Cell Phone - Droid X Smart Phone

[D33r3 6r33N]

I have had Verizon for 12 years now. I actually am using the first Droid. (This app is awsome by the way!) Around here ATT and Sprint are not that great signal wise but I never lose a call on Verizon. They actually put up a new tower on my way to work last month.
So I guess get a phone and provider you feel the most comfortable with. Its kinda like buying a tractor! :thumbsup:

 

[lhfarm]

I guess I will someday get a app style phone, but am at a loss for what one or carrier. We have had verizon for years; but I dont get reception at my parents; att does. Am thinking of ATT for the next phone; what is the style of phones they carry? Between the Blackberry, I phone, and Droid, is there much difference in what they can do?

In a former life, I managed tech support that included mobile devices. The Blackberry was the device of choice for corporate email (Microsoft Exchange), until the iPhone came along. The iPhone could do so many more things well and did a good job with corporate email too. In my part of the world ATT didn't have good coverage and I waited for Verizon to have something as good as the iPhone before giving up the Blackberry. I got a Droid when they were first released.

As you can tell from comments in this thread, the new phones in the iPhone and Droid class are really handheld computers that also have a built in phone. I too don't carry a notebook when I travel nearly as much as I did. And with the new TBN app, I'm really going to set to use the Droid when I'm on the road.

I've not seen the newer Blackberry models, but I love my Droid, as do all the folks I know who own them. The same is true of my iPhone friends. I don't think you could go wrong with either device.

 

[Bird]

Until 1993 I did not even know what a cell phone was and now think I need a Smart Phone.

We got our first cell phone in 1999.:laughing: My current cell phone, Motorola V551, is nearly 5.5 years old, which I guess is an antique where cell phones are concerned. AT&T doesn't have batteries for "anything that old" as the lady told me a couple of years ago, but Batteries Plus has them. I'd like to have a new phone, but all I want is one with plenty of volume and speaker for an old hard of hearing man to hear, and a camera. But so far it seems the choices are a "Go Phone" with no camera or an expensive monstrosity with all the capabilities for which I have absolutely no use. I'll take everyone's word for Verizon having better coverage than AT&T, but in the last 5 years, my old AT&T phone has never dropped a call and I've not found one single place that it didn't work just fine when I needed it.

 

[dmccarty]

We reworked our phone plan over the summer and ended up buying two Samsung Captivates. We were on TMobile and wanted to stay with them but they did not have a data plan for $15/month. So we went with ATT. TMobile did negotiate but the bottom line is we would have been paying more for data we did not need so we went with ATT.

We bought the phone from New Egg, Newegg.com Cell Phone Shop

Since we were new customers we got the phones for about $50 each, no activation fees, etc. We were able to rework the phone service so we are paying about the same as before but now we have the data plan. We think we might be able to tweek the plan again to get a lower price but we will wait a few more months.

Right now 200MB has been enough data. EXCEPT my phone went nuts one night and chewed up over 100MB over night. ATT said they did not know what happened. I think they can find out but we did not push it. We were going on vacation so we were going to pay for 2GB anyway.

When Android 2.2 is released for our phone, hopefully in December, the new OS is supposed to tell you how much bandwidth each app is using. I did have an app watching the amount of bandwidth being used but I had not set it low enough to alert me when the phone went nuts. I had set it with the idea of me using the data not an app consuming lots of bandwidth in a short period of time. The bandwidth watching app is NOW set to tell me if an app goes bonkers.

I do not know how we lived with out the phones. It is so handy to be out somewhere and be able to check email or read your favorite websites. I was out and about Sunday working a haunted house. A conversation popped up about snakes and how a person was scared of them. I started talking about the snakes on our place including the black snake that was on our brick walls. :laughing: I pulled out the phone, accessed my Google account, and presto, here is a picture of the snake on the wall. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

These phones are computers with call capability.

One reason we bought them is that we have been driving to new places and having a GPS in the car would be nice. Looking at dedicated GPS for both cars did not make money sense. Getting a smart phone with GPS made money sense. The Captivate has some issues with the GPS. It takes a while to lock on but once it does it works fine for us. We have used in on quite a few trips and it is one of those things that once you used it you ask how did you live without it. Course the GPS can lead you wrong if you are not careful. This bit us on vacation but not bad.

Later,
Dan

 

[jlsmith]

Who has the deal buy one and get one free?

Verizon. Right now you can buy one for 300 and get a 100 mail in rebate bringing it down to $200 and you get the second one free. Now this is on a upgrade which i have to wait till Dec to do it. Which is good cuz it both mine and my wifes B-day and christmas time. Think it will make a good present.:thumbsup:

 

[RadarTech]

Coverage is a matter of terrain,leaf color, humidity, radio type (3G, EVDO, etc) and where you travel to....

I have Verizon and have had it for nearly 10 years..
minus a 3 month stint on AT&T..
AT&T works great in most urban areas, when I goto the NC mountains, it was aweful..
Since I live in the NC mtns and work in Spartanburg, SC.. this was a big deal..

I have a friend that has AT&T and 98% of the time if I have weak signal he has NONE. that 2% of the time, I really could careless...

Those 2% of the time, he has full bars, we are under the AT&T tower that is AT&T only.. I suspect this is just a tower sharing issue..


Before I would change carriers, get a loaner phone, and yes they will do this..
OR ask them for the 30 day trial deal..
Another thing to consider-- is who do you call on your cell?
if you call mostly others on the same carrier- IE on verizon and call mostly verizon--- (check your bill)... Then think hard about the savings...

I know someone who said they would save $30 a month on AT&T... Changed, and then found out that they were paying $75 more due to the majority of the folks they called were on Verizon and no longer a free call!

Hope this helps!

J

 

[Bird]

RadarTech, I'm sure you're right. Of course I live in an urban area, but my old AT&T phone has worked just fine, both here, and going through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and southern West Virginia.

Of course I do things a little differently because I don't even like to talk on a telephone and don't do much of it. Both of our daughters, our sons-in-law and our grandkids all have some kind of family plan with T-Mobile so they can talk to each other without using up their minutes. Our youngest daughter has provided my wife with a T-Mobile phone on their plan, but since our daughter pays for it, I don't even know what it costs. But my wife only uses that phone to talk to the kids.

If we go out and don't want to miss any calls, I forward the home phone to my old AT&T phone and let my wife answer it if it rings.

Daughter says it would only cost $10 a month to add me to the family plan, but for the amount I use a phone, that's too much.:laughing: When we first got a cell phone from Southwestern Bell Mobile, which changed names to Cingular, which changed names to AT&T, we had a plan that cost $29.99 a month plus taxes and other fees for a total of about $36.00 a month. Now that my wife has that other (T-Mobile) phone, I changed my old phone to a pre-paid $.0.25 a minute plan. I first put $100 in it that was good for a year. When the year was up, I still had over $60 in it. So I don't use a cell phone as much as most of you do.:laughing:

 

[RadarTech]

RadarTech, I'm sure you're right. Of course I live in an urban area, but my old AT&T phone has worked just fine, both here, and going through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, and southern West Virginia.

Of course I do things a little differently because I don't even like to talk on a telephone and don't do much of it. Both of our daughters, our sons-in-law and our grandkids all have some kind of family plan with T-Mobile so they can talk to each other without using up their minutes. Our youngest daughter has provided my wife with a T-Mobile phone on their plan, but since our daughter pays for it, I don't even know what it costs. But my wife only uses that phone to talk to the kids.

If we go out and don't want to miss any calls, I forward the home phone to my old AT&T phone and let my wife answer it if it rings.

Daughter says it would only cost $10 a month to add me to the family plan, but for the amount I use a phone, that's too much.:laughing: When we first got a cell phone from Southwestern Bell Mobile, which changed names to Cingular, which changed names to AT&T, we had a plan that cost $29.99 a month plus taxes and other fees for a total of about $36.00 a month. Now that my wife has that other (T-Mobile) phone, I changed my old phone to a pre-paid $.0.25 a minute plan. I first put $100 in it that was good for a year. When the year was up, I still had over $60 in it. So I don't use a cell phone as much as most of you do.:laughing:

WOW--- I use it for work and all..
PLUS-- I am hardly ever home these days... so it doubles as the home phone--

I think last month I got told it was 3000 minutes...
But only about 800 counted for billing of time to the contract-- nites and weekends are free, and Verizon to Verizon is free.

If I go back to the basics--
err- my name here--- Radartech---
All radios, cell phones, radars, walkie talkies, CBs etc.. all share the same characteristics... It is just how well placed the towers are and the type of radio..

In the Corps we had an old radar that could see a dove drop a speck of crap...
and we had another that could only track stuff the size of a cesna 182 or bigger... It was all about that transmitter/reciever pairing and sensitivity calibrations...

Of course the "poorly sighted" radar was only for gap filling and was much more durable to be hoisted by helo and sat in crazy places....


J

 

[Dargo]

Coverage is a matter of terrain,leaf color, humidity, radio type (3G, EVDO, etc) and where you travel to....

I have Verizon and have had it for nearly 10 years..
minus a 3 month stint on AT&T..
AT&T works great in most urban areas, when I goto the NC mountains, it was aweful..
Since I live in the NC mtns and work in Spartanburg, SC.. this was a big deal..

I have a friend that has AT&T and 98% of the time if I have weak signal he has NONE. that 2% of the time, I really could careless...

Those 2% of the time, he has full bars, we are under the AT&T tower that is AT&T only.. I suspect this is just a tower sharing issue..


Before I would change carriers, get a loaner phone, and yes they will do this..
OR ask them for the 30 day trial deal..
Another thing to consider-- is who do you call on your cell?
if you call mostly others on the same carrier- IE on verizon and call mostly verizon--- (check your bill)... Then think hard about the savings...

I know someone who said they would save $30 a month on AT&T... Changed, and then found out that they were paying $75 more due to the majority of the folks they called were on Verizon and no longer a free call!

Hope this helps!

J

I have an iPhone 4 in my left front pocket and a Sprint Evo 4G in my left front pocket. In some areas I get coverage on one and not the other, but I honestly can't say one is better than the other. For those who don't know, Sprint uses Verizon towers anytime there isn't a Sprint tower, so it's exactly the same coverage as my daughter's Verizon phone.

Being a very heavy cell phone user (my mobile office), I can honestly say that it's sort of like a Chevy vs Ford sort of thing. Neither carrier has any real advantage over the other carrier. Of course, that's not what they want to tell you in their advertisements. LOL!

The other thing is that I find that the Samsung Evo using the Android software and the iPhone 4 are about the same as well. Sure, they are different, but they are more the same than they are different. After using an iPhone since they first came out I didn't think I could get used to another smart phone very easy. I tried the Verizon Storm and have to say that it was, by far, the worst phone I've ever used. However, I can't say that I have any real preference between the Android vs iPhone 4. I suppose I may give a slight nod to the Android right now. Next software update I may give a slight nod to Apple. Again, sort of like Chevy vs Ford. I like both of them.

My only issue, which I'm going to have to take up with AT&T, is their pricing. Sprint does truly give you more for less money than AT&T and Verizon. Since I pay my daughter's Verizon bill, I think I can speak for all 3 I mentioned. Sprint has come a long way in the last 5 years. They gave me a 30 day trial about 5 years ago trying to get me to move all my company phones over to them and their coverage was terrible. IMHO, they've caught AT&T. Whether it's because they've put up more towers or because they share with Verizon, I don't know. If you happen to be in one of the very few places where Sprint has 4G, wow, does it really blow the others away if you use your phone for things other than phone calls. For phone calls, it makes no difference. For web browsing I'd say it 'feels' like it's about 4X as fast as 3G.

Anyway, that's my take from being a heavy user and footing the bill for over a dozen phones that encompass the three major networks I've mentioned. Of course, depending on where you live, your mileage may vary; as they say.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Picked up my own Droid X at the local Verizon dealer since the wife jumped my case when I asked to play with her new Droid X last night.

Still not sure I need one but I expect as my mind changes I will need all of the reminder aids possible.

I noticed the wife and kids had made a lot of tracks on the web the last few days so at least they are using it a lot and the $30 data package is not limited.

After I get better with it I want to research the APPS out there that may make it more useful to me. From my research it and the iPhone 4 are rated about the same overall by users that have both.

While Verizon may have iPhones sometimes next year per some reports (the folks at Verizon today said they will believe it when they see it) AT&T is not even an option I would consider because of their hit and miss connections where I live. We had that before Verizon built a tower up the road and I saw I was roaming on Verizon (at a price back then). My neighbor just went back to AT&T to save a buck but can not use his cell phone when at home. If I am dying I want a working phone network. :thumbsup: In the 2009 ice storm Verizon was the first one back up too.

Well back to Smart Phones I will tell you more later about how the Droid X works out. As suggested I did get a free Samsung flip phone for tractor and dirty use in the field/woods. The monthly cost is $10 more plus I got another $50 off the Droid X because I was out of contract.

If it did not do the speech to text so the keyboard is not 'required' I am not sure I would have got sucked in at this time.