As a die-hard Mac user, I was thrilled when Apple revolutionized the smartphone industry with the iPhone. I died a little inside, though, when I discovered it would only be available through AT&T. I have been a Verizon customer since I first bought a cell phone, back in 1999 or 2000, I think. One of my maxims in life is that “all cell phone companies suck, just in different ways.” Sprint has had a shaky user-base, poor customer service rep, but good phones and decent pricing, especially for push-to-talk (along with their Nextel acquisition). T-Mobile has always had great prices and thoroughly lousy coverage, unless you live in a large city (and even then, I’ve heard of gaping holes). AT&T has good prices, but a reputation for very bad signal strength and coverage area in the U.S. (their “least dropped calls” claim is only thanks to the fact that they are a worldwide company). Verizon has always given me great customer service and practically bullet-proof coverage, but their prices always make me flinch when it’s time to re-up my contract.
I wanted to upgrade my phone; my old Palm 700p was a year over its contract renewal date and I kept hoping for a Verizon iPhone, but it just didn’t seem to be in the cards, so I started investigating other options. Google’s Android phone OS interested me a lot and after comparing and contrasting many of the phones running it, I decided to get what is seen as the top-of-the-line (at least for today): Motorola’s DROID, running on Verizon. After living with the DROID for a month or so, I have a few thoughts:
- The Moto DROID is a solid piece of engineering. The DROID features a nice, large touch-screen with some sensory (vibration) feedback on the permanent buttons at the bottom. The other buttons and controls are fairly simple and straightforward, as well. It features a built-in physical keyboard that slides out as well as a very nice virtual keyboard, ala the iPhone. To be honest, I prefer the virtual keyboard to the physical one--the edge of the top half of the phone gets in the way of my fingers on the physical keyboard and the virtual one is very easy to get used to in that orientation.
- App Selection is Very Good. While not possessing the size and scope of the Apple App Store, the selection of apps for the DROID is excellent. I have added quite a few freebies to my collection in the first month, including weather apps (from both Weather Channel and Weather Bug), a barcode scanner that also scans the net for product identification and price comparison, Solitaire and Checkers games, and silly sound effects (both guns and farts...farts are always funny, especially if they’re not real!). There are lots of other apps available, many of them free, but plenty of good paid ones, too.
- Call Quality is Great. Let’s face it, the “killer app” on any smart phone is the fact that it makes phone calls. If it doesn’t do it well, they what are you paying for? After a slight struggle to pair my old Jawbone BT headset in the beginning, it has worked flawlessly, with a much better sound quality than when I used it through my old Palm Treo. Without BT, the call quality is even better.
- Exclusive Things. One cool thing about the DROID is that you can buy a dash/windshield mounting bracket that comes with a car charger, and it turns your phone instantly into a GPS device. Yes, other phones have GPS, but when you put the DROID into the bracket, it instantly changes to the “Car Home” screen which is by and large voice activated, and features very large, visible buttons to switch between activities if you don’t want to yell at it. The GPS uses Google maps and is much better than the Magellen GPS I used to have (it went on eBay a week after I bought this phone).
Other things I like about my new phone are its very decent picture quality (as compared to my old phone), its expandability, and its compatibility. Windows and Blackberry phones tend to be very difficult to pair with a Mac--they just don’t play well together. Palm has a long history of Mac compatibility, but I have no idea if their new OS carries on that tradition. The DROID made me jump through a few hoops: I had to sign up for a full Google account--including G-Mail which I hadn’t used before and still haven’t used since--and find a free piece of software that will sync my Apple Mail, Calendar, and Address Book apps on my laptop with my phone, but once I had done all that, it all works smoothly and solidly. I now have access to all my vital info from my phone, my laptop, or anyone else’s computer with an internet connection.
Of course, two weeks after I bought the DROID, the Wall Street Journal started reporting that Verizon might get the iPhone later this year...or maybe next. Really? Apple is now going to engineer a CDMA version of the iPhone when that protocol only has a couple more years of viability before Verizon gets LTE up and running throughout their network? Somehow I doubt it. I could be wrong, though, and maybe I’ll wish I had waiting another 6 months...or 12 months...but I doubt that, too. I am a Mac user...and I am very happy with my Motorola DROID.
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