Motorola Droid Review

I got it. Couldn’t wait. Totally bought a data plan on the spur of the moment because of the wow factor. Signed up for another 2 year contract. Didn’t talk to the wife and risked serious peril to do it….and a couple of weeks later, I don’t regret it a bit.

I am a technology guy by trade which means one of two things. I am either a techno freak that has to have all the latest gadgets or, I am so sick of working with tech for 10 hours a day, I don’t really care too much about it when I get home. I was the latter, so it takes a lot to sell me on a gizmo, particularly when there are contracts involved. When I walked into the Verizon store, I was actually there to get a replacement for my enV. All I wanted was a QWERTY keyboard and I was good. After a few minutes playing with the droid, my tune changed in a big way. I actually have a blackberry for work with a full data plan, internet browsing, the works. It is completely useless. You cannot browse the internet from your blackberry effectively. I spent 10 min. trying to price check a DVD player at Amazon on the thing one time and about tore my hair out. It is great for email, but not for the mindlessness the web has to offer. My experience with the blackberry was always that it was crazy slow. With that knowledge, I rotated the droid and suddenly “the cloud” focused and normal, non-mobile web pages became readable, usable on a mobile device.

I flipped to the voice, turn by turn navigation section and Google maps satellite view made me gasp. The fact that it showed up so quickly at such high res. made me drool. I jumped to youtube and streamed that video of the BYU soccer chick getting her pony tail yanked in a split second and I was sold. Since then, I have downloaded app after free app. The barcode scanner app is actually useful on this 5 megapixel device. Sorry about that iPhone users. Yesterday I scanned probably 10 UPCs while at the store, it told me instantly the internet prices and allowed me to one click the item into my Christmas list. It has a calorie counter app that allows the same thing. Just scan the UPC on that box of Ho-Ho’s and you can instantly one click the nutritional information into your daily food log. When I got home, I used voice recognition and said “Navigate to” then gave my entire address. It flipped to the Navigation screen map, then said “You have arrived at your destination” and showed me a full screen Google street view picture of my front door. Come on, are you serious?

The apps make the phone and everything I have downloaded, I have done for free so far. I have apps for real-time football scores, movie reviews and previews, compass, level, stocks, dictionaries, coupons, Pandora music streaming, and tons of other things. Google night-sky allows you to hold your Droid up to the sky and it shows you the constellations you should be seeing at your location looking through the droid. It is ridiculous. It also has 2 processors and comes with a 16GB uSD card installed.

iPhone readers are probably saying “We have had all of these things for years”. True, you may have, but you also paid $500 for your phone and are on a crappy network. You also give up half of your available screen for a virtual keyboard, and your 3MP camera can’t focus on close-up objects making the barcode readers useless. I paid $100 after rebate and get voice turn-by-turn for free.

Now the bad. Data plans are bloody expensive. Insurance is $9 per month for this phone and requires a deductable, so I didn’t get it. The screen is multi-touch, but pinch only works with a picture app. so far. The GPS is a real GPS so it is very accurate, but it doesn’t work as well indoors, and requires a Cell tower to download the maps, so I don’t know how useful it would be in the wilderness. The metal detector app. is fun, but I wouldn’t necessarily tape my Droid to a stick and comb the beach with it. Yeah, it has a metal detector app.

I couldn’t be happier with the Droid, and I love the keyboard. The only problem I have now, my wife absolutely wants one. Now I have to justify another data plan.