Upgrade from A855 to Droid 3, or just give in and get an iPhone?

[ddogg]

Hello all,
Sorry for my first post not being more upbeat, but I'm facing renewal/upgrade time and am really wondering what to do.

I bought a pair of Droid 855s two years ago and have been plagued with problems from about 6 weeks into ownership. The cameras got fuzzy, the touch screen stopped working, the device wouldn't charge, or overheated. I've been through 9 replacement phones - yes, 9. Of course the battery life has always been miserable, and I have taken to carrying not 1, but 2 spare batteries with me.

Unfortunately for us, Verizon is the only carrier with even marginal coverage in our area. We can pretty well forget 4G - it just is not going to happen here.

So I'm looking at the Droid3 as a potential upgrade, and have a few questions.

Do any of the docks/mounts from the Droid A855 work?

What do you all think of the Droid 3? From what I've read, it seems to be riddled with the same troubles as the original Droid.

I have a pretty significant investment in mounts, cradles, and spare batteries for the A855, so if none of those are compatible with the Droid3 and the Droid3 is no big improvement over the A855, I'm thinking of just getting an external antenna on the house with a repeater inside, and going with an iPhone on AT&T. Of course the downside to an iPhone is that the closest Apple store is 50 miles away.

I'd like to hear some very honest opinions about the Droid3.

Thanks, and again, apologies for such a depressing first post.

 

[guidot]

The unfortunate answer to your question is no, none of the accessories for the A855 will work with the D3 (save for charging cables, as those are universal).

I will be purchasing a D3 tomorrow myself, as I know a few people with them and are happy with the device.

I wish I could be more help from a D3 standpoint, but I at least want to provide you with info about your accessories.

 

[must_i_register]

I just got out of the original Moto Droid and into a Droid3, wouldn't hesitate to do so again. The additional row of dedicated number keys and the overall build quality is what did it for me. While it ain't 4G, it is vastly quicker and it is a great smartphone. I just have to have a keyboard and, until Apple creates one, I'll be in a Droid3.

The other consideration is all the apps you own. While the accessories are not cheap, neither are some apps. Once you own the apps from the Android Marketplace, you can install the same ones at no cost on your next Android OS phone.

 

[tcrews]

I moved from the Droid to the Droid 3 and after the latest update....battery life has been incredible for me. I can go all day (6:30am to 11:30pm) and be at 50% battery with normal use (normal use for me is probably slightly less than most...I don't talk on the phone much). That's a big difference for me as my Droid would make it the same time but be in the 20% range.

I've had zero issues with mine that other have reported. In my case, everything improved upgrading....Screen, Keyboard, speed, features, etc...

 

[cwbcpa]

I experienced some issues with the original Droid as well. I can tell you that the Droid 3 is a far better device. The keyboard is awesome. It runs smoothly and I have not had any issues with freezing or force closing. Battery life is good as well. I have owned an iPhone 4 and my wife still does. While it is a good phone I really missed the customization of the Droid and the keyboard of course. You can't go wrong with either choice, but if you like the idea of what Android offers then the Droid 3 will do right by you.

On a side note, why would you have to switch to AT&T to get an iPhone? If Verizon is the best carrier in your area why not buy it from them?

Good luck!

 

[davishusband]

Make sure you get the warranty don't be cheap, we recently had a firmware update to fix camera issues and a few other things. Don't buy cheap batteries, I did that and it never worked well for me. If you pay 5 dollars for a battery you will have a 5 dollar battery. All the best smartphones are battery hogs there's no way around it. I think it's even gonna get worse as technology in phones advanced batteries are not going to be able to keep up. Sometimes you have got to pay to play!

Proud of my bloated D3, I don't miss unstable roms on my D1 at all!

 

[davishusband]

Verizon sells iphones now dude

Proud of my bloated D3, I don't miss unstable roms on my D1 at all!

 

[davishusband]

I experienced some issues with the original Droid as well. I can tell you that the Droid 3 is a far better device. The keyboard is awesome. It runs smoothly and I have not had any issues with freezing or force closing. Battery life is good as well. I have owned an iPhone 4 and my wife still does. While it is a good phone I really missed the customization of the Droid and the keyboard of course. You can't go wrong with either choice, but if you like the idea of what Android offers then the Droid 3 will do right by you.

On a side note, why would you have to switch to AT&T to get an iPhone? If Verizon is the best carrier in your area why not buy it from them?

Good luck!

Verizon sells iphones ... but still it's a iphone,

Proud of my bloated D3, I don't miss unstable roms on my D1 at all!

 

[must_i_register]

I moved from the Droid to the Droid 3 and after the latest update....battery life has been incredible for me.

What firmware version are you on? My D3 is just two weeks old and am on Android 2.3.4, build 5.5.1_84_D3G-55 Was wondering. My battery life is good, I have two backup cheap batteries that are as good or better than the one it came with.

 

[ddogg]

Thanks for the quick replies.

As far as switching to At&T, you can of course browse the web while in a call. You cannot do that with Verizon. Also, Verizon's customer service is lacking IMO. In response to all my complaints, the best they would do was offer me a Droid2 for $150 (early upgrade they called it).

I guess I am not an Android loyalist. I cannot remove all the junk from my phone without rooting it, which technically voids my support contract. In fairness the same applies to iPhone and the jailbreaking (I think the Apple guys call it).

Just want a smart-phone that works as well as the old Kyocera 6035 did 12 years ago.

 

[REMilk]

Thanks for the quick replies.

Just want a smart-phone that works as well as the old Kyocera 6035 did 12 years ago.

For its time, the Kyocera 6035, with its monochrome Palm OS, a very stable operating system (O/S), was a 1st rate smartphone. I am not sure if you could root/jailbreak this O/S as is done with many versions of the Android O/S.

I do not recall Palm having audio apps, gps apps, video apps for this phone. There was a great PIM - DateBk that synced with PCs/laptops.

Bob

 

[ARZ]

I just got out of the original Moto Droid and into a Droid3, wouldn't hesitate to do so again. The additional row of dedicated number keys and the overall build quality is what did it for me. While it ain't 4G, it is vastly quicker and it is a great smartphone. I just have to have a keyboard and, until Apple creates one, I'll be in a Droid3.

The other consideration is all the apps you own. While the accessories are not cheap, neither are some apps. Once you own the apps from the Android Marketplace, you can install the same ones at no cost on your next Android OS phone.

I'm a total cheapskate, and I didn't pay for any apps, and I have had the (mis)fortune of owning 6 Droids, 2 of each of the following. Droid Original, Droid X2, and Droid 3.

All but one was replaced under warranty,
-1st Droid original, camera stopped working about 9 months old,
-2nd Droid orig, was in my pocket when my buddies pushed me in the pool, (they each gave me $50 to cover the insurance cost, and said the $50 was worth the laugh, but it cost me over 20 hours of work finding all the apps and making my email sync, cox.com is the worst, ask me if you want to save time here)
-3rd Droid X2 the left bottom Menu button stuck it self on, and trapped me in "Safe mode" meaning you can only make calls,
-4th Droid X2 I accidentally loaded all my music on to the phone memory not the SD card memory and I (unknowingly) suffered with many un-usable features (mostly photos, and MMS saving and sending photos-media)
-5th Droid 3, almost forced upon me (by a Verizon help tech) when I called to see if I could wipe the previous (4th) Droid X2, I had called to see if I could improve performance, I really didn't want a new phone. When the 5th Droid showed up I attached both phones to my laptop via the USB cords I, then discovered I had all my music in the wrong place, on the (4th) X2. Unfortunately this same 5th Droid shipped as a factory refurbished phone had a defective ear piece out of the box. I could use the speaker phone or I could use a head phone but the ear piece speaker was not working at all. So I went back to the X2 again (for a couple of days), with all the music and photos stored on the SD card, (this worked WAY better).
-6th Droid 3, learned which App Backup programs work the best. I still have both phones, and am still trying to decide if I want to keep the Droid 3, I am definitely leaning that way.

Thanks for the quick replies.

As far as switching to At&T, you can of course browse the web while in a call. You cannot do that with Verizon. Also, Verizon's customer service is lacking IMO. In response to all my complaints, the best they would do was offer me a Droid2 for $150 (early upgrade they called it).

If your within a 1 year window, they will (should give it to you at NO cost)

I guess I am not an Android loyalist. I cannot remove all the junk from my phone without rooting it, which technically voids my support contract. In fairness the same applies to iPhone and the jailbreaking (I think the Apple guys call it)....

In all the back and fourth with all of my phones I found that they (customer support) can guide you to a function that clears all of your personal data off of the phone in-one-fell-swoop. But don't do this until you HAVE TO!!!

Also you should be able to back up your apps and get them all to your new phone with less than a couple hours work (yes using a back up tool, it would take WAY longer without, an app backup program). I cant speak for "Paid-for" apps, but all of mine were free, and I only have about 24 apps, not including the 2 backup apps I will recommend and describe below.

App Backup & Restore, by INFOLIFE.LLC it worked great, but make sure to hook your USB charger to the computer to look for the folder it saves the backed-up programs in and save that folder to your computer just to make sure. I had to put mine back on the new phones memory and get the app again from the marketplace again on the new phone, and run the program again. Make sure to delete all the other folders other (app) backup programs might have made. Also there were 3-4 apps that wouldn't save to this folder, I just wrote down their names and loaded them again.

Also I highly recommend
SMS Backup+, 1.4.3, by Jan Berkel. This backs-up your Call Log, and your SMS/MMS to your Gmail account and then when you get your new phone, you sync with your Gmail again for all your contacts, then get this app from the market place on your new phone then authorize this program to link to your Gmail and voila! (well you gotta wait a bit, I actually had to do it twice on this latest (6th Droid 3) I think it might have lost the internet connection while uploading)

It is a total life saver to have all of your old texts and call history restored to your new phone.

It wont restore all of your MMS, images, video and audio, but just make sure to long press those and store them on your SD card. If that doesn't work, find those items via the USB cable on teh computer and back them up so you can at least not loose them all together.

Then I recommend living with the 2 phones for a week to see if you later remember something on your old phone you forgot to back up or save or up load.

 

[patfactorx]

I've had a lot more issues with iPhones btw. The grass always seem greener on the other side but Android's easy tethering, widgets and the Droid 3's keyboard are the reasons why I love Android.

 

[John.Edwards]

Just want a smart-phone that works as well as the old Kyocera 6035 did 12 years ago.

Unfortunately the iphone is not as good as the Kyocera either. If you are having issues with Verizon, there are a bunch of options on ATT, including dumbphones which will work similarly to the Kyocera. A Droid3 even if it is perfect, will not fix issues you have with Verizon as a carrier. Just keep in mind ATT has it's share of customer issues as well, and has a great selection of Android, Windows and dumbphones in addition to the iphone.
Personally I would avoid webos and blackberry right now as they are dwindling (or dead) platforms.

If you like the closed nature of the iphone, (it is what it is) - you should look into Windows Mobile 7 as well. very simple and consistent, possibly even more than iOS. There are options on both VZ and ATT.

The Droid3 has a version of Motorola's Blur, not the same google interface you are used to. This may be a dealbreaker if you are not willing to customize and use an alternative launcher. I will say with the latest patch and using an alternative launcher I have been a very happy camper - very good battery life even with the standard battery.