Recently, my good friends at T-mobile let me have about an hour and a half to play with the new G2 from HTC, so I wanted to give you the lowdown from a Droid user perspective.

The phone itself has a nice size to it, and the keyboard layout is also very easy to use. The device itself runs pretty well and I did not notice any lag or slowdowns as I put it thru its paces. The screen is nice and crisp and the touchscreen input is on par with some of the best devices out there. It is pretty much standard Android vanilla fare as far as the UI is concerned and as I was out getting 4 kids glasses I was able to text, browse, and email with little trouble while keeping track of my small army.

Sounds good right? Well not all of it was good in my experience. The keyboard while nice has a big caveat as it is hinged and not in a good way. The hinge is made of a non ferrous metal which will keep it from rusting, but for being brand new it had way too much play for my liking. It seemed sturdy but I foresee people snapping this thing in two. Also as others have confirmed, the memory issue bothers me. The 4 gigabyte internal memory is shared between the system and apps with around 2 gigabytes left being pretty much unusable.  The phone itself is expandable to 32 gigabytes thru the sd card so yes there is storage to be had, but in my opinion and having owned another phone with shared internal memory, I am not a huge fan. I also have found that the power button being located on the side is more of a pain, and restricts quick access to turning the screen on. (I am left handed by the way, so you right handers may have better results.)

So to wrap it up, if you are not already on Big Red or have a significant other on T-mobile it may be worth a look. I say this apprehensively because unless you are very careful I see a trip back to your local carrier for a replacement. Please anyone who may decide this an option, I implore you to PURCHASE THE INSURANCE. That being said Once fully rooted (yes I know of the temporary root that has been achieved.) This may be the next cult following for the non-VZW crowd and I enjoyed my time with the phone, but will not be giving this another look. In todays smartphone market ease of use and durability should be much higher than the G2′s current offer.

UPDATE:  Just after MrPicolas posted this, news broke that this phone has a rootkit included which can wipe your phone back to its original state should you tamper with it and put say, a custom ROM or something on it.  Basically any custom or user change made to the source code can be overwritten each time the phone is booted.  I think we all know that the majority of the excitement behind this device was the fact that it ran a pretty vanilla Android, but after hearing this news, I’d say our “locked” bootloader is nothing. (Via:  News America)

Thoughts everyone?

Dr. Root, I have adb set up now how do I use it?

First of all, if don’t have adb and the Android SDK installed follow these instructions.   Now, I know we all don’t share a love of adb, but seeing as it is being used more and more I thought that you should get a basic grasp of what can be done with it. I am going to provide you with a list of commands that you should have on hand to help you out.  I’ll also show you how to make sure your device is connected properly to adb.  These commands can be found here.  

Spark you say? What’s that? Spark is a new player in the home replacement game. This is currently in beta and definitely needs some work, but for the social user it may be right up your alley. Spark has a simple premise, your info in one place and easy to access.

Spark uses a simple scrollable environment that is controlled by modules with each module representing information on your screen. Currently there are limited modules and no way to add more at the present time, but with the ability to pick and choose your modules you could tailor your screen to better suit your needs. A nice feature that I have not seen anywhere else yet is a looping app drawer. The headlines module is also something I liked that features scrollable headlines within the module. Once these are pressed it opens up to show you the rest of the post in a full screen format that is also scrollable.

There is only one screen at present for you to use meaning they are aiming at form and function. The one screen features 3 selectable shortcuts that you can customize to your liking. The weather based on your area is automatically pulled in for you. And last but not least it has an app drawer with shortcuts for the phone and web.

Well here comes the answer to the real question. Should I ditch LauncherPro or ADW for Spark? I would say not just yet. Yes it’s simple and gives you your info right in front of you, but it almost feels like an alpha release rather than a beta. With some refinement and a smoothing over of the UI as well as a library of modules that you could pick and choose from, it may be the perfect home replacement for the busy on the go person who needs to access their info quickly. If you can’t resist trying out new stuff I have provided a market link and qr code for you all. Also if you decide to try this out stop back by and let us know what you think.

Download:

Download Link

Dr, Root, How do I get all these cool looking home screens I see floating around?

1.  First if you don’t already have it, grab LauncherPro from the market and you’ll need to pony up for the plus version.

(Fede is awesome anyway so please help support him if you can.)

2.  Next grab Desktop Visualizer from the market also.
3.  Download this ZIP FILE that I have provided for you to get you started.

This .zip includes some icons as well as 2 .psd files for the icons in case you wanted to create your own, but there are plenty provided which should give you a good start. If  you choose to create your own, the .psd files work perfectly in Photoshop.  For those of you without Photoshop the following measurements can be used to create the icons with your favorite image editor. For the 3×1 icon use 355×132 and for the 1×2 icon use 115×266.

4.  Now that you have some icons lets start by selecting the 4×1 widget from Desktop Visualizer. You will want to resize this to 3×1 with LauncherPro’s resizing ability. Using the 1×2 widget is straightforward and will require no resizing.  

Our resident expert when it comes to anything Droid or Android related, but what he really loves is dissecting rooting questions.  There is nothing our Dr. doesn’t know, so ask away!  Ask Dr. Root.

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Dr. Root, How can i use multiple static wallpapers?

Well. before last week I would have told you that it’s not possible. I’ll explain why. The Android operating system handles wallpapers by screen size and as you scroll or swipe from one screen to another it shows only a portion of the wallpaper. There is a technical explanation that involves a lot of math and layout jargon which I will not go into.  Your solution?  

Our resident expert when it comes to anything Droid or Android related, but what he really loves is dissecting rooting questions.  There is nothing our Dr. doesn’t know, so ask away!  Ask Dr. Root.

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Dear Dr. Root,

What are the best settings to encode video for use on my Droid  X?

To answer your question I did a bit of digging and came across this.  This should give you a great starting point. There is a good wealth of information here and it comes strait from Motorola.

Dr. Root, What is the best android tablet out right now?

In my opinion the tablet game is still very new. I would wait until the Christmas shopping season swings into full gear. Not only will you have more choices, you will most likely find that Black Friday deal of a lifetime. I’ll leave you with a teaser that Google is supposedly building one with HTC.

Dr. Root, why does my weather widget not update correctly?

Well there are a number of of reasons this could be happening, first check and make sure that you do not have it set to be killed by your task killer if you are using one. Next, see if your widgets support more than one option to pull your weather information in. Google offers weather information for a lot of widgets, but this doesn’t mean you have to use them. Weather forecast widget (paid app) and Snowstorm weather widget (free app) are both some options to check out. Both come with options to skin the widgets.These are both available in the market.

The top widget is Snowstorm and the bottom widget is Weather forecast

Dr. Root,  RSD Lite 4.7 wont  recognize my Droid X. What do I do?

If you downloaded RSD Lite 4.7 it should have come with a patch file named pst flash. First, make a copy of the orignal pst flash file and save it somewhere on your computer. Replace that file with the updated patch file. If you need this file it can be found here. Once this is put in RSD Lite restart the program and it should find the phone. Good luck and remember, flashing sbf files can be risky.  Now for the disclaimer. (This information has been provided as is and Droid-Life assumes no responsibility for any problems that may arise.) Happy flashing and be careful.

Thats it for this week. Please keep sending those questions my way!

mrpicolas.. aka doctorpicolas@gmail.com

Thats right folks you heard me right, the team at QuestforStars put our beloved little buddy in a balloon and sent it on a mission. The Droid was outfitted with a program called LapseDroid  to take time-laspe photography shots to record the whole trip. Due to a lucky shift in the wind our little buddy made it to the great beyond

Droid ! First Android in space

Hit the link for the Youtube video

Also feel free to let us know what have you done with your Droid?