Android phone users out there? - Page 2

dmock66 · 06-02-2010, 02:41 PM

My wife is a realtor and I have two teenage boys who HAVE TO be able to access Facebook/text 24/7 - so I've been on a unlimited everything plan for a few years now. We dropped our land line since the only one who used it was telemarketers.

... but I hear ya... it's pretty rediculous.

Kewlpack · 06-02-2010, 07:13 PM

The Moment is a little bulky, but not too bad. The physical keyboard is worth it. The Droid's keyboard is L.A.M.E. (imho)... so that was a big fat NO for me.

The battery life on these android phones gets eaten by two things that don't have to be on all the time (location/gps and background app data sync). If you turn those off, you'll get a full day on a charge even if you pop them on every so often.

Oh ya... I LOVE the Evo model. I just got the Moment a couple of months back though, so it would be a big hit to the wallet if I switched now.

dmock66 · 06-02-2010, 09:13 PM

Yeah - I'm getting the Evo on Friday. I get 30 days to test drive it to make my choice. I'm not concerned about the no keyboard thing.

airship71 · 06-02-2010, 09:47 PM

I think I'm the last person in America who doesn't have a cell phone.

dmock66 · 06-04-2010, 12:08 PM

I turned out to be one of the loony tunes that stood in line for an Evo. Got one - so far, so good. Lots to absorb and understand - but I dig it so far. It's a bit bigger than I anticipated it to be - but not too big. Now to get used to it and "make it mine"...

tcrews · 07-07-2010, 09:56 AM

I have the Motorola Droid, overclocked to 1.2 gig running a leaked release of Froyo (OS 2.2).

Absolutely love the phone. My older brother got one and then got one for his wife and my older sister and her husband got one during a buy 1 get 1 deal.

IF you are running Android 2.0 or above (2.1, 2.1-update1, 2.2) it is highly recommended to stay away from any and all "task killer" apps. They cause more problems and create zero benefits. Early versions of Android apparently had difficulty managing resources well and a task killer could help...however since 2.0 and above the OS handles everything very well.

Issues being the OS will always try to perform certain task and a running task killer (which itself uses battery, memory and CPU resources) will sweep the rug out from under the OS and will make the OS try to do these task over again and again instead of it's normal scheduled operating list. This uses much more battery and CPU resources as well as waste memory.

Some basic battery saving techniques are to:

Disable GPS if you are inside as this can force the GPS to constantly seek a signal drastically shortening battery life.

Use Wi-Fi (if available) in areas that have poor 3G coverage as the phone will constantly be switching from 1X to 3G searching for the "best" signal, drastically shortening battery life. Also use Wi-Fi (if available) for downloading larger amounts of data as it will use less power over time since the transfer speed is quicker.

Reduce number of active Widgets. If you have widgets for everything.....take a look and see which ones you really use and remove the others from your home screens. Also reduce the rate at which things update as you can always manually refresh to get updates (news & weather or facebook as examples) if you need the latest news.

The number one thing that kills the battery is going to be display use....so have a short time-out for the screen to go blank or lock it yourself when you put the phone down from use.

I have my phone overclocked to 1.2 ghz (from stock 550mhz), run Wi-Fi from 8:00am to 4:30pm (work..bad cell reception inside), have GPS on always, have Sync always on and take the phone off the charger around 6:00am and put it back on the charger around 11:00pm with 30% to 40% battery left. I've gone over 24 hours before it's popped up the "low battery, place on charger" warning.

I use my phone for all email, some web, app downloads/updates, cell calls, texting and whatever else I should need.

joegrant413 · 07-07-2010, 12:07 PM

tcrews,

I'll have to consider your input on this one. I'm running Android 2.1 and I have been using a task killer. The only inconvenience I've noticed is sometimes Pandora gets axed.

Anyway, I'll look over your recommendations on other ways to save battery life. (And, yes, FWIW, not having battery hassles has been a pretty consistent strength of Apple products.)

Cheers,
-- Joe