Newbie questions about droid charge

[Salil]

Hello Friends,
I recently replaced my iPhone with a Droid Charge and several questions about it:
1. Location Services: I noticed that if I leave my 'Standalone GPS Services' in my 'Location Services' on then the GPS is switched on all the time and it drains battery power. But if I switch it off then whenever I enter the navigation app it takes to 'Location Services'. Shouldn't it be automatically switching it on/off as needed?
2. USB Charging: Whenever I charge it from my computer using the mini-USB cable it charges extremely slowly almost at 1% every 15 minutes whereas from a power plug or a car charger it is much faster. What can I do to speed this up?
3. I liked the text input in the iPhone a lot better where the auto-suggested word would appear near the word being typed. I don't like Swype either. Are there any other text input methodologies that I could use or install which would mimic the iPhone?
4. How can I set it up such that apps are updated automatically?
5. I have 4G LTE service. Are there people who are using this as a home internet. What has been their experience with a 5 GB data cap?

 

[Plucknbach]

Hello,

I've had mine for approx 2 months now so here are my 2cents.

1. The standalone is toggled on/off through the drop down. The other 2 GPS services for VZW and Google are options. I usually keep them all off unless I need to use the GPS when travelling or locating an address. Not an issue at all. It only takes a few seconds to turn on or off.

2. The wall plug charger or car chargers put out 1.0 amps or more at +/- 5 volts while your pc's USB only outputs 0.5 amps. This is the reason why it is slower. It is standard output for PC USB's

3. I'm using swipe and also have predictive text available. There's gotta be an app.

4. Click on auto update in your settings.

5. I haven't reached the 5GB yet. I have unlimited and have reached 3.0 + GB for the month and have not been throttled.

 

[Salil]

WRT usb charging via computer it is much less than half of a wall charger. Any way to find out the rate of charging?

 

[arctic388]

I haven't found a good keyboard yet but i use "Better Keyboard 8" try it and see if that helps.

 

[ebernedo86]

for #3:
3. I recommend using Smart Keyboard Pro, you download the smart keyboard trial for free to try it out. Its very similar to the iphone and you can actually select a skin thats called "iphone" and looks very similar to it. Its also got auto predict etc and does a very good job at it. Theres another out there called Swiftkey x, its pretty good too but I find smart keyboard better. I've played with the iphone keyboard and I will say that it is better than all the keyboard ive tried out on android. Smart keyboard is the closest thing though and gets the job done.

 

[xaerospace]

#2. I never use the computer anymore cause of this problem. I always use the wall charger now. Last phone, computer was no problem. Sucks, but oh well.
#3. I use the gingerbread keyboard and found it to be pretty awesome. There is also an iphone keyboard on the market, but I don't know if it will do what you want it too. I didn't like the standard keyboard either and I came from a windows 7 phone, which I thought was an awesome keyboard (not an awesome phone).