Is the droid charging system / touchscreen crap?

[Se7enLC]

Try this out:

1). Plug the Droid into the official Motorola FACTORY charger
2). Long-Press to select an icon and start to move it
3). Now hold it still.

Is it still wiggling? A lot?

Now try this same test without being on the charger. Solid as a rock!

The problem gets worse when using an aftermarket charger, but it surely still exists even with the factory one. Discuss.

 

[icculusX]

Mine sometimes wiggles like nuts without any charger. Like when I pull down the notification tab and hold it, sometimes is wiggles like mad, other times its perfectly still... tested it now adn the notification and dragged icons are very still... never thought it had to do with chargers? I have x-brands at home, Ill see what happens...

 

[Vitticeps]

Mine's solid as a rock charging or not. Cheap chargers will cause all kinds of weirdness, the least of which is wiggling icons. If your OEM charger is causing weirdness I'd take it in to your local store for replacement (the charger, not the phone). Even the OEM ones can be subject to poor quality runs or individuals.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I had a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G for a month - and it would wiggle like crazy if I had the phone laying down on the table. The touch screen is almost unusable sitting on a table. Same for my brother in law's and my sister's MyTouch 3G.

The Verizon Droid doesn't seem to suffer from this - at least, not as bad. I do notice when it is plugged in and on a table, the touch screen tends to wiggle a little, but not as bad as the MyTouch 3G.

Both phones worked perfectly if you held it in your hand at a slanted angle.

 

[jntdroid]

Ok that's really interesting. I've never noticed this on mine until tonight (which is how I ended up here). I have the stock usb cord, but earlier tonight I had a cheapy one (charger only, no data) plugged into the wall outlet. It's the same cord that goes into my Seidio dock at night, but tonight I had it plugged in directly to the Droid for the first time in weeks. Maybe that caused the problem b/c I have my stock cable plugged into my computer daily and have never noticed it.

Regardless, how does one make it go away?

 

[jntdroid]

Ok - motorola usb cable plugged into my Win7 laptop last night gave me the wiggle problem (laptop was plugged in)... exact same cable plugged into my Dell desktop at work right now(XP Pro), zero wiggle.

 

[jntdroid]

Sorry to "bump" this, but now that the DF community is probably all up and around, I'm curious about getting more info on this as it tends to render certain functions very difficult to use when it occurs.

 

[209pcs]

It's a grounding issue. It happens when my Droid is plugged in to my laptop via USB cable. My laptop had an aftermarket AC adapter to replace the original, and it was very cheap and slapped together, so I suspected that was the issue. I tested my theory by plugging my phone into my desktop PC to see if the same thing would happen, and it didn't. Plugged it into the charger, it didn't. But as soon as it went into the laptop, the issue occured.

 

[Se7enLC]

It's a grounding issue. It happens when my Droid is plugged in to my laptop via USB cable. My laptop had an aftermarket AC adapter to replace the original, and it was very cheap and slapped together, so I suspected that was the issue. I tested my theory by plugging my phone into my desktop PC to see if the same thing would happen, and it didn't. Plugged it into the charger, it didn't. But as soon as it went into the laptop, the issue occured.

Not that I disagree, but your testing doesn't really prove that the issue has anything to do with grounding - just that it has to do with the source of power (which was already known). The stock motorola charger doesn't even HAVE grounding - it's a 2-prong plug.

The issue is that only the motorola charger and cable are *guaranteed* to work 100% properly, and it's a crapshoot with any non-motorola chargers or cables, including USB ports on computers. Some are terribly bad and you can't even use the droid while charging with them (and they will spontaneously send text messages for you, open programs, etc), but some are subtle and appear to be working fine, but if you hold down a key on the onscreen keyboard, it will repeat instead of waiting for you to release it. I've tried probably a dozen or so different chargers and had mixed results.