Some Android questions

[randyokc-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org (Randy Cole)]

Jerry,

The Motorola Droid is the only Motorola Android phone which is
"rootable".  So I assume that the Backflip will have root locked (and
will only accept signed updates).  Also the Backflip is probably Android
1.6 vs. 2.0.1 on the Droid and 2.1 on the Nexus One, although updates
will appear "eventually".


I've had the Motorola Droid for a week or so.  I like it a lot.  But the
hotness is the Google Nexus One, which has a processor that is about 2x
the Droids.  I know two people that immediately auctioned their
brand-new Motorola Droids on e-bay and planned to get a Nexus One
instead.  (Nexus One presently doesn't do AT&T 3G; rumor has it that
there is a model that does, but it may not appear in the US).  BTW,
there is an AT&T compatible version of the Droid for sale on Canada's
Telus as the Motorola Milestone


Upsides:
=====
Sipdroid integrates with the phone app.  When sipdroid is running, the
phone app can be used to place & receive VOIP calls, certainly over wifi.

Moto Droid has the largest screen and resolution of any Android or
iphone presently.  (I think there is some Samsung somewhere that has the
same size screen).

Video playback is excellent.  Youtube app is smoother than my laptop.

Macho "DROID!!!!" sound.  Sounds closer to a Cylon than R2-D2.


Some of the downsides of the Motorola Droid:
============================

It's Verizon, so I haven't activated it yet.  Can't figure out yet how
to get it activated on Straight Talk or MetroPCS ;).  (If anyone can
offer assistance, let me know).   So for right now it is wifi only.  The
browser doesn't seem to cache pages, so you can't look at old pages offline.

It has a polycarbonate-type plastic face, which will scratch much easier
than glass, which I believe the iphone uses.

It comes with a removable 16GB SD card (fat32 I think?), upgradable to
32GB, but the file system is configured so that apps have to be stored
internally.  I'm already getting space warnings.  I haven't figured out
how to overcome this.

Physical keys are too flat - not much improvement over the screen
keyboard.  Touch typing - virtually impossible.

Gmail client doesn't do folders.  No yahoo mail client for android.

Droid is "Flash Ready", but flash is not ready.  So websites requiring
adobe flash don't work.

Airplane mode turns off CDMA and wifi, then have to turn on wifi. 
Rebooting turns off the wifi.

Entering a 63? character wireless key is horrendous.  Had to type it
into a note then copy-paste.

wifi ability is much weaker than my laptop.

When I turned off ssid broadcast, I had to delete the existing
connection, reboot, and add the connection again for it to be recognized.

Haven't figured out how to do ad and script blocking.

Hard to tell if installed apps are compromising your privacy.



Jerry Feldman wrote:
> I will be replacing my Blackberry with the new Motorola Backflip with
> Motoblur that is now available through AT&T wireless. While I'm not
> locked in to AT&T Wireless getting my wife and mother to move to new
> phones is an issue.
>
> Most of the features of the Android phones I am familiar with, but a
> couple of things I'd like to do:\. First, I would like to be able to
> share my contacts with Thunderbird. I know that I can sync with Google.
> The Calendar is less important because I already use Google Calendar. I
> would like to be able to sync with Outlook for work. The other thing is
> sharing contacts between Android and Thunderbird. More specifically, my
> Thunderbird contacts are huge, and I don't want to pollute my PDA
> contacts. But I would like to be able to use and update the Android
> contacts from my hime Linux system. This leaves 1 question:
> With builtin WiFi, can I NFS export Android so I can access the contacts
> directly.
>
> Another issue is some password stuff. With the Palm I used to have the
> memo pad with some entries password protected. If for some reason I lost
> my Palm, the passwords and other data would at least be a bit difficult
> to get at (but crackable). I'd like an app where I could keep sensitive
> data encrypted but also that I could share that data with Linux and
> possibly with Putty on that other OS.
>
> Basically, what I want is a Palm or Blackberry-like memo pad (I've seen
> a few apps that seem to fit the bill such as "Sticky Memo Widget Lite".
>
>
> BTW: My daughter's boyfrind has a Moto Droid and loved the Google GPS
> turn by turn directions.
>
> The other things that are important to me, like backup is is already
> available, so
>
>   
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