Bought a Droid

Well I bought a Droid.

I'll update 'this post' as i find out things about it for at least the next few days otherwise there would be 50+ posts.

I've also been reading and commenting a lot at DroidForums


First thoughts....bye bye ATT - the download speed on the Droid leaves my 8525 and iPhones in the dust.

Second thoughts.... hmmm i really miss my 8525 keyboard. I can see myself ditching this for a 'Android based HTC Touch pro 2 style device' sometime in the future (and as i bought the droid on a 1 year contract.... probably in 12 months - so the clock is ticking Motorola/Verizon).

I really do believe the future of mobile is Android, there are so many free apps and hack capabilities (eg, i dont think 3 home pages is enough...no probs, hack it to 5 etc).

Without doubt there are some crappy setup issues, and Verizon/Google leave a lot to be desired as far as usability BUT being able to do anything and everything is far more satifying than any 'perfect handcuffs' Apple can design....dont like your music player...go right ahead and change it (lol or have 3 multi-tasking at once).

Anyway more later.



Wow holy crap, i just played the YouTube video from The Motels - Only the Lonely on my blog - i cant believe how good the audio speaker sounds!! (oh and a mjor negative - whats the deal Verizon not providing any headphones with this phone - I mean i did pay $269.99 for it.....).



I actually keep reaching for a stylus, because the pixel size of the screen is sooooo amazingly good the size of the fonts you can read are tiny....too tiny for my beefy fingers and a stylus would be great.

The screen really is amazing, have i said that enough yet?

My other comment...and this wouldn't be for suitable for everyone, is the handset feel so light and small that i wouldn't mind if they increased the screen at least 1" all around. It would probably make the handset too big for most people but for me i think it would be perfect.



You have to have an app just to kill other apps, tons of apps stay open, no way to close them upon exiting like on Windows Mobile. Ends up eating memory and killing performance and battery.



Selecting and copying text is one of the negatives about the Droid. It's turning out to be a painful experience.



Google Maps navigation is slow..... I think people shorted Garmin stocks for nothing. (BTW I also think the downfall of Verizon will be that you cant talk and use data at the same time like you can on GSM networks....but when data is so slow on ATT anyway....then i would call it a draw at the moment).



I'm a little concerned how much piracy there is on the android app store, basically looks like as soon as someone comes up with a good idea...everyone duplicates it for free. What does this mean for the lifecycle ans sustainability for application development (lol also considering how many are ad supported...admob cpm's must have fallen through the floor).



Re: Yelp application on Android
Do you want to see a dedicated Yelp application on Adroid?
http://deancollinsblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/yelp-application-on-android.html



I cant believe how crappy the email client for Android is when connecting to exchange - putting aside sync issues etc, where is the multi-folder support, where is the nice looking visuals you get with WinMo etc.

I know google want people to use Gmail but it just inat going to happen for commercial people.

This has nothing to do with $29.99 plans and $44.99 plans, it's just the email client in android sucks. This is possibly a deal breaker for me unless i find another email client.



BTW there is a GSM versions (for everywhere else in the world apart from the USA) and the Verizon CDMA version. If i had my preference i would get a GSM version (because you can use voice and data at the same time which you cant do with CDMA technology) but i dont want to get a GSM version for use here in NY as ATT and Tmobile have less throuput than Verizon. I've had it with ATT.



Love Love Love voice driven search. I'm really hoping there are quite a few voice driven functions implemented by google over the coming months.



Re: Installing Apps onto SD cards - this is another misinformation about how Android works and I totally blame this on Verizon/Google/Motorola (in that order) as to not explaining this clearly enough, or addressing this issue.

It is NOT that the apps don’t install to SD. The standard installation for all apps 'drops' app data into the sd card folders.

What does happen though is that 'some' of the data while the app is running is being written into the 256mb ram.

Yes you 'can' hack Android so that 'all' of the data is only running on the SD card 'but' this isn't necessary.

Think of the 16gb SD card as being L2 ram and the 256mb being L1 ram. Does that make sense?

(oh and the advantage is that just by buying a bigger SD card you can increase your data storeage from 16gb to 32gb (to 64gb when they are cost effective etc etc) - try doing that with an iPhone.



I Love Love Love that you can 'auto create' a QR code for a contact. Basically if i meet someone at a conference and i talk to them about a friend who i think they should meet i can just 'auto create' a QR code for that contact on the fly for the other person to upload to their phone.

Of course you can also auto create 'your own details' on a QR code to pass along to someone but I've been doing this with a static JPG forever, being able to create a code for every contact is the new unique.

BTW - if you're asking whats a QR code? dont worry I have a QR dummies guide at www.Cognation.net/QR



Cheers,
Dean
BTW - XKCD voted Droid as well :) - http://xkcd.com/662/