Anyone have experience with the Motorola Droid?

[dukie41181]

I am interested in this phone but would like to hear some IRL experiences.

Thanks!

[2pineapplesfornow]

DH just got one. He's loving it. I'm not a huge fan of software keyboards - so I was glad this one also has the option of a real keyboard. But when I tried it out I was really disappointed. The keys are tiny and completely flat, so it was hard to hit the correct letter.

Now the browser, apps, camera, AWESOME!

[sunshine873]

OOoooo, good question! I desperately want an iPhone, but financially going with AT&T doesn't make sense for us. Plus, the AT&T coverage in my area is awful. Anyway, we're kind of stuck with Verizon and I'm hoping the Droid is the answer to my iPhone desires!

[srkaplan]

I just got one on Sunday. I LOVE IT!! I've never actually used an iPhone to be able to directly compare it, but it does everything that I wanted the iPhone for. I have never used a touch screen before, but got used to it within the first day. The keypad is ok- I do agree that the keys are flat & could be difficult for some. I don't really anticipate using it, so it doesn't matter to me. The Google navigation is really really great...so great that I am thinking I will probably sell my Magellan GPS unit on ebay. The camera is 5 megapixels and takes great pictures. The browser is lightening fast. I've downloaded a handful of free apps that are designed for babies/toddlers and they have already kept DD entertained.

I'm really pleased so far.

[jess_g]

What are the apps like? I am about to get an apple touch ipod and would love to know what else is out there that compares.

Thanks,

Jessica.

[BillK]

Btw....VZW just RAISED their ETF to $350 - which is insane imo. I'm sure they're doing it to prevent the dishonest types from buying a second line - adding a phone like the Droid - then cancelling and selling the phone for a profit or Ebay or whatnot - but it really stinks for legitimate NEW customers. Not sure if the new increased ETF applies to existing customers or not - but I'd think it wouldn't.

If I hadn't switched to ATT/iPhone already - I'd be all over the Droid. It's getting really good reviews - the app store isn't nearly as robust as the iPhone's obviously - and the browser is supposedly a bit slower - but it seems to be the cat's meow regardless and leaps and bounds better than the BB's when it comes to browsing the web etc.

[lablover]

I got one on Saturday and I'm using it right now as we are stuck at the allergist this morning for a food challenge. I love it! I love the slide out keyboard. It is much faster for me than the touch screen keyboard. Web browsing is fast and I love the setup of everything. We have an ipod touch so I am familiar with the iphone functionality. I've only looked briefly at the apps. I'm not much of an apps person so their selection seems sufficient for me. The phone is a bit heavy but I've gotten used to it. I'm still learning all there is to do. Having google maps is awesome and the voice activated google searching on the internet is cool too.

[wellyes]

I played with one at BJs. It looked nifty to me. But I've also played with the iPhone at the Apple store...... and the iPhone is superintuitive and elegent. I wouldn't say that about the Droid. It is probably awesome, but seeing it in person didn't sway me from my original plan to keep my Verizon cell and get an iPod Touch.

[strollerqueen]

Can anyone compare it the Blackberry Storm? I have that and am not loving it. Hmmm, wonder if I can switch out to the Droid.

[supercalifragilous]

I actually returned the Blackberry Storm I that I got for $50 and got the Motorola Droid because it was within my 30 days. I had the Storm for 26 days and hated every minute of it. I had significantly more dropped calls compared to my old Env2 and I HATED the touchscreen and basic functionality of the BB Storm.

I got really used to the keyboard of the Env2. That was a dealbreaker for me. The slide-out keyboard on the Droid is flat and takes a while to get used to as they say but it's better than a touchscreen. The clickscreen on my Storm was already starting to squeak and I don't even text that much! On the Droid, you have the option of using the touchscreen to type as well but it's much faster to use the keyboard.

My Verizon plan remained the same and with the Droid I have the added feature of WiFi. I have the iPod Touch so that isn't a big deal, but it's convenient for when I don't have my iPod with me. In my office, I don't get cell reception, but we have strong WiFi signal so I can still stay connected to e-mail via the web. I heard WiFi is a good thing to have when traveling internationally, not that I do that often, but some friends who do say it's super convenient to have a phone with a removable SIM card that also has WiFi. I think that's why they were looking at the Storm II and I don't know if Droid competes with that.

The web browser is superfast, much faster than it was on the Storm, IMO. Plus I think it's easier to navigate because of the slide-out keyboard (you don't have the onscreen keyboard taking up half the screen).

The only thing is it is VERY Google. The Android OS is Google (it has the newest 2.0 version versus the older version on the HTC Droid Eris model, also offered by Verizon though not as heralded and significantly cheaper). If you don't have one already, you will need to set up a Gmail account to which everything is sync'd, from contacts to calendar.

I haven't played around with many of the apps because I downloaded GoogleMaps on my Storm and the screen started doing funny things once in a while (like half of it would be streaked out, the keyboard was unresponsive, my camera locked up, etc.) and I heard that downloading apps was linked to those kinds of things on the Storm. My salesguy @ Verizon had tons of things downloaded to his HTC Droid Eris and it was running just as fast and fine, he said. There are a lot of cool FREE apps.

GoogleMaps comes preloaded and it's much nicer than the one offered on the Storm. I haven't yet used the voice search feature though it looks cool.

So far, it's 2 thumbs up for :thumbsup::thumbsup: the Motorola Droid, especially coming off the heels of my nasty Blackberry experience. I was ready to take a hammer to that thing!

[happymom]

Supercalifragilous, thanks for that informative post! DH wants to know- how does the Droid's email compare to BB's email? Are you notified instantly like on a BB?

[strollerqueen]

Thanks. I am going to go to their store to check it out, as soon as I get the chance. Oh, one more thing...how is the battery life? It seems like very time I go to use my Blackberry, it is dead, dead, dead.

[Twoboos]

Watching this thread!! DH is an iPhone NUT, but he said I should get a Droid so he can compare/contrast (nerd alert!).

However, he loathes Motorola products in general, so might wait until it's offered on another phone.

Of course all this coolness is making me want one NOW. :)

[minnie-zb]

I got one last Friday. And so far, I'm loving it. My husband has the blackberry storm and he likes the droid better.

I had been holding out for an iPhone, but it is not going to happen with Verizon. And honestly, once I got the droid, I'm not disappointed.

[hellokitty]

A friend of DH's got one when they came out. He might return it, he's not that happy with it. My DH played around with it. DH and I both have palm pres. Anyway, DH said that btwn the Droid and Pre, he liked the pre better. He was also surprised with how big and builky the Droid was compared to the pre. We've had our palm pre's for almost a month now and are very happy with them. I went from a bare basics pay per minute phone to the palm pre and thought it would be overwhelming, but I have to admit that it's pretty cool and easy to use.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

However, he loathes Motorola products in general, so might wait until it's offered on another phone.


There are other Android phones now. They aren't all Motorola are they?

***

DH & I both got Droids on Friday. We'd been suffering as non smart phone users long enough.

We love them. :love5:

We don't really use the keyboard.

Favorite features are probably the voice software and the navigation and the resolution and, and ...

You can hit the microphone button and then say like "Navigate to XXXX" and it saves a lot of typing. The navigation is great - turn by turn, voice. We're selling our Garmin today.

The screen is really great. I did a bit of web surfing Saturday on an 1-1/2 car ride and it was prefect for browsing this website. :ROTFLMAO: It really looks amazing. I think the screen has higher resolution that other phones out there right now, maybe?

Anyways, I'm like a commercial. hahaha

[happymom]

Supercalifragilous, thanks for that informative post! DH wants to know- how does the Droid's email compare to BB's email? Are you notified instantly like on a BB?

Sorry to askn again, but does anyone know the answer to this question? Does the Droid notify you immediately when you receive an email?

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

Sorry to askn again, but does anyone know the answer to this question? Does the Droid notify you immediately when you receive an email?

It looks like every 5 minutes is the most often I can get it to check for my non-gmail accounts.

I'm not sure about the gmail account, maybe that's immediate. I don't see where I change that one.

ETA, here's what I found on some Droid message board:


Am I mistaken?
I am coming from a BB Storm and here is what I understand.
BB pushes all mail
Android will push gmail and exchange mail accounts. You will have to poll pop3 mail accounts like yahoo, msn, hotmail, etc. (by stating the time intervals you would like to poll)
...
Correct. There is no push on POP accounts, you must 'pull' by polling. This is done by setting the email client to check for new email every xxx minutes.

The way BB gets around this is that email actually goes to their servers and that is where you get the email from, not really your own account.

[tny915]

Thanks for this thread! I'm headed to the Verizon store in the next few days to check out the Droid. I was sold on it based on all the online reviews, but in doing more research, I'm now curious about the other Android phone, the HTC Eris.

Those of you who have the Droid, did any of you consider the HTC Eris, and why did you rule it out? Was it just the lack of keyboard or were there other factors?

[carryingandstrollingabout]

I'm so glad to see this thread!

No where in the specs I've looked at on various review sites does it confirm whether the Droid downloads microsoft attachments from email documents. I'm sure it must, since it does so many sophisticated things. My current phone has email, but text only, and I can't open the attachments. So would you tell me whether you can open email attachments or not on your Droids?

Thanks!

I read Flash is coming to the Droid in 2010.

[supercalifragilous]

EMAIL PULLING
I have AOL e-mail sync'd to my Droid so it pulls every 5 minutes (you can set this interval to your liking, but I think 5 min is the fastest time). I don't remember the Storm giving me that option but it was SUPERfast. On the Storm, I'd sometimes get notified by my phone faster than online! Not as fast with the Droid, but I don't live for e-mail so it's not a big deal to me.

I'm not sure what Exchange is... is it a Microsoft thing? I see it on my phone but haven't played around with it. It's attached to Corporate Calendar.

SYNC GMAIL TO AOL
Apparently there's a way to sync your Gmail to AOL (importing contacts and e-mails all thru Gmail) and even setting your Gmail to send with your AOL address... I'm not *that* into Gmail so I don't see myself cutting over as long as I can check e-mail thru my phone.

INBOX
One difference - and I don't know if I just haven't figured out around it yet - with the Storm, I could delete e-mails from my phone display but just have it in my Inbox, waiting for the permanent delete on my computer. I liked that b/c I didn't necessarily want to filter thru read e-mails on my phone; I just wanted to view what new ones were coming in while I was on the go. With the Droid, your Inbox is fully sync'd with the phone, so once you delete it on your phone, it's in the Trash. I haven't been able to recover things from the Trash back into my Inbox, either. I can still view it in the Trash, but I can't move it back into the Inbox, so I have to be careful about what I delete. Plus, your whole Inbox is in view on the Droid instead of just the new ones. I'm used to having my New Mail box separate from my Old Mail - this is more like All Mail.

CALENDAR
For us Mac users, apparently there's a way to sync Google Calendar to iCal as well. I haven't done that yet b/c I like the color-coded "view all calendars simultaneously" feature in iCal (my daughter is pink, I'm blue, school events are green, etc.) I haven't seen that feature on Google Calendar. I can see where we can set up different calendars but not view them simultaneously. I haven't worked that much with it, though, so maybe it's a possibility and I just haven't found a way yet.

[dukie41181]

I got the Droid this past Tuesday and so far I'm really liking it! This is my first smart phone and I'm figuring it out! I'm glad I made the leap!

[supercalifragilous]

I don't think they're all Motorola - the "Droid" is because they all run on the Android OS by Google, I think.

There are 2 Droids offered by Verizon: Motorola Droid (the one we're talking about here) and the HTC Droid Eris. They're both similar phones but the Eris uses the older gen OS and has no slide-out keyboard. I think it's a little more streamlined and it's based on an HTC Droid model on another network (Sprint?).

Right now, the newest "Droid" is the Motorola Droid offered by Verizon. I think the HTC Droid Eris came out at the same time (and is much cheaper, BTW) but didn't get as much buzz.

[sunshine873]

I went today to check out the Motorolla Droid and I think I might have been swayed by the HTC Eris. I like the Motorolla, but it's kind of clunky and the HTC is sleek & smooth. I am intrigued by the Droid features. Either phone would be a HUGE upgrade from my old, old, old flip phone (no internet or e-mail - but hey it has a crappy camera!)

The HTC Eris runs on an older Android operating system, but I think it might still do the trick. The only other differences that I can really tell are
1-the HTC does not have a slide-out keyboard (so it's up to you whether that's an issue or not.
2-the HTC camera does not have a flash.

So far, I'm leaning towards the HTC Eris. Does anyone have anymore input either way?

[tny915]

I've read that the Eris will be eventually upgraded to the newer Android 2.0.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/181520/htc_droid_eris_a_solid_alternative_to_the_motorola _droid.html

I'm leaning toward the Eris as well, but I might wait another month to see whether any new phones are due to be introduced for the holidays.