11.19.09
Posted in Hardware at 11:45 pm by cliffwynne
As I said earlier today the motorola droid comes with wifi built in basically allowing you to connect to any wifi network in the area that you have access to.
I was having a strange issue where my droid would connect to my home network and I couldnt surf or do anything. While in my office I was able to connect to our wifi there and surf and do anything that I could normally do on Verizon’s 3g network.
Well tonight after some research I figured out the issue, which of course was my network more specifically my encryption protocol. I have been using WEP for encryption for years and while the droid accepts that for its WiFi connections it seems that it has problems with WEP encryption when it comes time to surf. Sure enough I switched over to the more secure WPA2 encryption and now I’m able to run speedtests and all using my wifi connection on my droid.
Now I’ve read in forums that some people have had issues where they switched from WPA2 to WEP and that fixed the problem so I’m just sharing what fixed my issue. So if your having problems with your droid surfing on your home network try turning off your encryption first to see if that improves the issue and if it does you might have to rethink your current encryption methods.
WPA2 is more secure than WEP in most cases so it was time for a change.
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Posted in Hardware at 11:45 am by cliffwynne
Couple things I left out of the Droid review. The droid does have a built in GPS and WiFi. I would advise you to connect to wifi and use that to download data instead of the 3g network simply because using wifi doesnt count against the “unlimited” plan of Verizon which some are saying has a monthly cap of 5GB.
Recommended applications from the app store:
Better Texting – Handscent
Home and theming – Pandora or Open Home
Internet Music Streaming – Pandora and last.fm
Podcasts – Google Listen
Wifi – Wifi Analyzer is an excellent tool to help troubleshoot wifi connections on the droid
Ebay – Pkt Auctions
Weather – Weatherbug
All the applications I listed are free or have free versions in the app market.
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11.09.09
Posted in Hardware at 9:22 am by cliffwynne
So unless you’ve been living under a rock or really don’t give 2 craps, the Motorola Droid was released on Friday, Nov 6 for Verizon Wireless. Now you may be wondering wth you should care about the droid or whats the big deal. This is first phone released with the Google Android 2.0 OS and its being released on one of the best wireless networks in the nation.
I received my droid on Saturday and ordered it over the telesales line instead of going in store. Why you may ask? Simple the online store actually had an instant rebate on the device instead of the mail in rebate that the Verizon Wireless stores had, in addition it was just so much easier calling in to a number instead of standing in line. I’ll take an instant $100 over plopping down and waiting 3-4 weeks, if your lucky.
On to the nitty gritty so to speak the droid comes with both a touch screen as well as a slide out keyboard which was one of the main reasons that I chose this over the HTC Eris which was released on the same day. I use to have a LG Voyager and I found the touch screen to be slightly lacking but the Motorola’s touchscreen is absolutely outstanding and find myself using it more than I do the keyboard. In fact I can count on my hands how many times I’ve actually found myself using the slide out keyboard. One issue that I’ve seeing with the droid touchscreen is that it holds fingerprints a little too well for me I would advise getting screen protector but make sure you select the right one as some protectors have been known to interfere with touchscreen functionality. This is the one I’m currently using.
The droid also includes a 5MP camera with autofocus and dual LED flash. the pictures are pretty good for a phone and I will be uploading some of the shots I took later. Some people have complained about the pictures but to me the camera is fine for what it is. Its one of the best cameras on a smartphone that I’ve used. There have been reports of faulty cameras shipping with the droid as well as a problem with its autofocus. The issue with the autofocus is being addressed with a software update in the coming months. As for the faulty camera, that is totally a hardware issue and luckily my camera was not one of the ones effected.
Droid also ships with an exclusive new version of Google maps, this is the first smartphone offered by Verizon that does not work with VZ Navigator. Which is great because for 1) Google Maps is free, 2) Google maps for the Droid has spoken turn by turn directions and 3) its free, did I mention the free part no extra 10.00 a month for a feature that you might not use that much.
Application wise there are just a plethora of utilities in the app market that are either free or relatively cheap. For better management of your textings, I installed handcent from the app market, totally free application which improves the texting UI on the droid. As for the homescreen, I’m currently using open home lite which allows for many different skins to be installed which tailors the droid’s main screen. For those of you that listen to podcasts, I’m currently using Google Listen which can either stream the podcasts to your device or allows you to download the podcasts to be listen to at a later time.
Sound quality is excellent and the built in music player is very easy to use. Droid comes with a 16GB micro sd card and you can easily sync it to any of your favorite music syncing applications on your pc. One caveat the first time you connect the droid to your PC you will have to make sure that the droid goes into mass storage mode so that the PC can see the storage and the files can be uploaded. Once its setup then your good the next time you connect.
Sorry for not having pictures but I plan on uploading some later today and seeming that this is just my little review and there are a ton more out there you guys should be fine 
. All in All I would say I love my new droid and probably wont get rid of it as quickly as I got rid of my voyager.
I give the droid an 8 out of 10 on the Cliff scale.
**** Edit: Uploaded some pictures
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