazine/test2007/mp_lg_chocolate_vx8550_f.jpg

Then the Blackberry Curve (http://www.mobilewhack.com/blackberry-curve-8300-verizon.jpg) and on the the experament that was the Storm1 (It doesn't even deserve a picture). Horrible

After my faith in blackberry was shaken, i went to the Tour (http://www.cellphones.ca/news/upload/2009/10/verizon-blackberry-tour-9630.jpg) and loved it...for a little bit. Even as bad as the storm was, i missed having a big screen and all the other bells and whistles.

So i went to the Verizon store to get a Blackberry Storm2...and walked out with a Droid. (I din't really get the DROID that day, but the point is, it made me NOT buy the Storm2).

Looked at tons of reviews, videos, and hands-on with the DROID because i thought there was no way anything could be better then a Blackberry, right. Thats what Crackberry had me thinking. Well, after finally realizing my whole Blackberry life had been full of lies and deception, i bought the DROID and could not be happier. Amazing phone.

 

[nox]

Guess we all came from battery pull's eh. Blackberries are nice.

I bought the droid because I couldn't live without a smartphone. Was using some replacement phone, and when it came time to upgrade, I actually was gonna get a Storm2, till I played with the Droid on display (fully functional).

Fell in love with it

 

[mcgeorge36]

I have my list of phones that I have had on my signature. I had wanted a sidekick forever, and when I originally went to T-mobile, they were all out of sidekicks, so I ended up with the wing. It was actually a pretty good phone, although it was a windows mobile phone, but I didn't really know or understand HOW to actually use and really take advantage of all a smartphone can do. I finally got a few sidekicks, and while they are probably decent phones for younger people, being older, I guess I just outgrew them. After all they hype surrounding the Palm Pre, I finally gave it a go. I think the Pre and Web-Os do have some potential, but they have to open up the development and fix the issues, such as the battery and signal issues. I decided to finally take the craackberry plunge after that. I believe if you are a business person, it might be a great device with its e-mail capabilities. If you need an actual web browser and other capabilities, the blackberry is definetly not for you. I believe I finally found the best phone for me right now in the Droid. Ultimately I think no matter what you feel is the "perfect" phone is, you are just going to keep searching and seerching. But the Droid is pretty damn close!

 

[AAFD]

I had a Sprint Mogul, then Palm Pre then to Droid. I did not like the Mogul at all, I had alots of issues with it. The Pre was nice, but they should of gotten the apps store going then released the phone!!

KC

 

[Corey]

I've been all over the place. This list will be incomplete, just because I swap out phones a decent amount, so here we go with the ones I remember:

Motorola V551 (AT&T). Actually not a bad little flip phone.
Treo 600 (Sprint). What a miserable phone. Always giving me problems, crap reception, always crashing, always trouble. My first smartphone and it turned me off of them for a good bit.
Motorola i355 (Nextel). Bulletproof, bomb proof, drop proof, fumble proof, massive brick of a phone with really great reception. After the massive problems with the Treo, it was nothing short of fantastic. But HUGE.
Motorola i920 (Nextel). Second smartphone, this one with some form of Windows Mobile. All in all, not that bad, but nothing spectacular.
Samsung Heat (Helio). Really a solid little phone. The UI had some quirks, but the damn thing never gave me an ounce of problems. Small, compact, pretty durable too.
LG Shine (AT&T). Such an underrated little beast. The people I know who had it didn't like it because it was heavy and they couldn't get used to the little joystick type input. Those two qualities really appealed to me. I still miss the build quality and feel of that phone, but the UI was crap, and the AT&T bloatware really made it annoying.
Blackberry 8100 Pearl (AT&T). The first Smartphone I really got on well with. Outstanding battery life, excellent communication platform, excellent form factor, and I got pretty good with the SureType.
Blackberry 8310 Curve (AT&T). Same good impression as the Pearl, but with a really nice full keyboard. Every now and then it would be a little goofy and need some attention. After switching back to the Pearl briefly while getting the Curve fixed, realized that the Curve felt somewhat cheap in comparison.
Blackberry 9530 Storm (Verizon). Nice phone for about 8 months, until it crapped out. When I brought it in for a warranty swap, they were surprised to see a launch Storm still out in the wild. Four replacement Storms later that were all progressively worse than the last, I had to talk to Verizon about fixing the problem or getting out of the contract. Understandably, I was not a happy camper.
Blackberry 9630 Tour (Verizon). The solution to the problem was to eat a year upgrade and get the Tour. When compared to the Storm, it was a great phone. The physical keyboard is really nice, and the build quality is too. The problem is, when looking back and comparing the Tour to the previous Berries, it just seems like it's been all downhill in terms of quality since the Pearl. And while I've got a beta release of 5.0 on the Tour, it's really not much of an improvement of the Pearl. And the phone just annoys the hell out of me now. It's tempermental, occasionally locks up, drops calls like crazy, resets, or just plain quits working right.

HTC Touch Diamond (Verizon). I bought this phone off of eBay because the Tour was driving me nuts with all the dropped calls, and also to see if the dropped calls were because of the area I'm in. It's not bad, but the resistive touch screen sucks, the phone is really laggy, and the way it handles mail just doesn't work for me. It did show me that the issues I was having with reception were from the Tour, and not the service area itself. So as much as I hated to, I went back to the Tour.

So, this week I bit the bullet and slightly overpaid for a very lightly used Droid on eBay. With a little luck, it'll be here by the end of the week and I'll be able to put the Tour out of its misery. Lord knows I've almost put it through a wall in the past two weeks.

 

[xucardsfan08]

Nokia brick (AT&T)
Motorola V400 (AT&T) - first flip phone
Motorola RAZR (AT&T) - nice phone, durable
Samsung Blackjack II (AT&T) - first PDA-style phone
MotoDroid - adios AT&T

 

[Just a Guy]

I will start from 2003 cause I can't remember all the phones I had before that........

Moto v400 which was a good phone.
Moto v551 which I had 3 in 6 months.
Some Nokia flip phone for a few months.
the Sony flip phone with the u shaped antenna which was a good phone.
LG cu500 which was a piece of crap.
Krazr which I liked until at&t tried to screw us so we switched to alltel.
Samsung wafer which was a horrible phone.
The LG razr like phone which I didnt like.
Motor rokr which was a good phone.
LG glimmer which was my 1st touch screen.
Storm which I thought was a decent phone until I got the Droid.....

Wow this phone rocks!

 

[hollip3020]

hmm...

My family has had verizon since is was pactel and airtouch (oh startac how awesome you were).

My first phone was a motorola candybar (at least I think it was motorola), I don't remember the model number and I've been unable to find any information on it. It's literally vanished from the collective knowledge of the world. The thing was awesome, same width and a little taller than the droid, but only about as thick as the keyboard half of the droid. I had it between 2000 and 2002 and it had an earpiece that was slightly wider than the rest of the phone. If anyone remembers it and can find any info on it that would be awesome, it's really gonna bother me. It was a hand-me-down from my dad, and he had put a wood grain faceplate on it. It was pretty sweet.

after that, I switched it up to an lg vx7000 flip phone. I absolutely loved that phone, the best part was the swiveling camera. no need to frame your myspace pics on that tiny outer lcd when you can turn the camera around! This was also the phone that started my hacking addiction. Back when ringtones were getting really popular and verizon was charging way too much to download them (funny how times change ), being a student and all, bitpim allowed me to load up my own custom ringtones for free, saving that precious money for important things, like $5 pizzas and booze.

My next phone was the LG VX8600 "chocolate flip," my first 3g phone. this phone continued where the vx7000 left off. there wasn't much different other than the EVDO radio and a slimmer form factor. I kinda missed the swiveling camera, but I got over that pretty quickly. Not really much else so say about this one.

Around the time my contract was expiring I started to hear wind of the LG Dare, supposedly the iphone for verizon. Unfortunately, I took the bait. It was such a huge step down from all of my previous phones. Completely unusable would be a step up from the dare. Needless to say, I had to get rid of it. I had been lusting after the Blackberry Storm for about a month, so I decided to just bite the bullet and get one even though I was only 2 months into my new contract. Luckily, the CS rep I got was cool and let me re-up my contract without any penalty allowing me to get the discounted price. Likewise with the Storm it was all agony and heartbreak. Once the honeymoon was over, it really started to weigh on me. Even through tons of hybrids and even building my own OS's (Not to mention spending way too much time coding a hybrid building app: Storm Shrink and Hybridizer on the Crackberry forums), it wasn't until 5.0 started leaking that it was really at all enjoyable to use the phone. But by that time it was too late, I needed something else. Luckily the Droid was released a month before the first year of my contract was up.

So now I have my droid, and I know it's cliche, but I'm never looking back. Now I'm finally on a platform I don't feel would be a waste of time to develop for (and I probably will in the near future when I get a little free time).

 

[prometheus]

How many of us do you think will be in a forum board in 1-2 years listing Droid as one in our string of phones and saying how we thought it was great...but, now THIS (insert next phone) is better?

 

[hollip3020]

I don't doubt that will be the case, but I'm guessing it'll still be an android phone we'll be touting. At least for me it will.

Technology will always advance and there will always be something better, something that might make us rethink what we thought was the best. Right now it's the Droid/Nexus One, next year...who knows? But, like I said, it'll probably be running android.

 

[prometheus]

I don't doubt that will be the case, but I'm guessing it'll still be an android phone we'll be touting. At least for me it will.

Technology will always advance and there will always be something better, something that might make us rethink what we thought was the best. Right now it's the Droid/Nexus One, next year...who knows? But, like I said, it'll probably be running android.

Agreed -- don't know what hardware. But, Android is definitely my OS of choice.

 

[TvTechGuru]

Before switching to Verizon in November 2009, I came from a Blackberry Curve 8330 on Sprint. Only had it for 1 year. But I loved Blackberry and had very little complaints about the Blackberry OS. Was with Sprint for 2 years, (2007-2009). First Sprint phone was Samsung M610, which was an awesome phone! I never had a problem with it and it's best feature was the size, it was one of the thinnest and lightest phones at the time it came out.

Before Sprint, I was with Nextel from 2003-2007. Went through multiple Motorola iDEN phones and loved them. They were the most rugged and tough built phones ever! They always will be in my opinion. I also loved the Direct Connect. It was an amazing concept and the most reliable form of communication, even more than cell calls. I got DC coverage where I didn't get cell reception. It was very cool.

Then before that I was with the old school AT&T from 1999-2003. Had all Nokia bar style phones with them. They were cool in their day but that was soooo long ago, haha.