The Motorola Droid is a Huge Step Up (But Slightly Flawed)
I don't know why everyone dislikes its appearance so much. I find it very nice looking. Plus, it's squared corners make it infinitely easier to keep a hold on than iPods and iPhones (which I drop time after time on a daily basis). Some people take issue with the black edge that sticks out (the right edge in the above photo), but it's really necessary because it gives you something to grasp on to. Without it you'd be frustrated by having to hold on to the screen where you'd be activating things accidentally.
The things I love:
- It feels very robust and sturdy. It feels indestructible.
- It comes with a 16GB SD card and has a replaceable battery.
- It has a 5MP camera with dual LED flash. It's very nice that you can instantly share your photos/videos via gmail or other online services.
- It is extremely responsive. It has a very fast processor (relatively speaking). There is little to zero delay when doing most anything with the phone. Most importantly you can switch back and forth between lots of different processes instantly.
- All programs run simultaneously. This means while you're doing something, if you're interrupted (or you interrupt yourself like to send a text message) your other processes continue unimpeded.
- I get a 3G speed Internet connection everywhere. (If you want specifics, there's a map for that.)
- I didn't know this until I got it, but it has a very large, very loud external speaker on the back. This is an Enormous benefit to me because I usually am forced to wear headphones with my iPod Touch while I'm driving because its speaker is very weak. It also makes speakerphone calls wonderful.
- (Free) voice-guided GPS navigation with satellite view and live traffic updates. I think everyone is familiar with this feature by now.
- Very simple universal search allows you to search for anything (websites, map locations, contacts) typed or spoken, and the "spoken word interpreter" is very smart even able to figure out different spellings than words sound (e.g., "in n out" or "pick up stix").
- The keyboard, while a little small, feels good and is well laid out (as long as you type with your fingertips).
- Instant notification if new Gmail arrives.
- Centralized listing of all notifications needing my attention.
- You can easily manage the content on your phone without the need for proprietary software like iTunes.
- Nevermind this point - see comment below.
While the phone is on silent or vibrate mode, you are not given *any* kind of notification that you have received a new text or gmail. What's the deal with that, Google? At the very least the screen should activate so you have the visual notification, but it should definitely vibrate if you have the phone in vibrate mode. Instead it just sits there dark and silent forcing you to manually check it every few minutes to see if there are any new notifications. (I did discover you can set the notification volume separately from the phone volume, but the notification has to be audible.) - Some things are slightly buggy. When setting the notification volume lower than the general phone volume, all volume became almost mute and would not increase until I restarted the phone.
- There doesn't seem to be any way to uninstall pre-installed apps I don't want, like the "Amazon MP3" app. Perhaps there's some way to do it, but I haven't been able to find it.
- There's no way to set the ringtone individually for different types of notifications (e.g., new gmail, new text, etc.) There's just one ringtone selection to rule them all.
- Though it's a snap to upload tons of songs via a USB cable and your computer and use any of them as your phone ringtone, there's no apparent way to use them as the ringtone for notifications.
[edit]
I have tried this and can verify it works: a commenter on Motorola's site says the following about adding your own custom notification ringtones:
"you can make Android "see" these files by placing them on your SD card in specific folders. The folders by tone type are as follows:
Notifications: media/audio/notifications
Ringtones: media/audio/ringtones
Alarms: media/audio/alarms
I have found that Android appears to be rather picky about filenames. I got mine to be visible by removing spaces in the filename when I placed them on the SD Card."
11 Comments
lucky760I just realized that there is a tiny green light to the right of the Motorola logo that flashes when you have new notifications. I guess that's supposed to be the soul informer of new notifications while the phone is on vibrate. I guess that's something (and much better than nothing).
rasch187Your new avatar is much scarier than your old one.
nibiyabiI drooled when I read reviews of this phone. Alas, my contract is not up until December 2010. This phone will remain #1 on my wish list until then, barring some drastic usurpation.
OrnthoronThis is not the droid you are looking for.
...sorry, but I had to.
blankfistI just picked mine up today. Typing on it now. I'm a fan, though sometimes the four buttons at the base (back, menu, home, search) fail to work. The keyboard is one of the best I've seen on a smart phone, which isn't saying much. I'm happy with it so far.
radxCan you make and receive calls with it? They sometimes appear to forget the basics when they introduce a shitload of features 95% of people don't ever use, but still need.
dagComment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)
I'm a big fan of Google products- so I'm very interested in the phone. The software sounds great- especially the built in navigation. The industrial design though, looks like a retro brick - and would be at home in the first Matrix movie. Also what's up with the gold thumb controller on the right-hand side? It reminds me of an Intellivision joypad.
lucky760It's not going to win a beauty pageant, but I am actually extremely pleased with the brick-like design because it *really* makes it easier to hold. (You can apply just a little pressure to any edge to keep a good grip.) This is starkly contrasting to the pretty look of the iPhone which is completely slick and rounded and arguably designed to make you drop (and replace) it as frequently as possible.
Just discovered a couple of other interesting things. Tried some m4v video playback and it's extremely crisp and beautiful. After a bit of actual use, I'm finding I really love the keyboard. It's very smartly laid out and even has a dedicated question mark key which I love (no more alt-period, alt-period, alt-periods for me).
One thing worth noting is that the touch screen fails to work under certain strange conditions like when the plugged-in USB cable is wrapped around it and/or it's laying on a leather sofa. Must have something to do with how the magical touch sensitive glass works.
No more iTunes or being forced to carry a phone *and* an iPod Touch in each pocket.
peaceoutsideI just found a way to do this for gmail and text messages. It's about the same for both.
lucky760Ahhhhh, so you just need to set them on a program-by-program basis. Brilliant!
Thanks a ton for sharing that very important bit of info, peaceoutside. I probably wouldn't have figured that out for months.
Now if I could just figure out how to specify custom notification ringtones...
[edit]
Just discovered another very neat feature. While you're on a phone call holding the Droid to your ear, the screen is off, but if you pull it away from your face the screen turns back on with all the on-screen buttons available. That's really smart. It'd be tough if you'd have to fumble trying to manually activate the screen to hang up on someone or answer your call waiting.
xxovercastxxMy experiences with Motorola phones have been entirely negative; here's to hoping they've got their shit together. I'd like to move to android when I'm ready for a new phone, but I don't care much for the manufacturers that have entered the market so far.
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