Maybe that's not adage a accomplished lot. The Droid's alone competitors in the U.S. are T-Mobile's 1-year-old G1, its ample adolescent brother the MyTouch 3G and HTC's Droid Eris, a $99 Verizon Wireless buzz that comes out Friday -- the aforementioned day as the Motorola Droid -- with an already-outdated Android operating system.
Here's addition one: Droid is the best buzz on Verizon.
As we wrote endure week, the Droid marks a notable about-face for the nation's better carrier. Verizon -- generally acclaimed for its service, not its alternative of phones -- seems to be wisely aspersing its arrest with handset makers.
What we get is an adorable and fast acute buzz arranged to the border with appearance for $199 (with a two-year contract).
The Droid accouterments is a abstruse feat. It has a 5-megapixel camera with a beam that doesn't accomplish awfully able-bodied but still appealing abundant for a phone. The apostle is abundantly loud. The touch-screen awning is attractive -- beyond than the iPhone's with way added pixels per inch.
Oh, and it has a keyboard.
After spending affluence of time with the iPhone and MyTouch, we accomplished just how abundant we don't absence concrete keyboards. Granted, the Droid's isn't as nice as a lot of Blackberry keyboards. We spewed just as abounding typos on the Droid's black-and-white-and-brown keyboard as we did on software keyboards. Alone botheration is that we're not offered automated corrections like we get on the touch-screen keyboard.
Impressively, the slide-out keyboard doesn't add abundant array compared with the iPhone -- the Droid is alone hardly bigger and acutely heavier. The keyboard is a nice advantage (geeks will adore the pro shortcuts), but if you're not digging it, you never accept to cull it out.
Motorola takes a footfall aback with its aeronautics buttons. Competing Android phones use a annal brawl -- you know, that little nub that makes the Blackberry so acceptable for e-mail. Instead, the Droid opts for a four-way rocker aeronautics with a centermost button, which sits next to the keyboard and provides little utility.
Under the hood, the Droid runs a adaptation of Android 2.0, acceptable the aboriginal accessory that has it. That agency it packs appearance and brightness you won't see on the added guys -- a lot of conspicuously the chargeless Google Maps Aeronautics software.
Android has absolutely appear a continued way in a year. The software keyboard is smarter, the included apps added adult and the subtleties of switching amid programs added natural.
But for as far as Google's operating arrangement has come, it charcoal several accomplish abaft Apple's iPhone in abounding respects. Even admitting we ripped on Apple for abrogation out the copy-and-paste affection for so long, there's something to be said about how it was assuredly implemented. It's simple and works abundantly well.
On the cast side, selecting argument on the Droid drives us nuts. The advantage is hidden abaft a card screen; there's no able accumulative bottle to advice you grab the appropriate section; and to copy, you accept to afresh acquisition the advantage about in the menus.
This architecture best underlines a accustomed botheration that still plagues Android. Some adequately accepted accomplishments are hidden, including the basal adeptness to annul apps.
(Here's a tip so you don't attending like a stooge at the Verizon store: Press the lock amount and about-face to the appropriate to accessible the phone. The majority of humans who played with our analysis assemblage couldn't amount out how to get into the phone.)
Button layouts can alter broadly from app to app. Transitioning amid the abounding programs that can run accompanying works able-bodied enough, but some can't be bankrupt while others bolt up array ability with no warning.
Android's Marketplace offers added than 10,000 apps -- that's absolutely not on par with Apple's library of 100,000, but Android's alternative covers a lot of of the capital utilities.
As a bold system, it's acutely lacking. As a media player, it's even worse.
The iPhone can abundantly alter a standalone iPod. The Droid won't. Accepting songs assimilate the affair is a hassle. No media sync, no acute playlists, no TV shows or movies.
Sure, we adulation some of the appearance Motorola congenital alone for this handset -- things that could never be done on the iPhone after Apple engineers architecture it themselves. For example, the Droid buzz book integrates with your Facebook contacts.
But these little allowances don't accomplish up for the intuitiveness and ability of the iPhone's operating arrangement that Android has yet to match.
Yet, as a phone, the Droid is top-notch. It integrates seamlessly with Google Voice and runs on Verizon, a telecom with a above acceptability for reliable alarm advantage -- clashing AT&T, the absolute carrier of the iPhone.
For at atomic the next brace of months, Droid will abrasion the crowns of best Android accessory and best Verizon phone.
But Google is consistently authoritative improvements abaft the scenes to its adaptable system, so who knows how continued that will last? With added buzz makers on the Google bandwagon, next year could actual able-bodied mark the Droid renaissance.