General: Android Mobile Phones, I Really Like Mine!

Been away from the site for quite a while. Hello again.

I stepped into the realm of real smart phones late this past summer. I purchased a Samsung Epic 4G. Also known as a member of the Galaxy S lineup. The screen is incredible and using it is just fun. I have less and less need for my desktop PC. I can do almost anything on the phone that I do with my desktop. There are some exceptions, but for general use, it works great. The physical keyboard helps but composing email and text messages with swype (or whatever Samsung calls there version of the app) is just so easy!

Any Android users here? What are your favorite apps?

I have the cyanogen as an ADW Launcher theme.
I use aCar for keeping track of my vehicle maintenance. I also use shootme for screen captures. My phone is not rooted but although shootme says you need to have a rooted phone for it to work, it works anyway. ADW.Launcher takes care of eye candy for now. I use Dolphin Browser. I also use cubed for my music needs. My phone is the center of my automotive music experience now. I bought an Bluetooth to FM modulator adapter by alpine to connect to my OEM head unit. I like the way it just starts playing where I left off without me doing a thing. It makes my music experience very seamless.
I did have to learn to manage my apps to make battery life extend to the whole day. I now end the day with about 50% battery life left but sometimes it gets as low as 20%. Before, it was wiped out before the work day was over.
I play some games on it. I like Minisquadron and Angry Birds a lot. I also like Flight Director (a micro mangers dream game ) Flashlight helps when I need some extra light by turning on the camera flash LED. Barcode scanner comes in handy but I am starting to use Google voice search more. For some reason I totally ignored it until recently.

Hi Ivan,

Glad you're enjoying Android too! I've got a Desire, and absolutely love it (having got rid of my rubbish Nokia N97).

Two of my favourite games are "Spaghetti and Marshmallows" and "Air Control". I've also downloaded "Colossal Cave Adventure" (Text adventure).

Huddy

Coyote! Hi! Updates are from your carrier as they approve them (at least here). I am still waiting for my Froyo update. My carrier has not approved it yet, while Galaxy S users on other carriers already have their 2.2 upgrade. Makes me wonder if I will ever get Gingerbread. (Not comfortable with rooting yet)

Update: Looks like 2.2.1 is a Dev! Can't be long now.

Huddy, a coworker has the Desire, it's a nice phone! I like the center track ball/sensor thing it has and of course, Sense UI. It seems a little more refined than Samsung's Touchwiz UI. My wife had (and lost ) a Samsung Intercept that had the optical mouse type control on the bottom and it was nice to use. I just ordered a LG Optimus S for my daughter and am waiting for it to arrive. It was free through my carrier with a contract extension. She wanted the purple one.
I am going to look into those games.

Spode/Coyote, I have not played with a Nexus One in person. My carrier does not have it since it uses CDMA.

My bad, my coworker has the HTC Incredible.

Downloaded Tank Hero Beta. A openGL version of the old Combat game on the Atari 2600 (the tank part of the game anyway.)

How well does android sync with outlook?

I'm thinking of ditching my winmo htc in favour of an android...

Posted By: ClubBarf

Glad you're enjoying Android too! I've got a Desire, and absolutely love it (having got rid of my rubbish Nokia N97).

I've got a WinMo phone here that I hacked Android onto. Maybe you can do the same? I think Outlook integration is pretty good - if not by default, there are apps I've seen in the market.

Posted By: KrazyIvan

I use Dolphin Browser.

I use Miren browser. I've not tried Dolphin. Miren goes full screen with tabs and works nicely.

Posted By: coyote

Ivan, a nexus one is almost the same as the HTC desire, just a little less here and there, but not a lot. Made to Google's spec.

It's basically a stock Froyo build without all the Sense stuff on it - which I don't care about. Hardware is almost identical.

Posted By: Huddy

Hi Ivan,

I've got a Desire, and absolutely love it (having got rid of my rubbish Nokia N97).

Heh. I sold mine for £180 and bought the Nexus One for £380.

I've synced with my work email, and seems to work pretty well. I don't really use it for much more than checking emails, but at one point I made the mistake of syncing the calendar as well, and I was getting reminders far too often (about piddly little stuff that was in my work calendar), so I turned off calendar syncing.

I can't really think of much that it doesn't do. Like I say, I've got work email, I've got gmail set up too. There's a great little app called "Where's my droid" which will cause your phone to ring (even if on silent) when you text it a certain phrase.

Posted By: KrazyIvan

You mean exchange? I hear it is still a little iffy.

Actually, I don't use an exchange server - I just use Outlook. Why outlook? Because the calendar keeps my life in order. Without having my phone sync'd to outlook, I'd never be at an appointment!

I'd swap to google mail/google calendar, but I just cant be bothered with the headache of tranferring domains, websites and the rest...

Spode - then I would have no way of getting my mail.

My domains have to stay where they are because of my websites. Outlook is the cleanest way of keeping everything in one place, without having to transfer my domains to a google server.

Spode beat me to it but with much better input than I could have provided. I knew it could be done but I never had to use it.