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Just wondering what some of your thoughts are on the new Droid coming out on 10/30. So far all the commercials are touting it as the next iPhone (how many times have I heard that before 
). Although I'm locked into a family plan with AT&T for now, the phone actually looks pretty promising.
Motorola Droid hands on! Boy Genius Report
). Although I'm locked into a family plan with AT&T for now, the phone actually looks pretty promising.Motorola Droid hands on! Boy Genius Report
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12739 views
M
Ok, I've been running it for a day or so since I got it... here are my thoughts.
- GET A SCREEN PROTECTOR
I was foolish and figured it was Best Buy trying to oversell, but boy does the screen collect fingerprints like crazy.
- GPS is really good! Even inside it seems to be able to lock on pretty close. At work inside the metal building it seemed to be using the closest Cell tower location which is still very reasonable.
- Battery life seems good so far, no complaints yet
- Syncing Music... well I was able to use Windows Media player and Winamp, but since I have several lossless WMA files, it's been a PITA. Need to rethink those a bit.
- Cellular reception seems better than my PPC XV6800. We have poor coverage only at the house, and even here no problems on the first floor with 3G.
- Speaking of coverage, the Wifi is pretty slick too. No problems switching between the two, and it seems pretty snappy.
- On screen dialing/hanging up is taking some getting used too, I do miss my dedicated buttons, but it's not the end of the world
- Browsing seems to work very well so far, and I don't seem to miss multitouch as I've never had it.
- MarketPlace has a few gems on it, many for free! (I leave these comments to the other thread on here about favorite Android apps)
- Call quality seems fine, and speaker phone is definitely better than the XV6800 I had, even in a moving car
- Incoming call intelligence is pretty slick too. I had head phones on listening to music, incoming call came in, it autopaused the music AND routed the phone audio automatically thru the head phones, though watch the call volume or you may blow an ear drum
- Not a fan yet of the main screen and widgets, seems a bit cumbersome, but still playing with it.
- Google Voice Integration is NICE... played a bit and no problem. Just wish I could figure out why incoming calls go to voice mail?
- Voice Search is as good as everyone says it is! It seems to be very accurate, and does a good job figuring out what you want to do (ie call a person vs look up a location)
- I really miss the lack of direct (free) Outlook contact syncing, but I did export the CSV to Google Contacts, and I do like how it updates instantly
- If you use GMail, the integration is quite good so far.
- No issues with text messaging, seems to work fine, and the built in smilie was nice
- Camera so far is pretty buggy. Both for just taking pics, as well as the barcode app. Takes quite a few tries to get it to work just right. Hopefully this is a software fixable thing
- Also as other have mentioned it feels solid like a brick, but doesn't feel too heavy or akward, I think that they got it right. The thiness is appreciated, and no clumsy feel to the sliding keyboard
- Speaking of keyboard... drop the nav pad! Not sure why it's there as it has a touch screen, wish the keys were bigger or relaid out instead.
- I found a neat feature my WM didn't have was I can invidually route contacts direct to voice mail... wish I had this one in the past
:
- Facebook / contacts integration is nice, but still a bit buggy when associating to contacts. Even if name matches it works for some, but not others. But when it works, it's nice to autoassign the pictures.
Final .02... is it an iPhone replacement? Not sure as I've only played with an iPhone a couple times. I think it's probably not the phone for the average person, but for techies it is pretty slick and worth a look. So far I'm not regretting the switch from Windows Mobile.
-Mike
- GET A SCREEN PROTECTOR
I was foolish and figured it was Best Buy trying to oversell, but boy does the screen collect fingerprints like crazy.- GPS is really good! Even inside it seems to be able to lock on pretty close. At work inside the metal building it seemed to be using the closest Cell tower location which is still very reasonable.
- Battery life seems good so far, no complaints yet
- Syncing Music... well I was able to use Windows Media player and Winamp, but since I have several lossless WMA files, it's been a PITA. Need to rethink those a bit.
- Cellular reception seems better than my PPC XV6800. We have poor coverage only at the house, and even here no problems on the first floor with 3G.
- Speaking of coverage, the Wifi is pretty slick too. No problems switching between the two, and it seems pretty snappy.
- On screen dialing/hanging up is taking some getting used too, I do miss my dedicated buttons, but it's not the end of the world
- Browsing seems to work very well so far, and I don't seem to miss multitouch as I've never had it.
- MarketPlace has a few gems on it, many for free! (I leave these comments to the other thread on here about favorite Android apps)
- Call quality seems fine, and speaker phone is definitely better than the XV6800 I had, even in a moving car
- Incoming call intelligence is pretty slick too. I had head phones on listening to music, incoming call came in, it autopaused the music AND routed the phone audio automatically thru the head phones, though watch the call volume or you may blow an ear drum
- Not a fan yet of the main screen and widgets, seems a bit cumbersome, but still playing with it.
- Google Voice Integration is NICE... played a bit and no problem. Just wish I could figure out why incoming calls go to voice mail?
- Voice Search is as good as everyone says it is! It seems to be very accurate, and does a good job figuring out what you want to do (ie call a person vs look up a location)
- I really miss the lack of direct (free) Outlook contact syncing, but I did export the CSV to Google Contacts, and I do like how it updates instantly
- If you use GMail, the integration is quite good so far.
- No issues with text messaging, seems to work fine, and the built in smilie was nice
- Camera so far is pretty buggy. Both for just taking pics, as well as the barcode app. Takes quite a few tries to get it to work just right. Hopefully this is a software fixable thing
- Also as other have mentioned it feels solid like a brick, but doesn't feel too heavy or akward, I think that they got it right. The thiness is appreciated, and no clumsy feel to the sliding keyboard
- Speaking of keyboard... drop the nav pad! Not sure why it's there as it has a touch screen, wish the keys were bigger or relaid out instead.
- I found a neat feature my WM didn't have was I can invidually route contacts direct to voice mail... wish I had this one in the past
:- Facebook / contacts integration is nice, but still a bit buggy when associating to contacts. Even if name matches it works for some, but not others. But when it works, it's nice to autoassign the pictures.
Final .02... is it an iPhone replacement? Not sure as I've only played with an iPhone a couple times. I think it's probably not the phone for the average person, but for techies it is pretty slick and worth a look. So far I'm not regretting the switch from Windows Mobile.
-Mike
What follows is a draft of the review I am working on for the Droid. Suggestions welcome. I pretty much agree with what Mike said above this. Is it an ipod killer? Well, nothing short of a stake in the heart will kill those fanboys, but this thing is one impressive piece of equipment. As my wife said, its practically a tricorder.
Anyway, my preliminary review follows:
24 Hour Review: The Verizon Motorola Droid
The first thing I noticed about the droid upon opening the box was that it is a solid piece of machinery. It is mostly metal, and is a bit heavy. That is a positive, in that it does not feel like a toy; it is not in any way flimsy. The screen is huge with 854x480 resolution, and is sharp and extremely bright. The first thing I noticed with the droid was the picture quality. The best comparison is to go back a few years to the first High Resolution Palm PDAs and compare it with the original Palm III color. It is that apparent. While I do not own an iphone, I do own an ipod touch and a Samsung Omnia, and neither phone's resolution comes close. Why Apple continued with QVGA graphics in the latest model is beyond me, but I digress... this is a review of the Droid.
The droid has a fully qwerty keyboard that slides out under it. It has a flat keyboard, which takes a little getting used to, and it has a 4-way "joystick" (of sorts) on the right, with four directional buttons and an enter button. The keyboard is a bit small for my thumbs, but it is 100 times better than not having a keyboard, and I found that I could type with little errors with just a little training. My only complaint is that the space key is a bit small, and there are two unused keys on the left and right that are unexplained, and the space could have been used for larger keys. When the keyboard is open, the screen is automatically put in landscape (or widescreen) mode. If you close the keyboard and turn the device to a landscape position the accelerometer will automatically turn it, and just touching a text entry screen will open the virtual keyboard. The virtual keyboard is very easy to use in widescreen mode, although in portrait mode, the text is too small. The keys – and the soft touch buttons on the device all have "haptic" response – i.e., the machine has a small vibration in response to the pressing of the key. Very easy to use.
When you first setup the droid, you can either create a gmail account or link to an existing one. I did the latter, and it took about five minutes to initially sync all of my contacts. But once done, it did not require any configuration. That one step not only provided me with gmail access, but also gave me access to google calendar and google talk. For my university email, I clicked on the separate email app, and very quickly setup an IMAP link. It was much easier than on windows mobile. The program gave me total customization on how often to sync with the server.
There is also Facebook integration, which is very impressive. You enter your FB login, and then decide whether you want to sync all of your facebook friends info into contacts. Since I play Mafia Wars and have a couple hundred friends who I only know through the game, I did not select that. Yet, for the individuals in my google contacts, it recognizes any friends on FB, and provides an easy link to their profile in the contacts page. This also grabs photos for contacts. Again, easy to use, and extremely powerful.
The Droid runs on Google's Android 2.0 mobile OS. As such it marks a substantial change for folks running Windows Mobile, Blackberry, or the older Palm OS. Android comes with a marketplace of over 10,000 "apps" with which the device can be customized. Android is open-source, so there is a lot of potential for future development. I have only started to play with Android apps, but there are several good ones, such as Google Voice (for a complete VOIP solution), Pandora streaming radio, as well as a wide variety of other things, like The Weather Channel's weather app, and Amazon's mp3 store.
The Droid features three home pages. The main page that opens after you unlock the device (with a swish of the finger on a virtual dial) has default application shortcuts. You can drag up a full program menu from the bottom (or side – depending on orientation) with all installed programs. You can also drag the main screen to the left or the right for two additional screens which can be customized with application shortcuts as well as "widgets." I have added a widget for The Weather Channel and for Google Calendar on one screen, and shortcuts to my wife and son's contacts on the left screen.
The main screen also has a notification bar on the top of the screen, which lists new emails, missed phone calls, voice mail, etc... You drag on the bar and pull it down and it opens (like a blind) and you see all of your notifications. It is very easy to use. When done, you close the blind by dragging the button up. Finally, the main screen has a google search toolbar with a buton for voice search. Voice search is impressive. You hit the button it brings up a box and says "listening." You say "Call Joe at home" and it opens the phone app and places you one click away from dialing. Or say "Best Buy" and assuming the GPS has been turned on, it will bring up a google search page with Best Buy's page for the local store, complete with a google map. Very cool. Speaking of GPS, Droid comes with the new Google Maps GPS-enabled mapping software. It can identify where you are and provide point to point directions. And the map quality just shines on the high resolution screen.
The OS feels like it was designed for a touch screen from the ground up, unlike Windows Mobile 6.1, which is so Windows-like, you absolutely need a stylus to get almost anything done. In this sense, Android is similar to the iPhone's interface. The difference in Android is that you can multi-task and run several applications at once. The other difference is that you cannot use multi-touch features like on the iPhone. From my experience with the ipod touch, that feature is over-rated.
The Android OS includes a full-featured browser. The browser is one of the "wow" factors, given the huge screen. For many websites, you can load the "full" site as opposed to the mobile version. In widescreen mode the browser is slick. You can zoom in and out with a finger touch, plus there are multiple layers of zoom with a zoom button on the screen. It is very easy to use.
The last feature I'll touch on here is the 5 megapixel camera. So far, I am unimpressed with it. I don't expect good results with a camera phone in dark situations, and the Droid does not disappoint. Its performance is no better than my Omnia, even though it has a dual flash feature. I am still experimenting with the camera in outdoor settings.
Finally, a bit of advice. Protect the screen. Go buy a Zagg Invisible Shield. It is incredibly high quality and does a great job to ensure that the iphone-killing high resolution screen you spent a lot of money on stays in great shape.
Anyway, my preliminary review follows:
24 Hour Review: The Verizon Motorola Droid
The first thing I noticed about the droid upon opening the box was that it is a solid piece of machinery. It is mostly metal, and is a bit heavy. That is a positive, in that it does not feel like a toy; it is not in any way flimsy. The screen is huge with 854x480 resolution, and is sharp and extremely bright. The first thing I noticed with the droid was the picture quality. The best comparison is to go back a few years to the first High Resolution Palm PDAs and compare it with the original Palm III color. It is that apparent. While I do not own an iphone, I do own an ipod touch and a Samsung Omnia, and neither phone's resolution comes close. Why Apple continued with QVGA graphics in the latest model is beyond me, but I digress... this is a review of the Droid.
The droid has a fully qwerty keyboard that slides out under it. It has a flat keyboard, which takes a little getting used to, and it has a 4-way "joystick" (of sorts) on the right, with four directional buttons and an enter button. The keyboard is a bit small for my thumbs, but it is 100 times better than not having a keyboard, and I found that I could type with little errors with just a little training. My only complaint is that the space key is a bit small, and there are two unused keys on the left and right that are unexplained, and the space could have been used for larger keys. When the keyboard is open, the screen is automatically put in landscape (or widescreen) mode. If you close the keyboard and turn the device to a landscape position the accelerometer will automatically turn it, and just touching a text entry screen will open the virtual keyboard. The virtual keyboard is very easy to use in widescreen mode, although in portrait mode, the text is too small. The keys – and the soft touch buttons on the device all have "haptic" response – i.e., the machine has a small vibration in response to the pressing of the key. Very easy to use.
When you first setup the droid, you can either create a gmail account or link to an existing one. I did the latter, and it took about five minutes to initially sync all of my contacts. But once done, it did not require any configuration. That one step not only provided me with gmail access, but also gave me access to google calendar and google talk. For my university email, I clicked on the separate email app, and very quickly setup an IMAP link. It was much easier than on windows mobile. The program gave me total customization on how often to sync with the server.
There is also Facebook integration, which is very impressive. You enter your FB login, and then decide whether you want to sync all of your facebook friends info into contacts. Since I play Mafia Wars and have a couple hundred friends who I only know through the game, I did not select that. Yet, for the individuals in my google contacts, it recognizes any friends on FB, and provides an easy link to their profile in the contacts page. This also grabs photos for contacts. Again, easy to use, and extremely powerful.
The Droid runs on Google's Android 2.0 mobile OS. As such it marks a substantial change for folks running Windows Mobile, Blackberry, or the older Palm OS. Android comes with a marketplace of over 10,000 "apps" with which the device can be customized. Android is open-source, so there is a lot of potential for future development. I have only started to play with Android apps, but there are several good ones, such as Google Voice (for a complete VOIP solution), Pandora streaming radio, as well as a wide variety of other things, like The Weather Channel's weather app, and Amazon's mp3 store.
The Droid features three home pages. The main page that opens after you unlock the device (with a swish of the finger on a virtual dial) has default application shortcuts. You can drag up a full program menu from the bottom (or side – depending on orientation) with all installed programs. You can also drag the main screen to the left or the right for two additional screens which can be customized with application shortcuts as well as "widgets." I have added a widget for The Weather Channel and for Google Calendar on one screen, and shortcuts to my wife and son's contacts on the left screen.
The main screen also has a notification bar on the top of the screen, which lists new emails, missed phone calls, voice mail, etc... You drag on the bar and pull it down and it opens (like a blind) and you see all of your notifications. It is very easy to use. When done, you close the blind by dragging the button up. Finally, the main screen has a google search toolbar with a buton for voice search. Voice search is impressive. You hit the button it brings up a box and says "listening." You say "Call Joe at home" and it opens the phone app and places you one click away from dialing. Or say "Best Buy" and assuming the GPS has been turned on, it will bring up a google search page with Best Buy's page for the local store, complete with a google map. Very cool. Speaking of GPS, Droid comes with the new Google Maps GPS-enabled mapping software. It can identify where you are and provide point to point directions. And the map quality just shines on the high resolution screen.
The OS feels like it was designed for a touch screen from the ground up, unlike Windows Mobile 6.1, which is so Windows-like, you absolutely need a stylus to get almost anything done. In this sense, Android is similar to the iPhone's interface. The difference in Android is that you can multi-task and run several applications at once. The other difference is that you cannot use multi-touch features like on the iPhone. From my experience with the ipod touch, that feature is over-rated.
The Android OS includes a full-featured browser. The browser is one of the "wow" factors, given the huge screen. For many websites, you can load the "full" site as opposed to the mobile version. In widescreen mode the browser is slick. You can zoom in and out with a finger touch, plus there are multiple layers of zoom with a zoom button on the screen. It is very easy to use.
The last feature I'll touch on here is the 5 megapixel camera. So far, I am unimpressed with it. I don't expect good results with a camera phone in dark situations, and the Droid does not disappoint. Its performance is no better than my Omnia, even though it has a dual flash feature. I am still experimenting with the camera in outdoor settings.
Finally, a bit of advice. Protect the screen. Go buy a Zagg Invisible Shield. It is incredibly high quality and does a great job to ensure that the iphone-killing high resolution screen you spent a lot of money on stays in great shape.
Supporting Founder
Really excited for this season with Kentucky having a new coach and some really exciting recruits. Probably won't last long, but here's hoping this season is great.
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2314 views
Pub Member / Supporter
Walter Koenig, Chekov on Original ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 90
Walter Koenig, who memorably played Chekov in the original "Star Trek" series and seven "Star Trek" feature films, died Sunday in Los Angeles.
variety.com
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Rest In Peace 
Lifetime Supporter
I know HipKat said that they were working on conversions but we got the official news yesterday right from Dish that starting next month all DMA's will be on the western arc, and all customers will be assigned to that. That's gonna mean a lot of customers around here aren't gonna get Dish unless there are exceptions. Too many mountains and trees.
169 Replies
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4681 views
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
Time for another AWESOME video from the TWIT Network!
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SqPMCS9OOSY
Direct YouTube Link - Preorders Open for the Brax Wink De-Googled Phone #shorts
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
View: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SqPMCS9OOSY
Direct YouTube Link - Preorders Open for the Brax Wink De-Googled Phone #shorts
TWIT's Website
TWIT Live Feed
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8 views
Supporting Founder
Lifetime Supporter
This is a thread that will keep you apprised of 4K events that will be showing on Dish channel 540. Keep looking here for information.
As of today, 9-27-17, there are no scheduled events posted for the next 2 weeks. That is subject to change on a daily basis.
As of today, 9-27-17, there are no scheduled events posted for the next 2 weeks. That is subject to change on a daily basis.
768 Replies
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167892 views
. can we say over priced garbage!!!I'm thinking of switching to DirecTV and wanted to know what equipment I should be asking for.
I'm wanting wired satellite due to that fact that I live in the sticks and there is no reliable, decent speed internet for streaming available.
What would be the correct equipment for three 4K tvs in the house?
I'm wanting wired satellite due to that fact that I live in the sticks and there is no reliable, decent speed internet for streaming available.
What would be the correct equipment for three 4K tvs in the house?
59 Replies
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1073 views
S
why not just do a rebranding of the two
As they pivot away from using dishes and more toward streaming, the DirecTV brand would make much more sense.why not just do a rebranding of the two
been there 
S
agree to a certain point!!! is charlies pockets gonna get tight and will he cancel channels because he don't want to pay for them??? a hopper 3 on dtv channel lineup would be amazing and every mans dream come true lol
Squirrels have eaten my antenna wire on my home unit that is a car radio running of the 12 volt side of my solar system. I need a new antenna and would like to add something to one of my existing masts. The reason I am looking at this that I am also covered in trees which has not been a problem, but something mast mounted would future proof me. Thanks in advance.
7 Replies
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175 views
A
We have the pro-500 and it's a beast pulling in the signal!!! always full bars no matter how much it rains. it's worth every penny
I am a animal lover, but this year I gave up gardening. Even moved it to potted plants on the second story deck last year. Can't tell you how much use my Ruger 10-22 got, but it was a losing battle for me. Never got any food. So now they eat coax instead! 20 acres of dense woods behind me and my stuff tastes better, either veggies or wires!
A
i might think about running cables through some conduit to prevent the Squirrels from chewing em all to hell
Staff member
HERE TO HELP YOU!
Cutting Edge
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
So let the game continue!
The last song was added by Bobby who posted...
One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters
CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!
Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game
Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.
Example:
Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow
Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio
Another example:
Ride the Lightning -- Metallica
Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne
Get it?
An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68619 Replies
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2678297 views
Staff member
HERE TO HELP YOU!
We have a Breakfast and Dinner thread so...
Continuing from the Breakfast thread, found Cornbread mix so ...
Yellow Cornbread Mix
2 Hatch Green Chiles -diced
1 Egg
2/3 cup of milk
add to greased pan
Bake for 400f 20-25 minutes(From instructions)
now to put together and try... this to go with pinto beans...
Continuing from the Breakfast thread, found Cornbread mix so ...
Yellow Cornbread Mix
2 Hatch Green Chiles -diced
1 Egg
2/3 cup of milk
add to greased pan
Bake for 400f 20-25 minutes(From instructions)
now to put together and try... this to go with pinto beans...
5447 Replies
·
335874 views
