I think Apple and Google have both dropped the ball on the actual phone apps. It seems like they just don't think the phone part is sexy, so they focus on other things. Android's phone app is especially bad.

The Blackberry is great at what you're talking about. I loved that I could map any key on the keyboard to a speed dial, and I had at least 12 of them used for that.

Unless the rest of that sentence is "being a boat anchor," you're wrong.

Must be a teeny tiny boat...

I'm not really certain how you can say that pressing and holding down a button to speed dial a contact can be done poorly... That's a strange thing to say.

And I've yet to come across a keyboard, either physical or virtual, that's better than the Blackberry.

Other than that I hate the UI, the menu systems, the apps, the operating system as a whole, and most of all, the Blackberry has a browser on par with those crappy free phones we've been talking about.

But I liked the speed dial feature

I actually think most of Apple's built-in apps have significant design flaws. It's just that as a whole, they're still much better than anyone else's set.

Maps sucks, Photos suck, Videos suck, iPod super-sucks, calculator is shite (who ever heard of a simple calculator working in bloody order of operations?) and even the App Store app sucks.

Early ARM11-based phones don't have L2 cache (iPhone/3G, G1, etc). The newer ones (Palm Pixi) do have some L2 - this can help significantly. The much better microarchitecture of the Cortex paired with L2 means phones like the 3GS/Pre/Droid/etc are significantly faster than ARM11 systems.

There's still a lot of detail in implementation which means that comparing MHz between Cortex A8's to determine system performance is also kinda meaningless. Cache sizes? Memory bus speeds? OS implementation? How much time is the CPU spending doing housekeeping, talking to the baseband, etc? GPU performance and efficiency of APIs?

Even with the same chip and OS - the Linux-running OMAP 3430 that is reportedly in both the Pre and Droid - comparisons aren't easy. The Pre runs at 500MHz supposedly, and the Droid at 550MHz. A win for Droid then on browser speed? Not necessarily - its screen has 2.6x as many pixels as the Pre - 73MB/sec of RAM bandwidth just to refresh it vs 27MB/sec on the Pre. Not only is this more rendering, it's sucking bandwidth away from, well, everything in the system. Maybe they beefed up DDR bandwidth? Who knows....

btw, the 3GS appeared to be 20%+ faster than the Droid at loading and rendering a webpage in the video review I saw. Same ballpark as the 3GS admittedly - as it should be with a Cortex - and a mile away from currently available android phone performance, but not quite there yet

I'm using PCalc Lite. It's an RPN calculator, it's free, and it seems to do the job nicely. The pay version ($10, I think) includes a bunch of addition stuff, like hexadecimal and other binary-friendly buttons that I don't really need.

So the Xperia X10 has been announced. Unfortunately it appears that it's still not quite out of the oven, so it's hard to assess exactly what it's going to be like. I'm sure the performance issues they experienced will be gone come release day. But I can offer my opinion on the ideas they present:

I love the enhanced media portion of the phone, as the stock Android music player is garbage and there is no stock video player. But I still don't get this whole idea that several of these companies have to combine all of my notifications into one stream. Sure, in concept it sounds great, and I know most of them allow you to filter out elements you don't want, but what bothers me is giving equal weight to things. I don't want my Twitter updates (I follow people I don't know personally) to be lumped in with my Facebook updates. I don't get a lot of text messages, so I don't want them to get lost in a sea of status updates. And nothing is more valuable to me than email. I don't want someone saying "Good morning everyone!" and pushing down that urgent email my client was trying to get to me.

Again, they offer ways to filter all this out, and everything looks all pretty, but you know what? Sometimes pretty is inefficient. I can't imagine sifting through my emails in those stacks. I much prefer just having my boring old list in the GMail app.

So what I have now isn't pretty, but it gets the job done. So far I think the Droid fits me better. Now I only have to decide whether I want to lock myself in with Verizon...

Gizmodo published a two-part review of the Droid today-

http://gizmodo.com/5396168/motorola-droid-review
http://gizmodo.com/5395801/android-20-review-almost-human

It seems that the Droid is lining up to be the best you can get on Verizon.
I'm not done with the research, though, and I don't think the reviews were really *deeply* informative. They're a good intro, I guess.
I usually do loads of reading on HowardForums for all things mobile phone. That's where I'm headed next...

Yeah, Engadget's review was good, but certainly not as nitty-gritty as you could get on a CE device. It's not dpreview or anything

I don't think there's much of a question that the Droid is the best Verizon phone, but that's for lack of competition. What's going to challenge it? The Storm 2? Ugh! The Tour is probably the only other phone competing with it, and while more businesses will probably go with the Tour, I wouldn't consider any Blackberry phone to be better than the Droid.

I can't see the Droid drawing people away from other carriers. I think for that to happen you have to be substantially better than the phones on the carriers you're trying to draw people away from, like the iPhone was when it first came out and stole all those Sprint subscribers. I think the Droid can nearly go toe to toe with the iPhone, but it's not quite a match. It's definitely a great phone, though, and if Android suits you (as it does me), there's simply nothing better out there right now.

Hmm... I just read that on a 2y contract you can upgrade 4 months early, no penalty.
I'm well within that limit and my New Every Two discount is already mature...

I could be getting into a Droid sooner than I thought!
Not that there's anything wrong with my good old Motorola Z6.

The whole Droid thing will bump my monthy plan from about $65 to $95, I'm sure.

I can wait a few more weeks.
I like new technology, but I don't like being in the first wave of guinea pigs to thresh out all the bugs. Second wave is ok. lol

DROID emulator in Flash.

From the VW site I can get both my NE2 and the web discount, which drops the price to $150 when I re-up for two years.

Andy Ihnatko has his review up, and seems pretty pleased with the device. Read his full review this morning after listening to him talk about it on a podcast.

That was a great read. Thanks!

I wonder if the browser would be able to work with weblite.

Could the empeg be controlled via Droid? Might be a nifty solution for those without the standard DIN1 empeg mounting options.
I guess it would depend on what networks you can see with the Droid.
I'm not so smart with this stuff- just having some ideas.

Interesting.

I think, though, that it might start being possible to have a conversation about a phone like this and not say "iPhone" ever other sentence. I really feel like this thing can hold its own, which I think is great. I don't think it "beats" the iPhone in the least, but is anyone on Verizon going to be suffering because they have a Droid? I don't think they will.

I think that personally, I'm waiting to see if the rumored GSM version comes out. I get good T-Mobile service in my area, and the plan rates are FAR better than Verizon's.

Yeah, that's the one I've been seeing. I just hope it'll get to T-Mobile soon. I'd jump at the opportunity to get that.

Oh, and I hate lazy reporting: "While the Droid allows you to zoom in and out on the home screen by double tapping..." Um, that's in the browser. There is no zooming in the home screen.

There's no zooming on the home screen and there's no zooming in many other places, including default apps. Some people speculate that Google don't want to step on Apple's toes in the light of multi touch patents, so that could be it. Frankly, I don't think basic pinch and pinch-expand to zoom out/in would have much traction in a patent suit from Apple. This was clearly demonstrated prior to the iPhone in things like Microsoft's surface.

I still think Google has long-term promise, much more-so than Palm, but the Droid frankly sucks. What's with that ugly supposed cursor pad on the right of the keyboard? Bigger keys would have been infinitely more useful.

Anyone considering using such a phone to store third-party applications really needs to consider if that's a wise move given their requirements...

http://androidandme.com/2009/10/news/goo...nd-android-2-0/

Where else would there be zooming? I'm not sure what you mean.

There IS zooming in Maps and the gallery, it's just not multi-touch, you have those little virtual zoom buttons on the bottom of the screen. I would like a better system, though, and the Droid has hardware AND software capable of it, it just needs to get implemented.


I won't argue with the app storage issue, though. That's just awful and Google and the hardware manufacturers need to get their heads out of their rears. This is one of the benefits of rooting my G1. I was able to move the apps to the SD card, so now my phone's memory just gets used for caching.

And yeah, I can't make any excuses for that keyboard. The keys look awful, and despite the fact that the screen on the Droid is so much bigger, the Droid keyboard is only four rows to the the G1's five. I really like having instant access to those number keys.

While I didn't have much time with it, overall the hardware and OS seemed decent. Not iPhone decent, but nice none the less. Keyboard wise though, I'd have to try it a bit longer. First impression was that it was better then the keyboard on the Pre, but I still found my way around the virtual keyboard faster.

I'll have to go back to the store when there isn't a mob trying to see 2 display units to get a better feel for it.

There's no multi-touch zoom in any Google app. Only on some apps installed by either Motorola (in other markets) or the carrier. Same goes for the other Android phone models. All in all the experience from phone to phone is quite different. They're going to need to work that out if they want to have any hope of becoming a meaningful platform rather than simply a high-volume OS no-one actually knows about. This would kill any hopes of a popular app store for Android.

SD card storage? Ok, that would be a plus, but should hardly be a requirement. Is it too much to ask for built-in storage that's not cutting edge for 8 or 9 years ago? (256MB - my toothbrush runs on a single AA and has that much memory). With all the hoopla and those flashy Droid commercials you'd think the phone actually had some guts. Don't tell me it's also using USB 1.1? Oh wait, maybe it needs a serial port, or better still, IrDA.

My predictions for Android's longevity are mainly because of Google's deep pockets, persistence and the gratis nature of the open Android platform, making it attractive to handset makers and carriers. Not because I think they can design a decent OS or apps. Frankly, IMO, Google's current app and UI designs leave a lot to be desired, especially on the desktop/web. One could make at least the financial and persistence argument about Microsoft, but they've already had their chance at throwing money at this problem, but keep getting in their own way for extreme lack of direction and consistency. Persistence in the market doesn't mean anything when you're continually changing what you're hawking for arbitrary reasons.

*drool*

Here's more evidence of typical Motorola design at work... Droid battery cover falls off

Plenty of talk about issues at HoFo.

I thought the camera-focus bug was pretty cool.

*sigh*

The Droid is now down to $50 at Amazon (w/2-yr contract).

If only they'd fix bluetooth hands-free dialing...