Motorola Droid / Google Android

TimurCivan

TimurCivan

Director of Photography
Staff member
Just got a Droid.

I have been religiously using a Palm Treo700w, the windows based palm pilot Smart Phone, for over 3 years. Its was a great phone. It ran windows mobile, and had Excel, Adobe Acrobat, PowerPoint, a touch screen, real buttons, Video camera, Still camera and even had built in color correction software for the photos.

It ran the internet like a champ, albeit slow, dial up slow.

So it was time for an upgrade. iPhone Here i come.....


But naturally being a hardcore verizon user, iphones are a pipe dream. But then i saw this rather subtle looking giant black shiny piece of glass. Turns out its a new phone. The DROID.

Best phone ive ever used. Its like an Iphone touch interface, but with a manual keyborad. DREAM COME TRUE.

Huge bright, razor sharp screen, with 876x480 resolution. A beautiful speaker, thats actually loud AND clear, for both speakerphone and listening to Youtube, pandora etc..... Also the standard voice quality is the best ive ever heard. it has that warm, FM radio quality that Skype on a good day delivers. IT just sounds great. Apparently the Microphone is quite good as well, as people say i sound loud and clear. Though i may just be the loudest person in a room at any given time.....

Apps galore, with more to come.

a reasonable still camera, but quite excellent Video. at 720x480 that looks like footage from a flip camera.

But the really interesting part ist he way it consolidates your "online" presence. it takes your Gmail, Facebook, google, Twitter, Contacts in phone, and SMS and merges them into a sort of profile for each of your contacts. when i type in ( or speak) my friends name, it searches him or her, then gives me the options of how to contact them or find information about them. I get a choice of SMS, Calling, Facebook message, or googling them, all just by saying their name. and its voice recognition is outstanding. i tested it by saying names in other languages, and seeing what it came up with. Kublai Kahn, yielded a google search spear headed by Wikipedia, about Kublai Khan. Amazing.

its chock full of "futuristic" advancements, it feels like something you would have seen in a movie in the mid 90's and said, yea that would be cool if they could build that... well "they" have.

the 3G is nice and quick, i can listen to Pandora on HQ, and plug it into my car Aux port, and just rock out to tunes all while streaming, without a hiccup. AND the battery holds up during thoes times too. Also, it recharges on standard USB power. So youre never really away from a charger. Any computer will do.

But heres the big kicker, i can surf Facebook, google a place for dinner, listen to pandora, and reply to a text without closing any of the apps. everything just stays right there... its great. it feels more like a computer, less like a phone trying to be a computer. IT has the same, "thats how it should be" that the iPhone delivers, BUT WITH A KEYBOARD!!!!!!!! which is a huge deal for me.

check+++ from me. love it. had to share.

Oh yea.... I forgot... the video is 24p..... ;)
:)
 
Nice Civan real nice I was going to switch to verizon, with a review like this I'm thinking about it once again.
 
Ugg. I got the (original) Blackberry Storm about three months ago because it seemed to me the "best" smartphone big red had at the time. I wish I had gotten a free dumb phone and waited for the Droid. The BB Storm sucks balls, to put it mildly.

Glad to see your enjoying the phone though!
 
William, did you upgrade to OS 5.0? I've had the storm for almost a year now and was not a big fan. Then i upgraded the OS and now it's awesome, nice and snappy.
 
Ben Sliker said:
William, did you upgrade to OS 5.0? I've had the storm for almost a year now and was not a big fan. Then i upgraded the OS and now it's awesome, nice and snappy.
Click to expand...

I did. I will say it is better. But better then bad still isn't good. I don't have to pull the battery to reset it as much (and I shouldn't have to do this at all anyway) but the thing is still unreasonably slow. After 5.0 the keyboard has actually gotten worse at registering input (for instance, I cannot for the life of me type the word "I'm" on the first try - ever. It defaults to "In")

How much is a Droid not on contract? :(
 
559.99.

Sorry to hear about your Storm. I think i'm in very small percentage that likes the phone. I'm surprised to hear 5.0 didn't help you that much. I have a co-worker with 4.7 still on hers and it's night and day if i try to use it.
 
TimurCivan said:
check+++ from me. love it. had to share.
Click to expand...

BUMP. there's a new one coming out this week and my wife & i might get them (buy one get one free)

Anyone yeah or nay on the Droid? co-worker has one and loves it.

EDIT: I guess I should say what I'm looking for in a smart phone:
-good internet access when i'm bored in the waiting room or barbershop
-calender to schedule/track events
-ability to play mp3s
-GPS
 
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I'm all about Android these days. Open, multi-tasking, variety - love it! :thumbsup:

There are so many different Android phones out and coming out it's ridiculous. But cool. Because there are lots of choices in hardware (and UI overlays, etc.).

Check out:

Samsung Galaxy S

HTC EVO

HTC Incredible

Nexus One

HTC Desire

Droid

Those are some of the higher end Android devices out, in addition to various tablets.
 
Nexus One is pretty sweet. And for Verizon there is the new HTC Incredible.

I've been using my G1 since it came out in 2008, Android is only going to get better.
 
Motorola is coming ot with a new drid . I met the a guy that works at the ad ajency that does motorolas marketing. He had one... its SICK.... lightning fast..
 
I got a Droid back in January and love it to death. Completely replaced my iPod Touch for multimedia (mp3 and video) which I did not expect.
 
Got a Storm when it was brand new, about a year and a half ago. Pretty much hate it. I was ok with it until my wife got an iPhone. iPhone is embarrassingly better than the Storm. It's ridiculous, really, how much better.

Timur, fill us in on the new Droid. Even the guy at the Apple store said "if you're not going to get an iPhone, get a Droid."
 
After seeing Johnson's iPhone I wanted one but I've got Verizon and I'm very happy with their coverage. I'm going to have to look into the Droid. :thumbsup:
 
I'm one of those who's loyal to Verizon's service but keep praying they get the iPhone, I've been waiting for too long now... I might look into the Droid

And who knew, thought this was interesting...DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd
 
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Pretty much sold on the existing Droid, it does the few things that the iPhone just won't -- it's got free turn-by-turn navigation, you can get an app that lets the camera flash work like a real flashlight (one thing I *love* about the Storm) and of course you can swap memory cards and batteries and multitask and it has a keyboard and it's open.

But if there's a new Droid coming... I get an extra $100 trade-in value if I wait until August, so ... I can wait until August.

The Storm is still limping along; I do really like the Garmin app for it, but getting tired of having to pull the battery to reboot the darn thing!
 
And full Flash 10.1 support coming with Android OS v2.2 before the end of Q2!
 
ive had a DROID since it came out.

Admittedly, its interface isnt as "smooth" as an Iphone. the iphone interface is butter smooth, and moving the items, scrolling, pinch zooming is perfect.

the droid does ALL of that... but it has a kind of jutter. Someone somewhere said, it has somethign to do with the Multitask. Makes sense. get an app called "white killer", (... i know ... i know... weird name...) it closes open background apps. once everything is closed, the droid OS and user interface is MUCH smoother. almost iphone smooth. The trick i find with using the droid is this, touch the screen, then move your finger in a swift deliberate manner, but not a flick. you have to stop the finger motion at the end of the movement. it doesn't like the slow touch scroll that the iphone is so good at.

From what the guy told me, he said the new one is faster, and "better". i only spoke ot him for like 1 min, in the elevator at the starret leigh building. nice guy. he told me how they licensed the name "droid" from Lucas arts... haha...

if i could change anything, i would bevel the edges fo the screen so i can hold it and not have the corners of my finger fat that happen to touch the VERY edges of the screen trigger false commands. you literally CANT touch the screen at all while it on, and doing somethign or it will start responding. once youre used to it, its no big deal.

ALSO, a "next" button while music is playing and the system is locked would be nice. You can adjut volume but you cant advanceto the next song...
 
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