Motorola Droid [Froyo 2.2]: Performance Woes

I’m one of the many users that received the update from Verizon a few weeks back. It updated my little Motorola Droid to Android 2.2 [Froyo].

And while I’m happy to get the update, I’m starting to feel more like I’m working with an old laptop and a new operating system; and basically I am. The hardware is over a year old, the CPU isn’t the fastest, the video isn’t the best any more, but I just loaded a new operating system.

I’ve always equated dropping a new operating system on an old machine like dropping a safe on a flee. It might be able to handle it, but that doesn’t mean that it should.

Ever since my update to Froyo 2.2, my phone has been bugging me with issues.

• Screen touch seems more sluggish.
• More and more applications [once stable] are crashing.
• The overall performance of the phone has that ‘noticeable’ pause before reacting.
• And I’ve found my self having to ‘reboot’ my phone more often to resolve issues.

Very consistently, I’ve to make an asserted effort to make the screen move left or right; it’s almost like the phone doesn’t detect the first touch at all- it’s irritating to deal with. And it really seems to be like a notice or a primer for the phone to actually get ready to do something.

Almost as to say, ‘hey, someone touched my face, WAKE UP!’…

And once it wakes up, it seems to do better, but still sluggish…

Applications that I’ve been using over the last 1+ year with Android, the ones that have been stable have been crashing on me lately. I actually had Google maps crash on me the other day; and with each crash, I send the ‘report’ back to the author to say what I was doing when it crashed- but I never get a response. There’s never a confirmation that my information was received or that they’ll contact me if they find a solution, or what went wrong.

I also have another application, Accuweather Quick application is virtually dead to me, this application crashes on a regular basis and has gained a fat zero in my book. It used to be the most used application I had, now- I don’t even bother with it… Matter of fact it’s being removed today.

And I really don’t care if it’s the application or the operating system- it doesn’t work, therefore it’s dead; it’s crap and I’m done with it.

I’ve noticed more and more about applications in the phone that just seem to have that noticeable pause, that sluggishness about them. This is everything from the main desktop/home page to the most random application you can find.

It’s almost like I need to defrag or clean the registry or something. And I don’t have that many applications installed on my phone. I’ve a 16gb card and I’ve got about 12gb free.

And most recently, within the last 2-3 weeks, my phone will just drop Internet service. It’ll report, no Internet connection, nothing will work and I’ve to reboot the phone. For me, this is still odd; having to ‘reboot’ my phone…

I’ve said it before, smartphones are just really small PC‘s. And while I like being able to upgrade my phone, and I like all the downloadable applications; if I was in an emergency situation, I would hate to have to sit through a boot up process while someone dies…

I kind of miss the phones you just flipped open and they worked; they were ready to go. There’s just a level of simplicity there… Some people ‘just want things to work’.

So I’ll keep fighting with my phone, dealing with broken applications and rebooting my phone because I love it [sarcasm]. And because I’m with Verizon I’ve a few more months before I can upgrade to something newer… But will it be better?

I don’t know.

Until next time,
LEHenryJr
LEHSYS.com 

…via Dragon NaturallySpeaking v10 pro.