Droid Eris – owners review part 2 June 13, 2010
Posted by Anthony in : Technology , trackback
First I would like to say sorry about this extremely late second half of my review on the droid eris. But as your about to learn it was really good that it took this long, and for more than just explaining the conversation that I had with an HTC rep just the other day.
Alright, lets start at the top. Anyone who has looked at or purchased, hell, anyone who has even researched the eris knows that it was never meant to be a power-house device. Now that’s not to say its supposed to be a child’s toy either, but you get my drift. Because of this, I feel that eris owners in general have been way to relaxed when it comes to forcing acountability for what is now obviously an extremely flawed device. I’m not laying all this blame on HTC for this either. Now a crappy battery life, sometimes unresponsive screen and the absurd heat that is generated when the eris is charging, that falls on HTC. But truth is, Android is Google’s baby. Whether the critic’s and fan boys wanna argue this or not, if Android was a baby, Google would have been the A-sexual parental unit. What that means is that Google is responsible for at least half the overall experiance that your going to have with your Android device. And if Google isn’t going to start testing and retesting on there own, the devices which will be carrying there baby(much less be representing all of there hard work) then breaking the hearts of consumer’s will be the least of there worry’s. What I’m saying is that creating the new 2. whatever version of Google is cool and all, but if the hardware blow’s then the consumer’s will not have anything near the user experiance Google imagined. This is a matter of hardware and software needing to be on the same page. If you doubt this at all I will remind you of the leader, the iphone. Now the iphone may be a smart phone with training wheels and a pretty little bell, but those training wheels where built by the same people who made the frame of the bike. That means there is no guessing if they will work together, they were built too.
Now before you get your flame wheels turning, I would like to point out the best part about this problem. Anarchy, not in the sense of people running around lighting building’s on fire, but in the sense that as Android user’s we have the passion and ability to take OUR mobile OS into our own hand’s. That is something no iphone user will have ever have the pleasure of doing, and something I just realized in full affect as of lately. The community that has been built from Android, is tighter and more helpful than any other out there. I have never not once heard a water cooler talk about some cool feature the palm pre has. But I have seen coworkers sharing apps via bump, and come into work more excited to tell there friends about anything from there silly new case to how they were able to record and edit there child’s first steps on there Android. These people, correction, OUR people, range all the way from celebrated geek to the mother who bought her mytouch to have something to talk to her disconnected kids about. I know of at least two parents who share Android as a hobby with there children. Android will never replace baseball in that effect, but it will be what your both talking about standing in line for tickets.
Seeing as I started with the good news, I’ll now drop the bad. Phone manufacturer’s are not in the business of selling great devices. There in the business of making different devices for different price points. That’s because for them there client isn’t you, its the network provider’s. If there only goal was to make a killer device then every Motorola would be the MOTO Droid, not the pieces of crap they sell for tracfone that you can score for 15 bucks.
The other big problem is that Google hasn’t come up with a minimum hardware spec for the devices they are willing to put Android on. This is bad. Microsoft knows this, that’s why there is a min bar for any device hoping to get window’s mobile 7 on it. Apple knows this. Why Google can’t figure this out is shocking to me. Being a part of the open handset alliance doesn’t mean that those handsets get to be crap. The day Google comes up with a min bar, is the day that the overall android experiance will get better for everyone. I promise.
Now to my first call with HTC. After many, many frustrating calls to Verizon’s tech support, with virtually no help, I decided to call HTC myself. More than one time Verizon employee’s have told me that there was a patch in the works, always being more than vague on a delivery date for such a patch. And frankly, anyone who has called there cell company for any reason, knows they will sometimes say anything. So I called HTC, and the guy I got was more than honest with me. He said he was a sup working the phones that day to help with the high volume. I explained my problems, stuck lock screen, dead air, a jumping curser, ghost restarts and totall shut downs amongst many other things. 90 percent of all of my problems showing up after the 2.1 update. The sup then explained that he doesn’t know anything about a patch being made and that HTC had explained to Verizon that the update would have to be fragmented, due to the hardware constraints (that min bar would be real nice know huh). I asked if he thought that the reason there wasn’t going to be a patch with the Eris was because there didn’t need to be one, or because Verizon expects people to jump to the incredible. He said ” I would say B , but that is my opinion, not HTC’s”. He then played “CYA” explaining that he doesn’t know everything.
Now I have worked for 2 different cell company’s in 2 seperate call centers. I know that sometimes people say there supervisors when there not. I also know that as an agent, one who is on the phone for hours a day, its real easy to get tired of making excuses for something you had nothing to do with. Eventually you crack, and you tell someone the truth. Not because you hate the company you work for, but because for some reason you connect with a caller enough to be openly honest. You then hang up the call feeling good for about 2 seconds. After that you start to pray that the Quality dept didn’t listen in or record your call.
I called back the next day to confirm what I had been told, only to be told the opposite by a very cold woman. I made this call sitting out in front of a local Verizon store. The plan was to get confirmation of verizons lie and to wait for the store to open so I could make the biggest scene ever. Since I didn’t get confirmation, I didn’t walk into the Verizon store. I did however drive down the block to Sprint. I’ll be picking up my evo on September 27th of this year, the day after my Verizon contract is up.
So in conclusion, I love my Eris. Like I love my uncle. You know, the one that tought you so much about what’s great, but sucks a$ at doing any of those things themselves. That showed you what’s on the other side of the mountain, because they had pictures of it. Not because they had ever been there before. I don’t totally blame HTC, or Verizon for that matter, for my crappy experience. But I do think that for the money I pay for my 5 line account, the least Verizon could’ve done was be honest with me. Atleast the brief window of honesty I got from a good guy at HTC. Which is why ill be sporting the Evo and not Verizon come October.
Id like to leave you with this, Android is incredible. But until Google comes up with a min bar for hardware manufacturers. Spend the extra 100 dollars and get your networks best android device. If for no other reason than the feeling you’ll get when you walk into the office, and your holding the best Android phone in the room. Just don’t forget to bump that cool new app to that kid who’s still using the G1. Remember, were in this together.
P.s. yes I did try to call NASA, and I would have been right. If I made my point a few billion years earlier that is.
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