Droid in the house!

Well, curiosity about Android finally got the better of me. More so, that curiosity was prompted by a call from ACS that said I could have a “free” Milestone. This is the US CDMA version of the Verizon Droid for small carriers, including Alaska Communications. (Apparently it seems a licensing issue with the “Droid” name means that ‘small’ local carriers, such as Alaska Communication, Cellular South, Alltel, and tons of others in the US and Canada offer the A855 “Droid” as the A854 “Milestone” to their markets.) The great thing about this is that for once, an ACS phone is actually “unlocked” (well, the bootloader is unlocked, but this *is* a big deal!)

So I found an easy way to root the device (z4root.apk). This was the first step in essentially doing anything beyond factory authorized installs and customizations. It is akin to “jailbreaking” an iPhone, but in this case it is far easier than the current ‘untethered’ jailbreaks for the current version of the iPhone on 4.2.1.

The next step was a big one for a ‘noobie’ like me in the Android world. I can’t tell you how many hours I searched, read, and searched some more for information. Of course, “information” isn’t a problem, but it is the sorting, sifting, and filtering of pertinent and then determining what is reliable and verifiable. That is the tough part!

I decided that instead of trying to “roll my own” I would go with what seemed to be a highly recommended way to easily install customized ROMs for the Milestone/Droid. Luckily, the CDMA Milestone that is offered by Alaska Communications is almost exactly like the Verizon Droid.

This means so much more is available for the device. That includes what Motorola said would not be available for the A854; that being Froyo 2.2 (and beyond.) I was pleased to see that the the device from ACS was running 2.1-update1, but there are some really neat, useful features of 2.2+.

Some of those features include being able to work around the RAM limitation of the device and load apps to your SD (transflash) memory expansion card. This is critical, especially for apps such as Flash. In general you can load most apps to a special partition on your SD card and free up base machine memory. If for no other reason, this is the reason to upgrade.

But, there are other reasons… Currently I’m running a pretty cool Matrix animated wallpaper. This is just one of hundred (thousands???) An easy way to impress those Blackberry users in the crowd.

I decided to try the Bugless Beast (0.6.2.1) ROM to start. It installed without issue and allows me to start to explore the 2.2.1 firmware. Cool features, 800MHz overclocking, and other features included in the base ROM. I hear Cyanogen is another very popular ROM. I think I might load that one to try it out, too…

In all, the large free selection in the Android Market, the ability to customize the device, and the relative ease of doing so, make this first venture into the world of Android a pleasant experience.

In the end, do I think I will I give up my iOS devices…? Ahhhh, NO!

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