Losing Steam

[dbermanmd]

It has been over a month since I purchased a new battery for my BB Storm 1 and the silence is deafening. I had been eagerly anticipating the HTC TBolt to replace my 2year+ old BB Storm (with the dead battery) only to be complete turned off by its battery issues and to a lesser extent it's widget bloat. So I turned my attention to the Droid Bionic only to be left alone at the alter at the Big Red store with the bride nowhere in sight.

I have been checking this forum almost daily, put myself on Google Alert for the Droid Bionic, and various other activities including traveling across the street from my office to the Big Red store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan searching for my next communication device. I have witnessed from my novice amount of technical knowledge releases of already outdated "new" Android devices. I am assuming this is the price you pay for a free and unfettered and completely open marketplace as opposed to the Apple universe where you have no diversity but slow and steady progress gauged to keep the marketplace satisfied and always wanting more.

All that being said, I am getting the impression that Motorola and the Droid universe in general, in spite of their obviously increasing share of the marketplace, are not seizing greater opportunities. Motorola specifically seems to be fumbling the ball and mind you I am old enough to call the Star Tac my most favorite cellular device ever.

Excuse me for venting my spleen, but I have found it somewhat helpful this morning. I will now go about my daily routine, checking occasionally to see what is new in the Android world. My approach is now somewhat different in that I will wait at least one month after the introduction of any device that might interest my fancy and with a spanking new battery in my trusty BB Storm 1 time is back on my side. In fact, i might wait for a Quad core device figuring that by then they will have all the kinks worked out of the system including not network outages and a battery that can last the day, that the Android Marketplace will be a better place to explore and that the competition between the device makers, the sputtering economy, a tad bit of inflation and currency devaluation might leave me in a better position to acquire said device,,, eventually down the road.

Thank you all for humoring me this morning, wishes for a great weekend and perhaps in the near future that for the moment perfect cellular device.

David

 

[Issemann]

Well said David. I am in the same boat and feel the exact same way. I may be a little better off at this point with a rooted Incredible running CM7, but I'm due for an upgrade and have my sights set on the Bionic. What would make me very happy at this time is a simple shred of news as to what the new specs are, or when the they're planning on launching it.

 

[z71kris]

man are we the same person, I am running a Storm 1, and no longer make a complete day with a battery charge, and my favorite phone ever, Star Tac...

 

[dbermanmd]

man are we the same person, I am running a Storm 1, and no longer make a complete day with a battery charge, and my favorite phone ever, Star Tac...

Do yourself a HUGE favor and purchase a new battery your Storm 1. At the time I did it gave me about 10 minutes of talk time! It was very liberating. I immediately stopped hanging on every post here, on every Google Alert, etc. I got my life back and was able to return to mental sanity.

That being said, the Star Tac was to date the finest cellular device ever created. It is my hope that Motorola will one day before I die come up with a device as great.

And thank you for reaffirming my belief that I was all alone, its nice to have company. With creating some additional risk here, let me give you some additional insight into my current thoughts on my upcoming new Android device:

1. Cores: I could not care how many cores it has as long as it will not become obsolete before my two year contract is over. I currently favor two because it makes sense to me that two is better then one. If a device comes out with four i will go with that one just because of numbers. I honestly do not think it will make one iota bit of difference for me based on my projected usage of this device, but I like numbers and I will go with the most cores possible.

2. RAM: here too, the more the better. I have no idea what the different types of RAM mean or do or process. I am sure it is important to some people, not to me as long as my device can handle the chores I task it to perform. My guess is that coming from a Storm 1 whatever device I end up with will by like going from a propeller to jet engine.

3. Memory: ditto. the more the merrier. Sign me up for 1 terabyte or whatever. I am currently using a 5 year old HP desktop with less memory than my phone will have and I have yet to use it all up. The odds are the same will hold true for my new device. And if I do, I am assuming it will be a lot easier to increase the storage capacity of my phone than my desktop which is a crazy thought.

4. Battery Life: this is the biggie for me, the deal breaker, the whole enchilada. If we can put a man on the moon decades ago and get him back on an Atari 64 it seems reasonable for me to expect that one day in the near future a battery will be born to power my LTE Android device 12 hours straight without the need of a recharge or jump charge or chump charge or whatever. I will NOT buy any device that cannot exist with its umbilical cord cut for at least 12 hours. No I am not going to carry an extra batter - my first cellular device in 1989 (I have been a Big Red customer for a long long time) came with a 10lb battery and strap to which I clipped in the handset when I left the confines of my car. To me to carry an extra battery for me after being freed of that burden is untenable. If need be the President should muster a national call to arms to develop said battery technology - it is a right not a desire.

5. Froyo/Gingerbread/etc: I am not interested in what operating system it comes with as long as it does not interfere with how I interface with my device. I am hesitant to change operating systems once the device is in my pocket - nothing good ever happened when i did, and i refuse to do it.

6. Widget Bloat: I went to the Big Red store to play with the TBolt and could not get over how much junk is on that device - and to the best of my knowledge I could not get rid of most of it. Damn, how did i lose control over my device to companies and vendors i could care less about. Its almost enough to make a guy shy away from them. Its like withholding taxes - you dont have a choice and if you did your would say NO!

7. Mobile Hot Spot: fascinating technology and something i probably will use while free.

8: Display: HD or AMOLED or whatever - I just want to be able to see it in the bright sunlight as opposed to my iPad1 and iPad2. From my perspective again I much prefer my 24" monitor I am currently using and to pretend that I am going to do anything significant on a 4.3" device like read or watch a movie or anything beyond looking for numbers to dial on is fantasy. I will leave that for younger people with better near vision and more time on their hands for play and leisure.

9. LTE: I am of the opinion that I want this over the 3G network. It is my hope that it does not experience any complete failures and that the bugs are all worked out by the time i find a device that suits my limited desires. I strongly prefer that my devices have a reliable network to perform their primary functions.

10: HDMI output: I have some idea what that is - I believe a port through which you can connect your device to a television. For that to be important is to assume my wife lets me actually decide whats on our new LED big screen TV, that she has finished catching up on all her programs currently stored on our 2 terabyte TiVo or whatever size hard drive its has,,, i only know she has enough programs stored on it i had to install a generator in the house so if we lost power for 1 year she could still not have to watch the same program twice, and if I had any real desire to watch anything. The last TV program i actually enjoyed and looked forward to watching week to week was Hill Street Blues.

I am sure I am missing some stuff. I hope we are still friends and even by chance we have some similarities left.

Please stay in touch, and also interested in your thoughts....

David

 

[mcbrett]

I have a Storm1 also, same situation, same obsession, and only in the past 3 months has the Storm started to die on me (OS wise and battery)

Keep the faith!

 

[Suntan]

I agree with you.

I?m losing steam with Android on the Verizon network. (Although I am still fully pumped to receive my Transformer Tablet from Amazon next week!)

I wasn?t overly wowed by the Tbolt when I played with it, and to be honest I?m not really wanting a huge 4.3? phone at all.

I do commiserate with you about wanting the most powerful phone though. It isn?t that I think I need a supercomputer in my pocket, but having a top end phone at the start of a 2 yr contract is one of the most logical hedges against having a sloth-phone for the last 9 months of your contract. My phone now (Palm Pre+) was average when I got it about 18 months ago. It?s a dog now (even overclocked 100%) and can?t do some of the basics like Flash.

It isn?t just about getting the most powerful phone either. But getting the most ?popular? phone. Because the one that has been chosen to be ?the? phone for the next cycle is the phone that will get updates the most frequent and the longest. But with Big Red not getting any Nexus love, you?re basically left to guess at which new phone will take off and have staying power?

I may just stick with WebOS and get the Pre3 when it comes out if Verizon is going to continue with the lackluster Android releases and delays.

-Suntan

 

[T_Virus]

On the (9530) storm as well. I am so ready to smash it. I'm inpatiently still waiting for the Droid Bionic as I have 2 upgrades to use but will save one. My storm does have a good battery life though. But other than that I hardly use for anything else besides sending and receiving calls and looking up my emails.

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

It has been over a month since I purchased a new battery for my BB Storm 1 and the silence is deafening. I had been eagerly anticipating the HTC TBolt to replace my 2year+ old BB Storm (with the dead battery) only to be complete turned off by its battery issues and to a lesser extent it's widget bloat. So I turned my attention to the Droid Bionic only to be left alone at the alter at the Big Red store with the bride nowhere in sight.

I have been checking this forum almost daily, put myself on Google Alert for the Droid Bionic, and various other activities including traveling across the street from my office to the Big Red store on the Upper East Side of Manhattan searching for my next communication device. I have witnessed from my novice amount of technical knowledge releases of already outdated "new" Android devices. I am assuming this is the price you pay for a free and unfettered and completely open marketplace as opposed to the Apple universe where you have no diversity but slow and steady progress gauged to keep the marketplace satisfied and always wanting more.

All that being said, I am getting the impression that Motorola and the Droid universe in general, in spite of their obviously increasing share of the marketplace, are not seizing greater opportunities. Motorola specifically seems to be fumbling the ball and mind you I am old enough to call the Star Tac my most favorite cellular device ever.

Excuse me for venting my spleen, but I have found it somewhat helpful this morning. I will now go about my daily routine, checking occasionally to see what is new in the Android world. My approach is now somewhat different in that I will wait at least one month after the introduction of any device that might interest my fancy and with a spanking new battery in my trusty BB Storm 1 time is back on my side. In fact, i might wait for a Quad core device figuring that by then they will have all the kinks worked out of the system including not network outages and a battery that can last the day, that the Android Marketplace will be a better place to explore and that the competition between the device makers, the sputtering economy, a tad bit of inflation and currency devaluation might leave me in a better position to acquire said device,,, eventually down the road.

Thank you all for humoring me this morning, wishes for a great weekend and perhaps in the near future that for the moment perfect cellular device.

David

In my opinion, Motorola is having problems. When you look at the simple fact they have been unable to produce anything that is 4g while some of their competitors have at least in my mind creates a lot of questions.

The Motorola Xoom hasn't received its upgrade and we are well into the quarter 2. Like so many other things, I bet that will end up being delayed again.

I am almost exclusively using my HTC Thunderbolt now. It is a decent phone. The battery life in my opinion is not that much worse than most any other Android phone that I have owned. It is not as long as the Motorola products, but again, the difference in my opinion is negligible.

 

[BigDFSU]

I'm still amazed at the number of us Storm owners on here. Seems like a lot of us are stuck with this damn phone and hoping to finally replace it soon.

 

[bhcohen7]

Add me to the list of Storm 9530 users waiting....and waiting....to upgrade.

 

[brpost]

I'm still amazed at the number of us Storm owners on here. Seems like a lot of us are stuck with this damn phone and hoping to finally replace it soon.

Yup- same here. I WILL replace mine this month, though!!

 

[anicholas7]

WOW, I can't believe how many are still using the Storm 1 (9530). This was my first smartphone 2 years ago and I loved it except for the internet part. It was a real dog and that frustrated me to the point that I had to switch to the Droid Incredible after about 1 year. This DINC is such a great phone (rooted w/CM7) that I can wait out any delay of any phone that I may be interested in like the Bionic/Tegra. If I were you guys who are still using the Storm and are getting antsy about a particular phone that is delayed, I would pick up a used DINC for about $100 and use that until your dream phone comes out and is out for a while and reviewed. That way you will know if the phone lives up to the hype or not and then decide if you want it. I will guarantee that you will still be able to get most if not all of your money back on the DINC when you sell it to get your new phone.

 

[Cruiserdude]

All I know is Moto better leak some info soon now that the Charge is out, if they expect folks like us to keep waiting much longer. Once CM7 is out for the Charge, and it has an EXT4 filesystem fix, and a 1.2ghz Infuse-based kernel, its gonna be a real hard sell to wait on the Bionic if I still don't know anything at that point.

 

[BigDFSU]

WOW, I can't believe how many are still using the Storm 1 (9530). This was my first smartphone 2 years ago and I loved it except for the internet part. It was a real dog and that frustrated me to the point that I had to switch to the Droid Incredible after about 1 year. This DINC is such a great phone (rooted w/CM7) that I can wait out any delay of any phone that I may be interested in like the Bionic/Tegra. If I were you guys who are still using the Storm and are getting antsy about a particular phone that is delayed, I would pick up a used DINC for about $100 and use that until your dream phone comes out and is out for a while and reviewed. That way you will know if the phone lives up to the hype or not and then decide if you want it. I will guarantee that you will still be able to get most if not all of your money back on the DINC when you sell it to get your new phone.

I thought about doing that, but I definitely have not come across that phone, or other popular Android phones, for that cheap. Most people want a few hundred and I'm just not willing to pay that much for a temp phone.

The good news is I'm fairly sure that one way or the other, the wait will be over or most of us in the next few months.

 

[King Howie]

i only wish i had a Storm while awaiting the end of waiting. i'm rockin' an LG enV Touch, and have been eligible to upgrade since February.

 

[Cruiserdude]

i only wish i had a Storm while awaiting the end of waiting. i'm rockin' an LG enV Touch, and have been eligible to upgrade since February.

I heard that brother, I've still got the LG Versa (essentially smaller version of your phone, keyboard optional). I've had my NE2 credit since February, had an offer to early upgrade at the 2 year price since last August. I've held out this long for a good 4g device, but its getting REALLY difficult to wait...

 

[trailblazen]

I know my Storm 2 is not as bad as yalls storm 1's but I am getting really tired of the daily resets and freezing. I have been cooling my heels for a few months now waiting for a new phone and after doing all my research I settled on the CES bionic. Now with that being scrapped and playing off the rumor mill of the Targa taking its place I feel compelled to wait instead of jumping on anything thats out there right now. I am pretty much hanging in there with the rest of the storm owners LOL.

 

[oohaah]

Great points, David, and well-written, too. Where's your blog?

I'm still using a FLIP PHONE and have been waiting impatiently to buy a smart phone. I'd still like to get into the 2000's before the 2010's are over, y'know? The Bionic seemed to be the right phone for taking the plunge, though the Droid Charge also has a lot going for it.

I *want* to buy a Motorola because I want the company that is profiting from my purchase to pay U.S. TAXES on their profit. I realize all of these companies are increasingly multi-national, but Motorola is still basically a US company and Samsung is still basically a Japanese company. And with the global economy in the toilet, I think a little nationalism has an element of self-preservation to it, too. Buy American when you can, I figure.

But Motorola has done an amazing job of screwing up the Bionic. A whole raft of Motorola executives -- from engineering to marketing -- should get canned for this.

So here's what I'm going to do: Next week -- assuming we don't see a flood of complaints about the Droid Charge -- I'm going to go ahead and give Samsung my $250 (at Costco) for one so I can lock in a two-year Verizon contract with unlimited data for an extra $30. I hope it's worth it, because my life has been just fine so far without any data use at all. I'm optimistic that the Charge will enable me to ditch my camera, mp3 player, GPS, flip phone, and possibly my ISP and router for my laptop and desktop computers at home.

And hopefully in two years Motorola will have figured out how to deliver a competitive product at a competitive price and in a timely manner.

If anyone can provide an argument for me to wait for the Bionic, please make it, 'cause it's getting more and more difficult to justify waiting for this mythical phone when the unlimited data plan is expected to end in a month or so (depending on who you talk to) and the Charge is already available.

Thanks much!

 

[pauldroidr2d2]

Great points, David, and well-written, too. Where's your blog?

I'm still using a FLIP PHONE and have been waiting impatiently to buy a smart phone. I'd still like to get into the 2000's before the 2010's are over, y'know? The Bionic seemed to be the right phone for taking the plunge, though the Droid Charge also has a lot going for it.

I *want* to buy a Motorola because I want the company that is profiting from my purchase to pay U.S. TAXES on their profit. I realize all of these companies are increasingly multi-national, but Motorola is still basically a US company and Samsung is still basically a Japanese company. And with the global economy in the toilet, I think a little nationalism has an element of self-preservation to it, too. Buy American when you can, I figure.

But Motorola has done an amazing job of screwing up the Bionic. A whole raft of Motorola executives -- from engineering to marketing -- should get canned for this.

So here's what I'm going to do: Next week -- assuming we don't see a flood of complaints about the Droid Charge -- I'm going to go ahead and give Samsung my $250 (at Costco) for one so I can lock in a two-year Verizon contract with unlimited data for an extra $30. I hope it's worth it, because my life has been just fine so far without any data use at all. I'm optimistic that the Charge will enable me to ditch my camera, mp3 player, GPS, flip phone, and possibly my ISP and router for my laptop and desktop computers at home.

And hopefully in two years Motorola will have figured out how to deliver a competitive product at a competitive price and in a timely manner.

If anyone can provide an argument for me to wait for the Bionic, please make it, 'cause it's getting more and more difficult to justify waiting for this mythical phone when the unlimited data plan is expected to end in a month or so (depending on who you talk to) and the Charge is already available.

Thanks much!

Samsung is not basically a Japanese company, nor has it ever been.

 

[T_Virus]

WOW, I can't believe how many are still using the Storm 1 (9530). This was my first smartphone 2 years ago and I loved it except for the internet part. It was a real dog and that frustrated me to the point that I had to switch to the Droid Incredible after about 1 year. This DINC is such a great phone (rooted w/CM7) that I can wait out any delay of any phone that I may be interested in like the Bionic/Tegra. If I were you guys who are still using the Storm and are getting antsy about a particular phone that is delayed, I would pick up a used DINC for about $100 and use that until your dream phone comes out and is out for a while and reviewed. That way you will know if the phone lives up to the hype or not and then decide if you want it. I will guarantee that you will still be able to get most if not all of your money back on the DINC when you sell it to get your new phone.

I bought my wife a Droid Incredible and it is a good phone but I think they could have done it better. It is fast but sometimes laggy when browsing online but I guess that depends on the area that you are in. But I will continue to wait for the Bionic as it should be coming out in a number of months.

i only wish i had a Storm while awaiting the end of waiting. i'm rockin' an LG enV Touch, and have been eligible to upgrade since February.

??? I thought the LG enV Touch came out after the Storm and is better than the Storm?