Phone Tech Blog

When you get an Android phone, it can be difficult to know how to set it up and take advantage of all the available options. I will let you know how I set up my phone and why, as well as some other options available.

What Launcher To Use: The first thing I do when I get an Android phone is download a different launcher. A launcher is basically a home screen replacement. I’ve noticed that the home screens of most Android phones are not great. HTC’s Sense UI has a nice home screen and some nice widgets, but even that home screen is not that great. I believe the best alternate launcher is LauncherPro. LauncherPro has many attributes that put it above the rest. The first is that it is quick and stable. You want your home screen to be fast but stable and smooth. I’ve tried them all and this is the best one that has these qualities. Another quality that makes it nice is that it has swipe gestures for the apps on the dock. The dock on your phone is the bottom part with the apps that don’t change. Not only can you customize the apps that are on the dock, but you can customize it so that when you touch one of the apps and swipe your finger up, you can do a couple of different things. You can launch an application, a shortcut, or you can see a popup for missed calls, unread messages, bookmarks, or recent apps. This is something simple but nice to have. It’s downfall is that it is not as customizable in the sense of giving it themes. For this I would download GO Launcher EX. It has all of the same functionality of LauncherPro, and it has over 4000 themes. The reason I prefer LauncherPro is that I noticed that GO Launcher EX slowed down my phone a little bit. If your phone is newer then it might not slow it down and GO Launcher EX could be better for you. There are also options to have your phone look like different operating systems. To make your phone look like an iPhone, the best option is Espier Launcher. If you want to make your phone look like a windows phone, try Launcher7.

What Widgets To Get: The first widget, or pack of widgets, I would suggest getting is “Android Pro Widgets.” These widgets add scrollable widgets for your Twitter and Facebook news feed, your calendar, your contacts, your messages, and your bookmarks. It is a fantastic set of widgets and the first widgets I would get. To use these widgets, you must have an alternate launcher, as seen above, and you must enable scrollable in widgets in the preferences of that launcher. The second widget I would get is called Fancy Widget. This widget shows you the weather, time, date, and high/low of the day. It’s a simple but nice looking widget and is very useful. These are the best widgets to get that don’t come with your favorite apps. They are not an application, they are just widgets to put on your home screens. Remember that. To add a widget to a home screen, long press an open space, touch widgets, and choose the widget you want to use.

What Free Apps To Get: For most people, the first apps you get will be Facebook and Twitter. After that, there are so many apps it is hard to know what to get. The following apps are basic ones I would suggest everyone get. The first app is Pandora, which is used for Internet radio. The next app is the Weather Channel app; it is simple but it tells you everything you need to know and is easy to use. If you are a sports fan, ScoreCenter is the most complete sports score and story app and connects you directly to ESPN’s website for anything the app doesn’t have. IMDB is a great app if you like to look up information on actors/actresses as well as movies and TV shows. Dolphin Browser is a great alternative for your phone’s internet browser and adds a lot of extra functionality. Amazon Mobile, Craigslist Mobile, and the Official eBay Android App are great for shopping on through those three mediums.

If you don’t have a ton of space on your SD card, Google Music is a great app. It stores all of your music online and lets you listen to your whole library as long as you have an Internet connection. Evernote is a fantastic app for taking notes in just about any setting. Kik is a messaging app that shows you when the message you write is sent, delivered, and read; the catch is that the people you want to talk to have to have it as well. Another app that is great for communicating is HeyTell; HeyTell is like a leaving someone an instant voice message and is a nice way to talk back and forth. The two best options for reading news article are Pulse and Google Currents. I prefer Pulse because it is more polished at the moment.

Best Free Games: These I will just list and let you figure out which ones are for you. Angry Birds, Words With Friends, Hangin with Friends, Air Penguin, Fruit Ninja, Tetris, Unblock Me Free, Contract Killer, Slice It, and Apparatus Light. There are thousands of apps and games on the market that I have not listed and the best way to find games you like that aren’t here is to discover them yourself!

If I have missed any apps or you have an questions, leave a comment and let me know!

Photo credit to: http://www.voiceable.org/25-best-android-apps-for-social-networking.html

Verizon's Droid Charge by Samsung

The Droid Charge is a spectacular and underrated phone. I would recommend this phone to anyone, unless they are going to sign a two-year contract. I personally am extremely satisfied with this phone. It is very fast. It only has 512 MB of RAM, and a 1GHz Hummingbird processor that came out last year. Despite this, Samsung did a fantastic job of making this phone fly with such limited hardware. It has two features that Android does not come with, and that other phone makers such as Motorola and HTC, do not include.

The first feature is toggles for WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Mobile Network (your data), and Auto-Rotation. This is extremely useful because I don’t have to dig into the menu settings of my phone to toggle these, and I don’t have to take up home screen space to have the widgets. If you don’t mind widgets, then Samsung’s setup is better because you don’t have to find the home screen that has the toggle widget to adjust the setting. This is just something minor that really makes a difference.

The second feature that Samsung includes is a task manager. This can be accessed by long pressing the home button and clicking on task manager, or actually opening the app. What this does is that it can close apps that are running and actively taking up RAM. It is great because it really helps you save battery life.

For now I believe that this is the best phone on Verizon. Even though it doesn’t have the same specs as newer phones like the Razr and Bionic, you don’t really feel it because they are good enough for Gingerbread and Samsung does a great job of making it feel like a top of the line phone. This phone also has an exceptionally great camera. Colors look beautiful in the pictures taken. Another great quality is the screen. It is an 800×480 screen, which on paper does not look good, but in reality looks fantastic. The two reasons for this is that there are 3 subpixels for every pixel, as well as the fact that it is a Super AMOLED display. The Super AMOLED display makes colors look gorgeous and the blacks are the darkest blacks of any phones. It has the closest screen to the iPhone I have ever seen. It might not be as crystal clear as the Rezound or the Galaxy Nexus, but it is definitely up there. Combine all of the qualities that this phone has, and it is definitely a winner at the moment.

I would not, however, recommend that anybody agree to a two-year contract to buy this phone. The reason is that this phone is not future proof; it may be great right now, but in a year it will not be fine and you will be feeling the pain of outdated hardware.

It is questionable whether it will get Ice Cream Sandwich, but if it does, it will be slow anyway. The reason for this is that the Operating System upgrade is not what makes older phones slow; the main reason that older phones get slow is because Apps are optimized for the newest phones, using the newest hardware. If you like to use apps and play games on your phone, then the Droid Charge will be slow because it will not be able to handle the newest apps like a new phone will. As newer phones come out, they offer more resources for apps and games to use. These resources are mainly the processor and the RAM. Apps begin to use more of these resources so that it runs faster and smoother. If you have an older phone that does not offer the apps as many resources, it will run slower and much less smoothly.

I am waiting for a great phone that is future-proof as well as a phone that has the features that the Droid Charge has. These features include the task manager, the toggles in the notification bar, an amazing camera and screen, great battery life, 4G, a big screen, a loud speaker, a removable battery, and top specs. I also will not be spending $300 dollars on my next phone. That is way too much money and I’m sorry but they are not worth that much when I’m signing a two-year contract. I will definitely be buying a certified pre-owned and if it has any problems I can fix them and make it feel new. What I would suggest if you are interested in a great phone but are not eligible for an upgrade, the Droid Charge is cheap on eBay and I would buy it there. That is exactly what I did,

What phone are you planning on buying and which phone do you think is the best option on Verizon? Leave your comment below!

Picture credit goes to: http://wireless.amazon.com/Samsung-DROID-Android-Verizon-Wireless/dp/B004XD1S4M