OK, I have got to say it, this is the Droid I didn’t know I was looking for. I was very excited to get the opportunity to look at Verizon’s new Droid phone. It is the first Android 2.0 device, and is made by Motorola. I hope to post more about this later, but wanted to give you my first impressions. [click to continue…]
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Source: Motorola
One of the big news items surrounding Eclair and the Droid is the vastly improved navigation. I tried this out yesterday with some simple trips. Since this is something you will most likely use in a car, I was also interested in the Car Home icon. This is a nice streamlined menu that appears to be designed to access features while in the car.
The navigation provides turn by turn directions with a synthesized voice. All in all it is not a bad synthesizer. You can also use voice search to look for destinations.
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I attended the Verizon Wireless Gadget Happy Hour last night. This is the event that the local Verizon reps distributed the Droid’s for. Besides returning the Droid, my other requirement for having the device to play with, was to bring it to this event. I was there to share my experience, and the phone, with interested parties in a very informal event.
I had my questions, as well. One that was answered was that the unlimited e-mail and web plan for the Droid will be $29.99. This is different from the figures you can see on their site right now, and will make the comparison at Bill Shrink look much better when updated.
It was also fun to show off the Droid to fellow attendees. I learned a lot from them as well. A big one is that there is not a lot of understanding of Android in general. Most of my posts so far have focused on what’s new, I want to take some time in this post to give you a brief overview of some core Android features and concepts. [click to continue…]
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from Motorola site
I found out last Thursday I would have another week with the phone, so my urgency dropped a little bit about posting, and I took a three-day weekend. I don’t have much more to cover with the phone before I wrap up with the review but will still have a few more posts. Today it is about the camera in the phone. [click to continue…]
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This is the last post about the Motorola Droid before I post my final review. I want to spend some time in the post to discuss the Android OS and it’s relationship to the cloud.
Based on some of the comments I received, I think it would be helpful to explain some of the philosophy behind the OS that makes it a little different than other Smartphones. I think it is helpful to understand this to make sense of the capabilities and limitations of this phone.
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Finally, the review. I have spent just over a week with this app phone, and I have really enjoyed it. I am a current G1 user, so I came to the phone already familiar with the Android OS. It was interesting to talk with a number of folks who are new to Android to get their impressions.
This is going to be a little obsessive and detailed, so settle in. If somehow it is not enough, you can always review the previous posts in this series. [click to continue…]
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