Brief 657 | Motorola Droid Review
Posted on: November 9, 2009
Posted in: Video
Posted by: Cali Lewis
Shownotes:
As you know, the hugely anticipated launch of the Motorola Droid was on Friday. I went to a press event held at a Verizon store to get a hands on with the Droid and some footage to share with you guys. Boring, but I’ll take what I can get. Surprise, surprise, Verizon was nice enough to let me hang on to a Droid for two weeks so I’m able to give you a more in-depth review.
The Droid runs Android 2.0. Android is an open source mobile operating system, originally developed by, and heavily supported by Google. If you use Google apps like Gmail, Calendar, or Google Voice, having Android is a very good thing. It means those apps are going to run smoothly and you’ll get more out of them. More on that in a minute. Verizon has put a lot of effort into their network, and the hope here is that you don’t get the amount of dropped calls or inconsistent service a lot of people complain about with AT&T. In my experience with iPhones on AT&T, dropped calls are less of an issue than calls I have to drop because I can’t understand the person on the other end of the call or they can’t understand me. The Motorola Droid provides vastly better sounding calls than my iPhones. In a perfect world both phones would be available on both networks so I could tell if it’s a hardware issue or a network issue.
The Motorola Droid has the best screen on any handheld device I’ve ever seen. It’s a 3.7 inch touchscreen with a resolution of 854×480. That’s over 400,000 pixels, and you can definitely tell a difference. We’re showing you The Droid playing a movie in HD. The Droid screen is brighter and richer and point 2 inches bigger. The downside? No multitouch in the US. It’s capable of multitouch, and the GSM version in Europe has multitouch enabled, but we’re not allowed here in the US. Instead, you double tap to zoom or use the plus and minus buttons on the screen to zoom in or out. If you’ve been using an iPhone, you’re going to natually want to pinch the screen. The Droid’s method of zooming isn’t bad. It has nice animation, but precise pinch and zoom is better.
The best part about the 5 megapixel camera isn’t the additional pixels. What I liked was the software based zoom. I was taking a picture of some Thai soup when I discovered the feature by accident. Just double tap the screen to get up close and personal. You can snap the photo from the screen, or use the physical button on the side of the phone. Just like on a regular camera, hold the button half way down to focus, then click to take your photo.
The Droid has both an onscreen keyboard and physical slider keyboard. iPhone users tend to agree with Apple that physical keyboards are overrated and I’m in that camp. However, there is a large market for whom the iPhone is off the table just because it lacks physical keys. No amount of Apple evangelism is going to convince someone who insists on a keyboard that they really don’t need it. I say Motorola was smart to zig where Apple zagged. It’s important to point out, though, since the keys are flush, there isn’t really any tactile difference between the virtual keyboard and the one with real buttons. The biggest advantage of the slider keyboard, whether you think it’s necessary or not, is that you can type and enjoy the full screen at the same time.
One of my favorite things about the Droid is that it allows you to run up to six applications at once. This is one of the main complaints from power users about the iPhone. Being able to listen to Pandora while browsing the web or tweeting is HUGE for me. I do it on my laptop, and that desire doesn’t change just because I’m using a smaller device. Apple doesn’t allow that because having six applications all processing data at the same time puts the phone at risk of a crash. I totally get that! However, I’d rather have the choice to take that risk.
I mentioned Google apps before, and I want to get back to that. I don’t know how many of you are in the same situation as me. I can’t use the Mail app on the iPhone or any mail app on any phone because I use Gmail. That wouldn’t be a problem (the iPhone supports Gmail) except I use labels and filters like crazy! Most of my mail is sorted automatically and doesn’t even see the inbox, so any time I can’t easily see and use my labels on the go, I’m severely crippled. Since Google supports Android, they’ve made it possible for me to use the Gmail app successfully without having to go into the browser.
There are 10,000 apps in the Android store, called Market. There are 100,000 apps in the iPhone store. No surprise there. Apple has a head start. That said, there are plenty of Twitter apps, if nothing else!! With the ability to run apps in the background, you’re able to set up Twitter apps, for example, to notify you when something new arrives in your feed or Direct Message inbox. This is a great way to save on SMS costs if you don’t have an unlimited plan.
One thing I was super excited about was the turn by turn navigation with voice commands. No need to pay for an app – it’s already installed when you buy the phone. The voice is very synthetic, but it works AND speaks in complete sentences!
One of the coolest possibilities you get with the Motorola Droid requires an additional purchase. It’s just $30, though and it’s a dock for charging the phone. What’s special about it is that it turns the phone’s display into a digital photo frame, a widget display and an alarm clock. When you set the phone on the dock and use it as an alarm clock, you can dim the time and set the alarm.
Motorola promises 6.5 hours of battery life when used continuously. I’m getting close to 10 or 11 hours of normal use. If you’re ready to buy one, let’s talk price. It’ll be $199 with a 2 year agreement. This is after a mail in rebate, but David Pogue from the NY Times says that if you buy it from Best Buy, you’ll get an instant rebate. Voice plans start at $40/month for 350 minutes and data plans start at $30/month.
The mainstream media keeps looking for an iPhone killer. That’s not me. I want the iPhone to continue to succeed, but I want other alternatives to succeed too. I haven’t been looking for an iPhone killer. I’ve been looking for a smartphone that plays effectively on the same field. The Motorola Droid does that. Will I buy one? I have a couple weeks to decide so I’m going to take advantage of that. My sense so far, though is that moving from iPhone to Droid will not be a downgrade and in a few ways, like call quality and Google Voice integration it will be an upgrade. I’ll write more about my experience with the Droid on my blog at www.calilewis.me.
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November 9th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
This was a great review Cali. I remember when you did the review for the original iPhone and you said something like, “You rarely get excited about technology but the iPhone got you that excited.” It was because of that review that I dropped my verizon contract and switched to the iPhone. I was very happy with the iPhone but like so many others there’s only so many shitty phone calls I can take. The deal breaker for me was the 30 or so some odd voicemail messages that didn’t get delivered to my visual voicemail over 2 weeks. This past Friday I bought the Droid and have returned to Verizon. I’ve only used it over the weekend but it is an awesome phone. It’s very fast, not laggy at all, and the integration with Google products is amazing. I couldn’t be happier with this phone. My advise for people is if you’re looking for a phone that has the same kind of awesome feel that the iPhone has but you’re looking for a better network this is the phone for you. The slight keyboard is a “meh” but really that’s the only thing I can say bad about it. I also switched to Google Voice and it’s amazing on this phone. Finally a phone without sacrifice.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
does the iphone mail app not see labels as folders? It’s not as elegant, but it’s a crutch for at least the Pre. No archive ability tho (or rather, you can either bind “delete” to archive or delete).
good to see the competition tho, but I have to say I’m a huge fan of a physical keyboard over touchscreen. The screen real estate being one factor, and I just like pushing buttons over the screen. I haven’t used the droid, but I love that on my Pre or the BB (just don’t like the size trade off).
Another thing is I am a huge fan of smaller devices. Another big reason I was drawn to the Pre. It fits much better for me than the oversized rectangle smartphones. I’m also not one who has video playback as a main priority.
Sadly, I feel I’m in the minority. Palm is the only “small” smartphone out there it seems. And while I love it, it’s still iffy on their long term viability. I’m really hoping some other manufacture creates a mini-droid. Better keyboard that isn’t tactileless as you describe, smaller footprint.. and I’m good. Something tells me I will have to succumb to the iphone-like size+touchscreen though.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Google supports the MS active sync protocol and sync that is on the iPhone and any WinMo device you can get your gmail direct push to the device. Within active sync at least with WinMo devices you can then select what folders or in Gmails case lables you want to sync to the device. I do this very thing with my WinMo device. I have my enterprise email come in as well as my gmail email and in gmail I can see the lables as if they are folders.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hmm I think the Droid is a very nice iPhone killer. Although since I am from Canada I am really gonna have to wait!
For know iPod touch or BlackBerry Storm would be my choices. I picked the touch because I can use skype for the rare time I call :P.
November 9th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I’m concerned with the availability of memory on the Droid. I understand that the memory is expandable via SD card, but as I understand it, you can’t install apps on the SD card.
If it is only shipping with 512 MB and only 256 MB are available for apps, it’s a serious problem if they are planning on promoting it as anything approaching a gaming platform. Even if we forget about games, I’ve got 1.06 GB of apps on my iPhone. I could probably lose about half of those without missing anything, but that still leaves me with more than 256 MB.
I just can’t understand limiting the app storage to 256 MB. Let us know how that works out after a couple weeks. Maybe it’s not a big issue, but it sounds like one to me.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
does the iphone mail app not see labels as folders? YES it does let you see those as folders.
And Cali, iPhone works perfectly here in Europe where we have good GSM networks, full signal whole time. So its not the hardware, its just the network.
November 9th, 2009 at 11:07 pm
Excellent review Cali. My Verizon contract is coming to an end and I was thinking of getting an iPhone. But compromising call quality was really a struggle for me, as I’ve heard so much about dropped calls and call quality on AT&T. This may be a great alternative for me as a power Google user… but I’m not entirely sold yet over an iPhone. But this helps a lot! Thanks so much for your thorough review.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:42 am
@Eric – the memory shouldn’t be a problem. Generally speaking, Android apps will store the bulk of their data on the SD card & only bits of the runtime stuff (the “executable”, if you will) will be installed in main memory. This will vary from app to app though.
A couple of points to add:
- As per the Droid forums (http://www.droidforums.net/), Sears is selling the Moto Droid for $149.99 without the need for rebate.
- Android 2.0 touts Exchange compatibility but has issues pulling email from security-conscious Exchange servers. See http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=4475 This puts a sizable blemish on Android’s readiness for corporate use, but one has to have faith that this will be addressed rather rapidly ;)
- This is no iPhone killer. iPhone is a league all it’s own. Android may, however, be a WinMo killer. :)
November 10th, 2009 at 1:41 am
I appreciated the droid review and I think I’ve been straddling the fence between the droid and my trusty iphone. The only real reason for the upgrade would be for the storage and the internet speeds. However, I’d like to know what would be the best way to transition from iphone to droid. For example I use itunes heavily with detailed playlist for over 60GB of music, also I watch anywhere from 8 to 10 podcast on a daily basis. Also being an mac fan boy I rely on mac mail, contacts and ical for everything. Can these still be synced up seamlessly and easily? The dirty truth though I’m probably just looking for an escape from AT&T.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:05 am
ok. what about symbian os? dear cali, you like the 6app running in the same time on the android then you shovld see the symbian power in that area. i think that symbian and more precise n97mini is the best phone out there. the android still has to mature a bit. the iphone has just a cool factor, to not suqort multitask makes it a low function smartphone. about the app store. better 100 usefull apps then millions af useless apps.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:05 am
I think Motorola hit the sweet, soft spot with the screen size and resolution… I mean it’s bigger, yet less wide than the iPhone, making it a big widescreen phone, that fits better in pockets… great work.
If only it looked a bit better… well, you can’t have everything.
My perfect phone would have:
- Tegra 2 (arriving in devices April 2010) for the low-power processing.
- Touch Pro 2’s keyboard and tilting screen.
- A front facing camera!
- Android please.
And I’ll be a happy man.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:46 am
The Droid looks promising as a mobile device. My friends with SDF are hard-core, old-school, technology-literate geeks, several of whom bought a Droid and have positive things to write about it. I’ve just cancelled my mobile phone plan to use Skype exclusively, though I’d strongly consider a Droid were I to want for a mobile device. I also found an almost-pristine 333 MHz PowerBook G3 (Bronze KB/Lombard) to upgrade and install Mac OS X (10.3 “Panther”).
November 10th, 2009 at 7:05 am
How do I watch you on my Droid? Are you on MediaFly?
November 10th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Regarding Mail.app on the iPhone, perhaps I should have stressed “easily” a bit more. I don’t find the way the iPhone does it to be effective. One example is that I can’t see how many unread messages are in a label, and that’s extremely important.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Technically, I believe Android can handle more than 6 apps at once, or at least give that illusion thanks to its architecture (only those apps that actually have anything to do in the background will actually run). The ability to quickly switch between the 6 most recent tasks, though, is a nice improvement over previous versions… before 2.0, you had to go back to the home screen and find the icon you used to launch the task in the first place to go back to it.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:31 am
Cali, I’m so glad you finally have a phone that supports Google Voice. I’ll be interested to see if giving up all the iPhone offers is worth having GV support.
November 10th, 2009 at 9:19 am
I currently have an iPhone and when people ask me how I like having one I almost always give the answer, “It’s the nearest thing to a hand-held computer that I have ever used.” Please noticed that I said, “I have ever used,” and not what is available. Having been with AT&T for all of my cell phone tenure I don’t have much to base everyone’s hoopla upon … but I can say that I do have dropped calls and “hey I’ll call you back because I can’t understand you” experiences. And talking to my parents is near imposable as they can’t hear on phone calls anyway.
Cali, this review is one of your bests I believe and it makes me excited about the Droid. How excited, well when my contract is up on the iPhone (not far down the road) jumping ship is now a real possibility.
November 10th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Thank you for being one of the only reviewers to understand the multitouch situation. The USA Droid does support multitouch, but it is not enabled in the default apps. Download something like PicSay image editor and Droid owners can pinch/zoom til dawn. 3rd party apps can and will use multitouch gestures on the USA Droid. Flash 10.1 will support multitouch points & gestures on the Droid. There is a great deal of misinformation on this so thanks again for your insight!
November 10th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
hi, nice to see you so excited about something not made by apple. this is one of the few upcoming devices that has me excited too.
android can run lots of apps at the same time. when you hold the home key it will show the last 6 apps that were used. if you download a free app called taskiller, you can set a shortcut to the app on a homescreen so you can easily see what is running and simply click any of the open apps to close them. you would be surprised to see how many apps are running in the background after startup.
i would love to hear your thoughts after a little more time with the device.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I think that the Droid is a great smart phone. The email on it is great and easy to use. I would make the argument that the iPhone, was not the smart phone to get when it comes to email. The Blackberry is the king when it comes to that department. I did hear a small rumor in the blogs, that HTC is coming out with a Android version of the HD2, which will come out to Verizon on black Friday. This phone will run the snapdragon processor, with a 4.3 inch capacitive screen. I’m waiting for that phone.
November 10th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
I”m sorry the iPhone has yet to materialize into the outstanding device that it could be, given Apple’s history of excellence in design. There were times in which I was just chomping at the bit to buy one, but I would always be discouraged away by the required 2-year contract with AT&T. Perhaps the iPhone might one day yet evolve in the outstanding mobile device that it has the potential of becoming and we perhaps in the future might have more of a choice in terms of a cellular and data service provider.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Hey Cali,
Please let us know how GOOGLE Voice works on here, I tested it out on the Tmobile network and was not very happy.
Keep us posted!!
Cheers
Jose
November 12th, 2009 at 6:09 am
Google Voice works perfectly!
November 13th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Great and thorough review of the Droid Cali! :)
November 13th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Why is the GSM version have muti-touch?
November 13th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
I can hardly wait for the Motorola Milestone to hit the markets here in Europe! :-)
November 14th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
” Namanh Hoang Says:
November 10th, 2009 at 1:41 am
I appreciated the droid review and I think I’ve been straddling the fence between the droid and my trusty iphone. The only real reason for the upgrade would be for the storage and the internet speeds. However, I’d like to know what would be the best way to transition from iphone to droid. For example I use itunes heavily with detailed playlist for over 60GB of music, also I watch anywhere from 8 to 10 podcast on a daily basis. Also being an mac fan boy I rely on mac mail, contacts and ical for everything. Can these still be synced up seamlessly and easily? The dirty truth though I’m probably just looking for an escape from AT&T.”
Wondering the same.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:25 am
I do know that they have a way to sync your iTunes library through a program called Double Twist. The issue with that is, all the files have to be DRM free. As far as the Mac Mail issue, I think you would have to forward your mail to another pop3 source. Rumor has it that T-mobile here is in the US will get the Droid, so AT&T will not be far behind. I just think that AT&T’s network is not worth keeping the carrier.
November 26th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
I still prefer the iPhone!
January 11th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Just an FYI for all the Moto “DROIDers” out there….
FutureDial has just released some PC software (called FutureDial Suite Smartphone Edition) which supports the Motorola DROID…. It lets you do content transfer, backup, picture and music sharing and other tasks not previously available for Motorola DROID handsets. (Some other programs out there only offer limited capability, but this new software does alot more)
And the kicker — The software is being offered for a limited introductory price of just $7 until Jan 29th (hey, it’s cheaper than getting a frappucino at the local coffee water hole, so check it out!)
Learn more by visiting the product info page at http://www.futuredial.com/en/fdsse.html