greetings everyone. i'm a recent DX owner that upgraded from an LG Ally. Love my new droid, but i got one with the random reboot in standby mode issue. Verizon's shipping me out a replacement, but i want to ask the community for any advice you can give for this awesome new piece of hardware that found it's way to me. i figure that every phone has it's own individual idiosyncrasies, and any help would certainly be appreciated.
-
After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.
New DX Convert
- Thread starter thedrizl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- motorola droid x
pool_shark
Android Expert
I think it's difficult to give any advice unless you have specific questions.
Is there anything special you would like to do with your new toy?
Is there anything special you would like to do with your new toy?
I would play with the phone for a few weeks and get the feel of it. During that time you might want to add some apps that will make it perform better and look better. Also I would go to the All Things Root section and do a lot of reading about rooting your phone. If you do not root you will never realize the full potential and pleasure of the great product.
i've been interested to learn more about rooting, but i'm really afraid of bricking my phone. i'm not always the sharpest crayon in the box when it comes to that stuff. any performance enhancing apps that you guys can recommend are greatly appreciated.
i decided to go with the DX cause most of the folks i know that have them love them; and they're most highly recommended of all the Verizon droids. plus, i'm a huge gamer, so i wanted to get all the games i've been missing out on with an underpowered Ally. and the massive screen certainly doesn't hurt either.
i decided to go with the DX cause most of the folks i know that have them love them; and they're most highly recommended of all the Verizon droids. plus, i'm a huge gamer, so i wanted to get all the games i've been missing out on with an underpowered Ally. and the massive screen certainly doesn't hurt either.
pool_shark
Android Expert
Rooting is easy and will not brick your phone, that usually happens when you start trying out new ROMs or themes.
Apps I will recommend:
Handcent sms - better and more customizable sms
Beautiful widgets - Like the HTC sense weather/clock widget
Launcher pro - different launcher that gives the ability to have access to 30 apps on your home screens without icons all over
Dolphin HD - much better than stock browser
ES file explorer - allows you to navigate your sdcard and gives you lan access to your PC via wifi
PowerAmp
Soundhound
No lock - if you don't lock your phone and get tired of the swipe to unlock
Better Keyboard
Android ID3 - tags your mp3's
Vignette - enhances your camera
Picsay pro - Nice picture editing
Ringdroid - make your own ringtones
After rooting:
Better Terminal emulator pro - gives you access to the command line
Busybox - gives you the Unix commands
Jrummy's Droid X overclock - allows you to over/under clock your cpu.
Apps I will recommend:
Handcent sms - better and more customizable sms
Beautiful widgets - Like the HTC sense weather/clock widget
Launcher pro - different launcher that gives the ability to have access to 30 apps on your home screens without icons all over
Dolphin HD - much better than stock browser
ES file explorer - allows you to navigate your sdcard and gives you lan access to your PC via wifi
PowerAmp
Soundhound
No lock - if you don't lock your phone and get tired of the swipe to unlock
Better Keyboard
Android ID3 - tags your mp3's
Vignette - enhances your camera
Picsay pro - Nice picture editing
Ringdroid - make your own ringtones
After rooting:
Better Terminal emulator pro - gives you access to the command line
Busybox - gives you the Unix commands
Jrummy's Droid X overclock - allows you to over/under clock your cpu.
If your replacement DX also has rebooting problems you might want to do some reading about rebooting. It is likely not the hardware but related to your software. I had some rebooting with my new DX and after I deleted a few suspect apps and the Zeam launcher I've had no more reboots.
twistedlim
Android Expert
The first thing I would get is a new launcher. Launcher Pro or ADW both take out the jumpiness of the scrolling of the original launcher. App wise you should know what you like by now. Astro file manager will help you download from web pages that seems to be blocked by the browser. I am personally happy with the standard or swype keyboard. I have rooted, romed, themed, overclocked, underclocked and to tell you the truth I just had to sbf back to stock because of a bootloop and I have no issues with stock rom running launcher pro. It is smooth and fast.
bigbadwulff
Android Expert
Go Launcher and Go SMS 
Circle Launcher (not really a launcher but an app launcher)
Sense analog clock
The rest is up to you.
Z4Root is easy as pie.
I've recently run into the 3G dropout problem. Never had it before but I have it now.
Circle Launcher (not really a launcher but an app launcher)
Sense analog clock
The rest is up to you.
Z4Root is easy as pie.
I've recently run into the 3G dropout problem. Never had it before but I have it now.
tried Go Launcher for the first time last week and absolutely love it; especially with the random scrolling effect enabled. i used LP on my Ally, but Go seems to be a lot smother and more lightweight. Plus it has some of the gesture options that ADW has. used that one for a while, too.
thanks for all the suggestions guys. i'm gonna keep playing around and see what else i can find for this awesome machine. any further suggestions are always greatly appreciated.
thanks for all the suggestions guys. i'm gonna keep playing around and see what else i can find for this awesome machine. any further suggestions are always greatly appreciated.
Outlaw71
Android Expert
I'm a GoLauncher guy as well. I love the ease of creating, moving and managing extra home screens. The swype actions. And it's the slickest of the launchers on my device anyway.
I bought LPP way back in the day, and I plan on giving it a shot when the complete rewrite finally drops (been working on it since before Christmas). I am hoping it really blows everything else away. It'll be hard for me to switch over to it unless they add some of the things I've gotten used to on GL, but who knows, it may just knock my socks off!
I bought LPP way back in the day, and I plan on giving it a shot when the complete rewrite finally drops (been working on it since before Christmas). I am hoping it really blows everything else away. It'll be hard for me to switch over to it unless they add some of the things I've gotten used to on GL, but who knows, it may just knock my socks off!
thecarlsoncrew
Well-Known Member
Welcome to the DX side! I love ADW - tons of customization options and nice bells/whistles, but still a good performer. I used Zeam Launcher, too, which was a lean, mean, speedy machine...but they discontinued support for it a while back. I noticed that I pulled down an update for it today, so I'll be very curious to see if they've got it back up and running again.
Regarding rooting: the primary reasons for doing that are to tinker with your ROMs/themes, to strip out mfg/carrier apps or bloatware, and to tweak your processor/memory/etc. for better performance. The DX is a good performer on its own, and unless you junk it up with lots of apps that are constantly updating, you really don't need to tweak a whole lot. Better performance is always a good thing, but you need to ask yourself if a 5% performance bump is worth the hassle of something potentially going wrong and having to put it all back together again. For some people it is, for some it's not.
Personally, I definitely think it's worth rooting to strip out the mfg/carrier bloatware. It's mostly useless, annoying junk that you don't want to see and will never use. Rooting with z4 or other methods is easy now, and once that's done you can use Root Explorer ($2 or something like that, but WELL worth the minimal cost) to get into the file system and rename or remove the .apk files of the bloatware. Just be CAREFUL - once you're rooted, you need to understand what you're doing before you mess with stuff. Always have a backup before you start tinkering. Once you're rooted, you can use AdFree to strip out ads from most apps, which is really nice, too.
Other apps I'd recommend in addition to the ones mentioned above:
- ROM Manager and Titanium Backup - if you're rooted, these are a must for backup and recovery
- Home Switcher - if you want to play with multiple launchers, this makes it easy to go back and forth, and to reset your default
- Dropbox - awesome app to sync files with your PC while you're on the go (Sugarsync is very similar, and while it lacks some features, it gives you 5GB space rather than 2GB)
- Lookout/Prey/Where'sMyDroid - security and backup apps, most have a way to remote locate if your phone gets stolen
- Watchtower/Elixir/Mini Info - great for pulling system info, killing stuck processes, etc.
- Dolphin Mini - similar to Dolphin HD, but seemed a bit faster to me; either Dolphin is better than the stock browser, though
- DIY Ownskin - this is a cool app that lets you download live backgrounds and modify them yourself (it's kind of hard to explain - just try it)
- SwiftKey - a terrific predictive keyboard that gets more accurate the longer you use it
Have fun!
Regarding rooting: the primary reasons for doing that are to tinker with your ROMs/themes, to strip out mfg/carrier apps or bloatware, and to tweak your processor/memory/etc. for better performance. The DX is a good performer on its own, and unless you junk it up with lots of apps that are constantly updating, you really don't need to tweak a whole lot. Better performance is always a good thing, but you need to ask yourself if a 5% performance bump is worth the hassle of something potentially going wrong and having to put it all back together again. For some people it is, for some it's not.
Personally, I definitely think it's worth rooting to strip out the mfg/carrier bloatware. It's mostly useless, annoying junk that you don't want to see and will never use. Rooting with z4 or other methods is easy now, and once that's done you can use Root Explorer ($2 or something like that, but WELL worth the minimal cost) to get into the file system and rename or remove the .apk files of the bloatware. Just be CAREFUL - once you're rooted, you need to understand what you're doing before you mess with stuff. Always have a backup before you start tinkering. Once you're rooted, you can use AdFree to strip out ads from most apps, which is really nice, too.
Other apps I'd recommend in addition to the ones mentioned above:
- ROM Manager and Titanium Backup - if you're rooted, these are a must for backup and recovery
- Home Switcher - if you want to play with multiple launchers, this makes it easy to go back and forth, and to reset your default
- Dropbox - awesome app to sync files with your PC while you're on the go (Sugarsync is very similar, and while it lacks some features, it gives you 5GB space rather than 2GB)
- Lookout/Prey/Where'sMyDroid - security and backup apps, most have a way to remote locate if your phone gets stolen
- Watchtower/Elixir/Mini Info - great for pulling system info, killing stuck processes, etc.
- Dolphin Mini - similar to Dolphin HD, but seemed a bit faster to me; either Dolphin is better than the stock browser, though
- DIY Ownskin - this is a cool app that lets you download live backgrounds and modify them yourself (it's kind of hard to explain - just try it)
- SwiftKey - a terrific predictive keyboard that gets more accurate the longer you use it
Have fun!