[PLUG-TALK] Need phone advice

John Jason Jordan johnxj at comcast.net
Mon Feb 28 00:54:17 UTC 2011


On Sun, 20 Feb 2011 09:15:15 -0800 (PST)
Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com> dijo:

>On Sat, 19 Feb 2011, John Jason Jordan wrote:
>
>> I just ordered a new Atrix 4G from AT&T.
>
>I'm really interested to see the Atrix in action. If it lives up to 
>its reviews, it'll be my next phone.
>
>I'd love to hear your thoughts once you've used it for a couple days.

I'm finding the touchscreen to be a nightmare. In the middle of typing
a text message suddenly I'm someplace else and the text message is
gone. I can't type for crap with the on-screen QWERTY keyboard, even
sideways. The keys are just too small to hit accurately. And since it
is heat-activated I can't use a stylus.

I have the same problem scrolling down or from screen to screen. You
need incredibly fine motor control in your fingers. Linger a couple
milliseconds too long while scrolling and suddenly you've launched the
app your finger was over when you paused. Ditto for pressing too hard.
And if you swipe your finger too fast suddenly you've gone several
pages. There is no "page down" button.

I have used computers for ages, but the Android OS (Froyo) on this
phone is driving me nuts. You can't exit from a program from within the
program - no X in the corner or Close button. You have to use a task
manager to kill the program. Icons for applications have letters under
them telling you what the app is, although sometimes the word makes no
sense - I'm still trying to figure out what "DLNA" is. But when the
icon is not an application you are expected to know intuitively what
the icon represents. I don't. And there are never balloon popups.

Bluetooth file transfer from my laptop is   s  l  o  w . I transferred
about 125 MB of MP3s last night and it took 1.5 hours. I had to go back
to the AT&T store because at first Bluetooth file transfer wouldn't
work at all. Turns out that I needed to install an app for that, which
was not installed by default.

So far I have uninstalled about half of the apps that the phone came
with. If you're a Facebooker, Twitterer, MySpacer, and otherwise
electronically social, or you think it is nice to have thousands of
pictures and videos, you might enjoy some of the apps it came with.
I'm not that popular, and I think I have taken maybe three or four
hundred pictures in my entire lifetime. 

The wallpaper that AT&T thought I would find attractive was so hideous
that I almost walked out without buying the phone. Worse, it interfered
with the letters under the icons so I couldn't read anything. I tried
to set it to "no wallpaper," but it turns out that is not an option on
AT&T's version of Froyo. But you can use any picture, so I used the
camera to take a picture of a sheet of paper. That is now my wallpaper.
It looks much better.

Ultimately I want to be able to pop into the Oxford English Dictionary
at the PSU library, or check my bank accounts, or go to several other
web addresses that I have bookmarked on my laptop. I haven't set up the
bookmarks yet due to difficulties with typing. Ditto for typing e-mail
addresses, like plug at pdxlinux.org. And you can't save your e-mail
address in the e-mail client; everything uses the same Contacts list.
Therefore, when I access Contacts to call a friend I have to scroll
past all the e-mail addresses as well as the phone numbers. And there is
only one e-mail client; you can't install a different one. 

If you haven't guessed by now I am feeling very frustrated. The AT&T
store people tell me that in a couple weeks it will seem like second
nature. We'll see. 



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