Motorola Droid first impressions

Hey All! Sorry I missed you yesterday, was feeling quite under the weather and not very productive at all. Hate those days!

Got my new Motorola Droid on Tuesday, November 10. First impression, out of the box, it has a nice solid feel to it. I'm switching to it from a Motorola Q9m, which was a great phone, and built like a tank. This one feels like it weighs a bit more, and seems to be as well built. This is one of the reasons I am sticking with the Motorola brand.

The unit arrived with about a 60% charge, so I was able to power it up right away and get a feel for the touch screen menues and programming. The software on the unit is made by Google, and called "Android 2.0". The touch screen has a very nice, crisp feel to it - much better than my wife's Motorola Krave! I was able to immediately navigate my way around the screen with little effort, and no "mis-reads" as I dragged down the menu. My next step was to try out the touch qwerty keyboard. I have to admit, this was one of the main things I was interested in checking out, as I have an iPod Touch and as many experts agree, the Touch and the iPhone are the standard as far as touchscreen keyboards. The Droid delivers. I would say that the ability to type on the iPhone/Touch and the Droid are almost even. Very impressed. You say you don't like typing on the touch screen qwerty board? No problem! The Droid offers a very functional slide out keyboard as well. I usually prefer the on screen myself.

Setting up the unit required at least amateur abilities. I set mine up to get both personal and corporate emails. The personal required signing up for an gmail account (which is semi-annoying, as I already have a yahoo, msn, and a hotmail account for different purposes). I rarely use the yahoo account, so it's not really a big deal, and would probably make things even easier if I just gave my personal gmail account address to my friends and family - I would effortlessly and quickly get all my emails on my Droid. I get my other accounts now, but you have to set them up to deliver to and through your gmail account online once you get it all organized. Took me a bit to figure out all the ins and outs of the gmail as far as setting up the Droid to synch the way I wanted it too, but it seems to be working just the way I wanted.

I'm still doing some of the set up on the unit, but have had trouble getting my corporate (we use Microsoft Outlook 2003) calendar to synch correctly each time. Again, seems to be working now.

The Droid competes (probably on more of a perception level) with the iPhone on the platform of being able to download "apps" - which, yep, for me is all part of the fun. You can see just a few of the available apps (just the tip of the iceberg) at http://www.android.com/market/. Sorry, you have to have the Droid in your hand and touch the "market" button to have access to what seems to be thousands of apps available. If this phone sticks in the market place, which upon having it for 3 days thus far and having no reason to see how it won't, the available apps will explode. Apps range from being free to around $20.00; there may be some for more than that, but I don't recall seeing any as I scrolled through pages and pages of them.

Apps are available under several different headings: Comics, Communication, Entertainment, Finance, Health, Lifestyle, Multimedia, News & Weather, Productivity, Reference, Shopping, Social, Sports, Themes, Tools, Travel, Demo, and finally Software Libraries. They are simple to download, just click on purchase, free ones begin downloading immediately, paid apps lead you to a streamlined store to enter your credit card info, then begin downloading. They download generally within a few minutes, depending on the size of the app.

I love the wi-fi capabilities of the Droid, and found a neat little app that acts as a simple 'toggle switch' on the App Store for free. When you turn on the wi-fi and it connects, it uses this connection and avoids the verizon connection, from what I can tell. (Of course, calls come in on the verizon network.) When you flip the switch off, it instantly is reconnected to the 3G verizon network.

Of course, the Droid is a phone, and what review would be complete without a few calling capablity remarks. I'm impressed by the crystal clear sound through both the set itself, as well as the speakerphone. I could hear callers simply without straining (the in-call volume adjusts by a rocker switch on the side of the phone.) Dialing out was simple, as was finding contact information.

One other comment, regarding battery life. This is a biggie for me. I have absolutely NO USE for an electronic device that simply cannot make it through the day without being charged. The Droid makes it through the day quite effortlessly. I've been leaving it plugged in to my USB port on my desktop computer, and it charges to 100% within a few hours of being plugged in. After that, I leave it unplugged, and it seems to hold it's charge well throughout the rest of the day, until I arrive back at work and repeat the charge pattern. Overall, I'm QUITE satisfied with the battery life!

My thoughts on my Droid this far are that the unit really is a solid, viable product for Motorola. It seems to work quite well, seamlessly in fact. Apps seem to work without causing glitches, and through only 3 days, I've had no problems with the unit.

If I do, you will hear about it.

Until next time. . . .