Motorola Defy Plus first experiences

[ollster]

Does Outlook sync with hotmail? If so, it looks like hotmail live accounts will sync properly using Exchange settings:

http://www.thesearethedroids.com/2010/0 ... h-android/

[Ent]

Hi Ollster

I agree that we now have two evil empires. Windows and Motorola. However, the trolls at Motorola at least answer the tech calls and can figure out what is the issue. Even if the solution is, hard reset. They speak American so only understand brute force. I kept one employed for an hour today.

Still rather puzzled how the Defy Plus’ replacement got the contacts? I synchronized Hotmail to Outlook and this means now Hotmail and Outlook are the same but have not downloaded the hotmail applicaton to the new phone. I also downloaded software from Google that can sync the Calendar and possibly the contacts? All I did after getting past the Motorblur nanny state was to attach a G-mail account. You do this immediately after defeating the Motorblur roadblock. Bingo contacts appeared. And they were the ones I clean up last night, or so I think? Very happy it worked but no idea what was the mechanism, Motorolablur or G-Mail? Weird or what?

Honestly I am just frustrate and worn out by what has happened. All I wanted was a phone with hotspot ability so I could kick Dodo in the …. (well it is extinct so someone must have beaten me to this) . Instead I got nothing but issues from hour one. Sure Telstra is playing a major staring role in stuff up central and maybe I have not helped at times but I wonder what happens to the other great unwashed? Wait for nephews or grandchildren to come around? My fear when I visiting Dad is solving his latest Microsoft “experience”. Thank goodness for the internet. I dread if he goes Droid or Windows or any smart phone.

When in Optus spending the national debt on an Otter case yesterday a bloke walked in with a Defy Plus that he had bricked. The overly helpful sales assistance had set up a phone lock for him and in his fumbling around the keyboard he had exceeded the number of unlock attempts. Solution, phone has to go back to Motorola to be unlocked. That Defy achieved four hours use before been sent home. Surely, they could unlock it remotel? He had the receipts so had not stolen it. A touch keyboard with large fingers is death for accuracy with input. Though the swipe is good for text so you notice when typing in non sensible passwords, the sort that you are encouraged to us (alpha, numeric, symbol) how awful touch keyboard are for big fingers.

Cheers

[sthughes]

An old Nokia like my E51 will work as a hotspot with the right app

[ollster]

I synchronized Hotmail to Outlook and this means now Hotmail and Outlook are the same but have not downloaded the hotmail applicaton to the new phone.

Didn't really read the rest, sounds like a case of Motorola sucking, which isn't a surprise. Anyway... to summarise:

Outlook has a connector for Hotmail to sync calendar/email/contacts:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlo ... 22518.aspx

Hotmail can be synced to Android via the same method used for corporate Exchange accounts:
http://www.thesearethedroids.com/2010/0 ... h-android/

So that's the solution to that issue by the looks. No hotmail software install required, just use inbuilt email application and the "accounts and sync" setup in Settings. I just used my retired hotmail account to test, and the hotmail sync works fine - everything was integrated into my phone calendar/contacts/email.

[sthughes]

Orux Maps got Tasmap gps integration...

[Ent]

Um? rapidly learning that the best phone is an Apple I-Phone. I can work the Apple keypad in tapping mode while the Defy is just near impossible. Sure the swipe keyboard does seem a good solution but not so good for entering passwords. Was using both phones tonight and the Apple is far superior. The Defy twice needed the battery removed as it locked it self up so tight that nothing would shift. The Apple out of the box setup hotmail, gmail into the standard mail box while Android on the Defy just does not work.

As for the Android the "solution" is to download a Hotmail application or use the Gmail application and it will work but do not bother with the standard mail application, better to go looking for a large cliff or angry tiger snake, much more fun and at least you will have certainty. Read enough Howto's with Android to understand that Motorola/Telstra have knobbled the the phone. Nothing more frustrating than seeing a screen snapshot that looks so much like your screen minus a missing field.

Basically, Android as implemented on the Motorola Defy is the best advertisement for buying an I-phone. Motorola have release a line of promising phones that are near useless in real life Motorblur is a disaster. Telstra, well, what can you say. It really needs to be added to this site's swear filter.

Cheers Brett

[ollster]

*&%$#! Motorola hardware and skins aside...

The standard mail application and accounts/sync work like a charm with hotmail - I even told you exactly how to do it to get it working with your Outlook desktop mail. I've used Android 2.1/2.1/2.3/3/4 and never had a problem. Apart from going on massive tedious whinge-fests, you haven't even said what you can't do and what you've tried (except for whinging at and about telephone operators).

I give up.

[Ent]

Hi Ollster

I have been working my way through all the options and yes it works now, well some of the time. Settings to use standard email on Android/Defy for live.com.au is

pop3.live.com (defaults to live.com.au)
port - 995 (Oh and yes for reasons beyond me the port will change itself so constantly have to check when you make a change )
Set security to "Authenticated POP" (Big hint this is not the default setting)

Did I miss your instructions on this? If so sorry.

This get the receiving part working. Have yet to test the sending part.

It still comes up with an authenticated failure every so often but then will work later. Trouble is you can have the setting as above and it gives an error one minute and ok the next. Makes it dammed near impossible to follow simple instructions when the results are different minute by minute

Amazing can set up friend's I-phone in no time flat without having to trawl the net piecing together bits and pieces of information. Click Hotmail, enter account name and password and it works. Notice numerous people have had the same issue on multitude of forums I trudged through. Whinge fest. Yeap, crap software has that effect and there is non crappy than Android which is knobbled to make it near impossible for you to use anything than GMAIL. And yes for before gmail their was hotmail and I have been using hotmail so have my email out there. I do not change emails nor phone numbers like underwear, common amongst some. This means I can be contacted unlike my siblings kids.

Get the feeling that Andriod will be like Beta versus VHS debate. A few thinking it is great while the rest of the word moved on to something that works and most use.

Cheers

(PS I used to set up Unix systems with up time measured in years not minutes, hours, days or months so I do have high expectations for software having written a system finished 1992 that is still running with the last phone call received 2000 to deal with the GST issue. That change took six hours of programming and worked faultlessly. Those systems were built by programmers not tick box junkies )

[ollster]

Hotmail can be synced to Android via the same method used for corporate Exchange accounts:

http://www.thesearethedroids.com/2010/0 ... h-android/

I wrote this in plain English. I tested it on my phone and it worked and I told you it worked. So unless Motorola have gone to great lengths to just screw *&%$#! up for the fun of it, it should work fine.

You didn't even start by saying you needed to it with *&%$#! hotmail, you said you wanted to with *&%$#! Outlook. Actually being succinct, logical and maybe using dot points rather than paragraphs might save some time...

[sthughes]

So unless Motorola have gone to great lengths to just screw *&%$#! up for the fun of it, it should work fine.

Mmmm well having owned two Androids (first a Motorola and now a Huawei) this statement might be closer to the mark than you think. Despite the Huawei being 1/5th the price it is much more stable than my Defy was. Like Ent I was regularly pulling the battery to restart from freezes, lucky it is easy to get at! Just a shame the Huawei is seriously sloooow and I'm always waiting for it to catch up, but I guess that's to be expected somewhat from a $71 Android.

Apart from the Motoblur disaster, in my opinion Android is better suited to those happy to tinker and work through issues via online forums etc. iOS is designed to "just work", albeit with a little less functionality, more cost and almost no customization options.

[ollster]

It's a shame some companies butcher stock android with their crapware. Vanilla android is nice. HTC's Sense is ok, but is becoming less relevant as most of the features are being included in newer Android versions. Hopefully these stupid skins get killed off. Android 4 is greatly improved in all areas.

Apart from the Motoblur disaster, in my opinion Android is better suited to those happy to tinker and work through issues via online forums etc. iOS is designed to "just work", albeit with a little less functionality, more cost and almost no customization options.

Either way, the sync "issues" Ent was having were due to him not simply just trying to sync his online hotmail account, rather to go through some rooted process of trying to get data from Outlook directly - lack of lateral thinking. 5 seconds of googling was enough for me to find out that hotmail had Exchange-like functionality and therefore could be set up simply and easily. But he didn't even bother to read what I wrote!

[Ent]

Hi Ollster

1. Thanks for your patience

2. Your are right Motorola sucks. Your instructions look nothing like what I see. Motorblur changes the logic and removes the nice question and disguises your standard terms.

3. But you are right. It does work and this is the crap you have to do on the Defy.

Settings -> Accounts -> Add Account -> <Select Corporate Sync out of the two screens of icons> -> Email Address <suck@live.com.au> -> Password <myeyesonly> -> Domain <Too hard leave it blank> -> User name <suck@live.com.au> -> <Press next button and wait ...............> -> "Could not auto detect server please enter the server name manually" -> <m.hotmail.com> -> <Use secure connection check box ticked> -> "Adding your corporate sync account" and it works.

None of the other bits come up about "push" or sync options. So play again and go into Settings -> Accounts and select the account and then are there three check boxes, Calendar, Contacts, Emails. The "Push" option you have to go to email icon and then the context button brings it up.

4. Without your information and our banter along with my temper tantrums I would have not figured out the Motorblur way.

5. Congratulations, you solved it but no where in three days of trawling the web (outside your comments) did I find something that I could understand except the way I got live.com.au to read but not send emails from a frustrated Android site. Only because you annoyed me enough that I figured "Corporate Sync" = "Exchange" and new the hotmail server name that you provided plus ignored the error messages and then had stumble my way around the email icon and context menu did this work. Remember this is my first experience at Android and context sensitive "hidden" menus. As for Motorblur, why????????????????????????????????????? What value does it add??????????????????????

6. Pity Motorola did not put up a howto given that they stuffed up standard Android by the looks of it.

7. Telstra have acknowledged that they should have immediately replaced the dead phone under ELF (early life failure) and will at my request cancel the plan and allow me to select another plan and phone or even company. Depending on tomorrow's call from them I will be attempting to swing the I-Phone deal that they pulled off the market last week. If not I will stand out the front of their shop throwing camel dung through their door

8. Thanks for your help but Android as neutered by Motorola means no thanks to Defy. A dieing phone in less than an hour. A replacement that brings the real reason behind having a removable battery. So you can get it to restart! Motorblur that bricks a phone forcing a hard reset by a combination lock approach if a new sim card is put in it. Oh, and do not forget your motorblur account and password if the phone goes flat our you replace the battery, sim card, etc, else it is a brick.

Cheers

[north-north-west]

I agree that we now have two evil empires. Windows and Motorola.

Three. You forgot Telstra.

[Ent]

Yeap I missed Telstra but to their eventual credit they unravelled the mess and now it will be quiet a few months before I will have to pay a bill.

The Defy was found to be faulty with scrambled software, a common fault I am told. But that will fall on deaf ears with some.

The replacement iPhone is just so simple to use and has not missed a beat. Within three minutes had all my email accounts linked with contacts updated automatically. Sure I have struck a few Apple centric features such as non Apple applications not been able to run in the background so handicaps an otherwise great alarm clock application. The strange feature of music been able to be streamed out of the Apple socket but phone audio having to come via the headphone socket. Makes for a messy connection of a non bluetooth phone car set-up.

Struck an app on the Apple download site that did not measure up. Lobbed a complaint that I was ripped off by $1.99 and thought no much would happen. Apple responded in no time at all. When they could not get the app developer to respond refunded my money. Heck, they are serious about customer service A week or two back Motorola responded to my request for getting additional batteries. Err, they could not help as I was not a resident of the USA. Ok bye Motorola.

I have seen first hand the superior transmitter and receiver of the iPhone working to call in help when other phones would not. So the best bushwalking phone is a iPhone in a decent waterproof case. Now if Apple could allow the GPS to work in a power saving mode then very tempting to use it as a mapping GPS.

The Defy is collecting a growing number of dissatisfied users but still the idea of a water resistant phone has merit. Pity that Android is the domain of the geek rather than a user that just wants something to work. I absolutely puzzled that the keyboard of the iPhone works so well with my size 49 fingers but the Defy was hopeless but actually bigger? I suppose the success of the iPhone is in rather clever thinking that works with the user rather than belittling them for not working the way that they want the user to. It is the magical human element that Apple appear find while most other companies appear to be trapped by arrogant technocrat thinking.

Cheers

[sthughes]

A mate of mine just got a prepaid Defy+. I had a look at it, briefly yesterday - he handed it to me, I unlocked it and it froze! About a minute later it started working again, he said that was normal. Later on he got it out to do something, once again unlock, wait about 30 seconds then use it. He also says restarting once a day helps... He's a bit peeved!

[Ent]

Sounds like he needs to experience Motorola's warranty service support. Now that is an experience that makes beating your head against a rock seem more enjoyable. Best get it identified and an "early life failure" else the meaning of pain and suffering will become apparent.

Cheers