droidStory

After being without a working phone for about a day, after the botched upgrade, Verizon made good, by rushing a replacement to me via FredEx priority over-night. The replacement phone is a refurbished unit without battery, sd-card or battery cover.

I get to work and move my sd-card and battery to the new phone, and just as I turn on the replacement, I think that perhaps I should try to backup all my programs and settings on my old phone before activating the replacement.

Let me explain: While my DX only displays the Motorola logo after installing the upgrade, the phone actually loads Android 2.2 successfully, and I’m able to answer calls and unlock the phone by using the touch screen blindly. I’m even able to read my text messages and emails by taking screen shots via the Android SDK and USB debug connection.  Now, my plan is to use this method to navigate through the different screens to sync with AppBrain and Lookout to get my apps and settings saved.

I move battery and sd-card back into my phone and power on. Guess what? The phone moves past the Moto logo and everything is working. What just happened, that’s unbelievable?! I power-cycle the phone one more time to see if this was just a lucky fluke, but the phone now works just fine.

I have no idea why its working now, but I’m not complaining. I’ll hold on to the refurb for a couple of days before sending it back, just in case my phone has a relapse.

Did you have similar problems with your DX after the upgrade, and did your phone magically recover?

Update: My DX had a relapse this weekend.  The problems started when I noticed that incoming calls would not play any of my custom ring tones.  Also, attempting to play any ring tone or music stored on the SD-card would yield a “file not found” error.  I rebooted the phone and was once again stuck at the Motorola logo.

I tried repeated reboots after removing the battery, but still the same. Then I took out the battery and waited for a couple of minutes, reboot, and viola back to normal.  It looks as if the memory is not getting properly initialized during boot and some left-over bits are messing up the phone. Well, at least there is a work-around for now…

What started out as a pleasant surprise this morning, quickly turned into utter disappointment. My DroidX is now completely unusable after I installed the OTA Update for Android 2.2 that Verizon began pushing to phones today (see previous post).

The DX wont go past the Motorola boot screen, and will not go into recovery mode either.  Well actually the phone does finish the boot sequence and you can hear email notifications and incoming calls, but the screen keeps displaying the Motorola logo. I can also see the redesigned 2.2. screen lock screen when taking screen shots via USB debug and the SDK (see right).

I called Verizon support, and they let me do the usual reboot routines to no eval. The rep told me that they’ve experienced the same problems with the Froyo update of the original Droid and that about 3% of phones were affected by this. She told me to go to the Verizon store so that they can reapply the update, which should fix it.

Update: I went to the Verizon store during lunch. They tried different things in the back room for about an hour – what a great way to spend a lunch hour   No fix. They are now shipping a new DX to me overnight.  I had to push a little for them to waive the Fedex priority fee.

While waiting I met two other Droid customers who had issues with their phones. One had a Droid Incredible that would not browse the Internet any longer after the latest software update. The tech was going to do a hard reset. The other had a Droid2 stuck in a reboot loop. He received a replacement phone.

Update1: Other people experiencing the same problem. Do you have any problems with the update?

You can almost hear a collective sigh of relief – the long-awaited release of Android 2.2. for the Verizon DroidX is finally here. I received the OTA Update notification this morning, after manually checking for system updates on my DX.

I’m now installing the update, which seems to take unusually long and looks as if its hanging half-way through… hmmm.

Update: The update process is definitely hung. You can get detailed progress when you hit the search key. It’s sitting at “patching system files”. OK. now what – the power button doesn’t work, so remove the battery and hope for the best.

So, I forced a reboot by removing the battery. The phone went right back into the update process and is now moving past the step where it stopped before. Now, finishing up and sitting at reboot.

Update1: Now the reboot is taking forever. All I see is the Motorola logo, and the led is lighting up green every now and then. I updated a number of Android phones, including my Nexus One and Droid Incredible, but the process has never been this painful. WTF – Verizon?

Froyo was originally expected to be released in August for the DroidX. Now half-way through September, a hidden page on Verizon’s DroidDoes website is hinting its imminent arrival.

The link to the DX support page still lists the previous software update without any mention of Android 2.2. Stay tuned…!

Update: It looks like the support page has now been updated: http://support.vzw.com/pdf/system_update/droid_x.pdf

Big Red is not known to be the cheapest carrier around, but their excellent (data) coverage at least shows that the company heavily invests into their network infrastructure.

I don’t mind paying a little premium for the trusty Verizon network.  What bums me out though is that Verizon always seems to find new ways to pile on extra fees. There used to be the $12.95 VZ-Navigator tax for the privilege to use your phone’s GPS with Google Maps. The BES data tax to connect to your company’s Blackberry Enterprise Server. And now the $20 surcharge for WiFi tethering, an Android 2.2 (Froyo) feature that Verizon conveniently removed from the default build.

But here is yet another strange twist in the Verizon fee structure. There are two data plans currently offered for Android handsets and other smartphones. Which one do you need?The distinction between Corporate and Personal Email seems to be an oxymoron. Are corporate users  getting more emails than private accounts? What if my company uses Google Apps for corporate email? Do I still need the corporate plan? The details for the corporate plan offer the following explanation:Is Verizon restricting access to ActiveSync or other corporate messaging protocols, unless you pay up? I’m using ActiveSync for both MS-Exchange and Lotus Traveler, so my first impression was that I needed the more expensive corporate plan. Yet, I’m syncing with my corporate mail servers just fine on the personal plan. My calls into Verizon yielded conflicting responses. One person suggested that I only need the corporate plan for BES connectivity and that the higher cost is simply a result of Verizon having to pay RIM some sort of access fee. Still, why list this option for Android phones?

Whatever you do, try the cheaper plan first. It works just fine for me. I’m still peeved about the extra $20/month for WiFi tethering…

Motorola published their Android upgrade schedule on their support forum.

Nothing new here. Obviously, Motorola acknowledged that the Devour was a total flop, so they don’t even bother with any future upgrades.