The new Droid cell phone from Motorola
The phone can be summed up in one word… “Holy Cow”! Ok, maybe that was two, how about, “Way Bithin’”! Well, you get the point.
Ok, it’s my first smart phone but I’ve had my iPod Touch for some time and other than internet access any time (and any apps that required it), I’m pretty sure that I have a good idea what the iPhone would be like. Along with a close friend who has the iPhone, we both determined that the Droid is so comparable, that we agree that neither can really be considered better than the other.
There are only a few things that either does where the other doesn’t. The rest is just, to the normal person, very minor performance advantage from one or the other. One does a few things better, and the other does a few other things better.
The difference the Droid makes in the things that I use to just “deal” with is amazing. Today I was out to buy Tyler a yoyo and after failing to find one at Target, I grabbed the Droid. I hit the application “Voice Search” which comes on it out of the box, and when prompted within about 4 seconds, I said in to the phone, “Find Toy Stores”. It deciphered it and after clicking “Go”, Google maps came up with the blue dot indicating my current location and all the red “push pins” in the map showing the toy stores. Tap one and a balloon pops up with the name. Tap the balloon and a new screen comes up with address, email, website, directions, navigation and more…. all one click away. Back page to go back and see others. Or if you want, click navigate and the turn by turn GPS navigation comes on and starts giving you directions how to get you there, with an indicator of your location real time. It’s just on of the many “stock” items that come with the phone.
Another feature I think is great is that of an integration of your Facebook friends and those matching contacts in your Contacts. It pulls in their current avatar photo and any other contact info they have put in their available FB profile.
Of course it has all the things that iPhone had to wait for like copy and pasting, as well as picture messaging. Along with open source OS and with the provided USB cable, you can drag and drop pictures and music (or whatever else) on to the SD card. There’s even a free app to navigate, copy, paste, edit, move files and folders in the phone… not on the SD card. Back ups are said to be a snap ( I know there’s an app for that) but have yet to do one.
There’s more, much more, but you’ll have to research it to truly get an idea of what the phone can do. I spent more than 3 hours researching just the comparison between it and the iPhone which I thought I really wanted, but didn’t want AT&T service. I’m more happy everyday that I have the Droid that I didn’t go with the iPhone. Now, if they can just come out with an extended battery (yes, it’s changeable) that is NOT bigger.
Here’s a few links, not necessarily the ones that I used but there is one surprising thing I found with the Droid. Things like full threaded messaging is a feature of the iPhone but the comparisons show it’s not on the Droid…. it is.
PC World comparison (The difference I notice about the supplied chart, is the number of apps for Droid are much more than 10K, though not 100K)
Posted: December 10th, 2009 under Important Stuff, My Basic Day.
Comments: 3
Comments
Comment from Jim
Time: December 12, 2009, 3:44 pm
The more I play with the phone and it’s abilities, the more I am impressed with Google’s work. Everything is tied together creating greater use of everything from Contacts, Phone, Maps, GPS, and more.
There are easily found very useful apps for the Andriod OS. Do a simple search for ASTRO, Dolphin Browser (very FF like), Google Sky, Facebook, PicSay, and Shazam for instance. There are many apps to help you access some things that you’d otherwise need a laptop or desktop for such as eBay, Paypal, mobile banking, and more. Now this isn’t anything so spectacular that the iPhone doesn’t have these, but there are many things that Google has in place that aren’t available to the iPhone that are integrated in to these apps, giving them more of an appeal.
More to come.
Comment from Jim
Time: December 13, 2009, 11:21 am
One thing that has shown as an advantage for the iPhone (at least for some) is the multi-touch screen on the iPhone and not on the Droid. For those not knowing what this is, the “pinch to zoom” is an example, two fingers on the screen at the same time being recognized. However, today while browsing apps for the Droid, I came across Picsay, a photo editing app which on the page states that the phone DOES on fact support mutli-touch and Picsay utilizes it. Sure enough, I fired it up (already had it installed) and indeed the phone has the capability. I suspect that this ability will be coming in a future update.
Comment from Jim
Time: December 17, 2009, 6:07 am
I’m continuing to find tools and integration with Google. Not surprising as they’re very open about being behind much of the main tools with Android’s OS, but the tools are very powerful. For instance, the calender app on the phone automatically syncs with the calender on my Gmail/Google account. Any updates on the phone or a pc updates the other. Invites, events, guests/contacts, etc all available. I’m still lurking around the settings area to see what other options are available and useful. For the “heavy” business man, I don’t know how these tools would hold up, for definitely for me they are more than adequate. I’ve read many forums where people who live by their phone for business purposes, are happy with the tools available.
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