Ultimate smartphone smackdown: Motorola Droid vs. iPhone 3GS
Published: November 12, 2009
Updated: November 13, 2009
A new contender has emerged in the smartphone wars: The Motorola Droid. Does it threaten the iPhone's supremacy?
The buzzword in the cell phone industry since 2007 has been “iPhone Killer.” Since mere days after the release of the iPhone the other players in the industry were talking about how they were going to compete with the amazing piece of technology. Many have been up to bat since then: LG Prada, T-Mobile G1, Palm Pre, Nokia N90, the list seems to go on and on. The one thing they all have in common? They failed miserably at replicating the great experience that Apple offers with the iPhone. They just weren’t the same.
Enter the holy trifecta of Motorola, Google, and Verizon Wireless. Motorola is looking for a bump in business after they have failed to see success with any device since their RAZR, Google is looking for a way to push their Android OS to new levels of popularity, and Verizon Wireless is just looking to carry a smartphone that people actually want to buy. The three have teamed up to create the Droid, the kickoff phone for version 2.0 of Android as well as a new Verizon campaign to bring Android devices to the carrier. Is this the perfect storm needed to knock the iPhone off its pedestal? We’re going to compare the Droid and the iPhone in a category-by-category, side-by-side battle to the…death? Let’s begin after the jump.
Category 1: Hardware
The Droid hardware is the antithesis of the iPhone hardware. The iPhone is full of curves, soft lines and shine, while the Droid embraces a more utilitarian look. The edges are sharper and the phone is almost entirely black. The Droid feels heftier than any phone I’ve ever held, which is very reassuring. Holding phones that feel like they’re going to break in your hands is never a good thing. Both phones are very sexy pieces of hardware, and the only thing the Droid is lacking when compared to the iPhone is a hardware button. It’s nice to have that one button that will work whenever you want it to. The Droid’s hardware buttons are still touch based. Another plus for the Droid is the hardware keyboard, which slides out satisfyingly and provides a way to type is touch keyboards aren’t your thing. It gets the job done, but it’s definitely not the best phone keyboard around–the keys are all flat, so it’s sometimes hard to tell what you’re typing without looking. WINNER: Tie.
Category 2: Display
This is probably the easiest category. The iPhone 3GS sports a 480×320 display, pretty standard for phones these days. The Droid takes it a step further and ups the resolution to 854×480, and the difference is stunning. Text looks amazingly crisp, is less of a strain on the eyes, and colors pop like never before. Seeing an iPhone screen after getting used to the Droid was surprising: even though the iPhone’s is viewed as a pretty nice display for a phone, the Droid’s just blows it out of the water. Gadget blog Gizmodo even said that looking at the iPhone display after the Droid is like seeing Nintendo 64 games after getting used to the graphics on PS3 games. It’s that different. WINNER: Droid.
Category 3: Android 2.0 vs. iPhone OS
A screenshot of version 2.0 of Google's Android OS
Google has really raised the bar with Android 2.0. The OS has gotten more consumer friendly, easier to use, and sports better built-in apps. The built in apps for the Google services like GMail, Google Calendar and Maps are all perfect distillations of their larger-display counterparts, and the whole experience is easy to use. It’s nice being able to have apps easily accessible but not cluttering up the home screen (all apps are stored in a drawer that you flick up, you can drag the ones you want to your home screen), and official support of widgets on the home screen is also nice. The whole experience is full of little touches that make the experience better, such as automatic Facebook syncing of contact photos. I added a new contact and within a minute the phone had automatically downloaded his picture from Facebook and set it as his contact image. The real killer part of Android 2.0 is built in free Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation. It’s like having a free GPS unit built into your phone.
iPhone OS is also great. The media applications built in to iPhones and iPod Touches are much better than the ones built into Android, and that’s where iPhone OS really shines. It’s also easier to use for people who aren’t as adept with computer interfaces as your techie blogger here. Everything is easy to find, and generally things take less taps to do. Multi-touch support in Safari and in Maps is also helpful, but not necessary in any respect. The double-tap to zoom in Adroid works fine and is more accurate overall. The other thing that iPhone OS has going for it is interface consistency. Every app behaves nearly the same, and it’s not hard to use an app if you’ve used another one before. Android apps, both user and Google made, can sometimes have weird quirks in their interfaces and they’re not as consistent as iPhone apps. WINNER: Android 2.0 (by a hair).
Category 4: App Stores
The iPhone has an easier-to-use app store than the Droid.
Both iPhone OS and Android have places to download additional software for your device, dubbed the “App Store” on the iPhone and “Android Market” on the Droid. The one clear thing that the App Store has over the Market is volume of apps. There are over 100,000 apps on the App Store, and only around 10,000 on Android Market. But what does that mean, really? In my time using the Droid there has only been one time when I haven’t had “an app for that” and there was one on the iPhone app store. Android Market still has Twitter apps, Facebook apps, and games a plenty, and overall there are more free choices than on the iPhone. It’s also open, meaning that Google isn’t approving every app like Apple is doing. That means that there are apps springing up that duplicate the built-in features of the device and improve on them (Google Voice, alternative media players, etc.), something that’s nowhere to be found on the iPhone. Overall, however, the experience on the iPhone is better, with more quality apps and more competition to make those apps better. Android also lacks really in-depth games such as Rolando and Monkey Ball. The App Store should watch out though, because as more and more people buy Android devices it will draw more developers. WINNER: iPhone.
Category 5: Camera
Both phones have a camera capable of both stills and video. The iPhone 3GS boasts a 3 megapixel sensor and the Droid has 5 megapixels. The Droid’s camera, despite boasting a larger sensor, is definitely not as good. The iPhone’s camera produces more vibrant colors and has the ability to tap to focus on whatever part of the picture you want. The Droid’s camera only has autofocus. While the Droid’s pictures generally have more detail than the iPhone’s due to the larger sensor, that statistic is largely worthless when the pictures come out grainier and with less color than the iPhone’s. The Droid camera app is also sluggish and clumsy to use, so overall the iPhone offers the better experience here. Pictures talk louder than words in this respect, so if you’re interested check out Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun-Time’s shot-for-shot comparison. WINNER: iPhone.
Category 6: It’s the network
The most important part of a cellular device is the network that it’s tied to. The Droid has Verizon and the iPhone has AT&T. Every day I hear iPhone users complaining about dropped calls, low bars, and slow surfing speeds. None of these problems exist on the Droid. Verizon’s 3G network blankets almost the entire country, and the Droid has full bars almost everywhere in Seattle. 3G surfing speeds are fast enough, and Verizon has offered plenty of support for new Android users. When I went in to buy the phone they had staff dedicated to answering people’s questions about the software, and I was even told about a class being offered to show new Android users the ropes. While Apple might have offered similar things at their retail outlets (which are few and far between), AT&T was doing nothing of the sort. Verizon’s network and customer service are just better than AT&T, hands down. WINNER: Verizon.
Let’s tally up the scores:
Hardware: Tie
Display: Droid
OS: Droid
App Store: iPhone
Camera: iPhone
Network: Droid
There you have it, folks. 3 points for the Droid and 2 for the iPhone make this a pretty tough call, especially considering that the OS experience is entirely subjective. Other, less tech-savy people may favor the iPhone OS. The real point of all of this comes down to one thing: finally, we have a smartphone that can hold its own in a head-to-head with the almighty iPhone. This reviewer thinks the experience is better overall, but your milage may vary. If you have Verizon, now there is no need to switch to AT&T in order to get a smartphone actually worth using. And with all of the devices running Android coming out and scheduled to come out, expect this battle to get a lot more heated in the coming months. This can only be good for consumers.
I just had one question which makes the iPhone much more appealing to me. How is the music player on the Droid? I use my iPhone more as an iPod and music device than a camera, web device or even phone, so how does the Droid compare? Can it sync effortlessly to iTunes, and does it have the drag-and-drop way to put music on it? Also, does it even have a standard ear phone plug? Most phones I have seen require a specialized set of ear phones to listen to it.
Ramsey: The music player on the Droid is adequate. There are third-party apps that improve on it, but overall it’s not as solid of an experience as the iPhone, like I said. Syncing is easy, the phone just mounts as a USB device and all the music goes into a music folder. iTunes won’t sync directly to it, but there are computer apps that will grab your iTunes library and let you sync fairly easily, or you can just drag and drop from Finder or Windows Explorer. It’s also nice because you can copy music both to and from the device, which the iPhone won’t allow.
There is a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
Ok, I understand that iTunes is the most important thing because you can plug your phone into your computer and it can update your music! Wow that is amazing. But to get down to what makes the android stand apart is OPEN SOURCE. You get the full resources of java to implement new programs… People are constantly improving and helping each other revise code to make them run better. Android is a community of users and developers.
I’m sure this is an odd question coming from a MacBook user, but how does the Droid work to sync contacts? A salesman at the Verizon store told me it was done via uploading to Google, then downloading to the Mac. Does this sound accurate to you? I’d love an iPhone, but won’t leave Verizon to get one.
Does the new 3GS have 640×480 screen resolution, or only a 480×320? Also, are you planning on doing a comparison of the droid to the storm 2? Im a verizon guy, and I’m looking for a great review like this between the two phones. Thanks, I love the review!
@Calittle The Droid pulls all of your contacts from your GMail contacts. If you have address book set up on OSX, there’s an easy way to send all your address book contacts to your Gmail account, and then after that they will sync automatically to the Droid. It works very well as far as I have seen. Coming from another Verizon device, what the Verizon rep told me to do is export a comma separated text file of my contacts from backup assistant online, and then import that into my Gmail. Worked great
@levi in olympia iPhone’s screen is 480×320, my mistake. I’ll correct it. That just further proves my point that the Droid’s is better
It has almost twice the pixel density!
@Jon
Yes, Android is technically open source but it does not make much of a difference. Neither users or developers receive root access to the device. Developers are forced to deploy software “the Google way” if they want their software to be available to the majority of the market. Google’s SDK only allows for development in a nonstandard Java virtual machine. Existing open source software written for Linux must be ported to Java in order to run on the Android platform.
Android does a good job of maintaining the illusion of being an “open platform” but in reality it can hardly be called that. Especially when you consider the fact that all of the core Google apps are closed source. Google has gone after users who were redistributing their core apps on non-”Google Experience” Android devices.
Certainly Android is more open than the iPhone, but not by very much.
Under my point of view the Droid wins the \Camera\ match too. 5 megapixel with double flash, cmon.. It might be a little slower, so what? Try take a picture in the dark with the iPhone then let’s compare.
I’m not sure why Droid wins category 3. I’d like to split that hair… You can move the app icons around on the iPhone if you want to declutter the home page. It’s also nice to have multiple pages to organize by business tools, music, games, etc. (or however it makes sense to you!). Rather than cover up your most used apps with a ‘drawer’, you can select any 4 apps to remain at the bottom of the screen. So, if you’re looking for a game to play on page 5, then suddenly realize you forgot to call home, the phone icon is right there.
Google maps turn-by-turn is also on the iPhone. And you can double tap to zoom. So what’s the difference? Let’s see… you said the iPhone is easier for beginners to use, requires less taps to get where you want, is better looking and better performing overall. Sounds like that point has gone to the wrong team.
; )
one thing that i found out right away that set the droid apart from my ipod touch (essentially the iphone) was the multitasking. streaming pandora while using voice navigation or surfing the web or doing anything i wanted to with little lag on the hardware was a wonderful thing. where as on the ipod/phone you can only do 1 or the other of ANYTHING (besides mp3 playback). if you want multitasking go for the droid. the Market isn’t as organized as the App Store, but it’s in early stages and it is improving every day. as for the camera i couldn’t compare since the touch doesn’t have one. the droid has a physical camera button that has 2 steps. 1 step for focus and the next for the shutter. its hard to take a blurry picture once you figure this out. every picture ive taken looks sharp and detailed. the screen is definitely more beautiful that the touch/phone but the zoom isn’t as smooth and easy. multitouch zoom gets the precise zoom you want where as the droids zoom is in steps and the zoom buttons disappear after a second so its annoying trying to zoom in on something more specific than a column. those are the only differences that i can think of off hand that are worth noting to someone who owns both pieces of technology
i forgot to mention the inclusion of the REMOVABLE 16gigabyte chip with the purchase of the phone was a nice unexpected addition to the droid.
Thanks for a thorough and entertaining report. Tho, many of your conclusions are (of course) subjective, your conclusions seem reasonable for the empirical evidence you’ve provided. And that’s more than I can say of a surprising number of professional reviewers…notably, Mssrs. Ihnatko and Scoble.
Those two crack me up, however unintentionally. Not only do they show little talent for in-depth critical analysis, but also they seem incapable of expressing opinions without the kind of self-obsessed, tortuously recursive thinking that one rarely sees, outside of arguments with a wife or girlfriend. Frankly, its embarrassing. Moreover, I’m insulted by the idea that either Ihnatko or Scoble – guys who look like extras from the Kentucky Fried Chicken scene in a Kevin Smith movie – are qualified to lecture anybody on ‘elegance’ or ‘intuition’.
Again, I enjoyed reading your take on the iPhone-vs-Droid affair. And I especially liked one of your lines, in the final paragraph. You treat it as something of a throwaway, but it packs a punch — the kind of clear, direct honesty that one rarely sees in a tech review, so I think it deserves more attention, here.:
“Other, less tech-savy people may favor the iPhone …” (ellipsis mine)
If _that_ isn’t the most apt summary of the whole comparison, I don’t know what is.
@Calittle
The Motorala droid is horrible. It doesn’t synch with Microsoft Outlook at all. No contacts, calendar, photos, etc unless you upload all of your contacts to Google who then sends the info to your phone. If you are in an area where the coverage is bad–guess what you can’t get your contacts either.
The phone painfully slow. If this is the best that these companies can come up with to compete against the IPhone then buy as much Apple stock as possible. I’ve gone through three droids in the last week along with 6 other folks–all of us can’t wait to throw the Motorla droid in the trash can.
@Caitlin
> You can move the app icons around on the iPhone if you want to declutter the home
> page.
‘Declutter’ [sic] is one thing, but true customization is quite another. And,
of course, four of iPhone’s icons are sacrosanct.
Without ‘illegal’ (that is, according to Apple) exploit, try changing iPhone’s
ubiquitous black desktop to some other color. Or, better still, try adding a
background image…say, one of the photos from your recent vacation. And,
hey, how about a home page widget so you can monitor the weather, real-
time?
> It’s also nice to have multiple pages
The factory-stock version of Android – for now, anyway – offers three such
screens. But this isn’t a strict limitation so much as the ‘base-level’ setting,
easily overwritten by the manufacturer/installer. Thus, a couple models of
Android handsets offer more than three.
> to organize by business tools, music, games,
> etc. (or however it makes sense to you!).
Android allows the relocation of any icon, to anywhere and at any time. Plus,
all app-icons are available from _any_ home page, because all are duplicated
in that ‘drawer’ you mentioned. You can rearrange your iPhone apps until you
turn purple, but you will never match the convenience of Android’s set-up.
> Rather than cover up your most used apps with a ‘drawer’,
‘Cover up’? I suspect you aren’t familiar with Android’s MO. On my phone, all
of my most commonly-used apps are on one of the home pages. So, I go into
the app-drawer only when I need something that’s used less often. I can see
how iPhone users might be confused by the addition of ‘up’ and ‘down’ pages,
this approach has advantages over Apple’s bi-directional model.
And, please note that contents of Android’s app-drawer are automatically
alphabetized. On iPhone, once you’ve filled a few pages with icons, finding
a rarely-used app can easily take several finger swipes and a few moments
of frantic hunt-&-peck.
With Android, it takes one swipe and a quick flick through the well-ordered,
complete listing…just like finding a phone-contact. No need to know – or
guess – that a given icon is on ‘games page’ or ’screen number four, three
columns down, third from the right.’
> you can select any 4 apps to remain at the bottom of the screen.
How diplomatic of you. ‘Can’, here, is a euphemism for ‘must’, right? LOL
> So, if you’re looking for a game to play on page 5, then suddenly realize you forgot
> to call home, the phone icon is right there.
On most Android phones, it is just as easy. Wherever you are, in any app, just
tap the green button to invoke the full page of phone apps: Contacts. Call Log,
Dialer, Favorites. (Not sure how they do this, on the new Droid.)
> Google maps turn-by-turn is also on the iPhone.
…except you forget that iPhone’s version is missing Text-to-Voice, Street View
and the Layers menu, with live traffic, etc.
> And you can double tap to zoom. So what’s the difference?
Nothing – which has been my position with iPhone users who mention them as
a major flaw in Android apps. In fact, many Apple fans swear that ‘pinch/spread’ hand-gestures are either essential (if not, in fact, life-enabling!) or ‘intuitive’.
Those claims are total baloney. For one thing, we all learned about ‘pinching’ by
watching six months of clever, pre-launch iPhone commercials. For another, (b)
a double-tap gesture is, typically, both faster and more accurate than ‘pinching’.
Glad to see that you seem to take this whole ‘gesture’ flap in stride.
It’s kinda funny how ppl bash the iPhone so much and if I recall correctly, every new smartphone that has claimed to compete with the iPhone has always had a score higher. With saying that this new “droid” will be an iPhone killer? I don’t think so! Apple has set the standard as far as smartphones go. It blew away the g1 with google, every blackberry out there, that piece of crap nokia and I’m sure the droid will go down in flames as well.
I submitted this from my iPhone 3gs lol
pick it apart all u want, apple is and will continue to be the top smartphone because it is a superior product. Sorry verizon but maybe u could ask steve jobs very nicely and he may let his amazing phone on your crappy network
@Caitlin
Google turn by turn may be on the iphone, but the new google voice navigation will not be. Check out the features on the youtube vid. This thing even beats dedicated sat navs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGXK4jKN_jY
The author of this article is obviously an Anti-Apple advocate.
Talk to anybody you know who has an iPhone and they all LOVE it!
Quite Honestly – I don’t even know anybody who cares anything at all about Droid.
Look at the UI and the app-store of Droid. It flat out sucks compared to iPhone.
Give up your desparate attempt to bash the iPhone.
It really is obvious from your article. If you are going to publish anything – don’t try to act like a neutral source – when you are obviously a hater of the great success of iPhone.
After watching several of my co-workers struggle for days to get their Droid set up – especially their email and calendar – I think your ease-of-use argument is a little superficial. I’d also argue that you really glossed over the browser zoom feature in the Droid. it appears that there are two settings, ‘near’ and ‘page view.’ ‘Near’ makes text somewhat bigger, but never as big as the iPhone does when you double-tap a paragraph in landscape mode, where the text is often larger than the font size in a typical book or newspaper. This may sem trivial, but anyone with less-than-perfect vision will struggle using the Droid’s browser.
Finally, support is also a non-trivial issue for a multifaceted phone like this. The support options available for the iPhone are well-known, while a better word for Verizon support might be ‘notorious.’ it’s another area in which I watched my co-workers struggle for several days.
How about a phone quality comparison? the iphone sounds like you are talking in a box. How does the the droid sound?
Don’t forget the replaceable battery
Can you sync the droid with a mac? If so what is required to do so. Does the droid have a push feature for your emails? I heard there is a 2nd generation droid coming out about Christmas time. Does anyone know about that?
@tricat Actually, tricat, I’m as big of an apple fan as anybody I know. I use mac computers almost exclusively and have an iPod touch. I’d like to say my review is fairly straightforward, comparing my experiences with using a Droid as my main phone for a week and using iPhones and iPod touches for the last several years. In no way am I being biased, I am merely presenting my opinion. I am really in love with this phone.
@Alex You can double tap to zoom in a good bit (text is very readable in this mode), and if you want to make it even bigger there is zoom in / out touch buttons that will take it even further. The Droid’s screen is much easier on the eyes than the iPhones due to its high resolution and pixel density, I could read on it for hours without my eyes getting tired which happens after 30 minutes for me on the iPhone screen.
@Barbara Phone quality is great. It seems better than my old LG Voyager, and I’ve had no issues with dropped calls or anything.
The Droid will also win with external keyboard. As an iPhone user I will drop the iPhone in a second as soon as I can get a Droid with an external keyboard.
I wanted a Droid until I heard about the 5 GB data limit in their “unlimited” data plan. I later confirmed the limit at a Verizon store. The limit isn’t just for tethering (not available yet anyway), the limit is for all data related to the phone to the phone. I was hoping to use the Droid for streaming music. I’d probably surpass that 5 GB limit pretty quickly. Past 5 Gigs, you are then charged by the individual MB.
My sister has already dropped her Droid and cracked the case. I have dropped my 2G iPhone on concrete twice and had it skitter 15 feet both times (jogging) and it lived with only scratches. My 3GS has only had one such drop yet, but so far so good. Advantage: iPhone.
Yet another Droid review that doesn’t mention the 256MB app limit. Yep, you can’t install more than 256MB of apps on a Droid, thanks to limitations in the Android software. External storage doesn’t help much in these matters.
What NO review has yet to do is see how many apps you can install before you hit the wall.
Also, for all of Verizon’s vaunted network, you can’t talk and surf the Web at the same time. Try it. You can’t. It’s impossible. Or try watching a streaming video or listening to Internet music – you can’t receive calls. Verizon’s CDMA network can’t support simultaneous voice and data.
Yet, this is something the iPhone can do just fine on the AT&T network.
Wish reviewers were more thorough instead of regurgitating the convention wisdom, e.g. “Verizon’s network is better, AT&T sucks” or “replaceable batteries are better” (when they are not, considering all the power solutions available for iPhone, like the Mophie JuicePack case).
Not an “ultimate” smackdown at all – far from it.
@Jon
Java is a bug, not a feature.
-jcr
One thing that all reviews seem to miss is 3rd party integration. My car came with a iPhone interface, my gym’s treadmills have an iPhone interface that I can use to watch my movies, the hotels I visit have an iPhone dock.
Unless there is a way for the Droid to act like an iPhone, this seems like a big point in favor of the iPhone.
I was a Verizon wireless customer in New Jersey and experienced many dropped calls. Switched to AT&T with the iPhone and have had few dropped calls.
External keyboards are ancient. If this new droid phone is so cutting edge why would they still have that? iPhones don’t come with one because they don’t need it
Interesting comparison. I’m in the market for a new phone (I’m in desperate need of a high quality and RAPID mobile browsing cell phone experience, myself) and have spent time with both the iphone and droid recently, and have decided the clear winner is . . . . . . to wait.
Droid doesn’t play nice with Outlook Express and I don’t really want to lock myself into Google mail and Google calendar and let their “cloud” assimilate every bit and byte of my cyber self. I loved the idea of the droid keyboard until I actually tried typing on it – after having several plain vanilla corporate blackberries, what I nightmare that was. The. keys. just. suck. I’m an engineer by training and a soft core geek and I didn’t find the user software experience very consistent or intuitive at all on the droid. Overall, a very disappointing experience.
For me, the iphone is out because in my area (Philly suburbs) and with my need for speed in browsing, the AT&T/cingular network just plain stinks to high heaven. No matter how good the iphone is, if it’s stuck to a gunky backwards awful AT&T 3g experience then it’s nowhere, for me.
Oddly enough, the phone I ended up liking was the BB Storm 2. Felt great in my hand and the on screen typing was extremely easy, though I’m a keyboard guy through and through. Having suffered the handicap of small hands in hand-oriented ball sports my entire life, I’ve discovered the one thing where small hands have a useful advantage, which is typing on a cell phone keyboard (or on a netbook keyboard).
I’d really like a snapdragon android phone with the chrome browser on the Verizon network. That’s what I want, and I’d like a real keyboard too, but I don’t have to have THAT.
@Prophet666 – External Keyboards may be “ancient”, but there’s a lot of people that won’t even consider a phone without them. And it should be noted it’s usage is optional on the Droid from what I understand.
Personally, I’m still hoping Apple releases a new iPhone for Verizon so I don’t have to switch to AT&T and don’t have to feel like I’m “settling” for a Droid, regardless of how good it is.
iPhones don’t come with a decent keyboard because they don’t expect that their target demographic is educated enough to know how to type. If you actually type a lot on your phone, an external keyboard like the Droid has is the only way to go. I ssh extensively from my phone every day and the external keyboard was the main reason I had to pick my current G1 over the iPhone. The Droid looks like it’ll be even better.
@jesse
I completely disagree. This is something I pulled off the net real fast – http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/04/iphone-demographics/ – . Your telling me none of those applications require typing? Sure the games don’t require much and some of the other apps don’t as well yet I still find it hard to believe that they intentionally didn’t expect their target audience to not know how to type. I use the key board everyday multiple times for most of what I use the iPhone for other than talking and game play. I am so used to the iPhone and how the auto correct works (which is fantastic most of the time in my opinion) I can type fairly accurately without even looking down just because I know how a typical keyboard is setup.
Also, how does the droid or any other phone for that matter compare to international languages? My roommate is Japanese and so are some of my friends and I speak with them on a regular basis using the Japanese keyboard(s).
@John C. Randolph
> Nope. You can put whatever apps you want in the bar
> at the bottom of the home screen.
John, you miss my point…which is that, on the iPhone,
you _must_ have four icons, there. Perhaps you think
this arrangement constitutes ‘customization’, but I see
it as similar to the – somewhat apocryphal – line about
Model T Fords: ‘Any color you want, long as it’s Black.’
There is no similar limitation for Android phones. As I
mentioned, previously, ANY icon can be moved at ANY
time, to ANYWHERE. That’s what I call customization…
and the iPhone can’t even come close to that, without
access exploits.
Yet another example of the iPhone’s lack of real choice,
favoring Mr. Jobs’, ‘We know better than you, so relax &
don’t worry your pretty little head’ approach. Not that I
care what he thinks, mind you. I just prefer to do things
my way and Steve, it seems, doesn’t like to share.
@Anarchus
> Oddly enough, the phone I ended up liking was the BB Storm 2.
I made the mistake of buying one of the 1st-gen. Storm phones.
What a huge mistake. withing the first two hours of use, I twice
tried to throw it out my car window. If you haven’t seen Pogue’s
NYT review, be sure to check it out…exactly the same as my own
experience.
That said, I think Storm 2 is a competent handset…and that’s all.
Like most BB phones, its a great – if godawful expensive – eMail
device with marginal web capabilities and an embarrassingly slow
browser. Google ‘Droid vs Storm 2′ and look for the head-to-head
tests.
Don’t get me wrong; I really do wish you good luck with it. But if
you plan to do any serious surfing or use lots of web apps, you’d
do well to check out some other phones before your 30 day trial’s
up.
Because Motorola made a conscious decision to add it, due to a
bunch of marketing data which shows that lots of people want a
real keyboard. Personally, I don’t get it. ‘Course, I don’t see why
anybody would willingly eat ‘Chubby Hubby’ ice cream. Personal
preference is a funny thing, you know?
Anyway, you can bet that they will also make another Droid-like
phone without the keyboard. Look for that, within a few months.
No – iPhones lack hardware keyboards for two reasons: (1) Apple
made a conscious decision to eliminate them, because (2) its not
easy to design & build a svelte, smooth-looking cellphone with a
built-in keyboard. All of the talk about ‘you won’t need one’ came
afterward, once they knew the virtual keyboard was good enough.
Even so, the simple fact is that the lack of a hardware keyboard is
costing Apple many, many sales.
Sorry, but you’re wrong on both counts.
First, Android has no such limit to onboard memory. Check Google’s
press releases and you’ll find that memory is up to the manufacturer.
Not sure why they have made the choices they did, but I think we will
see Android-powered handsets with more memory, in the near future.
Second, developers are free to use the miniSD card for installation…
either as for temporary files or as permanent storage. My phone has
several apps where the devs chose exactly that path. And there’s just
one reason why more devs don’t do it: the removable cards aren’t yet
secure, so code could be copied/stolen.
You’ll find that most Android handsets can hold several dozen apps,
of average size. I’d estimate that a Droid can hold maybe 100.
However, please note that ‘average size’ excludes many of the best-
selling games that you would find in the App Store. Obviously, this
means Android game-development is a bit trickier than for iPhone,
for this reason alone.
Which brings me back to the idea of storing apps – in whole or in
part – on the miniSD card. Making those cards (reasonably) secure
would be a great help to devs. So, as I type this, participants in the
Android Open Source Project (AOSP) are hard at work on a solution
to the security issue.
Look for a fix in the next update, Android v2.1, due out by year’s
end.
Wrong again. MiniSD storage is both blazingly quick – easily as fast
as onboard ROM – and handy. Sure, you can load 16 gigs of music on
your iPhone. But I can conveniently carry around 3 miniSDs of music,
that can be installed in seconds. No need for tethering, iTunes synch,
or any other such restrictive nonsense.
I can also keep a few cards on hand for other data-storage needs, like
photographs, video, or voice recording. Try that on your iPhone.
Absolutely true – EVDO Rev. A can’t do that. At least, it can’t do so on its
own. That’s why many CDMA phones – notably, Blackberries – transfer the
call from a cell circuit to VOIP transfer. And, of course, you could design a
phone to do much the same thing via WIFI, which is widely available as a
cheap (or even free) service, nowadays..
In other words, its all about the implementation.
Only if its a 3G model and you have 3G access…something which is not
a rock-solid certainty, on AT&T’s often overtaxed network. Ever try to do
data-transfer while making a call on a 2G iPhone? Try it; once the call is
live, your little ‘E’ symbol fades out.
‘Course, these days its not rare for AT&T customers to find themselves
with no steady signal, whatsoever. I’ve seen the on-phone indicators go
off and on so rapidly it would make a great substitute for a quick game
of Whack-a-Mole. But, hey — don’t take my word about this.:
(http://tinyurl.com/yfhrv98)
http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/13/editorial-hey-atandt-drop-lawsuits-not-calls/
Sorry, but, every US provider has either a ’soft’ or ‘hard’ cap on
per-month data throughput. In terms of generosity, T-Mobile’s
plan seems to be the clear winner.:
AT&T – 5 GB hard limit: (http://tinyurl.com/dh85nw)
Sprint – 5 GB ‘hard’ limit (http://preview.tinyurl.com/y8g63cu)
T-Mobile – 10 GB ’soft’ limit: (http://tinyurl.com/y8tkn5m)
A physical keyboard is a must-have, imo. My brother recently stopped by to show me his new iPhone. He wanted access to my wireless network and handed me his phone. After switching back & forth between the alpha & numeric keyboard screens four or five times, I handed it back, “Errr… Screw this. What a crap-tastic virtual keyboard! You do it.” I opened AK Notepad on my Dream, slid open the keyboard, typed the 26 character pass-phrase for him (~ 9 seconds), and sat it down in front of him. Five minutes later he gave up.
I’ve been banging away on keyboards since the 70s. Unless virtual keyboards get a heck of a lot better, I’ve no intention of giving ‘em up.
Hey hey, lets not go there w/Blackberry…… When the Essex (aka Tour 2) comes out, we shall see the bar raised once again.
My co-worker has a cracked IPhone2 but he still has some limitations that i LOL about, and he requires to run multiple apps to accomplish one thing as opposed to my use of a Blackberry Curve 8310!!
Iphone is a nice phone, BUT its a marketing device..all that Itunes crap, and the CONTROL of what u can and cant load on the phone drives him to insult my 8310 helplessly, but i can hook up my curve and click n drag photos, mp3s, videos, etc etc etc all via bluetooth or my usb cable. Again, i have a Curve 8310, not a great phone i admit but i got it for free.
The Iphone has had and will have MANY opportunities to bring out new models bLEEDING your pocket and mind for “the next” model comes out. If the Iphone were on every carrier THEN we would see even better Iphones.
Till then i refuse to buy one on GP. I love my Curve, and expect greatness from BB in the next quarter.
Droid may not be a Iphone killer, but it will raise brows for some of its accomplishments. Open source is great.
Oh by the way…real qwerty keyboards ARE NOT dead…. I for one cant STAND touchscreens. Now I admit they are cool for some apps, i dont think adding a real pad to a touchscreen phone makes it a bad choice.
iPhone got floating point hardware.
I had the iphone and just switched to the Droid. Wasn’t happy with AT&T cell service. BUT the Droid is definitely not an iphone killer! Having a lot of software issues with the Driod!
> i dont think adding a real pad to a touchscreen phone makes it a bad choice.
It’s a VERY bad choice… if you do it the way Droid did it:
It just makes the phone heavier and bulkier and cost more.
It’s another thing to break.
It can’t be used for different languages.
All the keys are too flat to type on.
All the keys are WAY too close together.
The keyboard can’t be used in the portrait mode.
You can’t hold the phone with 1 hand while typing.
> I can also keep a few cards on hand for other data-storage needs, like
> photographs, video, or voice recording. Try that on your iPhone.
Why would I want to have to buy all those cards… spend all that money… and then have
to carry them all around.
Also… on the Droid… you can’t swap cards at all… unless you kill the phone and take out the battery.
(The SD card slot was foolishly places UNDER the battery.)
Ugh.
@Mike
There’s an app called Touchdown that will connect to your exchange server and give you mobile access to your Outlook account. It cost $10, but it was totally worth it for me. The only drawback (as for as I can see, and I might be wrong) is that it only gives you access to emails from te time you enable the app — meaning you can’t search for emails you got before you installed Touchdown. After a couple of weeks, that’s largely irrelevant, but still a drawback.
This conversation was going fine until the iSheep ruined it from #13 to #18. Seriously fanboys, enjoy your little iToy but don’t pretend that the Droid is “slow” or “horrible”. I’ve used both iPhones and the Droid at length. The Droid is more than a worthy opponent and eclipses the iPhone in many important categories. Get a grip.
@Prophet666
If by “crappy” you mean vastly superior, then you are absolutely correct. I work for AT&T, and am provided an AT&T cell phone (Blackberry Bold) at no cost. While I like the Bold because it allows me to sync with Outlook, which is essential to my job, the AT&T network is not even close to Verizon’s. I have been on sales/design calls with salesmen a number of times when they complain about having no coverage while I have 3G on my Verizon Blackberry Curve. The reverse has never happened. Not even once.
Knock the phone all you want, but to say that AT&T’s network is better has no basis in reality, unfortunately.