Droid has landed
I got one.
I received a last-minute invitation to hear about the new Android super smartphone from the experts at Verizon (the cellular carrier) and Motorola (the hardware manufacturer). Oddly, the software gurus from Google were not in attendance.
In case you haven’t experienced Verizon’s (seemingly anti-iPhone) Droid commercial:
I’ve been living with a Droid for an hour or two and I can tell you that so far this device is a winner.
First of all, hardware-wise the Droid is slick and slim. They claim it’s the thinnest smartphone-with-a-slide-out-keyboard on the market today. It has great hand feel and although it sports the longest screen on an Android phone to date the handset it is very pocket-friendly.
For those keeping track, Droid measures 2.36 by 4.56 by 0.54 inches and weighs in at hair less than 6 ounces.
Droid has a 3.7-inch (diagonal), 854 by 480 pixels, capacitive touch, WVGA screen providing 400,000 pixels to look at.
The user-replaceable, rechargeable battery pack is said to be good for as much as 6.4 hours of talk time and 11.25 days of standby.
Motorola’s Chairman Sanjay Jha told us that means your should get a full day’s use from a fully charged battery. As in the case with ALL cell phones – we’ll see.
The camera is 5 megapixels.
The included microSD memory card is 16 GB.
There’s GPS, Bluetooth (2.1) and Wi-Fi (802.11b/g). Videos play back at D1 resolution (720 by 480) MPEG-4, H.263 and H.264.
It runs on Verizon’s famously fast 3G (800/1900 MHz, CDMA/EV-DO – Rev. A) network. It also runs on what is being called the fastest processor of any Android phone: a Texas Instrument’s OMAP 3430 which reportedly can run as fast as 600 MHz.
Droid is the first Google device of any kind to be released with the new Android 2.0 operating system. There are so many new features and controls included that it’s going to take me a few days to find and play with them all.
What I can tell you so far is that the Droid seems to be very, very fast at completing tasks, scrolling refreshing its screen. It produces terrific-looking YouTube videos. Very little jumping or shaking on the screen.
And that screen… It’s nice to have a larger display on an Android device. Gives you the sense of working on a real computing device (not a small cell phone).
As for availability, Droid will be selling exclusively at Verizon Stores and online next Friday, Nov. 6, for $199.99 with a new two-year customer agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card.
Verizon says that to get the most from Droid customers will need to subscribe to a voice and a data plan. Nationwide voice plans begin at $39.99 for monthly access (450 minutes) and Email and Web for Smartphone plans run $29.99.
Consider this missive the first part of a multi-part Droid review. It will take some time with the device to come up with an overall rating. I’ll have a lot more to say about Droid in the coming weeks.