Motorola DROID Day One

Let me start by saying I cannot believe the Droid does not ship with a built in notes application! Even better, I discovered that I could write notes as an e-mail draft and it'll automatically sync with my Gmail. Today is day one of the Motorola Droid and its pretty exciting have a new phone, however it's slightly stressful having to learn a new platform. I'd have to say that Android OS simplicity (or complexity) is somewhere between S60 and iPhone OS.

First things first: The First Impressions
As soon as the Verizon rep told me to enter my Google information, my instincts was to tap on the box and start typing on the virtual keyboard. I was actually able to do so quickly and without a single error (shocking?). I was somewhat scared to used the hardware keyboard on the Droid because I've used virtual keyboards for over 2 years. It was sort of alien to have to use this flat keyboard, nothing like my N97 or E71. The phone felt sturdy, gripable, and maybe even luxurious. Actually, it reminded me of Johnny 5 because of its gold accents.

Operating System
I played with Android before but have not used it as my main device before. My experience on the G1 was horrible because of the poor battery and over-spacious landscape keyboard. I won't go too in depth on OS even though this is running 2.0 because I really cannot compare it to any older versions. I love the idea of widgets but immediately packed my home screen to have a similar icon layout as my iPhone. Any applications or games that you could recommend? Twidroid was one of the first thing I downloaded.

Screen
At 3.7", all the great things that you have heard about it are true. It's beautiful both indoors and out, day and night, and even in direct sunlight. I haven't watched a video on it yet but the screen makes using the Droid very pleasant-able. The 854 x 440 resolution gives more screen estate, but leaves a lot of empty space between the icons.

Physical Keyboard
Its relatively easy to use the keyboard despite reviews that the keys are flat and have no separation between keys; it takes about half a day to get used to. The keys feel almost like rubber, with a similar texture to the soft battery cover. This might be unintentional, but there's a small bump under each key so you can feel where the center of each key is. Its probably the contact between the key and the circuit board and makes it a whole lot better than hard flat plastic keys. It's definitely something to take note of and try for yourself. And yes, the keys are backlit to an ice blue light.

Battery Life
Unplugging at 10am with various settings and notifications on, the Droid last until about 11 hours on medium-heavy use of the internet.

Bugs & Flaws
The BIGGEST design flaw of the DROID is not the d-pad placement, or the "poor" keyboard layout; it's the battery cover. The battery cover is not properly secure with a latch or clip so when taking the phone out of my pocket, I normally took the battery cover off in the process which fell into my hands when using the phone. You can remove the battery cover simply by sliding it down with very little pressure. I'm sure I am not the old one with this problem.

Occasionally while sending text messages, messages would be duplicated so it would be sent twice. Also when I sent long text messages, I received a text message saying:

FREE_VZW_MSG: Messages sent to non-VZW customers with graphics/tones/formatting and/or 160+ characters are sent as plain text with only the first 160 characters

which ended up chopping my text messages into 160 characters and nothing more. It wouldn't even separate it for me and send it as multiple 160 character texts. Is this just a Verizon thing?

Final Words
I'll have a video up by this weekend and planning to do comparisons, pictures and video samples, and walkthroughs on some features. Any questions, comments, or requests regarding the Motorola DROID, send them via twitter (@imphoreal), e-mail (andypho@gmail.com), or in the comments sections.

Oh yeah, I also have the HTC Droid Eris. =]