Excellent review, and wonderfully exhaustive. I'd expect nothing less from IC.
Your main complaint, the keyboard, is one that I've heard echoed around quite a while. Positive feedback from a hardware button of any kind is essential, particularly when phone users have been touch-typing almost their entire lives. Hopefully, for Droid II users, the keyboard will be improved.
I have found the physical keyboard far more usable than the virtual one, and I never thought I would care about it considering I had an ipod touch for almost a year with no real issues. Having a physical keyboard, regardless of its tactile response, is a new requirement in mobile devices for me.
Nice review Thrax. About the battery cover though, It has been redesigned to fix the problem. At one point Verizon was giving them away on their site. Right now they are listed at 4.99. You may want to go in and speak with them as you may be able to get a free replacement still (just not through their store).
Solid review. With the Android nags, I must protest - I've yet to see any version of Android rotate the home screen (and why? It'd break practically every widget), and icon drag-and-drop works - if you have space where you want to drag it. If your screen's full up, yeah, you have to do a silly shuffle, but if you're just moving icons around on an open screen, drag and drop is functional.
The Droid would draw me if it hadn't been one-upped immediately by Snapdragon-powered sets (both WinMo and Android alike). I likes me some flashy hardware... and I bet the extra MHz helps with the scrolling issues. I see them on my Hero as well.
Snark - Android home screens can rotate. By default, this only occurs on phones with a landscape slide-out keyboard and only when said keyboard is open. In some ROMs (such as CyanogenMod) you can enable Home screen rotation based on the accelerometer. Many widgets that would be affected by the rotation actually have a different layout programmed for landscape mode (such as the Weather Widget/Flip Clock I use). Some just scale (search box, power control, etc.).
Well written. I didn't know about the corporate backstory when I got my Droid in mid-November. It replaced the second-suckiest phone I ever had (a Razr2). I should have known better than to buy another Motorola product...
I wanted a phone that would let me stop carrying my paper planner around. It took some getting used to, but mostly it has done the job, although not as well as I would have liked.
I agree with most of your conclusions:
Pros:
* The screen is AMAZING.
* The OS is easy to use.
* gmail integration is superb.
* The built-in GPS/Google Map/Voice Search/Navigation Totally Rocks!
* I just started tethering my laptop to it. Wow.
Cons:
* Buttons are mushy, hard to access.
* It's ugly.
* The sharp edges are hard on the hand after extensive use.
* The physical keyboard sucks.
* Lack of trackball/optical input on front screen is a huge shortcoming.
I would add a few other complaints (TAAP = "That's an Android Problem"):
* (TAAP) It's difficult to find a phone number quickly. The contacts tab doesn't automatically pop open the "search" box, you have to tap it.
* (TAAP) Several PDA functions require too many steps (e.g. setting an alarm, changing appointments to something not ending in :00 or :30)
* The dialpad doesn't open automatically when you go to speaker phone. Why not?
* External sound is poor, scratchy (maybe because it has been dropped a couple times?)
* gmail interface won't let you change the sender. This is a problem when you need to reply from a secondary account.
* Sometimes the display doesn't wake up after talking, and you have to fumble for the power button to wake the phone up to hang up the call, leaving 20 seconds of random noise at the end of the voicemail you just left.
Recently a buddy showed me some things on his iPhone, and I finally realized just why the Apple Fanboys are so rabid. Many of their apps are so much more refined than the apps for the Android. I can only hope that will change.
All in all, I have developed a love-tolerHate relationship with my phone. It does what it needs to do for now, but there's no ring on my finger.
Not to rag on you Todd, but the "ugly" factor isn't really a pro/con, it's an opinion. I know quite a few people that like the look of the Droid (myself included). If I could get Droid on any network but Verizon, I would be quite tempted.
As for finding a phone number quickly, it's quite easy. Tap on the search widget and start searching. That widget will search your contacts and applications as well as the Internet as of Android 1.6
The external sound is more likely hardware related. I've used bluetooth and wired headsets as well as the speakerphone on my G1 and not noticed poor sound. That's more likely hardware related than software.
The hanging up a call issue, imo, is more of an issue with the Droid not having a dedicated hang up button. Still, you can change it so the screen never goes to sleep while on a call, but that would not be good for battery life. Otherwise, try hitting one of the soft keys, they should wake the display up as well.
Of course I'm not trying to say that Android is perfect here. The other issues you pointed out are valid issues and hopefully ones that the OHA are working on.
I'm not a moto fan-boy, but I kept my hacked RAZR until I could find another worthy phone. The sholes/tao/droid had me drooling the instant the pics started leaking. For a geek, this thing rocks... I've had mine since launch day, and am still loving it. I haven't even rooted it yet (something bound to happen eventually), but I am very satisfied with the product as-is for the time.
Good article, lets hope they keep innovating and don't repeat the mistakes they made with the RAZR.
Excellent Review, Rob. I completely agree with most of your points, especially about the keyboard. It's definitely awkward to work with, though I don't like the onscreen keyboard any better.
The one point where I disagree is that I do actually dislike the weight and size of the phone. I have fairly small hands, and it gets tiring having to stretch my thumbs across the phone. I haven't heard anyone else complain about that though, so perhaps it's a problem that only I have. The size and weight of the droid eris is actually probably more suited to me, but it's clearly inferior in hardware to the droid.
I would be interested to hear how other women that have the droid feel about it, considering how much of the marketing was clearly directed men, and women do tend to have smaller hands than men. Overall I am happy with the phone- the touch screen is beautiful and highly responsive- but for my next phone I'm definitely going to be looking at something a little smaller with a better keyboard.
Thrax
🐌Austin, TX Icrontian
Comments
Your main complaint, the keyboard, is one that I've heard echoed around quite a while. Positive feedback from a hardware button of any kind is essential, particularly when phone users have been touch-typing almost their entire lives. Hopefully, for Droid II users, the keyboard will be improved.
The Droid would draw me if it hadn't been one-upped immediately by Snapdragon-powered sets (both WinMo and Android alike). I likes me some flashy hardware... and I bet the extra MHz helps with the scrolling issues. I see them on my Hero as well.
I wanted a phone that would let me stop carrying my paper planner around. It took some getting used to, but mostly it has done the job, although not as well as I would have liked.
I agree with most of your conclusions:
Pros:
* The screen is AMAZING.
* The OS is easy to use.
* gmail integration is superb.
* The built-in GPS/Google Map/Voice Search/Navigation Totally Rocks!
* I just started tethering my laptop to it. Wow.
Cons:
* Buttons are mushy, hard to access.
* It's ugly.
* The sharp edges are hard on the hand after extensive use.
* The physical keyboard sucks.
* Lack of trackball/optical input on front screen is a huge shortcoming.
I would add a few other complaints (TAAP = "That's an Android Problem"):
* (TAAP) It's difficult to find a phone number quickly. The contacts tab doesn't automatically pop open the "search" box, you have to tap it.
* (TAAP) Several PDA functions require too many steps (e.g. setting an alarm, changing appointments to something not ending in :00 or :30)
* The dialpad doesn't open automatically when you go to speaker phone. Why not?
* External sound is poor, scratchy (maybe because it has been dropped a couple times?)
* gmail interface won't let you change the sender. This is a problem when you need to reply from a secondary account.
* Sometimes the display doesn't wake up after talking, and you have to fumble for the power button to wake the phone up to hang up the call, leaving 20 seconds of random noise at the end of the voicemail you just left.
Recently a buddy showed me some things on his iPhone, and I finally realized just why the Apple Fanboys are so rabid. Many of their apps are so much more refined than the apps for the Android. I can only hope that will change.
All in all, I have developed a love-tolerHate relationship with my phone. It does what it needs to do for now, but there's no ring on my finger.
As for finding a phone number quickly, it's quite easy. Tap on the search widget and start searching. That widget will search your contacts and applications as well as the Internet as of Android 1.6
The external sound is more likely hardware related. I've used bluetooth and wired headsets as well as the speakerphone on my G1 and not noticed poor sound. That's more likely hardware related than software.
The hanging up a call issue, imo, is more of an issue with the Droid not having a dedicated hang up button. Still, you can change it so the screen never goes to sleep while on a call, but that would not be good for battery life. Otherwise, try hitting one of the soft keys, they should wake the display up as well.
Of course I'm not trying to say that Android is perfect here. The other issues you pointed out are valid issues and hopefully ones that the OHA are working on.
Good article, lets hope they keep innovating and don't repeat the mistakes they made with the RAZR.
The one point where I disagree is that I do actually dislike the weight and size of the phone. I have fairly small hands, and it gets tiring having to stretch my thumbs across the phone. I haven't heard anyone else complain about that though, so perhaps it's a problem that only I have. The size and weight of the droid eris is actually probably more suited to me, but it's clearly inferior in hardware to the droid.
I would be interested to hear how other women that have the droid feel about it, considering how much of the marketing was clearly directed men, and women do tend to have smaller hands than men. Overall I am happy with the phone- the touch screen is beautiful and highly responsive- but for my next phone I'm definitely going to be looking at something a little smaller with a better keyboard.