Motorola Droid Phone
 

I'm thinking seriously of getting one of the new Motorola Droid cell phones from Verison .

Does anyone know if these Android Phones will Sync to a Linux box ??



http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/N...d-by-Motorola/

Depends on what you mean by sync , It will mount as a usb device, however as far as syncing it really does that on the cloud and it does it well. You can also do all kinds of interesting stuff such as turn the phone into a wireless hotspot complete with wep encryption. I have the G1 and have had nothing but great things to say about it. With the 2.0 android update there is all kinds of fun stuff going on such as turn by turn navigation.

Regards,
JKZfixme

I have never had a cell phone so a little info on your G1 please.


I ride motorcycles, I use linux, and I want a small portable internet device, that can make a phone call occassionally, I don't text. So I want to look at the Android 2.0s. The GPS part sounds great. The linux part sounds great too.


When you say they sync to the cloud. Does that mean if you don't have an internet connection you loose all your contacts? Like I use gmail but if I can't get to the internet they are all gone. What happens if your driving around and lose 3G connection?

Do you loose all your apps with no internet too? What about saved files and such?

Do you like the on-screen keyboards or the flip out keyboards? Why? To me on my bike it would seem easier to be able to hit the screen, GPS probably not email or gnometris or something. :) I suppose I could try...


Why did you pick a G1 over a iPhone or yea even a winDoze phone?

Stoggy ,

All applications are inherent in the device itself as well as the contacts, so you have them on the phone regardless of 3g. When I say they are on the cloud what I mean is that all your contacts are also stored in gmail , meaning if you get a new phone they will sync right back up. Also the google calendar and whatever else you have setup is available and changeable from the phone as well as the web. I personally love the keyboard as I use mine for development and have a tendency to travel with work so it does come in handy more than you would think. As far as the GPS goes the way google handles it is you do need a data connection to download the maps, or you can use an open wifi if its about. So as long as you don't stray to far off the beaten path regardless of connection on the way ,as long as you have it at first, the turn by turn navigation will still function. The GPS on the droid is also voice activated so you can use a bluetooth headset with excellent efficiency depending on what helmet you have. As far as your last question I got the G1 about a year ago, mostly for the linux aspect of it as well as the fact that the SDK is open and readily available, It is and always has been an intuitive and excellent user experience. I also chose Tmobile for the UMA even though it is not yet available for the G1 , the wife uses it on her blackberry constantly and it keeps the minutes reigned in. Any other questions feel free to ask.

Regards,
JKZfixme

I've got the droid and I love it. Decent battery life, very responsive touchscreen. Excellent phone.

I too have a droid. I chose Droid over the iPhone mainly because of AT&T's awful service.

The phone is great in my opinion, however I will say if you are not a Google user (gmail, calendars, etc etc), you do miss out on some functionality.

Some of the downsides I've noticed, is Verizon loves to nickel and dime their customers. They require a smartphone plan (with unlimited data, that is limited to 5GBs), go over the 5GBs its like $25/1GB, iirc. Not that different from an iPhone plan but if you aren't use to SmartPhone pricing it may be a bit of a shock to you.

oooh my god..

very nice forum. and very nice thread.

I got a droid now, I love it. I hate the phone part though, people can call me. If you are still concidering it. You can sink the phone to the sim card and then sink the sim card to your computer.

Mod edit: I assume by "sink" you mean "sync" -- took me 2 reads to realize that you probably weren't in the kitchen. :)
BTW, apologies for doing this by edit but the thread has grown too long to respond.

I recently purchased a new Android phone as well. I have the HTC Magic(T-mobile version) and it's been great so far. If you do some searching on the Droid Market, you can find some really nice apps. I've installed a file manager that allow me to easily access my media server and other pc's on my home network for transferring files and mp3's. I also found an ssh client, which allows me to ssh into any of my machines and manage them remotely. Essentially, it's a tiny computer for me. There's a ton of good apps out there and many of them are very useful.

ChromeO, what is the name of the Filemanager and SSH client ?

Yes, got to be careful there; this kid inadvertently racked up $22K: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Verizon-...news-5345.html

I'm currently using ES File Manager, and ConnectBot for an SSH client. Both of them seem to do a decent job and are the best I found so far, with a minimal search effort.

Chrome0, thanks for your fast responds.

i use connect bot for ssh and astro for a file manager. I wish my stupid logitech bluetooth keyboard would work with it. But logitech is a bunch of idiots. Their keyboard works with linux but not with linux on a non-pc. At least that is their answer... I hate logitech. Other wise i could use my phone+keyboard as a real desktop solution.

I used es but got into something like dir hell. I tried to copy and paste a dir into a different dir and it made the dir inside a dir inside a dir inside a dir inside a dir inside a dir inside a dir inside ... it took 4 hours to remove them all when i mounted the sim card on my linux pc. I was having to go deeper and deeper and deeper into the f'ed fs before I could delete anything when trying to do it on the phone. I haven't had any problems with astro.


My favorite app on the phone is the gps. I ride a motorcycle so no radio but I can stream pandora with the phone, i dont like mp3s to much disk and work to keep up with them all, while getting gps directions to somewhere. All while the phone is in my pocket. The droid will silence the music so the gps can give directions then go back to music. Google maps has sent me to the wrong place before but the gps on the phone hasn't yet, knock on wood.

Motorcycles have very little electrical power so more and more devices suck, and can let the smoke out of the "alternator". GPS+mp3 player+cellphone replaced by my droid. Pushing motorcycles sucks riding motorcycles is lots of fun.

I had a business trip to Denver. I have never been to Denver. The phone found my hotel and the place I was going to work at. When it was time to go home i was leaving from the work place, It found a completely different route for me. I was a little scared cause it seemed backwards to me at the time. Experiences with Google maps had me worried, I had time I thought, so i figured what the hell i will do what it says. Surprisely it was right, 46 hours in that damn room had my directions all sorts of backwards. The route it found was definately a short cut versus the way i was going to go. when I got to the airport my flight was delayed, later it got canceled, snow in houston. But I had enough time to make a different flight I was the last person to board and they closed the door behind me. I was able to get home on time, I had already checked out of my hotel and turned in my rental car. So if i didn't fly out I was sleeping at the airport. The flight I caught and the flight that got cancelled were the last 2 flights out that could get me home.

I am due for an upgrade on my phone and really want a droid. How is the battery life on it?