After three days with a Droid (actually two of them), I’m glad to say my expectations have been reached. The Droid is the best gadget/phone I have ever owned by far. I should note that I’m coming from a Window’s 6.0 Mobile phone which now feels light-years behind Android.

This is my first Android phone so it did take me about an hour to get comfortable with how everything works. For the most part, everything is user intuitive, especially the stuff you would use daily such as calling someone, SMS, or browsing the web. It could be difficult finding a particular setting to change, but I was able to find them all eventually. Droid is the first phone with Android 2.0 and I particularly like how it handles notifications, widgets, apps, and multitasking.

All notifications including SMS messages, new e-mails, app updates, missed phone calls, and anything else requiring your non-immediate attention are grouped together in a status bar at the top of the screen. The status bar can be pulled down at anytime listing all the notifications. The pull-down notifications is really convient as I wasn’t bombarded by messages constantly when I was browsing the web or using another app.

Widgets are also really useful as now I can get quick updates just by looking at my home screen. Facebook status is now right on my home screen along with calendar appointments. Speaking of Facebook, the integration with my contacts was a neat feature I wasn’t expecting. The pictures next to the contacts are now updated with the latest Facebook picture, and that picture shows up when he/she calls.

The screen of the Droid is gorgeous. It’s listed as 3.7″ at 854 x 480 pixels. My eyes used to hurt if I stared at my old Samsung i760 screen long enough, but not with the Droid. The network is also great as I’m averaging around 1.3 Mbps when I do a speed test. Battery life is good and should last a full day with more than average usage. The slide-out keyboard is Ok. I found myself using the touch screen keyboard in landscape mode more than the slide-out version. Apparently multitasking is a big deal since the iPhone can’t do it, but I can’t imaging not being able to listen to music and type an email at the same time.

The killer app on the Droid is Goggle Nav. There is a reason why Garmin and TomTom’s stock dropped 20% the day Google Nav was announced. I’ve used it over the past couple days and it has huge potential, but there is a reason it’s still in beta. The 3-D street view used as directions is hard to beat, but I found it wasn’t accurate enough to trust. The most useful part was the real-time traffic data.

The biggest problem I had with the Droid was that the first one I received was defective. The phone crashed liked crazy with reboots around 20 to 30 times a day. After coming from Window’s Mobile, I didn’t think it could get any worse, but it did. I thought it was an incompatible app for a awhile, but found out through the Motorola support forums that it was something internal to the phone. Verizon replaced it without a hassle and said I was the only one to come back with any problems. The store I was at sold over 150 Droid phones so that strangely made me feel more comfortable as it looks like the phone has some good quality control.

After three days with the Droid, I can’t really think of any major negatives… and that was with a broken phone for a day and a half. I wouldn’t mind more apps, but I think that’s coming now with the Avalanche of new Android phones. The camera and slide out keyboard could be better, but they are manageable. If your thinking about getting a Droid …than go get one. I highly recommend it and I would even recommend it to non-techie types.

Fall season is here, so my DVR is filling up quickly. It stood at 96% with all the PBS National Park episodes and new shows such as Glee and Flash Forward taking up space. Been busy so I haven’t had time to watch any of the episodes so the DVR keeps filling up. On top of that is all the football on the weekend which I’m not able to record. I finally was fed up and looked for a solution which led me to Western Digital’s My DVR Expander. I bought the 1TB version which works with Tivo DVRs and my Scientific Atlantic 8300HD cable box. Setup was easy as I just plugged in the included SATA cable into the eSATA port on my DVR while it was powered off. When powered back on, it asked if I wanted to format the hard drive which  I selected “yes.” After that, my DVR space went from 96% full to 12%!

I haven’t tried it, but external hard drives designed for computers probably won’t work. Most of them automatically turn off when not in use which a DVR would not be happy about. The WD My DVR Expander doesn’t even have an on/off switch in the back.

ThermalTake VF7001BNS DH101 Black Home Theater PC
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) Front earphone jack, Firewire ports (x1), Microphone Jack, USB ports (x2) LCD system monitoring display System volume adjustment switch knob 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 3 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 1

Zalman HD160XT-S Silver Home Theater PC
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) 7 inch touch screen with 1024 x 768 pixel resolution Front earphone jack, Firewire ports (x1), Microphone Jack, USB ports (x1) 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 5 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 1

ThermalTake Bach Media Lab Black Home Theater PC
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) Front earphone jack, Firewire ports (x1), Microphone Jack, USB ports (x2), memory card reader LCD system monitoring display 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 5 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 1

Antec Fusion Remote Black Home Theater PC Case
Price Comparison	System Board Style: Micro ATX (mATX) Front earphone jack, Firewire ports (x1), Microphone Jack, USB ports (x2) System volume adjustment switch knob 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 2 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 1

ThermalTake Mozart Media Lab Black/White Home Theater PC
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) Front earphone jack, Firewire ports (x1), Microphone Jack, USB ports (x2), memory card reader LCD system monitoring display 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 5 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 1

ThermalTake DH 102 Home Theater PC
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) 7 inch touch screen monitor Remote control included Front earphone jack, Firewire ports (x1), Microphone Jack, USB ports (x2) 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 3 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 1

SilverStone SSTLC17S LC17 Silver HTPC Case
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 6 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 2

NMEDIAPC HTPC-2000B Black HTPC Case
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) Front earphone jack, Firewire ports (x1), Microphone Jack, USB ports (x2) mini LCD system monitoring display Multimedia memory card reader 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 5 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 1

Athenatech Black ATX DeskTop
Price Comparison	System Board Style: ATX, Micro ATX (mATX) USB ports (x2) 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 3 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 2

Antec New Solution NSK2480 Black/Silver Desktop
Price Comparison	System Board Style: Micro ATX (mATX) Front earphone jack,, Microphone Jack, USB ports (x2) 3.5″ internal hard drive bays = 2 5.25″ externally accessible ROM bays = 2

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How can i hookup a Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR, HDTV, DVD Player (upconverting to 1080P) and home theater receiver? All of these have HDMI capabilities. Diagrams and cables needed would be a +.

Hi everyone,

I am trying to get my home network hooked up to my home theater system. Can someone please tell me the best module to use, or the best way to do this.

Thanks

So, I have an interesting situation on my heads and I was hoping for some help.   I have an 720p HD TV that has both VGA input (well it turns out to be around 1280×720 or so) and component input (YPbPr).  The VGA input is paired with an RCA (red/white) audio input (which would come from running the 3.5mm to RCA), while the component is paired with a R and L component into (using RCA interconnects).

So here is where things get tricky, I am attempting to hook my laptop up to the HDTV and I want to get the highest audio and video quality.  Here are the options I think  I have:

1) use the VGA output from the laptop to connect to VGA input on the HD tv and get a 3.5mm headphone jack to l/r rca for the audio.  How would this do on the quality scale?

2) I have a 7-pin s-video output on the laptop.  The 7-pin is S-video and SPDIF combined.  I also have the adaptor that actually works with this connection to get the s-video feed to component and to SPDIF coaxial (here is the adapter http://reviews.dell.com/2341/310-8272/reviews.htm).  Now I know I can easily hook up the video, but how would I connect the Digital Coaxial (RCA)  I get from the adapter to the analag RCA that is paired with the component inputs?  If I could even figure out a way to do it, would the sound and video quality of the component input be better than my option above?

Thanks,

Frank

I need some serious help connecting all of my new home theater compontents. I have a 50″ Samsung plasma, a Dennon AV surround sound receiver with  a subwoofer ,2 front, 2 rear, 1 center polk audio speakers, a standard definition dish network satellite receiver, and a playstation 3 I will also use as the blue ray player. I would like to know which (monster) cables I need and how to hook them up to get the best experience(best video and audio experience) I am able to get out of it.