Droid Incredible

[GSRCRXsi]

Meh. The cable doesn't bother me. You need a cable for any phone. iPod cables are so standard and readily available at this point that it's almost moot what connector you have. If you don't have a cable for either phone you're fucked either way. My car also has a regular USB port so I can charge and play my iPhone simultaneously

 

[K2e2vin]

It looks like any mini usb cable will work; Motorola, LG, and Kodak camera cable has work on my HTC

 

[jeffie7]

Meh. The cable doesn't bother me. You need a cable for any phone. iPod cables are so standard and readily available at this point that it's almost moot what connector you have. If you don't have a cable for either phone you're fucked either way. My car also has a regular USB port so I can charge and play my iPhone simultaneously

I'm gonna call you out and say BS now you sound like an apple guy.

Apple uses 1 cable for Apple stuff, it works for NOTHING else. If you're not an apple guy then you wont have one outside of what Apple gives you.

Micro USB FTMFW! they can be found everywhere and the last 3 phones (all 3 different brands) used it.

My brother bought an iphone while in maryland (he lives in south America) he needed a charger and was all annoyed knowing damn well no one in our family would have one, weird how we all offered our mini usb cables lol. oh wait, that's right.... Thankfully for him Linh has a giant ipod (old school) and that uses the correct cable. Outside of that... no.

Apple cables are just like any other phone cables? no, they work with 1 brand and not a damn thing else. Plus they're bright white and they're way too damn short.

 

[jeffie7]

It looks like any mini usb cable will work; Motorola, LG, and Kodak camera cable has work on my HTC

yup, I used my Blackbarry charger on my moto droid and now my HTC droid.
The HTC droid comes with a mini USB cable and a little adapter that plugs into the wall and the USB cable plugs into the adapter.

 

[GSRCRXsi]

Jeff, I was saying that they are common. Not that they are the same as anything else. You can get a cable from pretty much anywhere. Lots of companies make them. You aren't stuck with having to get it from apple or anything. Almost everyone has an iPod so it's not hard to find someone with a cable if you need one quickly. And no I'm not an apple guy. My iPhone and iPod nano that was a gift are the only apple products I own. I'm not a fanboi by any means, I just think the phone has the beat aesthetics and balance of features for what I do. Aside from being on verizon, there really isn't much you can't do on an iPhone that you can do on an other phone. Smart phones can all pretty much do the same things at this point. They just look different

 

[klyph]

Jeff, I was saying that they are common. Not that they are the same as anything else. You can get a cable from pretty much anywhere. Lots of companies make them. You aren't stuck with having to get it from apple or anything. Almost everyone has an iPod so it's not hard to find someone with a cable if you need one quickly.

Jeff is just saying that apple uses a proprietary cable that is useless outside of the iProduct realm. Proprietary cables suck, there is no arguing that. Despite the proliferation of iDevices, it makes no sense from a design standpoint. In my gadget bag, I need ONE cable for my external HD, camera, phone, card reader, and most other devices. The point is that it's a better design to have USB, not that you can't "get by just fine" with an iCable.

And no I'm not an apple guy. My iPhone and iPod nano that was a gift are the only apple products I own. I'm not a fanboi by any means, I just think the phone has the beat aesthetics and balance of features for what I do. Aside from being on verizon, there really isn't much you can't do on an iPhone that you can do on an other phone. Smart phones can all pretty much do the same things at this point. They just look different

I disagree completely. When the iPhone came out it was innovative and had functionality beyond other brands, but Android has consistently been outpacing Apple with new features and Apple has been SLOW on keeping up. Things like multitasking only entered Apple's radar when they realized it would help them make money on advertisements. Basically, unless Apple sees a way to make money off of a feature they won't include it. They have abandoned providing the best product and chose to make the product that will make the most money.
The Android OS being open source means that new innovation is encouraged and developers are tapping into that, creating user experiences that take other phone manufacturers years to implement.
To the average consumer, most of what you say is true, the extra features and open architecture of Android is meaningless, as they are already iCattle, all their media is bought through iTunes, and their user experience is controlled and identical to the rest of the herd. This does not bother the average consumer, they get what they want, and it's easy. They don't have to learn how to operate all the functions because the functions are so "intuitive and user-friendly" (limited and dumbed-down).
Really it boils down to what level of geek you are. Not everyone wants or needs what Android offers, nor do they care if a company limits and controls every aspect of the technology. For those of us that do care, Android is the obvious choice.

 

[jeffie7]

I don't care how geek you are, it sucks when playing an iphone game, need to go back to the home screen to check message or something on the net only to drop the game =( My god that sucks.

I dislike my iphone more and more every day I use my droid.

 

[Drake]

Multitasking = WebOS

/thread

 

[jeffie7]

Multitasking = WebOS

/thread

Don't worry Iphone 4.0 will have it!

 

[Briansol]

plus, the iphone costs more and you get stuck with at&fail

 

[GSRCRXsi]

The droid is 200 after a mail I rebate of 100 from what I found searching. Correct if that's wrong, random Internet sources aren't always reliable. And that's for a 8gb phone. The iPhone is 200 straight up for the 16gb 3GS. My bill is 85/month with unlimited data and text, 450 min w/ rollover. As far as AT&T, I've had no issues. I get full service and 3G nearly everywhere. Oh and I can talk and surf the web at the same time

 

[E_SolSi]

the Droid Incredible is $200... the $300 - $100 thing is an instant rebate and is standard pretty much everywhere... so its a $200 phone... (wirefly has it for $190) im sure other places have similar or better deals

cheapest available plan with verizon will be... 450 minutes (no rollover) with unlimited text and data... and is going to cost about $90 monthly ($59.99 + $29.99)

an 8GB microSD card can be had for $10 bringing the total memory even with the 16GB iPhone (for the same price if purchased through wirefly or somewhere with a similar deal)
a 16GB microSD card will cost you around $30-35...
the phone will accept up to 32GB cards for a total of 40GB at any time...
and you can use as many of them as you want... meaning that your storage space is essentially limitless


***
oh and as far as talking and surfing at the same time... you can be on a call and surf via wifi if you have a wifi connection available... but you can not talk and surf at the same time over the 3G connection, like you can with AT&T (you might be able to with a VOIP program and multi-tasking... unsure)


here is some interesting info someone posted up on another site

http://able2know.org/topic/141783-1

As for data and voice... yeah, Verizon uses the CDMA version of 3G, called EvDO. They change the name at some point, but this used to stand for "Evolution - Data Only". It's pure IP. So you might talk via a VoIP application if you had one, but there's no voice layer in 3G mode.

There are trade-offs. The big advantage of EvDO is that EvDO Rev A (which DROID and pretty much every cell in the network supports) does 3.1Mb/s downlinks (peak) over the same 2.5MHz channel (1.25MHz down, 1.25MHz up) as your voice link. So it was much the same radio gear and exactly the same spectrum as EDGE. So every cell does 3G.

In the GSM world, they're using HSPA or HSPA+ these days, which does have a 3G voice mode. They added that mainly to get around some nasty standard voice issues. In all CDMA and GSM 3G, there's a "soft handoff" between cells.. . you phone can remain attached to three cells at once, with the cells deciding where the call actually routes. So you never drop a working cell until a stronger one is available. On GSM voice, they do "hard handoff"... they drop one cell, then very quickly pick up the next. It leads to more dropped calls, but fixed in 3G.

The downside is hardware and spectrum. A basic HSPA connection gives you 3.6Mb/s down (peak), but requires 10MHz of bandwidth, 5MHz up, 5MHz down. So they needed not only all-new cell-tower gear, but new spectrum. HSPA+ peaks at 7.2Mb/s down, but works with two coupled cells on the same tower, for 20MHz bandwidth needed. This is why, by area, AT&T only has 3G in about 20% of their coverage area (it's much better by population, of course... you can get HSPA in most large cities, and by the summer, HSPA+ in about 40 cities in the USA).

HSPA+ can also do 2Mb/s uploads. But the iPhone only supports the original EDGE upload speed of 384kb/s... even the 3GS, which does HSPA+ downloads.

 

[jeffie7]

Another cool thing with the droid is it has built in software for using it as a internet connection for a lap top. plug a usb cable in and you can choose to

Charge
View as external HD
Allow computer to use as a internet connection
debug mode

Also there's another thing called skype, its a standard app allowing you to call anywhere for free if you have a internet connection

My iphone does all that, but only after cracking it.

The main difference is the Droid is straight up faster. It's like a honda Civic EX VS a S2000

My droid was $150 after rebate, 8GB built in memory and 2GB free from verizon. I have another 8GB SD card in it now and if I run out of room I'll use my 16GB card from my video camera.

I really love how Apple doesn't allow you to use any standard memory cards. Come on Apple whats up! even the new Iphone (so they say) is lacking any memory slots.

Its ok though, because to iphone users if apple doesn't want it, then its clearly not needed.

 

[Briansol]

my price is $149 with verzion upgrade.... and the plan is the same as what i'm on now, $87.xx a month incl taxes and all with he 450m + unlimited text/data.

 

[fattygone]

Mmm the new droid is indeed a smashing deal that kicks the iphones butt..
-Besides, apple really doesn't care about their customers anymore, it's all about money.

 

[GSRCRXsi]

Skype is only free for skype to skype calls FYI. Calls to land lines do cost money.

I just don't like having the storage split up between two sources because some things will only write to one source or the other. I don't think you can make the phone see it as all one space.

I really would like to jb my iPhone just so I can tether it. But it works fine as is. I also don't want to rely on USB for tethering. I'd really like to be able to make the phone broadcast the 3g signal over wireless and use it as a hot spot. Not sure if that's possible though.

 

[Drake]

S
I really would like to jb my iPhone just so I can tether it. But it works fine as is. I also don't want to rely on USB for tethering. I'd really like to be able to make the phone broadcast the 3g signal over wireless and use it as a hot spot. Not sure if that's possible though.

I dont know if it is possible to do it with a jail broken iPhone or not, but with my Pre I can tether via wi-fi or usb. So the principle is sound and functions but I dont know if you can do it with an iPhone.

 

[GSRCRXsi]

Looks like there is an app for it but it appears to absolutely destroy the battery. Like it will drain the battery even when it's plugged into power lol. Also I think there is a hack that let's you share the connection via USB.

Does a jail broken iPhone restore it? Will I lose everything I already have? Or does it just add the new app store for access to ther apps?

 

[jeffie7]

I just changed my keyboard over to a swype keyboard. holy chit is it fast or what!

I'll have to get a video of it tomorrow if I have time, best part about it is I can type swype one handed without even looking at the keyboard since i know a keyboard layout.

Only downside I see is it removes the key that allows you to do speech recognition
although I only used it while driving, since I can now one hand type I guess I wont have a use for it. although it would be nice if someone added it later.

This is not a normal app, however since the phone is open source with ZERO restrictions you just drag/drop the single file onto the phone using a usb cable and launch it. done.

 

[jeffie7]

YouTube - Using Swype on my HTC Incredible

YouTube - Installing swype on the HTC Incredible droid phone