The Droid 2 does so many nifty things that it’s easy to forget that it’s a phone as well. No matter how many amazing things this device can do, though, it’s still at heart a telephone. True, it’s a very, very smart one, but it’s still designed to do a good job at what phones are supposed to do—making phone calls. Of course, there’s a lot of Droid 2 magic to handling phone calls—including advanced features like Visual Voicemail and Call Waiting—and that’s what you’ll learn in this chapter.
Once you see by the bars in the Droid 2’s upper-right corner that you’ve got cellular reception, you’re ready to make calls. You can place a call in any of four ways. Don’t be daunted by the variety—all methods are easy, including a “Look, Ma, no hands” approach to calls that lets you call someone by talking into the phone rather than by using your fingers to tap keys.
The Droid 2’s Phone App is Command Central for making phone calls. On the Home screen, tap the phone icon (at lower-left). The Phone app opens, with four buttons at the top, representing the four ways you can make a call:
Dialer. As the name says, here’s where to go when you want to dial the phone. You’ll be pleased to see that the virtual buttons on the dialer are a whole lot bigger and easier to tap than the cramped real keypads on cellphones. Even if you have fat fingers or iffy coordination, tapping the right number is a breeze. Tap the number you want to call, and then tap the Call icon. That’s all it takes.
Recent. On this list of recent activity, icons indicate calls that you’ve made
, received 
, or missed 
. You also see more information about the call, like the date, time, and duration. To call a related number, simply tap the green phone icon to the right of the call in the list.Contacts. Tap a contact, and you can choose among making a call, sending a text message, sending an email, or sending an instant message via Google Talk, among other options. (Those options will depend on the contact information—if you don’t have an email address for someone, that option won’t be available. You’ll find out more about those other options later in this chapter.)
You may see more contacts here than what you originally tapped into your phone. That’s because, if you have a Gmail account, Droid 2 imports those contacts into its Contacts list. It can also import contacts from other services, including Outlook. For details, see What happened to Google Tasks?.
Favorites. Think of this as the Droid 2’s speed dial. It lists the people whom the Droid 2 notices you call frequently. Tap the green phone icon next to a person’s name to make a call.