Tag Archives: Droid

by Michelle Lentz

An HTC Droid Eris (along with a Blackberry Storm 2) appeared at my doorstep yesterday, and I’ve had just enough time with it to give you my first impressions. After playing with it for a week or so, I’ll make sure to do a more in-depth, thorough post. Keep in mind – these are just initial impressions.

First off, Verizon is really on a bit of a smartphone bender, releasing gadget after gadget between now and the end of the year. Since they seem to like to let me play with their phones a bit, you’ll probably continue to hear a lot about Verizon. (If those other companies would let me test out their gadgets, it wouldn’t seem so one-sided.) Next, their marketing is a bit funky. Droid is the Motorola Droid that I already reviewed. However, Droid is apparently also a series of phones, which thus far includes the Motorola Droid (we’ll just call it the Droid) and the Droid Eris (which we’ll call the Eris). Verizon is slated to release two additional Android devices by the end of the year, so I expect those to be prefaced by the Droid series name as well.  As far as the Eris goes, Eris is the Greek goddess of Chaos. I suspect some enterprising marketer was going for Eros (love) but decided no one would pronounce it or spell it right. After all, it was originally the HTC Desire. So now the phone sounds like it’s named for a robotic goddess of chaos.  Nice.

I had some preconceived notions about the Eris, I admit it. I was so in love with the Droid, and Android 2.0, I couldn’t imagine this surpassing it in any way. In fact, I am guilty of calling it the “lower-end Droid Lite.” It just goes to show – don’t listen to preconceived notions.

Form

The Droid is an elegant little phone. It’s smaller than my iPhone in width, but about the same length. Like the iPhone, it has rounded corners, which just adds to the aesthetic. The Droid is not a large phone, and until today I had no issues with its appearance. Next to the Eris, however, it’s all square edges and chunkiness. The Eris also has a nice  trackball that adds to navigation and serves as the LED for notifications.

The Eris, unlike the Droid, has physical call and end buttons. It also has the Home, Menu, Back, and Search buttons (in the usual order – unlike the Droid) as light buttons. There is a soft, almost rubbery feel to the back, which I rather like. Again, that’s something I thought would be cheesy and instead, it actually adds to the quality of the phone.

I just don’t think I can convey how light and airy this phone seems. The only adjectives I’ve got for it are sexy and elegant. Even ZDnet finds the phone a bit sexy.

Here are the specs:

• Qualcomm MSM 7600 528MHz processor (By comparison, the Droid has a 550mhz processor.)
• CDMA/EV-DO Rev A. support
• 3.2 inch 320×480 HVGA capacitive touch screen and trackball interface
• 5.0 megapixel auto focus camera
• Expandable memory with pre-installed 8 GB microSD card (I upgraded to 16 gb.)
• Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3.5 mm headset connectivity
• Integrated GPS and a digital compass with a sensor that enables the phone to know what direction it is facing
• Smart dialer for simplified dialing by name, number or initials
• Dimensions of 4.45 x 2.19 x 0.51 inches and 4.23 ounces
• 1300 mAh Li-Ion battery (removable, by the way)

Function

The Eris is running Android 1.5. I’ve read that it can be upgraded to Android 2.0, and it would seem that the hardware could support that. It’s also wrapped in the Sense user interface (UI) from HTC, which basically takes the Android operating system to the next level. For instance, instead of 3 screens, you have seven. There are enhanced widgets. As opposed to some of the nice, but basic widgets included in the Android operating system, this adds to them. In this example, you can see the music widget available in the Sense UI. You can choose from multiple different displays for each widget available. In the clock widget, there are 12 different styles to choose from – everything from a standard clock to more of a steam punk look.

I have no love of virtual keyboards and have always blamed my discomfort with the iPhone on the keyboard. My fingers just aren’t dexterous enough. But, like on the Droid, I had no trouble with the Eris virtual keyboard. I suspect this is because I can turn on haptic feedback, which means I get some sort of physical confirmation that I’ve actually hit a key. The Eris keyboard is available in portrait and landscape, so no worries there.

It loaded web pages rather fast. I always test phones by loading my wine blog, and I didn’t notice any difference in the load time between it and the Droid. I didn’t time it, but it wasn’t slow enough to annoy me.  As with the Droid, I had no trouble pulling in any of my contacts or calendars, but that’s because Google owns me. I easily set up my mail accounts – both Gmail and IMAP accounts. I can’t seem to add, through the GMail app, more than one GMail account, but that’s easily fixed by adding the second as an IMAP. There’s also a fantastic little Sense UI email widget that lets you page through your IMAP emails.

I don’t use Exchange, but here’s what my friend at the Gadgeteer had to say about that experience:

I was not expecting Exchange support since it was added in 2.0, but it does provide support for Exchange accounts. It was easy to set up my exchange mail account. It allows you sync your Mail, Contacts and Calendar. There is also the option to sync to your PC (just your contact and calendar) in case your Outlook mail is not on an exchange server, or you cannot access your exchange server.

He mentioned to me at lunch that, unlike the Droid, the Eris calendar displays his Google calendar and his Outlook/Exchange calendar all in one view, which I consider a plus.

Instead of the standard Android pop-up menu of apps on the screen, there is an arc that also has a touch Phone button, an easy way to add shortcuts and widgets, and access to the pop-up. It actually looks nicer than the standard Android wrapper, and that’s a lot of what the Sense UI has done. It has prettied up Android. I have lovely widgets for email, Google search, my calendar, music, and even the built-in Twitter app.

Yep, the Eris comes with Peep, a built-in app just for Twitter. It only manages one account, but I already like it better than Twidroid. It has a clean interface, is very easy to use, and was obviously built with the lovely Sense UI in mind. I love that the app has an included widget.

The Eris automatically links up with your Facebook and Flickr accounts, which is a very nice feature. I love that they included Flickr, acknowledging that not all my photos are local. For Facebook, it identified 65 of my contacts that are also Facebook friends and asked if I wanted to link them. When that happened, those 65 photos updated, birthdays were added, and any new and additional contact information was added. In my Favorites list, if the contact is available in Facebook as well, a small “F” logo displays. Your Favorites list (of contacts) is also a widget that displays almost like a 9-pane photo gallery. To call someone, you tap their photo. It’s fun. I probably need to go into my Google Contacts and set a preferred primary number for each one though, as it chooses the “primary” number to call when you tap the photo.

I haven’t had a chance yet to play with the 5 mp camera/camcorder or a lot of the other features. I have read that (are you ready for this?) there is pinch-to-zoom in the photo viewer. Multi-touch! I’ve loaded my standard apps on the Eris (Evernote, Remember the Milk, Where, and several others). I also loaded Google Voice but I haven’t set it up yet to work with this phone. I was disappointed in the Google Voice SMS integration on the Droid, so I’m curious to see how it works with the Eris.

Thoughts

This is just my first look. So far I think the Eris is an oddly named but very elegant phone. I highly recommend it to someone who is not on AT&T but wants an iPhone-like device, someone who does not want a physical keyboard or wants a compact phone, or someone who is tied to Verizon (or appreciates their network) but wants an iPhone. This will fill that void for you.

Is it an iPhone killer? I hate that term. Nothing is. To me, the iPhone started the revolution of smartphones. Without the iPhone, we might not have the Droid or Eris. Nothing needs to be an iPhone killer. But it is nice to provide alternatives, right? And this is a definite viable alternative.

After 24 hours, I’d say the Droid and the Eris both rock. The Droid, with its “industrial” shape and size is a bit geekier and the Eris is slimmer and streamlined in form, less geeky. As much as I was convinced I’d buy the Droid, I’m no longer 100% on that, even with the virtual keyboard. Check back with me in a week or so for a more detailed review and maybe I’ll have made up my mind. As with the Droid, the honeymoon will end and I’ll find the not-so-great features of the phone. It happens – which is why I again emphasize – this post is only first impressions.

Droid Eris by HTC will be available tomorrow through Verizon for $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year agreement on a voice plan with an e-mail feature or e-mail plan.

Once again, screenshots are shamelessly borrowed from
Bryan at the Gadgeteer. Thanks Bryan!

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

by Michelle Lentz

Last week I offered a quick first impressions post. Now that I’ve spent some time with the Droid, I’ve tried to write a more in-depth review for the average user.

What’s in the Box?

The Droid has minimalist packaging:

• Droid
• Battery
• USB cable and AC Adapter
• 16 GB microSD card (pre-installed)
• Tiny little Getting Started Guide

Activation was easy and only took a couple of minutes.

Form

It’s flat. Even with the slider, it’s flat. In fact, it’s only a wee bit thicker than my 1^st gen iPhone. The slider seems solid, sliding straight back and forward, without the wiggle I often feel in slider phones, including both the Rogue and the Pre. Instead, this slider snaps rather decidedly into place. The whole phone has an impressive weight to it although it’s only 6 oz; you’re not petrified you’re going to break it.

Droid compared to gen 1 iPhone

There is sort of a billboard quality to the phone. The front lets you know it’s both Verizon and Motorola. Those are repeated on the back, with the addition of Google. The back slides off to reveal the battery compartment, and yes, you can replace the battery.  In my own usage, I found the battery lasted about 10-12 hours during a normal day’s use – some GPS, email, phone calls, some internet surfing … On the days when everyone wanted to play with it, the battery not surprisingly drained really fast. You can access a built-in power management widget that allows you to, with one click, turn the brightness down, and toggle on and off wifi, syncing, bluetooth, and location services. Unless I’m outside, I tended to keep the brightness turned down and the bluetooth turned off, just to help save on battery.

I’m adjusting to the keyboard. It’s rather flat and it does have two blank spots. A number of people have remarked to me that they added the directional pad at the cost of a better, wider keyboard. I can’t argue with that, really. Although I have talked to some folks who game on their phone. They’re excited about the directional pad but think it’s quite possibly on the wrong side.

To navigate, I’ve been mostly using the touchscreen and the four flat “light” buttons. I don’t mind those buttons either. Once you adjust to, in particular, heavy usage of both the Back and Menu buttons, you’re set. (The Menu button is also available on the keyboard.) The only thing I don’t like is that, because there is no tactile feedback, it’s hard to find the appropriate button in the dark.

navigation buttons

The amazingly shiny touchscreen is really responsive. It attracts fingerprints in the worst way, which drives me crazy. If I buy one, I’ll also be purchasing a screen protector to matte the screen a little and cut back on fingerprints. The screen is a 3.7″ WVGA (480 x 854 pixels) and 16:9 widescreen.

Phone

I had no trouble making calls from my house on the phone. Considering that my home seems to be an AT&T dead zone, this is always a bit of a relief.  I was told the call quality was clear. When calling using Google Voice, the call quality apparently degraded slightly, but not too much.

The phone integrated easily with Google Voice. I had three options: use Google Voice for every call (which I did), have the option with each call, or don’t use it. Every time I placed a call, the little Android robot would appear, informing me the call was being routed through Google Voice. However, Google Voice did not integrate with the SMS. In order to send a text using my Google Voice number, I had to launch the Google Voice app.

I haven’t yet figured out how to add speed dial for particular contacts, but it is possible to add favorites, similar to the iPhone. From Car Home (which I’ll get to later), you can easily say “Call John Doe Mobile” and make a call to Mr. Doe’s mobile phone. I was amazed at how well the voice recognition worked.

Camera and Media

There is a music player that instantly found the songs I had loaded, via USB, from my SD card.  When a song was playing, hitting the Menu button offered several choices, including creating your own ringtone from the song. I did this without hesitation.

The Droid sports a 5 mp camera with a dual-LED flash, activated from the Camera application or by clicking a button on the lower right side of the phone. There are a lot of options available for the camera. I was particularly thrilled with Scene mode, which pretty much offers everything except a setting for Food shots. You can manually control the flash or set it to auto. Additionally, you can control the white balance and add color effects such as sepia and tinting. Finally, there is an option for what I think is geolocation for your photos under the poorly named Store Location. (My first thought was, “What store?”) I’ve been told that it doesn’t shoot very well in low-light, but I haven’t had the opportunity to try. I do know that this could easily replace my need for a pocket camera to use when I don’t want to carry the larger one around.

Sample photo taken with the Droid

The video shoots in 30 seconds, 10 minutes, or 30 minute increments (or whenever you manually turn it off). You can easily shoot a low-quality 30 second video to send via MMS or Qik or a high-quality 30 minute video to store on your SD card just by changing a couple of settings. I filmed the 37 second video below and uploaded it directly to YouTube from the Droid. As a note, it will only upload large files such as videos when it has access to a WiFi connection.  This video has been compressed by the YouTube Gods, but it looked really great when viewed on the Droid. This is also not hi-res filming.

After a period of trial and error, I finally found the video player on the Droid. It’s pretty basic and is accessible from the Gallery (video and photos). As opposed to using the built-in player, I installed a free video player application. Both applications let me view, in high quality, the movie I uploaded to the SD card.

Operating System & Features

I don’t know enough about Android in it’s previous incarnations, or Android as a development tool, to speak about the changes in the OS. I do know that Android 2.0 is highly customizable. Like the iPhone, you can have multiple pages or screens to host your icons. Because there’s a built-in pop-up menu, you don’t actually have to use these. I customized mine with the apps I use the most, some bookmarks, and a couple of widgets.

My home screen has a calendar widget that shows my schedule for the day (the above screenshot shows a music widget). Additionally, I have icons for Gmail, Email, Browser, Phone, Contacts, Google Voice, and Messaging. In the top notification bar, I can access Twidroid, a Twitter application.

On the screen to the left, I have a Facebook widget and a Twitter widget (Twidget Lite).  I also have two bookmarks to web pages I access often. On the screen to the right, I have the Google Voice Search widget. I also have the icons for the Marketplace, Evernote (this is a beta app), Car Home, and Messaging. All of these applications, as well as more, can be also accessed from the pop-up slider on each page.  As you can tell, I’ve really sort of “moved in” and customized the phone.

Pop-out Applications Slider

In addition to the slide-out keyboard, there is a virtual keyboard that pops up whenever you tap inside a text box without the physical keyboard pulled. I don’t know if its because the keys are perfectly square or what the reason is, but I type better on this virtual keyboard than I do on the iPhone. I was pretty surprised by that. I usually don’t respond well to virtual keyboards. It also changes orientation, depending on whether you are in portrait or landscape.

Car Home is something that makes no sense until you use it. Basically, it’s to make you potentially less deadly while messing around with your phone while driving.  It lists five large icons (View Map, Navigation, Voice Search, Contacts, and Search) as well as Home. Voice Search lets you search for pretty much anything and I was pretty surprised at its accuracy. The Car Home screen is always available, but turns on by default (or so I understand) when placed in a special, non-included, cradle.

From within Car Home, Navigation launches the rather wonderful Google Maps Navigation, which all but replaces a separate GPS or subscribing to VZW Navigator. It includes turn-by-turn voice navigation and I was blown away by it.  I could even say “Find Pizza” and it would find the pizza joints near my location. It seemed to run about a 1/4 second behind, but still was able to keep up with my “wrong” turns and re-route on the fly. I didn’t notice a painful drain on the battery either.

There are a lot of thoughtful little things incorporated into the Droid:

• A long tap (or hold) on the Home button from anywhere displays a pop-up box with the last 6 applications you accessed. It helps you move easily between things, sort of like Alt-Tab on a PC.
• The @ key on the keyboard is a regular key. You don’t have to hit ALT to access it.
• The virtual keyboard (available in both portrait and landscape) has a .com easily available.
• Briefly holding down the power button lets you quickly put the phone in either silent or airplane mode.
• “Droid.” The default sound for notifications is a robot saying “Droid.” It’s hilarious. It put friends of mine into geekboy heaven.
• Locking and unlocking the phone is as simple as sliding your finger in an arc across the home screen. It’s even sort of fun.

Email, Contacts, & Calendars

Syncing works flawlessly. Because my world is owned by Google, it took no time at all to have my data at my fingertips. The phone instantly synced with my Google account, which included my contacts, calendar, and Gmail. Since Mobile Me has been inconsistent on my iPhone, I enjoyed having a calendar that was accurate and near instantly updated across all devices.  The Facebook application very thoughtfully offers choices regarding syncing. You can sync all your Facebook contacts to your address book, sync only the contacts that exist in both locations, or not sync your Facebook contacts at all. I prefer the second option as I certainly don’t want all the Facebook contacts in my main address book. It’s just too many people.

Email exists in multiple spots: Gmail and Email.  I have several Gmail accounts listed in my Gmail, and my three other IMAP accounts are listed in Email. Within Email, I can view my mail in one combined inbox, which I love. I don’t like that my Gmail and Email can’t all be in the same inbox. I tried adding my Gmail accounts as IMAP, which worked, but I then had no access to Gmail features such as labels.

Enterprise users can also set up Exchange accounts (I hear this is pretty easy) that sync with Email and the Corporate Calendar.

Remember that I’m synching over the air with my Google accounts, and I never once had to sync hardware to hardware. In fact, the only need I had to plug in the USB was to move audio and video onto the SD card. I’m not sure how that works for folks with calendars other than Outlook or Google (such as iCal).

Apps I Found and Needed

There are some things missing from the Android, and luckily, there are free apps to fill in the gaps. As they say, there really is “an app for that.”

• Locale: Allows you set your profile based on where you are, using the GPS.
• Google Voice: This integrates nicely with the phone. However, it does not integrate that nicely with SMS. I’m not sure if there’s something I’m missing or if Google just dropped the ball.
• Linda File Manager: I use this to get an in-depth look at and manage files both on the device and the SD card.
• Video Player: Truthfully, I downloaded a trial of Act 1 Video Player, which retails for 99¢. Video Player, however, is free. I could not find a way to watch videos on the Droid, but with the third-party app, I had no trouble watching the movie I’d pulled onto the SD card.
• Remember the Milk and Evernote. I pay for RTM Pro, which gives me access to the mobile apps, including the Droid. I also swear by Evernote. This particular app is in beta, but it worked really well.
• Twidget Lite: This is a widget that gives you quick and easy access to your Twitter account, including showing the latest and greatest tweet on one of your home screens.
• Twidroid: Assuming I buy a Droid in a week, I’ll probably buy the Pro version of Twidroid ($5).  The free version only supports one Twitter account and I need to maintain several. You can set an icon to display in the Notification bar to keep you apprised of tweets, replies, and/or direct messages.
• Flashlight. No kidding. I used this to put makeup on in the car while my husband is driving. It’s as basic as you can get, but quite helpful.

I also installed some fun apps, including Shop Savvy, Where, Zagat nru, and Google SkyMap. I was able to find comparable replacements for everything I use on the iPhone. For instance, I replaced UrbanSpoon with both Where and Zagats.

Minor Issues

As of right now, I only have a few minor complaints with the Droid. I found some things, such as mounting the phone to my computer via USB, to be non-intuitive to the new Android user. I also found some of the menus to be hidden. There seems to be inconsistency across what appears via the Menu button and what appears via long tap. The Settings menus are still a bit techie, and I think some non-techies will find them a bit intimidating.  I’m also not a big fan of the fingerprint-attracting surface, but that’s easily fixed by a screen protector.  Finally, I’m a bit disappointed with the Google Voice integration – or rather, the lack of Google Voice SMS integration – but I’m hoping that’s user error and not a Google Voice problem.

Multitouch? Everyone seems fixated on this. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t using multitouch as I sped through things on the Droid. I double-tapped to zoom in and out on web pages without even thinking about it and easily used the touchscreen and virtual keyboard. But if you’re insistent, here’s what I sort of know. Android 2.0 does support multi-touch, but so far, nothing has implemented it. Rumor has it that the Droid hardware also supports it, and the GSM/European version has supposedly been seen in the wild with multi-touch.

The Droid goes on sale Friday at your local Verizon store for $199 with a 2-year contract. You’ll need data and all the rest to support it. I may be picking one up as soon as I can afford it. Of course, sometime this week I should also get my hands on some other new phones, so who knows what I might buy …

Android screenshots graciously provided by Bryan at The Gadgeteer.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

Update: Boy Genius Report has just released a Preview Review of the Droid. It answers several of the questions posed below.

I’m salivating over the Droid from Motorola. I simply can’t wait to get my hands on it – and most likely buy it. Boy Genius  reported today that Motorola had posted a set of complete specs pages on their site. Of course, that got taken down rather quickly. Estimated release date is currently October 28. The Internet being what it is, someone captured the now-removed Motorola pages and posted them on YouTube.

There seem to be some holes in the specs – for instance, the processor is listed at 550 mHz when rumor had it at 600 mHz. Folks are also wondering about the lack of Google Voice in the Google Mobile Apps section, and there are questions about what Vibracall might be (just regular vibrate?) and how much internal memory (and if it actually comes, in box, with a 16 GB microSD card). There’s a bit of laughter that the color is described as “licorice with brown sugar accents.”  Good enough to eat, yes? Finally, there seems to be a bit of disappointment that Verizon opted to make this a CDMA phone with no GSM bands. I agree. It would be nice if it was a world phone.

So it’s not quite everything you wanted to know, but there is certainly a lot of information here. I recommend blowing it up to full-screen to read the tiny print.

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Cheers!
Tweet Michelle @writetechnology, send her technology news at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, visit her wine blog when you’re thirsty, and drop by her day job.

From my various mobile-oriented posts, you know that I’ve been playing with a lot of Verizon phones. In the beginning, I was pretty convinced that I was going to end up with a Pre no matter what. But Verizon has very smartly kept me testing out phones until the one they knew I’d want was released. I’m amazingly excited about the the new Motorola Android phone coming out at the end of the month. It’s been called the Sholes and the Tao, and they finally settled on Droid.

Verizon has really taken square aim at AT&T and the iPhone with their most recent ad campaigns. “There’s a map for that” makes me laugh routinely, considering how lousy my own AT&T service is. It’s worth noting that I have perfectly fine AT&T service – unless I’m in California, Ohio, and Kentucky. It was fine in Florida over the weekend.

But the ad campaign I’m really enamored by is the iDon’t/Droid Does campaign. They take on the iPhone and manage to cover everything I don’t like about my own iPhone (which are things that are perfect for other folks).

An Ad Age article wonders at whom the ads are aimed.

If the product and its message are crafted for a geeky and tech-savvy audience, though, the media buy is so far suggesting otherwise. Given how deep the commercial drills into the ways the iPhone falls short, experts said the messaging would mainly resonate with those in the deep know about the handset’s capabilities, which excludes the vast majority of people, iPhone owners included. These folks aren’t reading blogs about the latest and greatest smartphones, they said. Yet Verizon’s broadcasting of the message to viewers of a baseball playoff suggests the No. 1 wireless carrier wants to stir anticipation among a mainstream audience.

My gut feeling is that the ads are aimed at me: early adopters/geeks who are dissatisfied with their iPhones. There are enough of us. In fact, I think Verizon is banking on the fact that they have such a good network and that geeks everywhere will be interested in combining that network with an Open Source mobile phone. We’ll see how that pans out for Verizon.

What do you think about the new Droid ads? Interested in the new Motorola device? I have my fingers crossed I’ll be using one of these at the Social Media World Forum in November.