It’s been about 3 years since I’ve been running with my trusty Blackberry 8830. I’ve had it replaced once because of the track ball, otherwise it’s been more then solid. No other blackberry impressed me enough to upgrade in that time. Besides the lack of a camera the 8830 was great. But like many BB users I’ve longed for the coolness & impressive apps of the iPhone. BB simply doesn’t stand up in these categories. Problem is AT&T. Their network isn’t the best around here & all of my friends & family are on Verizon so my calls are free. I really didn’t want to switch carries & so I waited for a device on Verizon…and waited…and waited…you get the picture 🙂
Droid Keyboard
It’s soft, not metal-like the 8830. It took me 2 days to get use to but I’m doing pretty good now. Harder to use while driving then the blackberry but give me a few months & I think I’ll improve.
Droid – 7 | BB 9
Droid App Store
Awesome, really awesome. Now I know what all these iphone users are surfing all day, their app store. I’ve (my kids) played games, IM apps, pandora, etc… The only thing is the download part only seems to work with wifi turned off.
Droid 9 | BB 2
Droid Battery Life
1.5 days of pretty hard usage with the wifi on. My BB easily went 2.5 – 3 days.
Droid 6 | BB 9
Droid Operating System
You can tell Google made this because, it’s very fast, kinda ugly, & they left some cool debugging apps right in the phone. Search is enabled everywhere in the os & makes it easy to find things, very Windows 7ish. All & all a much better experience then the BB.
Droid 8 | BB 5
Droid Phone
They got this right. Interface is simple & fast, clarity is rock solid, & speakers are great. This is where the BB & iPhone fall down.
Droid 9 | BB 5
Droid Web Browser
You get a fast webkit (yeah for standards!) browser. Zoom in/out & scrolling work great. Only BB users know what a truly bad browser is.
Droid 8 | BB 1
Droid Speakers
Again, clarity is rock solid & speakers sound great.
Droid 7 | BB 2
Droid Email
No one outdoes BB when it comes to Email & Notifications. Droid has interesting concept of “notifications task bar” which I’m getting use to. But BB users will kinda miss this their BB. Droid exchange support is pretty good including synching of calendar & contacts. You don’t get the Global Address book, though there is an app to do this but it doesn’t integrate fully with the email client. Gmail users get a first class email experience with basically a full functionality gmail client (labels, stars, filters, etc..)
Droid 7 | BB 9
Droid Turn by Turn Directions
Good bye TomTom. This is as good or better. You see why Google has been involved with mapping technologies for a long time.
Droid Misc Thoughts
Love when you touch it vibrates a little, very nice.
Why micro USB?
I’ve attended some android sdk & iphone seminars. I remember my impressions of the android sdk much better then iphone.
Droid Final Review
So far I am super impressed with the droid. I give it a 8/10.