Got my HTC ERIS

For those following my saga in the General Forum - thanks for the help. I picked up my phone on Wednesday night. My husband (Shi) got one too (he has an original Moto V3 for work that has been his only phone the past 5 years or so). Yesterday I was in an all day class, sitting in the last available seat in a room of 8 people - front row. That meant no play time. Shi was home with a sick kid - so he was finding new apps, shortcuts, etc. all day. Today is my day home with said child - so I've got a little time - when he's not sitting on my lap or laying on my arm!

I will try to do you proud with as thorough a review as I can for right now. I'll keep adding as I learn more. I think the learning curve may be lengthy, as my phone for the past 2 years was a BB 8310.

Pros:

• 
  [*]Call Clarity - Shi was the first to point this out. I have the volume <1/2 & can hear as well as my BB - could be related to the switch to VZW
• Signal Strength - This is great in our house - 4 bars. Usually never over 2 on ATT
• ActiveSync to Exchange Server (although I can only OTA sync to one Outlook & have both a home & work account). The Global Address list (GAL/LDAP) does have limited functionality - I can go to "Add Recipient" and search "Company Directory" and it will return the contact's email. I don't have any other info I normally get, though, like phone numbers, location & title
• Ford Sync - handsfree in the MKX - not sure about the SMS playback yet - I just connected the Bluetooth when I pulled into the garage last night
• Non-VZW Rhapsody to Go - it's a beta app, only streaming so far, but eventually will have offline capability. Love having my playlists/library & not having to cancel an acct I've had for 4+ years to go to the VCast version
• Camera - for 3MP and no flash - it has auto focus, too
• Trackball - I keep forgetting to use it, but it is handy for moving around on pages where my finger is too big
• pinch zoom - another feature I keep forgetting to use, but SO easy when I remember
• message notification - I can just touch & pull down a notification bar from the header of the screen & get a summary my email/TXT/missed calls/FB

Cons: (I think most of these are interfacing as a new user & having too many apps to search through to find what I want - it will get better, I'm sure)

• phone call/contact screen - I keep touching the wrong place :biggrin:and calling people when I'm trying to update information
• Virtual Keyboard - I haven't figured out the shortcut to pop it up in non-keyboard places. Like the Contacts screen - I want to jump to the "S" names, but end up scrolling all the way down from the top.
• Widgets - there are Shortcuts, HTC & Android widgets - but not a good "help" on the phone. Some of them aren't intuitive from the name to what & how they function. For example - you add People to a screen. It has 9 spaces where you can put a contact & the main method to reach them (email, SMS or call). But I can't figure out how to add another shortcut or use an alternate method for that same contact
• Call Profiles - I miss this part from my BB already. I'm sure there is a way, but I have to search further. I want the phone to automatically turn off at a certain time at night, or be in a meeting mode, with a specific contact override. Yesterday in class, I powered it off while in silent mode. and turned it back on - it defaulted back to audible mode.
• Apps & widgets - There are too many & I will probably be spending a ton of time trying to find the ones that are good & legitimate
• Built-in voice to TXT - It's no VLINGO (which doesn't make an android app yet) that has servers which analyze your speech pattern and get better at recognizing your words every time you use it. It was a must have app on my BB & worth the upgrade price to VLingo Everywhere - which allowed for use on your BB anywhere that allowed keyboard input.
• No Password Keeper - How do I find a password app that is secure like my BB one was? Way too many different types of passwords I have to keep up for banking, work...

 

Thought I'd come back and update this - probably should have added my info about rooting over here.