Can the Android owners here share their experiences?

[hotweiss]

Can the Android owners here share their experiences? I just ordered a HTC Magic Android phone...

[bubble.tea]

Fun novelty.

Great software interface.

Some quirks I'm facing.

Definately NOT an email competitor to the BBs.

Great price...absolutely stellar for $149.99...you just can't beat this. GPS. Touchscreen. wifi. I'm astounded.

[Outsider]

You'll find out when you get it.

As for me, I love it.
The interface is very responsive and smooth. (ulness you've got 1/2 dozzen memory hogging apps running)

I am constantly being amazed by software I find on the market place.

The gmail application is not the most intuitive, and powerful, but gets the job done.
The calendar app is also a little lacking.

[NewsyL]

I bought the Dream.

Here are some comments I shared with an associate of mine.

---------------


Battery life is as stated in many forums - lasts the day and you must recharge overnight. I think because I've been busy setting up features, testing settings, and downloading apps, it has drained faster than normal. Still, I'll be buying the larger extended battery. However, from what I've read this is not a whole lot different from many of the other smartphones out there. I saw a comparison where the Apple, the PRE, and a popular WinMo phone all have similar sized batteries (~1150mAh).

Keyboard is about as I expected it for use - glad I've had it for the various URL's I've been keying into the browser. I initially thought I could type almost as fast with an onscreen keyboard but after trying to dial numbers using the onscreen number pad, no way! I expect I'll get a little faster with more use.

I've activated my MS Exchange email function to receive email from my company server. Works well - pushes email to me in real time and the notification bar at the top of the screen works real well to advise what has come in and then link to it to read. Very slick. I delete on my phone - it deletes on the server. I send an email from the phone and a copy shows up in the Sent folder on the server. Very functional - just what I wanted.

I also have GMail configured and working - you really do need to set up a GMail account to use this phone. It is the conduit by which I sync my calendar and contacts to the phone... so far. Calendar looks great. Contacts are another issue. Need to do some testing there. It is slower via Google than when I was sync'ing direct to my Palm.

I'm going to test a utility from HTC called HTC Sync to see what it does for copying my contacts and files over. It links direct to Outlook on your PC.


My biggest beef about the phone is that the default Contacts app does not have a search for contacts by "company" option. I've installed the "aContacts" app which does permit searching on all information so that it finds company names but it still does not satisfy me. There is no option to sort contacts by company, last name, first name. It appears to be all about last name, first name. Not good for the business user!!

My next biggest beef is that the phone ringer is not loud enough on max volume and/or this may be a function of the ring tones provided. Lots of soft electronica type tones. There is the ability to use the default MP3 player to snip a portion of a song and create a ring tone - have not tried it yet.


The default PDF reader works well enough to be functional and it even has a search function.

Have tried the QuickOffice app - it is usable to read large Excel spreadsheets but no search function. I tried it with a 500 row, 28 column sheet. Will probably have to install Documents to Go to obtain that functionality. I'm thinking I may have to use an Excel sheet to obtain the sort by company function.

I've used it in WiFi mode a fair bit - definitely faster than the so called high speed 3G Rogers offers. The 3G is very usable though - just not as fast browsing as your desktop at home. Also, I suspect I'm on the fringe of good reception here at my home office. It will be perfectly adequate for me on those occasions when I'm at a trade show and want to tether the phone to my laptop to get web access in my booth.

I tried the Google Sky Map app. Slick....

Custom wallpapers.... so easy!

Twidroid... works well.

Am using the Barcode Scanner app to download more apps using this site > http://www.cyrket.com/

.

[hotweiss]

I bought the Dream.

Here are some comments I shared with an associate of mine.

---------------


Battery life is as stated in many forums - lasts the day and you must recharge overnight. I think because I've been busy setting up features, testing settings, and downloading apps, it has drained faster than normal. Still, I'll be buying the larger extended battery. However, from what I've read this is not a whole lot different from many of the other smartphones out there. I saw a comparison where the Apple, the PRE, and a popular WinMo phone all have similar sized batteries (~1150mAh).

Keyboard is about as I expected it for use - glad I've had it for the various URL's I've been keying into the browser. I initially thought I could type almost as fast with an onscreen keyboard but after trying to dial numbers using the onscreen number pad, no way! I expect I'll get a little faster with more use.

I've activated my MS Exchange email function to receive email from my company server. Works well - pushes email to me in real time and the notification bar at the top of the screen works real well to advise what has come in and then link to it to read. Very slick. I delete on my phone - it deletes on the server. I send an email from the phone and a copy shows up in the Sent folder on the server. Very functional - just what I wanted.

I also have GMail configured and working - you really do need to set up a GMail account to use this phone. It is the conduit by which I sync my calendar and contacts to the phone... so far. Calendar looks great. Contacts are another issue. Need to do some testing there. It is slower via Google than when I was sync'ing direct to my Palm.

I'm going to test a utility from HTC called HTC Sync to see what it does for copying my contacts and files over. It links direct to Outlook on your PC.


My biggest beef about the phone is that the default Contacts app does not have a search for contacts by "company" option. I've installed the "aContacts" app which does permit searching on all information so that it finds company names but it still does not satisfy me. There is no option to sort contacts by company, last name, first name. It appears to be all about last name, first name. Not good for the business user!!

My next biggest beef is that the phone ringer is not loud enough on max volume and/or this may be a function of the ring tones provided. Lots of soft electronica type tones. There is the ability to use the default MP3 player to snip a portion of a song and create a ring tone - have not tried it yet.


The default PDF reader works well enough to be functional and it even has a search function.

Have tried the QuickOffice app - it is usable to read large Excel spreadsheets but no search function. I tried it with a 500 row, 28 column sheet. Will probably have to install Documents to Go to obtain that functionality. I'm thinking I may have to use an Excel sheet to obtain the sort by company function.

I've used it in WiFi mode a fair bit - definitely faster than the so called high speed 3G Rogers offers. The 3G is very usable though - just not as fast browsing as your desktop at home. Also, I suspect I'm on the fringe of good reception here at my home office. It will be perfectly adequate for me on those occasions when I'm at a trade show and want to tether the phone to my laptop to get web access in my booth.

I tried the Google Sky Map app. Slick....

Custom wallpapers.... so easy!

Twidroid... works well.

Am using the Barcode Scanner app to download more apps using this site > http://www.cyrket.com/

.

Thanks for the insight. I know about the poor battery life :). What is the size limit for the PDF files? Any crashes?

[NewsyL]

Thanks for the insight. I know about the poor battery life :). What is the size limit for the PDF files? Any crashes?

I loaded a 14.5M 23 page PDF.

double tapped to get it to go full size.

No problem. Scrolls smoothly.

Now... I do have a few PDF's where it would not open them.... "Unsupported Security Handler".

.