This is totally the Droid you're looking for

Clearly, the whole "November Make'n'Tell" thing is just not happening. Sorry about that. I'll try again after the new year.

Since I'm all employed again and everything, I decided that for by big Christmas present this year I wanted an iPhone. Lots of my friends have them and seem to like them, and the whole internet-at-your-fingertips thing seems like a big win for me, and also, before I got all jobbed-up I was going to ask for a GPS and if you pay some extra, you can get your iPhone to do turn-by-turn GPS navigation, so it would take the place of that investment as well. I did my research and had decided which model and data plan I wanted...and then the Droid came along.

I did a bunch of research before I decided to jump ship and here's what convinced me to go with the Droid:

- Google is responsible for the OS (Android, which has been available in previous iterations on a variety of not-quite-as-smart phones). Overall, I like Google's products, so it seems like a good bet that I'll like this one, too. It also means that there's built-in integration with a lot of stuff I already use.
- Verizon is responsible for the network, and since one of the main complaints people have about the iPhone is AT&T's craptacular network, this was a pretty big selling point. Early reviews made a big deal about how talking on the Droid is actually like talking on a, well, phone, while talking on the iPhone tends to be a bit like talking into a tin can.
- Turn-by-turn nav is included at no extra cost.
- Even though the iPhone has 10x as many apps available (at the time of the Droid's release), lots of developers are busy porting...and really, most of what I want the phone for is already available.
- Finally, Apple has always rubbed me the wrong way with their extreme proprietariness and secrecy. If the Droid hadn't come along, would I have overlooked that and gotten an iPhone? Yes. But it was nice not to have to.

So now I've had it for over a week, and I really like it. I've had a couple of small issues with it, and one rather large one when I bricked it less than an hour after I got it (fortunately, my Google-fu is mighty and I fixed it less than an hour after that). I'm finding that most of what I've read about the "drawbacks" or "negatives" don't really apply to me, as they seem to be primarily differences between the iPhone and the Droid...and since I've never had an iPhone, I don't have anything to relearn. I'm still getting it set up exactly how I want it, finding which things I actually use frequently enough to park on the front page and which can be relegated to the main menu area, but overall, I'm incredibly pleased with my choice.

Things other people seem to not like that don't affect me:

- Some people apparently got a defective battery cover that falls of frequently. If you got one of these, take it back before the 30 days and exchange it.
- A lot of people seem to hate the camera. I've personally never seen a great cell phone camera (including the iPhone), so I wasn't expecting much from this one. I think it's an adequate replacement for a point'n'shoot, but it will never be even close to my beloved dSLR.
- The keyboards (both digital and physical) seem to throw a lot of people. The digital apparently differs quite a bit from the iPhone's, which again, is not an issue for me since I've never used the iPhone. The physical one is drawing some criticism -- people seem to feel that the keys are too small, or they don't like the way they feel. To me, they feel like the old Thinkpad keyboards. I'm okay with the size of the keys, but can't use them to text because if I try to do a smiley I inevitably hit "enter" which sends the text prematurely.

Things I don't like:

- I had one of the phones that had the orientation bug that got "fixed." I would really love for it to get un-fixed.
- I'd like to have actual password protection, not just a touch pattern
- Sometimes the touch screen is a little to sensitive for me, but I suspect if it was less sensitive, I'd complain about that, too.

I think that about covers it...I'd definitely recommend the Droid to a friend, especially one who has never had an iPhone or who is dissatisfied with their iPhone.

posted by Laura Y. @ 11:25 AM