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Droid 3 - First Impressions

mreine said:
Me thinks you people are being a little anal about the screen. I upgraded my droid to droid 3 and the droid 3 looks awesome. Anything that is NOT apple is great anyway.
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I agree! I came from OG Droid to Droid 3, husband has D2 and we both think the D3 screen is great! The ONLY time I've seen anything funky is when I zoomed a page to full zoom, the graphic was a little blurry but since I don't use my phone on full zoom, it's not a problem.
 
rushmore said:
Got to mess with a friend's Droid 3 today for about an hour.

1. The build is an efficient and functional masterpiece. Also seems built well.
2. The keyboard is a work of art in design
3. Speed is great
4. The device did not get hot while messing with it
5. Gingerbread & Blur mix seems like Honeycomb lite and is nice
6. Display looks like a 4" version of the DX2, so I am happy (in spite of pentile)
7. Easy access to the microsd card and no need to remove battery
8. Cover is flimsy, but probably by design. The material is supposed to be that way, else you would have more of a chance to break it. It also keeps the hand cooler than a metal cover. If you remove by also going around the sides to loosen it (after popping loose at the slot), the cover comes off without issue. Still flimsy, anyway you spin it.
9. More free ram than the DX2- without a need to hack
10. Camera is fine for impulse pics, but since no optical zoom on phones, I will not use one for more than that anyway.


The D3 was much better than I expected and the keyboard is easily the BEST I have ever typed upon for a phone. Keyboard lovers should rejoice. The key "action" seems "perfect", IMO.
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Told you. :cool:
 
UBRocked said:
The blur is better!

It is not a secret that I have always hated Moto blur. Let's be honest, it has always been slow and fugly...

This implementation of blur is a huge improvement. Im not sure if it's the same version as the Droid X2 because I haven't played with one...but it is much better than past versions like on the Atrix or on the Droid X.
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I agree, and it is not. The X2 version was a twisted, mutated version forced on Froyo that ran like absolute crap. This D3 is the first release of this implementation, and I haven't even felt the need to install LauncherPro for the first time, ever. My only complaint is that I wish I could redefine what app launched from the bottom icons so that I could have the text message app launch Handcent instead.
 
aostang said:
I agree, and it is not. The X2 version was a twisted, mutated version forced on Froyo that ran like absolute crap. This D3 is the first release of this implementation, and I haven't even felt the need to install LauncherPro for the first time, ever. My only complaint is that I wish I could redefine what app launched from the bottom icons so that I could have the text message app launch Handcent instead.
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You can replace those icons at the bottom with whatever you want.
 
I am thinking about getting a Droid 3 because I need the physical keyboard (big fingers dont work with virtual keyboards well), but are the keys big enough for people with larger fingers?
 
madtowneast said:
I am thinking about getting a Droid 3 because I need the physical keyboard (big fingers dont work with virtual keyboards well), but are the keys big enough for people with larger fingers?
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They are bigger than the keys on the Droid 1. I'm not a good person to report on it because I have little fingers and I only use my thumbnails for typing anyway.
 
Barbara said:
"Long press the icon and select a new app." That's what the pop up box told me.
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I just didn't wait long enough! It took about 15 seconds for that menu to pop up for me. I thought it was just hanging so I issued another command (launch another app or flip screens) and it simply aborted the reassign. Thank you!! 100% satisfied now!
 
aostang said:
I just didn't wait long enough! It took about 15 seconds for that menu to pop up for me. I thought it was just hanging so I issued another command (launch another app or flip screens) and it simply aborted the reassign. Thank you!! 100% satisfied now!
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You're welcome! :)
 
Something else I'd suggest for those with battery drain problems, apparently the D1 had a problem with the cell standby eating battery, too, and the fix there was to switch into and out of airplane mode on boot. Might be worth trying here too on the D3. I had 90% battery my first day after 12 hours of light use, but the following day my battery got mysteriously chewed through down to 30% in about 8 hours with not much more use. Going to try the airplane mode trick.
 
I removed some apps and now my battery is much better. I've been texting all day, on GTalk most of the morning, and a little bit of browsing. I'm currently at 80% after being off the charger all day. My wake time isn't too bad although the %stats show otherwise. If it stays like this I'll be happy. Can't wait for my extended battery. Any minute now :)
 
I really like my extended battery. It does add a little bit more "meat" to the phone, but nothing bad at all. I also like how I feel my camera glass is a little more protected now that it's recessed 1mm instead of protruding 1mm when I have the phone sitting on a desk.
 
aostang said:
I really like my extended battery. It does add a little bit more "meat" to the phone, but nothing bad at all. I also like how I feel my camera glass is a little more protected now that it's recessed 1mm instead of protruding 1mm when I have the phone sitting on a desk.
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I haven't installed it yet but it seems like the extended battery for the X. Barely adds anything but give a much needed boost. Can't wait to try it out tonight.
 
UBRocked said:
I had a random reboot last night but I chalked it up to it being new and having about 100 apps forced on it in a short amount of time.
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Had you used the camera or toggled Wifi recently beforehand? Those two scenarios seem to be popping up.
 
aostang said:
Had you used the camera or toggled Wifi recently beforehand? Those two scenarios seem to be popping up.
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Come to think of it...I believe I was playing with the camera settings when it happened. But I did notice that my wifi turned off sometime after the reboot because this morning, I had to turn it back on (and I know I didn't toggle it off...but maybe it was a battery saving thing...)
 
UBRocked said:
Come to think of it...I believe I was playing with the camera settings when it happened. But I did notice that my wifi turned off sometime after the reboot because this morning, I had to turn it back on (and I know I didn't toggle it off...but maybe it was a battery saving thing...)
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I think there's a setting somewhere that will toggle Wifi off when the screen is off. I don't recall where that setting is or if it would have caused that.
 
Barbara said:
Skype works fine for voice. It does not do video, at least not yet. I did not test it out by calling another Droid 3. I tested it calling a computer. No video on either end of the call. Someone else reported that Tango works but I don't use that.
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I appreciate the feedback, but bummer that Skype doesn't (yet) work for video. So the front-facing cam is really, so far, just for self-portraits.

I got my phone yesterday and have been learning how to use it and it's a bit of a learning curve since it's my first Android and 1st smartphone. The biggest pro and con I have so far are pro: speed (of the phone itself, not necessarily data) and battery (it doesn't even last a full day and I've barely used it for making calls).
 
iamloco724 said:
what class sdcard should i get if i wanted to do full hd videos would i be fine with a class 6?
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I'd think you should be OK with a Class 6 card. I have a Class 6 microSD card that I transferred over from my old phone (after formatting it) and shot 1 short video so far (@1080p), and didn't encounter any problems w/ it. This weekend, I plan on taking some more and longer videos @1080p.
 
beowulf7 said:
I'd think you should be OK with a Class 6 card. I have a Class 6 microSD card that I transferred over from my old phone (after formatting it) and shot 1 short video so far (@1080p), and didn't encounter any problems w/ it. This weekend, I plan on taking some more and longer videos @1080p.
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do you or does anyone else know what class the sdcard in the droid 2 is?
 
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