The All-Inclusive Android Thread - Page 4

If the Google phone goes the way it has been described, full data plan with VOIP and no calling plan, I might seriously look at dropping my iPhone. $120 a month for my iPhone versus a $60 data plan and an equivalent phone is worth looking into. Of course, I doubt you can transfer your number that way, and I have had my cell number since 2001.

Oh Lisa, I share in your Tour woes. In fact, I think I might have mentioned the Tour to you in another thread, so I feel doubly worse about it.

It's a shitty, shitty phone. Just horrible, with that defective track ball, and the danger of the entire system crashing anytime you upload a new app--unofficial or not.
I have the Tour on Sprint, and I'm about to get it replaced for the third time in five months. What a complete fucking nightmare.

Sprint will be increasing prices in January, which means that most Sprint customers will get the opportunity to cancel their accounts with no ETF. I HATE Verizon with the heat of a trillion suns, but the Droid is too awesome for words.
I don't know if I can swallow my pride and go crawling back to Verizon, or stay with Sprint because they have cheap, cheap, cheap plans, but my time with RIM is over.

One way or the other (through HTC or Motorola) I'm jumping ship to Android.

Edited to add: From what I read on Crackberry.com Lisa, Verizon knows and acknowledges that the trackball on the Tour is defective, and many people have either gotten the phone replaced with another Tour, the new Curve, the new Storm 2 (don't do it!) or the new Droid--I think you stand a DAMN good chance of getting your Tour replaced with a Droid if you complain hard enough.

The Tour is a failure, which is why they're rushing out all of these new Blackberries, incredulously even a Tour 2, which was announced a mere 5 months after they debuted the first generation of the phone--it will have a new trackpad and fucking Wi-Fi.

Fuck RIM.

Oh, dude, you are AWESOME! I'm gonna see what I can do about getting it replaced with the Droid as soon as I can! Thanks for the heads up, Cocoa!

Oh yeah, for further gloating: my bill dropping by $30 was a nice touch too.

Jesus, I'll bet! I mean, for as much as AT&T blows, the plan with the iPhone was WAY cheaper than I've got with the Tour and Verizon. If I switch to the Droid, I could sure stand for my plan to drop a little. The plan is cheaper, yah?

Cocoa, I just got back from doing some Christmas shopping, so by the time I was done, I just wanted to get home. But I'm gonna try to get out to Verizon this week and get my whine on. Wish me luck!

And you know, for all the hopeful talk that iPhone users say about, "Oh, well, Apple's going to go with Verizon in a year or so - just hold tight", it's not going to happen. The guy at the Verizon store told me that Apple initially made it's first offer for exclusive iPhone rights to Verizon, and Verizon turned them down. Dunno why, but this is what I hear. It sounds like it was just a matter of time before Verizon came out with a smart phone of their own that would seriously give the iPhone a run for it's money. By the sound of it, looks like the Droid could be it.

Hint: Salespeople who work at Verizon don't know anything more than anybody who read Engadget or Gizmodo.

I'm sure Apple shopped it around and got the best offer from AT&T (It couldn't hurt that it saved them the trouble of engineering new revisions for world release). But I doubt that the guy who works at the Verizon or AT&T store was privy to the meetings that Apple had with the carriers before the iPhone was unveiled.

I too, am stuck in trackball-hell with my Tour (it seems to have just started doing this yesterday. Eerie.) I'm gonna see if Verizon will let me get a droid if I complain enough.

Yeah, it's pretty widely acknowledged that Verizon turned down the iPhone initially, probably because Verizon wanted to put its shitty proprietary OS on it. But that was a long time ago, and while no one knows exactly when AT&T's exclusivity is up, you may notice that Verizon's vicious ad campaign for the Droid quickly and mysteriously stopped making fun of the iPhone itself.

I kid you not, sometimes it takes me around five, maybe seven minutes to check my email - THAT'S how long it takes for me to eventually get the tracking ball to go over to where I need it to be. I'm sick of it, you'll never convince me that there's anything better than touch-screen.

THe other important element of iPhone to Verizon is that were on the cusp of 4G technology. While AT&T and Verizon use incompatible 3G technologies, both of them are using a technology called LTE for their 4G networks, which increases the possibility of a multi-provider iPhone.

Well Verizon is making me bring the Tour in for repairs and won't let me get another phone. Jerks.

Oh, I refuse to let them get their hands on my phone. First of all, this is my second one since August - I don't think I mentioned that. Same problem, the tracking ball. They replaced the whole device for me for free. But for it to be happening again, nope, sorry, no repairs. Either they replace it with the Droid, or I'll buy the Droid when I'm ready, but they don't get a shot at repairing something that's clearly defective. Besides, I cancelled my home phone service to save money and because I just don't need two numbers. So no, they don't get the only phone I've got.

Hope everyone got Beautiful Widgets while the getting was good, because they got pulled from the market today.

Oh, and if you feel constrained by the limitations on the number of apps per screen, take a look at More Icons. It's not my cup of tea, but I can see how it would be incredibly useful.

Why'd they get pulled? I got lucky with the latest upgrade.

Constant vigilance with Verizon, and don't take no for an answer. You might have to hang up and call back a couple of times, or press the "I want to cancel my account" option when calling, that way you'll be able to speak to someone who's only priority is keeping you happy and saving the account.

It's a pain and a little skeevy, but they sold you guys a defective phone, and replacing it is not going to work. They deserve to have the screws put to them.

Also, screw Verizon. The only reason I'm with them is the outstanding cell phone coverage. I'm fine with people throwing them a grudgefuck here and there.

Oh no! Just ordered my Blackberry from work, and I initially was going to get a Tour but changed my mind and went for the Storm 2. I hope it's not as horrible as people make the Storm 1 sound :-(

Cap, it's the same phone, except with WiFi. The screen is still surepress (slightly improved in some respects, but the amount of force it takes to type is ABSURD), and the operating system is still a complete joke. See if you like it, but I'd do some checking on the possibility of returning it.

Crap. I'll give it a try.

More than anything I'll be doing some prototyping on it so at least having WiFi helps on that regard. I read it has an accelerometer so that's good, not sure about the graphic capabilities.

I think soon they'll let us order iPhones and maybe in a distant future Droid phones, which sound like much better phones in the long run.

Mac/Droid user here.

So far it's been a breeze syncing everything. Check out DoubleTwist. Helped a load.

http://www.doubletwist.com/dt/Home/Index.dt

fuck yeah another one

highfive

o/

Cap, if you just ordered it, you should be able to return it with no problem. You have up till three months to swap out the device - I think they should be okay about you swapping it out for a Droid if that's what you want to do. I think they'll only make you buy an entirely new device if the warranty has expired already.

EDIT: And just because you got the Storm 2, don't go thinking that the Tour is any great shakes. I'm ready to throw this fucking thing out the window.

I can't get the Droid, my company is getting the phone for me so we have to pick the models that are approved (mostly Blackberry's for phones of this type). Can't wait for them to get these Android phones on the list though.

Aaah, gotcha. If that's the case, then yes, stick with the Storm 2 till you can potentially get the Droid. At least the Storm 2 is touch screen, and it's been getting far better reviews than the Storm 1. The Tour blows, stay away from it. After the tracking ball dies on you - which should take about 2 months - then you're screwed.

EDIT: And unless AT&T service in your calling area is stellar, stay away from the iPhone, too. It's a fabulous device, make no mistake. But AT&T is the worst coverage here in NY - not sure about where you are.

Resolve... fading... Droid... tempting.

I might break down and get it for Christmas next week.

Question:
I know it does google syncing for your contacts (i.e., it pulls your contacts that you already have in your google account). What does it do with your old contacts from your previous phone? Does it take them off of your old phone and convert them/add them into your google contacts? I certainly don't have all of my cell phone contacts in google, so I was just wondering how this is handled.

Google decides whether your friends are worth keeping by going through all of their emails/purchases/search history and those that pass make it into your Google contacts.

I don't know if it works on non-Verizon phones, but there was a pretty simple Wizard on Verizon's website that let me export my contacts into Excel and then import into Google.

That's why Android phones sound more appealing, however the rumor is that iPhone will be making it to other carriers soon (like Verizon).

Meh, I'm going over to the dark side. Lemme know if you need a ride.

I was talking about that earlier in the thread, and I always hear "Yes they are", "No they're not". I'm not waiting that long. Last night it took me five minutes to try to check my email, and I never even got to check it! I quit and gave up! I need to get this ASAP.

I LOVE being the customer from hell - I'll do my best to make you proud! However, the situation with the blackberry is getting worse, so I may need to make sure it's resolved tomorrow night, or not much later than that. If they won't give me a freebie, I may have to cough up. But I'll do my damndest to bitch my way through!

Well, if they won't give you a Droid you should still try to get them to replace your Blackberry anyway and then just sell the replacement on eBay.

I would never do that to another person! Sell them the Tour, I mean.

That's my plan, I'm taking my Tour to the Verizon store today and once repaired it's going on sale and I'm picking up a Droid. I've had a bad run of luck with phones lately.

Good luck with unloading the Tour today, hope it goes well, and you get to walk out of there with a shiny new Droid.
I'm an angry BB consumer, and I want them to fail miserably this year.

Cap, if I were you, I would skip both the Tour and the Storm 2, and exchange the phone for the brand new Curve on Verizon. It's not touchscreen, but it has the more reliable track pad, wi-fi, upgraded OS (but make no mistake, RIM's OS is archaic no matter how you slice it) and just an all around better proven phone than the other BB models.

I'm still on the fence about what I'm going to do with my Tour. I want in on the Android action, but going back to my abusive ex boyfriend Verizon is not an option. Obviously the Hero is my best bet, but honestly, I'm a grandma who depends on her qwerty a lot, and I'm terrified of not being able to cope with not having a hard keyboard on the phone.

Decisions, decisions.

Yeah, so apparently that Body Glove case was scratching the body (not the actual screen part) of the screen. What the fuck.

Mother FUCKERS!!! That did NOT go well at all!

Basically, I went into the Verizon store near my office after work. I told the guy, look, this is my second Tour since August, and now this one doesn't work either. I'd like to swap it out for the Droid.

He said I couldn't swap it out, and I said, well what kind of a discount could I get on the Droid since this would be my third Tour in four months? He said no discount - basically, if I wanted a Droid, I'd have to pay the full retail price of $700 - which is the price you pay currently for just the device. It's the $200 price on the site with the two year plan. That was when I went into bitch mode, which cut no ice with this douchebag. He said if I wanted a different device, I should have switched before the 30 day period was up. I said, "Oh, that's BRILLIANT! I should have gotten rid of a device that wasn't going to break on me for another month?"

So it got ugly, and he basically said my choices were: $700 for a new Droid, or a free third Tour. By the time I left that store - with my current Tour in hand - I was like Jennifer Grey in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when she's making the 911 call. Just pure fury.

So I'm getting ready to have some dinner, my phone is charging, and after I've got a full stomach so I'm making sense on the phone, I'm calling Verizon to see what they'll do for me at Customer Service. I know they suck, but this is bullshit. He basically left me with a blackberry that I'm paying an arm and a leg for that is only good for the phone because I can't use the track ball to get to any of the other functions and I plan to tell them that. Fucking jerkoffs.

EDIT: Just got off the phone with Verizon, and while they were much more polite up at corporate, they're not doing shit for me either. So my choice is keep the fucking Tour, or cough up $700 for a new Droid. Fuck!

Lisa, did you point out to them that it will cost you LESS to cancel and pay the ETF than pay for a new fucking Droid?

Those bastards! Call again and then tell them you want to cancel your account. At the very least, you should be able to buy a Droid at an upgrade price, and then you can pay for that by selling your Tour on CL or Ebay.

Don't give up. The Tour is hardly worth holding on to.

Fuck it, you know - I slept on it, and I've decided I'm just going to buy the goddamn thing. I came into some Christmas money, so I technically CAN swing it. It's just the principle of the thing that's pissing me the fuck off. But if I cancel, then I lose my phone number when I sign back up, and that's not worth it - I've had this number for four years. Better to buy it outright and be pissed off for a while. I mean, I made all the threats and told them TWICE I'd cancel my account, and they knew I was bluffing (an ex-boyfriend of mine said he always knew I never cheated on him because I was such a bad liar). Cocksuckers.

Lisa, do you have paypal or anything? I have $25 that says "Merry Xmas" and "Verizon is bullshit".

If you're willing to extend your contract they'll probably knock a few hundred off the price, but then that's buying right back into their bullshit, so maybe not such a hot idea. I went ahead and extended mine to get the cheaper pricing since my current contract ends in March.

Actually, I like that idea a lot. I mean, the coverage Verizon gets here in NY is stellar - they're worth staying with for that alone. It's just trying to get myself squared away with a great smart-phone that seems to be the problem. So since I have no problem with the notion of extending my contract, that could win me a little favor in getting the price of the phone knocked down. Jake, did you do this in the store or online?

In the store. They only knocked down the pricing after I agreed to two years, which is fine with me since my previous contracts were all 2-year (based off of the New Every 2 upgrade system) now that my phone doesn't suck like the Dare did. Besides, residential line and DSL are both Verizon anyway, so they've already got their hooks in me either way.

Also, you can try this, I've seen it on a few Droid-related forums and people generally have good stuff to say about them. I would have gotten mine from there except for a problem with my account that required me to go instore, so I just went ahead and did that and dropped $300 with a $100 rebate.

I can't see how anyone would honestly recommend that Lisa pay $700 for a phone ... no matter how good it is. $700?!?! You could buy an iPod touch for less than $200 and somehow this Droid phone costs $700? I don't think so.

The reason I don't currently own an iPhone is that I already have an iPod touch and found that the overlapping functionality between it an the iPhone made it not worth the additional cost I'd have to pay to have an iPhone.

I know the BB is pissing you off but you might as well just drop down to a standard cell phone plan on it and use it as such than give Verizon a bunch of money.

I'd really recommend getting a person on the phone and asking to transfer you to someone who can cancel your account. The retention department has more flexibility in pricing/policies to keeping customers from leaving. Certainly do that before you shell out a bunch of money.

Agreed, I'm thinking Verizon's full of shit on this one.

Same case, and I had the guy at VZW put it on for me too (if he fucked up the phone, his fault) but the faceplate somehow scraped the black off of the top part. It's not AWFUL, but it's still visible and kind of annoying.

And the dimming thing sounds weird, is your proximity sensor blocked? Mine automatically brightens when I take it away from my face after a call (need to get a headset before I get brain cancer).

Well, since she just signed a new contract less than a year ago (over the summer) they typically won't give you a big discount on a new phone ... even if you are signing a new contract. They already have a contract with you for the next 18+ months so would they be willing to give you hundreds off the phone price to keep you for an extra 4-5 months of service?

I think you have to get beyond the first tier ... the person in the store or the first salesperson on the phone and get to someone who has the authority to go against standard protocol.

Yeah, to be fair I kinda waltzed in and asked for a manager when I went to the store. Might as well start there instead of a sales rep.