A Droid Review and A Thought Disproven
From time to time I am lucky enough to get a chance to review a product before it hits the stores. This is the case with the Motorola Droid thanks to Albert Maruggi at Provident Partners. Being an iPhone owner and developer I wanted to compare the two. I also went into this review thinking I was going to hold the very first true competitor to the iPhone. Having only used it for a few hours my verdict is already in.
The Experience
Overall my experience with Verizon was pleasant. We are not here to talk about Verizon though. Let’s start with the box you get with its glowing red-eye like the HAL 9000 from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. Then you have the dark and machine like colors. Overall it presents an ominous looking sterile figure. Now they try to be clever here and add a lip to the bottom of the box itself like the device has. To me it’s overkill. Then you have the getting started pamphlet which has to be the best part of this package design. It’s short and to the point. It introduces you to the device and everything you would need to know to get started.
The device itself is a tad bit bigger, thicker and an ounce heavier than the iPhone. This is actually impressive if you ask me considering the slide screen that reveals the QWERTY keyboard. There is also an onscreen keyboard as well which I preferred.
The feel of the Droid is awkward at best and downright painful at its worst. It doesn’t sit well in my hands. I can feel it in my pocket. And then there is a little vibration that it does when it’s doing something that I have yet to figure out. Just a short little ‘bzz’ and its gone but it happens more than I would like to feel it since it’s a distraction.
My biggest problem is how the corners of the device feel. If you have the screen slid open and you are typing on the physical keyboard you are going to feel it after a few minutes. The corners start to dig into your hand near the joint of your thumb. This digging into my hand really started to bother me a lot to the point of actual pain. Even with the screen covering the physical keyboard the corners still present me with problems if I try to type in landscape mode on the onscreen keyboard. The pressure points move to the tip of my index fingers and the base of my ring fingers.
At the bottom of the Device there are 4 small icons that represent back, menu, home, & search. Of those 4 only 3 (back, home, & search) of them are well-defined without reading the getting started pamphlet. The menu one is a bit of a puzzle to me. I can see it looks like a menu now but at first I was thinking it might bring of a text box or some app that would allow me to compose a message.
On top of this puzzle there is one other puzzle to deal with. When are these 4 buttons in a mode to do something and not just sit there? Well I really can’t say because when the device is awake they are all lit up. There is no emphasis on which ones are actually active in an application or on-screen and which are not.
Finally there are the steps to wake up your device which I cover next.
Power On & Navigation
When I first powered on the device I was met with this robot voice saying Droid. Again the feeling I got from this was ominous and forbidding. It also kept with the sterile feel that I got with the packaging. To get your device to ‘wake up’ you need to move your fingers to the top of the device and press the power/lock button. It’s a pretty painful act compared to the iPhone which has the home button right there staring you in the face saying:
PUSH ME, come on you know you want to! All your friends are doing it so PUSH ME!
If your device is set up then you are met with a screen that gives you the time and shows you are connected and such. It also has an OPEN lock and a volume button at the bottom. What the hell is up with this open lock is what I thought to myself right off the bat. If I touch it does that mean I’m locking my device or unlocking it? Nope you don’t just have to touch it for it to do anything. You have to slide it. Unlike the iPhone which clearly says ‘slide to unlock’ there is no communication of this slide ability. The first communication you get about sliding is when you place your finger on the lock. This is the same lock I didn’t want to touch in the first place.
I’ve finally got the nerve to press this lock and then I see the slide arrow telling me to slide to the right. The screen I am faced with next is in keeping with that same godforsaken ominous sterile looking environment. The dark almost brushed metal looking background bringing me deeper into its own despair. This screen does have some color though in the way of icons at the bottom.
The device once again lets me down with its lack of communication skills. If I hadn’t looked at the Getting Started pamphlet I wouldn’t have know and the screens to the left or right of this home screen that can hold more icons if you want. The downside of this is there are only 3 panels (Left, Center (Default), Right) and you can’t change which one is the starting panel. My eye is drawn to an arrow at the bottom though and it’s pointing up so I press it and up slides an applications menu with icons out the ying-yang.
Applications
I went and tried You Tube which was a pleasant and speedy ride. Then I headed to the Android Marketplace to get some apps. I downloaded Twidroid & Foursquare to see how it was and again I was content with the experience. It was speedy all round. The GPS was scary accurate.
Though there were a couple of hiccups. First there are the 4 or 5 burnt orange icons with the ‘!’ in the middle of each of them that pop up when you press install on a third-party application. Which from a user standpoint makes me think “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! “. Then if I proceed past that the application is downloaded and installed for me. But wait where my icon for this app that I just installed? You have to go to the applications screen by pressing that up arrow on the home screen to get to your new application. No “hi I’m here click on me” type of focus on the new third-party application like the iPhone.
So let’s look at the account side of things. If you have a corporate exchange account you can set it up in a few easy steps. If you have a Facebook account it’s setup in a few easy steps as well. Then there is Gmail the one app that should be a given. Well it is if you have one account to deal with. It’s when you add more than one account that we run into issues. Again though these issues are communication related. To add more accounts to Gmail you need to locate the Settings icon and then locate the Accounts & Sync Settings. At the bottom of this there is an ‘Add Account’ button that you can press. So what’s the big deal? Can you find the settings icon on the home screen? NO, you have to press that little up arrow on the home screen to bring the applications screen up where it’s located NEAR the bottom right.
Takeaways
- UI Missing Communication Skills
- Bulky feel
- Awkward feel in your hands
- Poor ergonomic design
As I said at the beginning I went into this review thinking the Droid had a fighting chance against the iPhone. Unfortunately the Droid let me down hard. I’m not giving my iPhone up for the Motorola Droid it’s not worth it. I’m thinking the Apple & AT&T exclusivity deal will vanish and the iPhone will be available to Verizon’s customers so just wait it out.
Other Droid Reviews
Garrick Van Buren: Verizon Droid Hands-On Review
Graeme Thickins: An iPhone Fanboy Reviews the Droid
2 Pings