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Motorola Droid – The Good

I’m a Google kind of guy. My email is gmail. I use Google Apps. I use Google Calendar. The phone is built for this. Calendar, Google Voice, and all the other apps really integrate well. I make my calls via Google Voice. I schedule appointments with the same calendar I use on the web. So with that in mind, everything I used worked really seamlessly between the web and the phone (except, oddly, Google Wave, which says it’s not compatible with the browser).

The camera is 5 megapixels, and does stills and video. It’s pretty decent. The “hard” button is in a silly place, and using the soft button wasn’t very simple. But there were all kinds of 3rd party apps in the store to make this easy. The video is HD quality, by the way, which is nice. Oh, and there’s a flash for stills. Eat that, iPhone.

The app store had lots of apps that I was using on the iPhone, including Evernote, PixelPipe, SnapTell, Shazam, Pandora, and more. I’m using Twidroid right now for a Twitter app, though I’m hoping the Seesmic Android app gets better, as I’d like to support Loic LeMeur.

I love the maps feature, which is a lot more like a full function turn-by-turn GPS and blows away the iPhone built-in maps feature. It’s provided by Google and it’s really a threat to Garmin and Tom Tom and the boys.

The 3G network seems pretty darned fast. I have done some comparisons that showed the iPhone winning, and some showing the Droid winning, but in general, I feel like the Internet runs faster on the Droid. Might be a perception. You be the judge.

Motorola Droid – The Bad

The soft keyboard is silly. It’s messy, not very responsive, and requires a lot of patience. The hard keyboard isn’t as good as a blackberry, but after a while, I got used to it.

Battery life is a hair better than an iPhone, but not much. I like that I can buy replacement batteries and swap them out on my own. The guys at AMD told me a lot of the future wars around computer components would be around battery life. This makes me believe them.

Apps crash every now and again (but then, they did on the iPhone, too).

I have only 10,000 apps and iPhone has 100,000 or something. So, sometimes that shows. Now that everyone and their brother is making an iPhone app, I find myself hoping they’re also making Android apps. It’s never fun to be in the “B” category of software crazes. But so far, that’s not hurting me too bad.

I find there are lots of design elements where Apple did it better. The iTunes interaction is much better than the various entertainment products lopped into the Droid. Meaning, the App Store seems smoother than the Android Market. The iTunes part seems better than Droid’s Music app. So, it’s a little bit of what Robert Scoble said, about it not exactly being as ‘smooth,’ but I’m holding out that there are more options for improvement.

How I think the Droid Compares

I think people who have a Blackberry should think about the Droid.

I think people who are considering the Palm Pre should think about the Droid.

I think people who are tired of AT&T dropping their calls should think about the Droid.

I think the other Android phones are good, but Droid is Android 2.0 and seems a little bit nicer.

So that’s it. That’s what I think. What about you? And are there any other questions?

Note to iPhone fanboys: I don’t think this is an iPhone-killer as much as it’s another scoop out of Blackberry’s bucket. This beats the crap out of the Storm, and probably also the Tour. I think the Palm Pre will also get smooshed a bit by this phone, too.

Let’s look at what it can do. (And quick note: I bought this phone with my own cash. This is not a sponsored review.)

For another perspective, I think Bryan Sherman’s reviews are all pretty worthwhile, too.

Easy Keyboard and Touch Screen Input

The Droid has both the ability to input information via a touchscreen, similar to the iPhone, but there’s also a slide-out keyboard. The keys feel flat instead of bubbled like a BlackBerry, so you can’t exactly type blindly (BB users know what I mean), but what I do like about the keyboard is that the special characters make a lot more sense, placement wise. There’s also a five-position controller that you can use to scroll around if touch isn’t getting you precisely where you need to go. The touch screen, when just using that keyboard, worked just fine for me, too.

Applications

Honestly, the real war will be fought and won over a few spots: the network and applications. I’ll get to the network part, but I’ll start by saying I’m already pretty impressed by the applications. The commercials for Droid say there are over 10,000 apps already (these are Google widgets and android-specific apps). I had no trouble finding pretty much all my iPhone apps for a Droid version, including a beta of my favorite note app, Evernote, SnapTell visual product search, a Twitter client, and more.

Most surprising of the apps was Google’s new Maps with Navigation. I clicked this baby on and suddenly, I had turn-by-turn instructions given in a typical GPS voice, with traffic condition overlays and more. When I say this app pretty much makes the phone a must, it could replace my Garmin (I know that both Garmin and TomTom are a bit uncertain what Google’s new app means for their future).

I’ll review other apps as I get into them, and if they make sense to share with you. For now, suffice to say that I was very impressed with their selection, with one exception.

I had to download an app to close apps that were running on my phone.

What? Unless I missed a really simple instruction in the manual that I didn’t read, that strikes me as utterly silly. (Someone may come here and correct me.)

Google Integration

The Droid seamlessly integrated with my multiple Gmail accounts, including my @chrisbrogan.com accounts. It also integrated with my Google Calendar, my Google Voice, and all the other Google apps I run. That was delicious to experience. Having these apps run native on the phone makes them even faster, and even more slick. The calendar, for instance, runs even faster than the web-based version (though I wish it had custom views like the web version).

I’m very impressed with that integration. This, if you’re a Google fan, is a great reason to consider the phone.

The Network

I’ve been using AT&T for over a year now, and switching back to Verizon was a breath of fresh air. The web browsing is markedly faster on the Verizon 3G network. Calls stayed up on the three times I made a longer call while driving. In short, it just worked. iPhone fanboys, you have to admit that’s a weakness.

The network might be the thing that sells more people into trying out the Droid.

The Phone

The phone is loud and clear. The contacts and dialing mechanisms and stuff remind me a lot of the iPhone. It’s really simple and easy to use, and I don’t have anything bad to say about it.

The Camera

I haven’t shot a lot of photos yet with the Droid. The few I took were in poor lighting conditions, but even that was a change, because hey, it has a FLASH. Oooh, modern technology has equipped the Droid cameraphone with something that other cell phones have had for 9 years, but that has eluded my other previous smartphone of choice. Oh, and the camera is 5 megapixels. It also shoots video. You’ll see a test video of that soon enough here, but why rush things?

I’m pretty impressed with the quality. I also used the app PixelPipe (also available for iPhone and also my Mac desktop) on my Droid so that I could shove photos to as many sites as I wanted all at once. (A worthwhile app to get).

What’s Missing – iTunes

The most obvious app/feature missing is something that emulates the iTunes experience of an iPhone. There’s a music player, a video player, and a lot of 3rd party apps (Pandora for Android is quite noteworthy).

But there’s no store where I can blow $1.29 every time a whim strikes me. I’ve got several gigabytes of media on my iTunes account and on my laptop, and I’ve yet to try and port it over, but I’m reasonably sure that won’t really go anywhere. In the absence of that, why hasn’t Verizon led with a similar-to-iTunes or even a better Amazon integration? (You can correct me here if I missed something).

Overall: A Keeper

Today’s Day 2 with the Droid, so let’s not get crazy here. But so far, I’m really impressed. I think it’s a great phone, and will definitely give Blackberry users something to think about. I’m not as convinced that there will be a mass exodus from iPhone over to Droid, but then again, some of the other frustrated masses might just give it some thought.

For me, it’s not as much about a religion. I wanted a phone that worked better than what I was using. The iPhone raised the bar on what I was willing to accept. Thankfully, I feel the Droid meets and/or exceeds those standards.

Have you tried it? Are you considering it?