Please bear with me, I'm new-phone impaired...
As of Sunday morning I've switched phones from my trusty old Palm Centro to a newer touch-screen-only smartphone running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread). Overall I like the new phone and all it's bells and whistles. But it's such a complete and utter change from everything I'm familiar with that it's taking some serious effort to adjust to. I've ported over all my contacts and calendar/scheduler events with very few issues. But there are a TON of things that just plain don't work right yet. (Heck, just making it do what my old phone used to is proving quite a challenge.) So, over the next week or two while I'm settling in and making the thing work the way I need/want it to work, please don't be offended if I don't see/respond to a TXT/tweet from you, miss a call from you, don't get your voicemail, send you an incomplete email or TXT or one that looks like a cat jumped on the keyboard, etc. I'm working on it.
Also, if you use an Android phone and have some suggestions on the following, I'd *love* to hear from you:
1) Some way to manually set the phone to "I want go to sleep now. Don't make a noise unless it's a event." mode. I like being connected. But I also use my phone's calendar notifications to help make sure I wake up in a timely fashion. So I can't just mute the whole phone when I go to bed.
2) Some way to separately adjust the volumes of the various different notification types. The volume rocker seems to adjust all sounds. What I want is a way to tone down the volume on, say, tweets, TXTs, games, youtube videos, etc, while leaving calendar event notifications nice and loud. So far the only way I've found to do some of this is by editing the individual notification sound files to make them quieter. :-p
3) Virtual keyboards. I'm currently trying Gingerbread Keyboard and Smart Keyboard. The latter has arrow keys which I desperately want, calibration to make it handle my typing better, and way better options. The former has better accuracy with my big fat thumbs and nicer keys, IMHO. There are literally dozens of keyboards out there, tho. Which ones should I try next?
4) Please, please, PLEASE tell me there is Bejeweled for Android. The App Marketplace has lots of clones, but none I really like so far. I just want the good old original from PopCap Games...
5) Some way to disable 3G/4G at will without rooting the phone. So far it looks like AT&T has locked this down so I can't change the setting, even with a widget or the #*#*4636*#*# trick on the keypad.
6) Any other tricks (aside from getting and learning how to use a task killer) to extend battery life beyond one day. (In contrast, when the battery was new, my Centro could go a week on a charge.)
Anyway, as I said, please bear with me. I'll conquer this thing yet! :-)
Also, if you use an Android phone and have some suggestions on the following, I'd *love* to hear from you:
1) Some way to manually set the phone to "I want go to sleep now. Don't make a noise unless it's a event." mode. I like being connected. But I also use my phone's calendar notifications to help make sure I wake up in a timely fashion. So I can't just mute the whole phone when I go to bed.
2) Some way to separately adjust the volumes of the various different notification types. The volume rocker seems to adjust all sounds. What I want is a way to tone down the volume on, say, tweets, TXTs, games, youtube videos, etc, while leaving calendar event notifications nice and loud. So far the only way I've found to do some of this is by editing the individual notification sound files to make them quieter. :-p
3) Virtual keyboards. I'm currently trying Gingerbread Keyboard and Smart Keyboard. The latter has arrow keys which I desperately want, calibration to make it handle my typing better, and way better options. The former has better accuracy with my big fat thumbs and nicer keys, IMHO. There are literally dozens of keyboards out there, tho. Which ones should I try next?
4) Please, please, PLEASE tell me there is Bejeweled for Android. The App Marketplace has lots of clones, but none I really like so far. I just want the good old original from PopCap Games...
5) Some way to disable 3G/4G at will without rooting the phone. So far it looks like AT&T has locked this down so I can't change the setting, even with a widget or the #*#*4636*#*# trick on the keypad.
6) Any other tricks (aside from getting and learning how to use a task killer) to extend battery life beyond one day. (In contrast, when the battery was new, my Centro could go a week on a charge.)
Anyway, as I said, please bear with me. I'll conquer this thing yet! :-)