I have been eyeing the Android market for a while now. As a loyal Verizon guy (sorry, way too many bad experiences with AT&T) I couldn’t make the switch to iPhone so had to just patiently wait. In the waiting I started to get excited about Android. Open-source, cheaper units to buy, integrated with Google where my entire virtual life lives all made it a very appealing option.
I broke down and turned in the Blackberry Curve for an Eris. I was up for a renewal so my $40 investment felt pretty good, though I hate long-term contracts, but that’s for another post.
My immediate reaction was that I had landed in geek heaven. My Curve was a later model so this was a much needed upgrade. It was so fast! Great screen, smaller phone that felt like a phone and less like a brick.
I then received the software update to 2.1 which even boosted the phone faster as I was starting to notice some lag.
Over time, here are the things that eventually drove me to hand off the Eris to my daughter as a glorified MP3 player:
- As a phone, it sucks. Plane and simple. It’s slow, unresponsive and just sort of hangs there some times. I primarily use this as a phone (imagine that!) so that one fact alone made it hard to hold on to.
- The battery life is so testy. You have to make sure all your apps are turned off so as to not eat up too much battery, data synchronization is spotty as it also eats up the battery so that has to be juggled carefully.
- I hate typing on screens. As a Blackberry fan and user I love the quickness of the raised-button approach. I do know that over time I would get the screen typing better, but couple that with the fact that the typing reaction as slow and inconsistent and I was out.
- Overall I just need my phones to move faster. Any lag and I give up. Call me impatient or whatever, but I never had that issue with my older Curve so it’s harder to get excited about the “upgrade”. I do know the iPhone is blazing fast in comparison so maybe I’ll have to give that a try as well.
While I miss some of the apps and the interface, I think I might just wait and try again with the Droid 2 when it comes out.
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I just got a Samsung Captiva from At&T to repace my BB. I had to choose between the new BB, iPhone or Samsung Captiva…samsung won!! Droid is where it is!! I love it.