droidStory

DroidX users got their first OTA update pushed to them this morning. If you have not gotten the update notification yet, you can easily check manually via:

Home Screen -> Settings -> About Phone -> System Upgrades

The changes seem all minor and frankly not very exciting (“cleaner looking status bar for GPS symbol”… seriously!) .  I’m also not a big fan of Verizon pre-loading apps, which can quickly turn into a crap-ware nightmare of useless apps that are difficult or impossible to uninstall.  Let’s hope Android 2.2 (Froyo) makes it quickly onto the DroidX. I’m already missing the application bulk/auto update function I had with Froyo on my N1.

Improvements:

• Improved battery charging status indicator.
• Smoother transition for camera and camcorder functions.
• Redesign of weather widget icons.
• Faster Exchange ActiveSync® email loading.
• Streamlined organization of newly downloaded applications.
• Organized favorite contacts by call count.
• Updated Bluetooth® connection for enhanced video sharing experience.
• Coordinated date and time across phone displays.
• Cleaner looking status bar for GPS symbol.
• Improved sync capabilities for 3G Mobile Hotspot.
• Faster Visual Voice Mail loading.

Enhancements:

• Take advantage of the enhanced, preloaded My Verizon application.
• Preloaded Amazon Kindle® application lets you read Kindle books on your Android™ phone, including thousands of free books.

The DroidX went on sale today. The Verizon online store listing went live around 2AM EDT, and I woke up to an email from Verizon telling me that the DroidX was ready.
Unfortunately it seemed their website was not quite ready for the onslaught of interested buyers, showing some serious overload problems between 7-9AM.  I kept hitting refresh but no luck in getting through to the actual site.
Oh well, off I went to the nearest Verizon store.  It was now a little after 9AM and the store was already filled with over 30 people waiting in line. There was a sign-up kiosk, but only the names of the next 15 or so customers were displayed on the overhead screens. I had no idea how many others were in front of me or how many phones the store actually had on hand. The store manager refused to provide any insight into how many phones they had received and if waiting in line would get me a phone today. I suddenly felt more like being at the DMV than a retail store. Verizon can certainly learn a bit from Apple and how they handle their retail launch events. Still, there sales staff was friendly and worked very fast. An hour later my number was up and I got my DroidX- YES! The sales rep told me that only 18 phones were left. Not everyone left waiting was going to get one today. I wonder when they were told…

My first impression. This phone is awesome indeed. Its giant screen makes my Nexus One look puny next to it.

Setup was a breeze using AppBrain to get all my current apps loaded. But the most notable and very pleasant surprise so far is the battery life, which was a big concern given the fast CPU and large screen. I had charged both the N1 and the DroidX to 100%, and 8 hours later the Nexus One is down to 29%, while the DroidX still has 50% charge remaining. This is amazing, given that I mostly used the DroidX today.

More to follow…

Verizon made the Motorola Droidx official by launching this teaser site yesterday. This sure is going to be an amazing phone given its gigantic 4.3″ screen, 720p video capture and 8MP camera. I wonder how long the battery will last though…

Update: Here’s the first Droidx commercial from the VerizonWireless YouTube channel.

The long-awaited on-again/off-again Android 2.1 update is on its way to Verizon Droid users, according to an internal memo at Verizon. The Verizon website still says “Coming Soon” though.

The first batch of only 1,000 handsets should receive the update today, followed by another small batch tomorrow. Pending any unexpected issues, the OTA update should make it to the rest of the Droid base later this week. Although, don’t expect to get it right away, as the roll-out still occurs in phases to prevent a network overload.

Here’s what to look forward to:

Enhancements:

• Pinch-to-zoom is now available when using the browser, Gallery, and Google Maps.™
• New Weather and News application plus widget.
• New support for voice-to-text entry.
• New Gallery application with 3D layout. View and share photos taken with your phone and images from your online Picasa Web albums.
• Live Wallpapers offer richer animated, interactive backgrounds on the home screen.

Improvements:

• Free Yahoo!® Mail is now supported—simply sign in with your Yahoo! email address and password
• Google Maps update
• Improved pattern-lock functionality.
• Improved handset audio when disconnecting a wired headset.

I checked out Motorola’s latest Android phone, the Motorola Devour, yesterday. I was really excited when I first heard about this phone, hoping for a great entry-level Android device with a physical keyboard, but my hands-on experience, albeit short, wasn’t great.

My first impression: This phone is a tank! Depending on what’s important to you this may not be a bad thing. The Devour feels rock solid, big and heavy. The keyboard slider mechanism works great and the aluminum casing should protect it from many physical abuses. Still, the headphone jack is in a strange location and the overall aluminum body gives it somewhat of a retro look.

Did I already mention this phone is big and heavy?!

Considering the overall size of the phone its 3.1-inch screen feels puny. Touch screen accuracy is good, but unfortunately the screen would not switch to landscape when turned on its side until you opened the slider keyboard. The phone does have a 3-axis accelerometer, so perhaps there is a setting somewhere to make the screen layout switch automatically. The keyboard does feel better than the Droid’s. The keys are spaced out & responsive and the little touch pad works great.

The phone that I played with had Android 2.0 installed, even though it was previously said to ship with Android 1.6. It also comes with MOTOBLUR, targeting people that don’t want to deal with all the individual apps for Email, SMS, Twitter, Facebook , etc. MOTOBLUR uses a simplified concept  of two main information categories called Messages and Happenings that are displayed as widgets on your home screen. Messages are in essence the traditional one-to-one communications, like email and sms. Happenings are all your social feeds from twitter, facebook and the like. People that are heavy into Twitter and Facebook may like the always-on social feed on the home screen. I found the update bubbles to be cluttering the screen, forcing me to use the menu for any other functions.

The 3.1MP camera on the Devour is probably the biggest disappointment. I took a couple of test pictures that looked blurry and dim. No flash and fixed focus make this camera pretty useless.

My overall conclusion: With the many promotions Verizon is offering, the price difference between the Devour and Droid is almost negligible. The Droid is a far superior phone in almost every aspect – the keyboard perhaps being the only exception.

Skip the Devour and get a Droid instead!

With all the noise about the Google Phone aka Nexus One, a recent Motorola FCC filing hasn’t gotten much attention. The device with the codename “Titanium” is a “bar” style cell phone and could be Verizon bound based on its CDMA EV-DO capabilities. It’s probably a safe bet that this is going to be another Android device, since  Motorola abandoned the WinMo platform. Could this be round two in Verizon’s successful Droid campaign?

What get’s me excited is that this phone supports both CDMA and GSM networks. One of my biggest pet-peeves with the current Droid is that it doesn’t work outside of the US.  Now ditch the slider-keyboard and this will be the perfect Droid.