droidStory

The #1 reason for getting a Droid — assuming you don’t talk about “the network” — is the speed and ease of typing. Yes, it is easier to type on this device than any of the other ones I have tried. Let’s put it into perspective:

• Palm Treo 680 – Nice keys, easily defined, a little cramped.
• Palm Centro – Probably the world’s most cramped physical keyboard in a commercial product.  Horrible.
• BlackBerry Curve – Great physcial keyboard. But, no on-screen error correction.  I was prone to typos.
• BlackBerry Storm – Do I really need to press down so hard?  I made lots of errors.
• Apple iPhone / iPod Touch – Really nice on-screen keyboard. But,
  the word suggesting feature makes one guess. Touch it and it keeps the bad word and not the correction.

So, lets talk about the Motorola Droid and entering text.  There are three reasons to love keyboarding on the Droid:

1. You have four keyboards to choose from.  It really matters:

• The first two keyboards are on-screen keyboards that are every bit as good as those on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.  One is vertical and the other is horizontal. The spacing is beautiful and the letters appear significantly above the key stroke.  (I have two complaints about typing with the  BlackBerry Storm and Storm 2:  (a) The on-screen keys are good, but they glow when you type.  It is hard to see which key you actually hit.  (b)  You need to use a degree of force when you type, which slows down the typing process.)
• The third is a physical keyboard that slides out from under the screen.  The keys are terrible for touch typing or using thumbs because they are not well defined.  But, they work very well for typing with an index finger.  And, it has the advantage of letting you see the full screen while tying because it does not use space on the screen.
• The fourth is an on-screen vertical keyboard similar to the small BlackBerry unit in which each key handles more than one letter.  I am not a fan of this style of keyboard and I have not used it much.

2.  The haptic feedback creates a small vibration in the device when you type a key with the on-screen keyboard.  This feedback gives you a real confirmation that you have “depressed” a key, even when you have not actually pushed on anything.  It is a great feeling.  It is also better than the BlackBerry implementation for which you must actually depress the glass plate.

3.  The Motorola Droid actively suggests a list of words to complete what you are typing.  Look at the image to the left.  As I typed the word app, there is a list of words that I only need to touch to complete typing.  It pulls words from its dictionary and also from my contact list, so names of people appear in the choices.

I cannot overstate the value of this list of words.  I often find that I can complete typing in a fraction of the time it takes to normally type a sentence.  It is better than my Curve, which does not suggest anything as I type.  It is also better than the Apple iPhone that suggests one word.

In conclusion, I believe that the Motorola Droid is the best device for creating text.  That is why I will keep it.

With all of the buzz about the applications for the Motorola Droid, the first question ought to be whether it works well as a phone.  My answer is that it is almost perfect as a phone, but has a seriou fault.  Fortunately, it could be fixed with software.

First of all, lets cover what is right with the phone as a phone.   The sound is crisp and the phone is responsive.  The dialpad is easy to use and the buttons are clearly marked.  Even complicated steps, like three-way calling, are simple.  (You can add a call by clicking one button.  It graphically shows both calls and lets you easily merge the calls.  I like it.)

Without a doubt, using the phone is easier to use than the BlackBerry Curve or the Palm Treo.  As much as everyone talks about the wonderful physical keyboard on these devices, I always found it hard to dial the phone via the number pad what was mixed into the letters.  Chalk one up for the Droid and a major reason why I will keep the phone.

Other features include a nice and easy to read call log, direct access to the contact list, and a favorites list that effectively creates a speed dial.  Voice dialing is a separate application from the main menu.  It works surprisingly well.

So, what feature is missing.  PLEASE somebody make a widget or a pop-up that does the following:

I would like a big message on my screen when I have missed a call or received an SMS.  Right now, there is a tiny icon in the message area that shows a missed call or received a message.  But, the icon is easy to miss.  I want an in your face message — either a pop-up or a widget — that I cannot miss that tells me that there was an important call.

Well, it is almost exactly 24 hours since I purchased my Droid.  Everyone wants to know, what do I think?  Well, I will be more specific in subsequent posts.  But, at the moment, it comes down to this …

If the iPhone did not exist and if I had never used it, I would have thought that the Droid was the best wireless handheld device that I have ever used.  It is fast.  It is reliable.  It has lots of features.  I am never going to look back to my BlackBerry Curve or Palm Treo.  (There are some things that I miss.  But, that is a later discussion.)

The problem is that the iPhone does exist and I do not understand how the software engineers for Google Android missed it.  Don’t they own one?  I don’t think they are hard to find.

From the first moment I had my hands on an iPod Touch / iPhone, I knew exactly how to use it.  Things were seemless and well integrated.  The UI was consistent and elegant.  It was easy to use iTunes to copy files and make backups.

The Droid is none of these things and I have several complaints — all of them can be easily fixed.  As a matter of fact, if I knew how to program Android apps, I would be writing some right now in order to sell them.

At the end of the day, however, I will not be getting an iPhone because Verizon does not offer one.  I am locked into Verizon Wireless because my entire family, including the extended family, use it and get free mobile-to-mobile calls.

So, the Droid it will be.  And, now, the rest of the story …..

Where do you keep your cell phone at night?  If you are like many, it sits near your bedside.  For some in my family, it is the night stand alarm clock and phone.  (My children don’t even have a wired phone in their homes.  So, the cell must be nearby.)  Unfortunately, the phone just hangs off a tethered charger.

If your cell has a docking station, the station adds little value.  For example, my Treo dock was more useful near my computer for HotSync than near my bed.

The Motorola Droid Multimedia Station is more than an alarm clock.

Welcome to the Motorola Droid Multimedia Station.  It is a docking station is that totally different than what we’ve seen before.

When you insert the Droid at an angle, it automatically detects that it is in the Multimedia Station.  Of course, it charges while in the dock, just like the Treo dock.  But that is where the similarity ends.

The Droid multimedia station displays the time and functions as an alarm clock.  Nice.  It also displays the outside temperature and the weather.  Good morning in a glance!

In the multimedia station, the Droid also plays music and videos.

The price is $30, which is about the same price as docking stations from other products.  And, it does have a USB cable to connect to a PC.