a g i r i l e y . c o m

I am a very recent iPhone to Droid convert. So recent, in fact that I haven’t actually switched my phone number to the Droid and currently walk around with two phones. I have never done that before. Usually, when I get a new phone, I ditch the old one. In this case, I didn’t want to get rid of my beloved iPhone, unless I was absolutely sure I like the Droid better. The more I use the Droid, the more features I discover (try holding your finger down in different areas and see what you get).

I like the Droid. But me liking it will not convince you, so let me give you some more information.

Before I get deep here, let me say that I heard Verizon released a 5-page bug list and apparently the OTA software update coming out on the 11th fixes most of those issues. One of them is the crappy phone call voice quality. There’s been some reports on echoing.

Form factor

This is not my favorite device to hold, I’ll admit. It feels large, square and clunky compared to the iPhone. The selection of cases available at Verizon is downright pathetic. But, again, it’s only been released very recently. I got a clear plastic case, but I’m waiting for my rubberized black one… I know it’s coming (right, InCase?).

Reception

Well, it’s on Verizon, need I say more?

Screen

The screen is slightly larger than the iPhone’s, not enough to compare and drool over but enough to give you a little more real estate. The resolution, however is stunning. All text and images look really sharp and clear. Text aliasing is much better.

Battery

The Droid has a replaceable battery, which can hold a charge for several days if you don’t overload your phone with apps. I did. Beware of polling mail and tweets with Twidroid. Getting things checked on a 5-minute basis and getting notifications is really not important unless you are providing emergency services.

Phone

Works like the iPhone. You have your dial pad, call log, contacts and favorites. Once nice thing is that you have a frequently called list. The voice quality has issues; I can hear very well on the phone, but the other party had trouble hearing me. Heard of echo problem as well. Verizon is aware and I believe this has been taken care of in the upcoming update.

Keyboard

Has built-in keyboard with multi-directional pad and on-screen keyboard that rotates with the screen. I don’t like or use the built-in sliding keyboard, because it’s slow to type on it and I am not comfortable with it. The on-screen keyboard does a nice job. Predictive text is done better on the iPhone, but here you have choices or words and eventually you’ll learn to choose the right word. The keyboard does not pop up when the cursor goes to an editable field, but I hope that will be fixed with the new software update that’s supposedly coming out on the 11th.

Camera

Very decent, even under low light. You have several scenes to choose form and you can even crop and rotate your photo when done.

Email

Blackberry type email consolidation, I love it. No more going forward two steps then going backwards two steps. The email accounts are color coded so you can easily tell which email account you are viewing. You can select multiple messages and mark them read/unread, star them or delete them at once. There is also a Gmail app that actually notifies you of incoming email right away, just like mobile me does on the iPhone.

SMS

Has delivery reports, like my old Nokia devices did. You can insert smileys and choose from a long list of attachment types including video. If you get SMS Popup, you get a very detailed notification when a message arrives. You can respond/dial/go to web from the notification.

Maps/Navigation

The device comes with Google Maps with turn-by turn navigation. It got me a little lost today, and took me to a non-existent restaurant yesterday, but it’s pretty good for a free nav. It’s intuitive and you can navigate to a lot of different places from searches to your contacts. The sound is clear and legible. The Map has a list feature, so you can see which Barnes and Noble is closest to you or on your way. Yo can even use Latitude so you and tyour friends can see where everyone is at any given moment (do we want to?).

Syncing

If you have a Gmail account, you can sync all your contacts. If you are a Mac user (like me), you can get Spanning Sync to sync all your calendars and contacts to Google, then the device will automatically pick it up. Be patient, it took awhile to get all my stuff.

Apps

Most of the apps I downloaded were free.  I even got a copy of DocumentsToGo for 9.99 (deal expired yesterda, unfortunately). I have almost everything I have on the iPhone. The Market (App Store equivalent) is not as neat and organized as Apple’s, but so far I found almost everything I need. I have several sore points, but I’m sure over time these will be taken care of: Evernote, Things and 1Password. Evernote has a web app that’s not nearly as good as their native app on the iPhone, but they are working on an Android release. 1Password is concentrating on the Mac platform and mostly Safari and Firefox. This means that even though we have 1Password Anywhere (their web app natively on your phone) the html file won’t load. If there will be enough people on Android, they will do it, I’m sure. I the meantime I exported all my data and imported it into OI Safe. Not as pretty as 1Password but does the job.

Notification

This is my favorite part. Whether you get new email or the temperatre drops cause you drove to the mountains or you have new tweets or a doctor’s appointment or you downloaded apps or uploaded photos to Facebook, yo get notified. You can pull down the notifications window form the top bar. It’s really neat. Also, the little led in the upper right corner blinks in different color depending on what app got the notification. You can set different settings for almost everything as to how to get notified. The built-in sounds are very nice, but if you download Rings Extend, you can use your own music for notifications or as a ringtone.

Storage

The Droid ships with a 512 MB ROM which contains only 256 MB available for app storage. But it also ships with a 16 GB MicroSD Card. Most apps are smart enough to use that as storage. You can mount the SD card on the desktop and add things to it.

Home Screen

You can place apps, shortcuts or even folders on your desktop. As of now you have three screens, but rumor has it this will be 7 with the new software update. Yo can even add a person as an sms shortcut or to direct dial a number.

Sharing

Since we live in the time of social media, it’s a nice thing to be able to share. And you can do that with the Droid. You take a photo and right from the camera app you have a list of choices for sharing including Twitter (with Twidroid) and Facebook.

Multitasking

There’s not much to it: it works. Be aware that if you let apps run they will drag your battery down. So, advice here is close what you don’t need.

Music

Not an iPod. Let me repeat: this is not an iPod. BUT with some third-party software and a little work you can even sync music to it form iTunes. You can also place a Pandora widget on your desktop and stream music. The speakers are much nicer than of those belonging to the iPhone.

There’s not much you can’t do with the Droid and I think it’ll only get better. All-in-all this is a great device, whether for business use or for fun. There will be only more apps, better and prettier ones. Apple pretty much started this game and set a pretty high standard. People who write for the Droid will follow in their footsteps. They already do, ther are some nice-looking apps out there.

Agnes Riley