Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Senior]

[wuzza]

Hey,

I still haven't really had a chance to sit down and play with it properly. I'm looking forward to this being released in English-speaking countries, so someone else can find out all that it's capable of it and let me know!

I brought my first one back to the store and they gave me a new one no questions asked. Apparently there's also a 14 day period in which you can return the phone and change your mind, so that might be worth it, if you want to try out the phone. (I dunno if that's for all phones or just the Motoroi).

Battery life doesn't seem as good a I hoped, especially if you're using wi-fi a lot, but I'll let you know in a few days.

The lack of predictive text when typing messages is really frustrating. There is suggestive text, but it's based on the next word in the dictionary, rather than most common words.
So if I type "th", the suggestions are Thai, Thalidomide, than etc.... which is pretty useless. I just got back from a month in Ireland, and really got used to predictive text while I was back (using a Nokia) and it's a godsend. Presumably, it's just a bit of software, so I can't understand why it's not on these smartphones.
The handwriting recognition aspect is pretty good, but I don't know if it's any faster than just typing the letters. I think for foreigners typing messages in Korean, the handwriting feature is very handy, but in English, it's probably slower than using the buttons.
If you send a lot of messages, the system is a bit fiddly, and so far I have tended to write short messages cause it's so frustrating otherwise.
I would guess that this holds true for any touch screen-phone?

[Slaps]

Can you choose the language of the OS ala iPhone?

Please tell me you can and I won't be stuck using Korean menu's. I only say this because you asked if anyone can help you find out what it can really do as you don't have an English manual. I'm guessing you have an English OS though right?

[bilbo202]

Just got one last night, it'll end up being 45,000 + 12,000 a month on the basic plan, it's something like 500megs of data and 200 mins of talk time.

Yes, the OS language can be changed to English in the settings. One word of warning, they don't have any film or cases that match the phone yet so I'm being very careful for the next few days.

So far, the phone is very slick and the HD video capture and playback looks great.

[tatertot]

[Senior]

[bilbo202]

Nice! I'll have to do a little shopping tonight then.

I've got an F visa and had to sign up for a 2-year contract. I talked to the phone shop guys for a bit and it didn't seem like there were any special hurdles for E visas. If you're able to get a regular phone you should be able to get a droid, I didn't get the impression that they were rationing them like the iphone on launch.

[Spud10]

Hmm, its probably super expensive though to sign up through an E-visa though isn't it?

Anyone know for sure? I think both people who have purchased one so far on an F visa, even though one of the previous posts stated that a friend with an E visa could of got a discounted one... (I think).

[tirinal]

I went ahead and picked mine up with an E-2. The guy I talked to initially agreed to enrolling me in the standard 2-year contract but then balked when he tried processing the paperwork. I then walked around for a bit between stores. Most were fine with signing you up for the same contract rates as Koreans; they just don't subsidize the phone down to 250k or whatever it is over 2 years and instead quote an up-front price. This ranged from 900k to 500k, which was the lowest I managed to get it.

Whatever. I'll eat the 250k difference over two years. It could be worse.

If anyone has questions about the phone, I can answer. Build quality seems fine, and Android is Android.

[Spud10]

How's the touch screen? Responsive? I guess more importantly, how is texting?

My current touch screen phone is a beech to txt on and I really miss a full qwerty pad, whether its physical or not.

And on some video reviews, the processing speed looked a lil laggy, what's your take on it?

[tirinal]

The touchscreen is fine. I'm actually not big into texting, but that seems functional enough. It has several keyboard types preloaded by default (including full qwerty), though as someone mentioned autocomplete is not filtered by frequency of use. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a standalone app for that, but I haven't looked.

Processing speed seems fine. I synced it with half my laptop (The Missing Sync works by the way, for any mac users) and have been screwing around with media all day. *beep* me if I can get it to recognize custom ringtones, but aside from that everything works speedily and well. Android is reminding me of just how annoying the iPhone's lack of multitasking is.

[Senior]

[buylow sellhigh]

I bought the motoroi pre-release. My initial impressions place the phone as the best mobile phone I have owned in the 5 years I have lived in Korea. I know that people generally have the impression that phones in Korea are technologically superior to phones in the west but this is only a half truth. While free mobile television is considered very basic here, up until the motoroi, koreans have been far more limited in features that others would consider essential. This is only the second phone (the first was the samsung blackjack w/ windows mobile OS) that I can actually click and drag an mp3 file and play, which I consider absolutely amazing. Phone companies here have been very adamant about controlling (profitting) from the content (ring tones, music, video) delivered to their phones and every phone company requires media content be sent to phones via their proprietary content delivery system, even converting files was not an option. My other phone (Omnia AMOLED) was the first phone that was DIVX capable, before that if you wanted to watch a movie on your phone, you had to maneuver through a very user unfriendly (all korean) UI on your PC to transfer video files to one's phone. With the release of the Motoroi, all that has come to a much awaited end. I can watch movies, use the phone as a DIVX player via the HDMI out on my 150"
projector or my flat screen televisions. I was concerned that the processor might not be able to handle everything I throw at it, but so far so good... their has been no lag in the UI and it plays media very smoothly. The 8mp camera takes fantastic pictures, the xenon flash is a distinctive feature and although I have not been able to use it enough to adequately measure how much of an advantage it is over the standard LED flash, the pictures I have taken using the flash have come out looking very well lit. Downloading applications over my wifi are very quick and websurfing is a pleasure (pinch zooming, smooth scrolling, horizontal viewing), while my experience with other phones has been at best tolerable. Two minor gripes... 1) larger Youtube clips tend to start off well but mid-clip buffering time is excessive (~15--25 seconds) 2) battery life is relatively short when all the bells and whistles (gps, wifi, bluetooth) are engaged, but this does not come as a surprise and is par for the course. Video and pictures of the phone do not do it justice, it is much slimmer and a bit lighter than I expected. I give the Motoroi an enthusiastic endorsement and thank motorola for finally letting me watch movies and listen to music without having to lug around another PMP device! I am absolutely ditching the PMP and camera. 3 devices in one!

a vid i took in 720p:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU2juAfnSS8

[Senior]

^ ^ ^

ㅋㅋ. You sound like a rep for motorola, or something. But that video does look amazing, for footage shot from a cell phone. I'm about this close to pulling the trigger on this thing. Is it possible to stream movies over wifi from your PC or server or some such? That would be freakn' killer.

[buylow sellhigh]