I broke down and finally bought a new phone after having the same one for 4+ years. This thing is much more involved than my older phone. It's going to take some time getting used to.

I ended up the the Verizon Droid X. I've had good luck with both Verizon and Motorola.

I'm inputting all my contacts now. It's a pain in the ass. My other phone was so old that they couldn't get them to download. The touch screen is very sensitive. My thumbs aren't that big but I always seem to keep hitting the wrong "buttons" while putting in the contacts. It's getting a little frustrating.


It sucks that there isn't a decent instruction booklet with it. All I got was a little "getting started" pamphlet. It's not too descriptive.

Facebook App Questions.
I linked it to my Facebook page. For whatever reason it also converted all my "friends" into the contact section. How do I remove/block all these? I have no need for all their information on my phone.

Also, how do I turn off the constant updates? And how do I access my personal page without all the other shit popping up?


3G Security.
It says to create a password protected network. How do I go about doing that?


Apps.
The sales girl said that she downloaded some app that closes/ends all apps when you're done using them so that it will help prolong the battery life and keep the updates of apps to keep from running all the time. Is there such a thing? Where is it/they found?

What other apps do you recommend getting?



Please forgive my ignorance as I am new to "Smart Phones"...it seems this one is much smarter than I am.

Any other helpful/useful ideas and how-to's are greatly appreciated!


Thanks guys.

So you found one in stock in the store? You lucky bastard...

They told me to expect mine to ship by September 7th...

With the Facebook thing... try this. Launch the program, and tap the top blue bar that says Facebook. This should bring up the main facebook screen with your news feed, profile, friends, ect. Hit the settings hard button on  the phone, the one on the far left, then tap the "settings" that pops up. From there, you can change when it syncs up. At the bottom of that lift, it has "Sync Contacts." Choose "Don't Sync."

Not sure on the 3g thing... I haven't used the wifi broadcasting on my phone.

Apps... Google Goggles. Google Navigation/Maps. Google Sky Map. Layar. Movies. PdaNet. Pandora Radio. Weather Channel. Shopper. SoundHound.

Edit: Oh, and here's the Droid X Users Guide. Should help you out a lot.  http://www.motorola.com/staticfiles/Support/US-EN/Mobile%20Phones/DROID-X/US-EN/_Documents/Static_Files/MB810_UG_US_EN_VZW_68000202880A.pdf

Congrats. You picked a great phone. The X is kind of like the Lexus of Android phones at the moment. If you have any specific questions, let me know and i'll try to help.

We went to Best Buy in the middle of nowhere Wisconsin to purchase them. They only had one in stock. Naturally I got to take that one while my fiance has to wait for hers. They told her she should have it within a few weeks.

I don't use My-Face and the such, so I can't help with that.

I have heard that using the app-killers on a regular basis is not a good idea.I hardly use mine, just when an app doesn't want to quit.

I use Weather-Bug, the ESPN app, Pandora radio, ringdroid, Fox News, Druge Report, Google sky is cool, google earth, and others I can't think of right now.

With "fat finger syndrome" learn how to use Swype, it will help with texting and typing.

ETA  this was posted from my X, my first one ever from a mobile device.

I brought up my page as you suggested. Went to the hard settings. There is nothing on the scroll list that has to do with "Sync Contacts" or to change when it syncs/updates.

The first thing on that list should be refresh interval, right? That's how often it updates. If you scroll down, the "sync contacts" is at the bottom.

Edit: Actually, now that I think about it, I think i'm using the actual facebook app, not the one that came with the phone. The stock app had some issues. The actual Facebook App is quite a bit better. If you use the facebook app and remove your facebook account from the stock app, you won't have the contacts issue anymore.

Contacts:  Don't do it on the phone.  Log into your gmail account and type them all in there with your computer.  Then set the phone to sync.  It will automatically load all of them from gmail without you doing anything.  Also, if you ever lose or break it and get a new one, they automatically populate again.

First, don't use the Facebook Account from the phone. It brings in all your contacts.

Download the facebook app from the market instead.

To sync facebook pictures with your contact list, but not add them all, download SyncMyPix. It works.

As for contacts, the best thing you can do overall is just go Google. Get your contacts from wherever they are now, save them in a csv or xls, and import them into your gmail account. If it's google on a droid phone, it's seamless.  I did that for mine, and even used gmail's "check other email accounts" function to get my hotmail and other email accounts so that I just have to worry about one email account from now on.

http://www.appbrain.com/

You can thank me later.

Don't use a Task Killer.  Android is different than Windows and programs running in the background are normal and not using battery/resources.  If you use a program to close them, they will reopen which uses battery and resources.


For everything else, check out droidforums.net and droid-life.com.

There are 5 different FB apps. Which one do y'all have or recommend?

Any of the free ones? Or a pay one?

The one I have is "Facebook For Android."

Works good enough... I mostly use eBuddy though for Facebook chat.

One problem with the Facebook chat applications... and I believe this is Facebook's problem, due to a lack of an interface to allow the proper action...

If you have a computer open to facebook, with chat logged off, and then log in using a chat application on the phone, it also activates the chat in the browser window. In other words, you're 'globally' available to chat across all open Facebook interfaces with your name on it. However, when you log out of chat on your phone, it does NOT log you out of chat on your browser. So if you have a computer screen open to facebook somewhere, and you're logged in, you'll show as available to chat until you close that window. So, make sure you don't leave any facebook sessions open on any computers if you're going to use a 3rd party chat application.

CBS has an app that has a lot of thier shows on it, including all the original Star Trek.  Discovery has one too, but none of the other major stations afaik.

How were you able to "log onto" ARFCOM from the DroidX? I can bring up webpages and forums but am unable to sign into them.

I have the same problem on my G1.  What I have to do is go to ar15.com/mobile and log in first.  They I can go to the 'regular' ar15.com and it keeps me signed in.  The browser in Android doesn't seem to handle the pop-ups ARFcom uses very well.

I don't have a problem with the full ar15.com page on my droid 2.  Could be the froyo?  Did you try a different browser?





OP:  There are tons of apps, but one of the first you download should be launcher pro or ADW.  These replace the lame motorola interface and are more customizable.  



Here's a thread were people list their favorite apps:  http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=950300



You can also check out android forum for other tips.

Some info for Droid Purchasers

Ordered on-line Saturday morning 4 September. Was supposed to ship on the 20th BUT it shipped today for delivery tomorrow!

Make sure you do a google search on Verizon Wireless coupon codes - I got $100 bucks off my internet order!!

The experience was excellent.  

Friday night I went to the Verizon store and almost witnessed 2 fist fights and the wait was over an hour - take a number.  I went home Friday night to order and the web site was miserably slow. I got up at 0530 Saturday morning and I must have been the only dude on the internets!  I had the phone ordered, a basket full of accessories and my plan changed in about 5 minutes.  The charges were applied to my bill and I was good to go.

Dont mess with inputting contacts directly into the phone, use gmail & sync as per a previous post.



I do use Advanced Task Killer, even though Linux running program doesnt mean it is using battery. Killing unused apps free's memory, even though Linux does memory management.



I set it to Safe Mode & kill on Screen Off



After a reboot go into ADK & long press the apps you want running and press ignore, do this for messages, wigit apps, gmail etc.



Using an HTC Hero with 2.1 was getting maybe 6-10 hours out of the battery with normal use, ADK helped to increase the battery life. After upgrading to 2.2 & the phone gets around 16-30 hours from a charge depending on use.



Enjoy the phone!!!

That's what they told me too but I had mine in my mailbox Aug 30.  Ordered online, with a new every 2 and the online instant rebate, it was under $100.00.  

Sounds like I made a mistake by ordering mine from the store. Damn. Mine was about $200 after the rebate.

Mine arrived much sooner than initially expected also, over two weeks early.

Don't bother with the task killers. Android OS manages it's memory quite well.



You will get used to the touch screen, just give it time and use it a lot.

I keep reading the same about the task killers. I don't use a lot of different applications on mine, but yeah, so far mine typically seems to do fine.

Add 'Shooter' to this list if you do any long range shooting. Having a ballistic calculator on your phone is the coolest thing ever.

People are stuck in the old mindset of "free memory" like in WinXP. The operating system will manage it's resources FAR better than you can now.



 

 
 


 

Put your contacts into your Gmail account, they will automatically sync with your phone.

Got the Droid 2, Didn't feel like waiting for the Droid X even though I know some features are better I'm a very impatient man.

Task killers are good if you have an app that keeps running, draining your battery.    Seems I reenabled Latitude through Maps, and ever since, Maps will run in the background updating my location every so often... which causes more drain on the battery.  Pop open Task Killer and kill it.   Never encountered a problem.   Just don't leave the task killer program running.

Good advice.... most will not follow it.



 

You think you guys have it rough? Try using a BlackBerry Storm 2 on AR15.com mobile. BB is good for email, but browsing sucks. Typing & editing in the ARFm text box on my phone is an exercise in madness. No, I don't like Bolt or Opera Mini on the Storm, either.

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