For over 10 years I was a Alltel customer in North Carolina. Their mobile service was wonderful, but there choice of phones was somewhat lacking, particularly in the smart phone department. When Verizon purchased Altell I was one of the first customer to move over to Big Red. By then Google had announced their intentions to release a mobile phone operating system known as Android. As I was already a fan boy of Google, I was over the moon about the idea of soon owning a Google Phone! Imagine my dismay when the first Android device landed at T-Mobile instead of Verizon. Much grumbling was issued under my breath I can assure you.
Last month Verizon released their first Android device known as the Droid. (cue the heavens opening and the angels singing!) I have been the proud owner of my Droid for a little over 2 weeks now. My impressions thus far is that it is a solid built phone. Coming from Motorola I would expect nothing less.
So lets talk about the negatives of the phone.
The physical keyboard is somewhat lacking. My previous phone was a Blackberry 8330, so getting used to the physical spacing of the keys as well as the layout of the keys themselves has been a learning curve. It is also true that the keys give little feedback to you when pressing them.
The droid comes with a micro USB connection for charging and/or connection the phone to your computer. Not a major drawback, but you I just get tired of having to toss my car charger every time I switch phones.
I have noticed a lag in the screen rotating when moving the phone’s screen from portrait to landscape mode. It does not always occur, but another minor annoyance. I have also noticed an issue with the screen reacting to my touch inside of the screen text input boxes. This problem seems more prone to occur when using the screen in landscape mode.
Now for the pluses, and man are there pluses!
The 854 x 480 screen is absolutely one of the highest resolution screens on any phone on the market today. I own a Ipod Touch, and I must say that between the two Droid wins hands down! Watching videos on this screen is a joy.
The onscreen keyboard is great. Currently, it does not support multi touch, but if you believe the rumors an update to the firmware in the next month or two will take care of that. Other than that, I believe this keyboard is as good as Apple’s iPod Touch or iPhone keyboard.
The built 5mp camera takes descent photos. Motorola fixed the issue of blurry photos with a recent firmware update. The dual LED flash can be sometimes overbearing, but does a pretty decent job in most situations.
As for the video the Droid can record… outstanding! Don’t get me wrong its not what you would want to use to record your wedding with, but for those quick moment videos, junior hits his first home run at a little league game, you would be hard to find any other phone that captures video as great as this one does.
If you use any of Google’s apps, such as Gmail, Calendar, or Google Apps this is the phone for you. Droid syncs seamlessly with your Gmail and Calendar accounts. Simply type in your Google Accounts info, and within minutes it has synced your mail and calendar.
The default contacts app on the Droid phone can not only sync and display your Google contacts, but also can do so with your Facebook account as well. If the contact is Facebook based, the contact app will also display the contact’s current news feed within the contact’s details.
I have browsed the Android Market, and I am impressed with the apps that are available considering the Android operating system has only been in public use for a little over a year. Some of my favorite apps either from Apple or Blackberry have not made the crossover to Android yet, but I have found some substitute apps to use until they do. One app I have found particularly amazing is Google’s sky mapping app. For anyone remotely interested in knowing what the bright little dots are in the sky over your head at night this app is sure to please. Turn on the app, point your phone toward any point in the sky, and Google Sky will show you what each star is. Move you phone left, right, up or down, and Google Maps will rotate the sky shown on Droid’s screen with you! Want to know what stars you might see in the next hour or so? No problem. Google Sky will show you. Just move you phone down so that it is pointed below the horizon of the sky. It will display the stars below the horizon as well! Hard to believe I can do things like this with a phone, and software that is free!
My conclusion? I love this phone! Sure it is the first in a long line of phones that will increasingly become better as the Android operating system evolves, its physical keyboard leaves something to be desired, and the current selection of apps is minimal compared to what you can get on the iPhone. I believe in within the next year many of these issues will be resolved and the Droid line of phones will become the ‘must have’ smart phone.
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