one design problem with the evo

[drksilenc]

the reason why the droid was marketed so much more than the eris is the simple fact of the hero... basically the same phone just a different skin. why would they market an identical device from another carrior

[Dragon2]

Originally Posted by drksilenc

you have to remove the memory stick from behind the battery... only gripe i have with this phone

Awwww.lol so hard... just kidding, we strive for the perfect phone... evo will be so cool... I'm jealous tmobile don't have a 4.3 inch screen android phone... but I'm very very happy with my nexus one..

[drksilenc]

im sure once the evo is out we will have android for the tmo phone

[BlackDynamite]

Originally Posted by tokuzumi

While you prefer a keyboard, the droid doesn't deliver when it comes to ease of use on the keyboard. My cousin hates it, John from DroidDog stopped using it, and these folks:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/18158..._droid_ii.html
And a humorous analogy of what it's like to use the Droid's keyboard:
http://www.rinish.com/component/opti...emid,78/p,165/

Also, HTCs decision to remove the keyboards from their phones are two fold: One, copy a design that works (millions of iPhone users can't be wrong, right ) Plus, talk to people who use software keyboards. The hero has fantastic spelling correction. Sometimes, too good. I type as fast, or faster on my hero, than I ever did on my mogul or treo.
Two, warranty issues. I used a mogul for about 4 months. I went through 3 of them. The keyboard would either not work, or 3 or 4 of the same characters would shoot out, meaning I'd have to backspace like a mo-fo. Also, I saw numerous reports on this board of touch pro keyboards going out on a regular basis. A company will spend less money on repairs for a keyboard-less phone. That is why RIM went to a optical-type trackball design, and you are seeing the legend and the incredible with optical trackballs.

Like I said from the beginning; if the Eris had more marketing/advertising dollars spent on what the device could do,by both Verizon and/or HTC, not some vanilla Verizon BOGO commercial, about how it would fit into someone's life, it would sell better. It's the fault of HTC and Verizon together. Verizon and Motorola worked together on the droid ads, so why couldn't HTC do something as well?

I like how you still make it sound like android 1.5 and 2.X are the same. People want new now. Not wait. If you could choose to have the newest thing now, vs waiting 3-6 months, what would you do?

Taken from wikipedia:
Motorola's handset division recorded a loss of $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007, while the company as a whole earned $100 million during that quarter.[11] It lost several key executives to rivals[12] and the web site TrustedReviews has called the company's products repetitive and uninnovative.[13] Motorola laid off 3,500 workers in January 2008[14], followed by a further 4,000 job cuts in June[15] and another 20% cut of its research division a few days later.[16] In July 2008, a large number of executives left Motorola to work on Apple Inc.'s iPhone.[17] The company's handset division was also put on offer for sale.[18] In July 2008, analyst Mark McKechnie from American Technology Research said that Motorola "would be lucky to fetch $500 million" for selling its handset business and analyst Richard Windsor said that Motorola might have to pay someone to take the division off the company and that the company may even exit the handset market altogether.[19] Its global market share has been on the decline; from 18.4% of the market in 2007, it had a share of just 6.0% by Q1 2009 but at last Motorola scored a profit of $26 million in Q2 and showed increase of 12% in stocks first time after lose in many quarters.

Motorola was not in the best shape (their phone division) prior to the release of the Droid, losing 66% of their market share.

Unless I'm missing something, I don't see any differences in the Hero vs the Eris in your link, other than the SAR value (head and body). How are they slightly different? And they are 15 grams apart in weight, which is half an ounce, or not noticable.

#1: You saying the keyboard sucks on the Droid only furthers my point. HTC knows darn well they can put out a better keyboard than the one on the Droid. So the fact that such a crappy keyboard was actually being marketed (and beating them handily in sales) had to make them take notice.

#2: Find me some posts with people complaining about the keyboard on their TP2. You won't, because everyone loves that keyboard and it has no major issues. We're not talking about devices from several years ago here, we're talking about the latest and greatest. And the TP2 keyboard was not defective, and there has never been a better keyboard on a device. Nobody is getting exchanges on their TP2 due to keyboard issues.

#3: Like I said from the beginning- if Verizon thought the Eris was a better device than the Droid, they would have marketed it as such. You keep acting like HTC went to Verizon and asked them not to sell it or something. Verizon picked the one they wanted to market, and one look at the numbers shows they made the right choice.

#4: Of course I want the newest OS. But that doesn't mean I was considering the Samsung Intrepid when I bought my TP2. I knew the TP2 was better, and I knew it would have an upgrade to WM 6.5 eventually (and cooked 6.5 ROMs even sooner). So the fact that the Intrepid had WM 6.5 and the TP2 only had WM 6.1 made no difference to me.

#5: So Motorola's handset division had some issues. I still don't see how that helps your point. Basically Motorola went for a home run and chose to put a keyboard on their last hope- and it worked. If it had failed, then maybe you could say "nobody wants a keyboard so it was a dumb decision" or something like that. But it worked, so clearly it was a good decision on their part.

#6: You keep saying how the error correction is great, and you can type fast, and all that. You keep missing the fact that your screen is only 3-4 inches, and you are losing over half of that to the virtual keyboard everytime you use it. I like to see more than only 3 or so lines of text when I type a huge document (or a post like this one). If all I cared about was speed, I could probably get by with a virtual keyboard. I honestly don't think I could ever be as fast on a virtual keyboard, but I could learn to live with it. But I absolutely have to be able to type without looking at times, and I need the full screen to display what I am typing. If I am only typing a 2 sentence text message, fine, I can get by with the 3 or so line viewing area. But if I am typing up a huge document (or a long post like this one) then I need the full screen.

#7: There is absolutely no denying the keyboard played a role in the Droid's success. Verizon came right out marketing the fact that it had a keyboard, and I personally know people that chose it over the Nexus One (and changed carriers in the process) because it had a keyboard. You keep mentioning that the Eris wasn't marketed the same as the Droid, and I am saying the keyboard is a big reason why. If the Eris had a keyboard, maybe Verizon would have chose it as the flagship device. Maybe they still would have picked the Droid, but at least one of the main things they marketed about the Droid would have also been valid on the Eris.

Plenty of people want keyboards on their smartphones. This is not even debatable. There are plenty of people that want keyboards on their iPhones, and plenty of people using Blackberry devices with keyboards too. We don't have to only look at the Droid for evidence that people want a keyboard. I only mentioned the Droid because it killed HTC in a head to head sales battle on the same carrier. HTC seems to try to emulate successful devices, so hopefully we will see some keyboard devices from them. we all know HTC can put out way better keyboards than the Droid's, so lets all hope HTC shows us (and everyone else) what we already know they can do.

I personally want my smartphone to be able to replace my laptop and there is no way that is possible without a keyboard. I know there are kids out there who just want a smartphone for text messaging. But I actually use mine like a laptop. There is just no way I could take notes during a meeting/class/seminar/etc on a virtual keyboard with only a 3 text line viewing area- while still paying attention to the speaker's presentation.

[tokuzumi]

Originally Posted by SaltyDawg

#1: You saying the keyboard sucks on the Droid only furthers my point. HTC knows darn well they can put out a better keyboard than the one on the Droid. So the fact that such a crappy keyboard was actually being marketed (and beating them handily in sales) had to make them take notice.

#2: Find me some posts with people complaining about the keyboard on their TP2. You won't, because everyone loves that keyboard and it has no major issues. We're not talking about devices from several years ago here, we're talking about the latest and greatest. And the TP2 keyboard was not defective, and there has never been a better keyboard on a device. Nobody is getting exchanges on their TP2 due to keyboard issues.

#3: Like I said from the beginning- if Verizon thought the Eris was a better device than the Droid, they would have marketed it as such. You keep acting like HTC went to Verizon and asked them not to sell it or something. Verizon picked the one they wanted to market, and one look at the numbers shows they made the right choice.

#4: Of course I want the newest OS. But that doesn't mean I was considering the Samsung Intrepid when I bought my TP2. I knew the TP2 was better, and I knew it would have an upgrade to WM 6.5 eventually (and cooked 6.5 ROMs even sooner). So the fact that the Intrepid had WM 6.5 and the TP2 only had WM 6.1 made no difference to me.

#5: So Motorola's handset division had some issues. I still don't see how that helps your point. Basically Motorola went for a home run and chose to put a keyboard on their last hope- and it worked. If it had failed, then maybe you could say "nobody wants a keyboard so it was a dumb decision" or something like that. But it worked, so clearly it was a good decision on their part.

#6: You keep saying how the error correction is great, and you can type fast, and all that. You keep missing the fact that your screen is only 3-4 inches, and you are surrending over half of that to the virtual keyboard everytime you use it. I like to see more than only 3 or so lines of text when I type a huge document (or a post like this one). If all I cared about was speed, I could probably get by with a virtual keyboard. I honestly don't think I could ever be as fast on a virtual keyboard, but I could learn to live with it. But I absolutely have to be able to type without looking at times, and I need the full screen to display what I am typing. If I am only typing a 2 sentence text message, fine, I can get by with the 3 or so line viewing area. But if I am typing up a huge document (or a long post like this one) then I need the full screen.

#7: There is absolutely no denying the keyboard played a role in the Droid's success. Verizon came right out marketing the fact that it had a keyboard, and I personally know people that chose it over the Nexus One (and changed carriers in the process) because it had a keyboard. You keep mentioning that the Eris wasn't marketed the same as the Droid, and I am saying the keyboard is a big reason why. If the Eris had a keyboard, maybe Verizon would have chose it as the flagship device. Maybe they still would have picked the Droid, but at least one of the main things they marketed about the Droid would have also been valid on the Eris.

Plenty of people want keyboards on their smartphones. This is not even debatable. There are plenty of people that want keyboards on their iPhones, and plenty of people using Blackberry devices with keyboards too. We don't have to only look at the Droid for evidence that people want a keyboard. I only mentioned the Droid because it killed HTC in a head to head sales battle on the same carrier. HTC seems to try to emulate successful devices, so hopefully we will see some keyboard devices from them. we all know HTC can put out way better keyboards than the Droid's, so lets all hope HTC shows us (and everyone else) what we already know they can do.

I personally want my smartphone to be able to replace my laptop And there is no way that is possible without a keyboard. I know there are kids out there who just want a smartphone for text messaging. But I actually use mine like a laptop. There is just no way I could take notes during a meeting/class/seminar/etc on a virtual keyboard with only a 3 text line viewing area.

I'm not arguing keyboards have no purpose. But to say a phone without a keyboard is not a good choice, or that it won't sell is an incorrect statement. You mention you must see the entire screen when you are typing a long document. And you make a big deal out of the keyboard hiding the screen, allowing you to only see a few lines of text. There is an arrow, to minimize the keyboard, and show the screen in its entirety. When you are proof reading your document, you will need to click where you want to edit on both a touch screen only, or a touch screen with a keyboard, anyway. When touching the keyboard-less device, the keyboard will automatically pop up, and allow you to work. You would be performing the same operation with a full qwerty slide out. The only thing a software keyboard can't do that a hardware can is type without looking. If you gotta have that, no one can argue that point. But that's the only thing....

I almost bought a TP2, until I saw the price tag sprint wanted for that baby. I am all over the TP2 forum in the early, pre-release days, talking to the telus folks. So, you won't find me bad mouth the TP2 keyboard. But find people who have used a software keyboard on a capacitive screen for an extended time bad mouth their keyboards. About the only person who couldn't use an on screen keyboard would be some guy with Muhammad Ali thumbs. I know that dude had some big hands. And besides WM phones needed hardware keyboards, as you can't type for crap on a software only keyboard on a resistive screen. My fiancé's instinct is proof of that. The text messages I get from that phone are crazy. Also, don't sell yourself short, in that you couldn't learn how to use a touch screen keyboard. Auto correction is king.

I don't keep acting like HTC didn't want their phones to sell. I have been clear in that if the eris was given a better ad campaign, showing what the phone could do in a way that people could relate to, it would sell better than it does now. Period. End of story. I think I've said it numerous times in this thread. Please tell me how I haven't said that in almost every post I made in this thread.

My point with the Motorola financial woes was to your point about them being the big cheese in the wireless industry, using the Razr as your example. 3 years ago, yes. Then the industry changed, and Motorola didn't, and they lost 66% of their market share. They were in do or die mode. HTC has been slowly climbing up to the top in the wireless world, with Android paving the way for them. Which is why Apple has become sue-happy lately, with HTC being their target.

Also, you never answered how the Eris is slightly different than the Hero, despite people liking to call it a "re-badged hero".

[BlackDynamite]

Originally Posted by tokuzumi

I'm not arguing keyboards have no purpose. But to say a phone without a keyboard is not a good choice, or that it won't sell is an incorrect statement. You mention you must see the entire screen when you are typing a long document. And you make a big deal out of the keyboard hiding the screen, allowing you to only see a few lines of text. There is an arrow, to minimize the keyboard, and show the screen in its entirety. When you are proof reading your document, you will need to click where you want to edit on both a touch screen only, or a touch screen with a keyboard, anyway. When touching the keyboard-less device, the keyboard will automatically pop up, and allow you to work. You would be performing the same operation with a full qwerty slide out. The only thing a software keyboard can't do that a hardware can is type without looking. If you gotta have that, no one can argue that point. But that's the only thing....

I almost bought a TP2, until I saw the price tag sprint wanted for that baby. I am all over the TP2 forum in the early, pre-release days, talking to the telus folks. So, you won't find me bad mouth the TP2 keyboard. But find people who have used a software keyboard on a capacitive screen for an extended time bad mouth their keyboards. About the only person who couldn't use an on screen keyboard would be some guy with Muhammad Ali thumbs. I know that dude had some big hands. And besides WM phones needed hardware keyboards, as you can't type for crap on a software only keyboard on a resistive screen. My fiancé's instinct is proof of that. The text messages I get from that phone are crazy. Also, don't sell yourself short, in that you couldn't learn how to use a touch screen keyboard. Auto correction is king.

I don't keep acting like HTC didn't want their phones to sell. I have been clear in that if the eris was given a better ad campaign, showing what the phone could do in a way that people could relate to, it would sell better than it does now. Period. End of story. I think I've said it numerous times in this thread. Please tell me how I haven't said that in almost every post I made in this thread.

My point with the Motorola financial woes was to your point about them being the big cheese in the wireless industry, using the Razr as your example. 3 years ago, yes. Then the industry changed, and Motorola didn't, and they lost 66% of their market share. They were in do or die mode. HTC has been slowly climbing up to the top in the wireless world, with Android paving the way for them. Which is why Apple has become sue-happy lately, with HTC being their target.

Also, you never answered how the Eris is slightly different than the Hero, despite people liking to call it a "re-badged hero".

#1: The bottom line is with a hardware keyboard, the entire screen is my viewable text area. I can view text from several paragraphs ago without stopping what I am currently typing. I don't need to minimize a keyboard in order to view the text. It is much faster that way. My keyboard is out, and I can not only see what I am typing, but also what I have already typed. And I can do this without stopping what I am doing. I don't have to put my keyboard away in order to see what I have already typed.

#2: Like I said, I'm sure I could get by with an on screen keyboard if all I ever used it for was a short text message here and there or something like that. But if you are sitting in a 2 hour meeting/class/seminar and using your smartphone to take notes, you need the full screen viewing and you need to be able to type without looking. There is just no way you can maintain eye contact or pay attention to the presentation if your eyes are locked to your phone.

#3: Again, there is a reason why the Eris wasn't marketed the way you keep saying it should have been- that reason is Verizon. Verizon is the one who paid for most of that Droid marketing, not Motorola. And Verizon chose the Droid over the Eris to market like that because they knew it would sell better, and had features that couldn't be found on other devices. It's not like some HTC exec said, "You know, this device would be the best selling device ever if we marketed it, but I think we'll let it collect dust on shelves instead, because I really hate marketing..." Not hardly. HTC pitched the device to Verizon, and Verizon said something to the effect of, "We'll carry it, but we are not making it our flagship device, so you'll be on your own for marketing, for the most part..." While Verizon told Motorola something like, "We'll carry it, but we want an exclusive, and we'll make it our flagship device and pay for a major marketing campaign..."

#4: Again, your point about Motorola does not help your argument. They were in do or die mode, they swung a heavy bat, and they hit a home run. It just goes to show that you don't have to try to copy an iPhone in order to be successful. And I never claimed Motorola was the big cheese, I just said I wasn't sure if they were on the brink of failure, and pointed out the success of the RAZR- after you said they were on the brink of failure. It doesn't matter though, like I said at the time- we're talking about the Droid here, and there is absolutely no doubt that the Droid has been a huge success.

#5: As far as the diffence in specs, I actually posted the wrong link. There were differences there too though, here's the link again so you can see them yourself:
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=pdacomp...=2080&id2=1966
But that was comparing the Droid Eris to the GSM Hero. Here is the Sprint Hero compared to the Droid Eris:
http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=pdacomp...=2080&id2=2005
They have different CPUs, different display color depths, different bluetooth, and obviously different shapes of the actual device.

[Ticklemepinks]

look bottom line keyboards are great, I love them, wish every fone had one, the reason the eris had no chance to compete was def marketing, and they my major!!! Moto probably had a marketing contract with verizon that HTC didn't, so it def couldn't compete if it's not being shown, I'm not sayin it would will but i think if there was as much put into ads for the eris as it was for the droid it would be a totally different story

[mbaseball3]

you have to remove the memory stick from behind the battery... only gripe i have with this phone

design flaw? more like safety feature. you want your sd card to just randomly fall out and lose all your info on it....for ever? my hero has card also locked under battery cover.


Sent from my HERO200 using Tapatalk

[tokuzumi]

Originally Posted by mbaseball3

design flaw? more like safety feature. you want your sd card to just randomly fall out and lose all your info on it....for ever? my hero has card also locked under battery cover.


Sent from my HERO200 using Tapatalk

No he means you have to take the battery out of the phone in order to access the SD Card slot. That would require a power reset of the phone. The Sprint Hero doesn't require a power reset of the phone to get to the sd card slot.

[drksilenc]

look salty if you need to type for that darn long get a blue tooth keyboard ffs. i could in no way take notes for that long on my touch pro.
on the other hand i have a nice collapsable bt keyboard that works great.