Front and side views of the Motorola Droid
by Joyce Pellino Crane
After using the Android operating system for three months, living without it, would be like living without a car at my front door. It’s doable, but I’d have to readjust to a slow-boat mindset.
Truthfully, I don’t ever want to go back to a regular cell phone.
My Motorola Droid operates so closely to a mini laptop that it’s easy to take for granted the fingertip information and forget how amazing mobile access truly is. I not only receive email on my Smartphone, but I also receive email attachments—only a few mobile units have that capability and some require you to buy additional software to do so.
The VerizonWireless phone is a sleek, shiny black rectangle with a QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under the dark, crisp, space-age looking screen. The phone is smaller and narrower than my hand and as thin as a calculator. The Droid is designed nicely for keyboard typing, but is too flat and stiff to work comfortably as a phone, which would ideally curve from ear to mouth.
But the Droid is so much more than a phone that it hardly matters.
For example, when I take a 5 megapixel photo I have the ability to immediately post to Facebook or email it to Gmail. I can do the same when I shoot video. I also have a free Twitter application that allows me to instantly read posts, and I can search from my browser with one touch. If I’m ever lonely I touch the Facebook icon that comes with the phone and talk with friends and acquaintances. No one can tell me that’s not priceless to techno geeks. As much as I consider myself anything but a geek, I appreciate the ability to stay in touch with people I would never phone.
One side note: most phones offer only 3 megapixel cameras, so the Droid photo quality gives a richer image. But the phone’s lens doesn’t capture motion well and can’t zoom in on a distant object like a 35 ML lens is capable of doing. My advice is to save your artsy photos for a better camera and use the phone’s camera for snapshots and videos.
As much as I like the Droid, there’s room for improvement:
• It’s fragile. The demo sent to me by VW fell and the screen stopped working. But by that point I had already ordered my own phone—which I’ve handled with care and protected with a third-party insurance plan.
• The email app often stops connecting with the server for hours on end, even after I try to reconnect to the account settings.
• When an email arrives in my inbox the phone occasionally vibrates, but usually remains silent. I don’t get why it’s so sporadic and I would prefer to be able to control this better.
• Too often I inadvertently reduce the volume to the silent setting because the button is located on the side of the phone and is easily pressed. I frequently miss calls I want to take because I don’t hear the ring.
• Rotating the phone doesn’t automatically reorient the screen even though the setting for this feature has been turned on.
• Also, just when I need it most, (when I’m watching television), it loses the network connection. I use my phone to find additional information on news stories and educational programming, while I’m still watching the show so this is a disappointment.
• Hilariously, the phone itself is the most difficult feature to use. The dial pad is accessible only on the screen and not the keyboard, and even while dialing the phone, the dial pad minimizes itself, prompting me to shake the device to enlarge it.
But that leads me to my biggest surprise with this Smartphone. The phone is the feature I use the least because it provides so many other ways to communicate. From Facebook to Twitter to email to text messaging, I seldom need to dial and suspect the designers had that already figured out.
None of my complaints are deal breakers, though there are times when I wonder how well the iPhone handles certain features. I would have liked to contrast the two Smartphones, but when I contacted Apple in December for a demo I but got no response from the media department. VerizonWireless, on the other hand, almost immediately sent me a demo in December, just after the Droid and its sister, the HTC Droid Eris, were introduced to market.
Other useful features include wireless and Bluetooth connections, a user dictionary, text-to-speech capability, and an on-screen keyboard.
In addition to Gmail, mobile services include Google’s calendar, contacts folder, search, chat service, and YouTube, all with desktop accessibility.
The killer feature is the Google Global Positioning System (GPS) that quickly finds your location and helps you navigate to your destination with voice directions. For someone who is directionally challenged, it’s become an indispensable feature. The phone also downloads Google maps and provides written directions on the screen.
There are so many apps—many that are free-of-charge–for the Droid that you can find anything from a crossword puzzle solver to a flashlight. In fact, there are thousands, according to VW’s Droid website. Just search and enjoy the journey.
I could have written this review a couple of weeks after receiving the Droid, but I quickly realized you can’t really know the ins and outs of a gizmo this complicated in such a short time. I’m glad I waited, because despite its flaws, I fully understand its power and I still like it a lot.
