Wednesday, March 24, 2010

New DROID phone

I had been struggling with the idea of getting an Android phone for a while, after seeing how fast it was compared to my Blackberry Tour. So the other day I made the switch, and I am pleasantly surprised. After being on a Blackberry for a while, I became spoiled with the email and facebook "push" methods of delivery, and I was wary that the Droid would be a problem.
First off, GMail on the Droid is PUSH. All other mail clients are PULL...meaning you have to log onto your account to retrieve them. Now, I only have two email accounts, one is Hotmail and the other is Gmail. The Gmail works like the BB did...I get a notification almost instantly after I get an email. I set up my Hotmail to send me a text alert when I receive a new email, and this is working out perfect so far.
Big plus with the Droid? NAVIGATION. Turn by turn, FOR FREE. No $10 charge for VZ Navigator (lousy program, by the way). Google Maps navigation is as good if not better than a Garmin standalone unit. This is a major selling point. I was sold on this alone.
Internet browsing? Just like broadband in your house. FAST. Kicks BB's butt...the BB internet is pathetic compared to this. And, I have Wifi also...something the Tour did not have!
The Droid screen ROCKS. Destroys the tiny BB screen....movies look amazing, and the resolution is amazing.
GPS acquisition on the Droid also gets major thumbs up over BB's...I can get a GPS fix indoors without any problem.
Reception on the Droid? Awesome. I dropped calls with the BB in my house- I have 3-4 bars with no dropped calls on the Droid so far.
The Tour did have the following advantages over the Droid: better keyboard- the Droid's is flat and the push-up screen of the Droid gets in the way of the top row of keys...makes your fingers feel mashed and makes button pressing difficult. Ability to screen capture-unless you hack the Droid, there are no apps available for you to capture the screen...except the home screen, which you can see on the picture I posted.  The Tour was also smaller and more compact- the Droid is bulky, but it still is pretty small considering all the cool stuff you can do with it.Speaker quality and call sound-the voices on the BB sounded much more like a landline phone. The Droid sounds a bit hollow.
If you plug the Droid in to charge, the phone turns on! WTF??? I read every manual on this phone and every forum post, and this is the way it was designed. Very irritating. If you charge the phone up overnight, you have to silence it, otherwise you will be woken up with email and text alerts...wow. Why don't they fix this?
So overall, the Droid trumps the BB Tour in pretty much every category. I am heading out to Tallahassee, and will be using it to post to the blog and share info, so we shall see how it does in the field!

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