Being a Mac review site, Federico and I own some pretty serious Mac hardware. He with a 15” Macbook Pro and iPhone, and I with my 13” Macbook and Droid. It’s a pretty wonderful relationship, Apple products and us.
…wait, did I say Droid?
The Droid
When the time came to get a smartphone, I had a tough decision to make. Should I get the iPhone, the acclaimed king of mobile devices? Or should I look past AT&T’s network and take a gander at devices like the Palm Pre and the Nexus One? Honestly, I was afraid of AT&T’s reputation. While it’s gotten better over the years, I don’t know if I can place my trust into the hands of a company that’s gotten a bad rap between dropped calls and a slow 3G network. Trusting Verizon, I ended up choosing the anti-iPhone, the Droid, over anything else in the market. Overall it’s a sweet phone, and I’m pretty happy with my choice. There’s lots to love and lots to hate, but how is a Mac user to use something so un-mac-like? You’re about to find out.
The Droid itself is a beautiful phone. I’m not going to make this a terribly in depth review (after all, this is a phone that was reviewed way back in October 2009), but I will say that it’s an incredibly sexy device. It’s flat black edges and retro industrial design with gold accents are simply glorious. The Droid feels like a real man’s phone in your hands - it has some heft, but it’s not to weighty. I’m really impressed by just how solid it feels, and how well the screen slides up to reveal it’s sexy keyboard. This is where the Droid has an advantage over the iPhone (which I think feels cheap).
The screen and the general resolution is incredible. Text rendering on this device is really really good, and the Android’s default icons are beautiful and sharp. I’m so impressed with the quality initially put into the display, sometimes I’m kinda put off by Opera’s, Engadget’s, and Evernote’s blurry, low res icons. What the heck the guys? Take advantage of this gorgeous screen! A minor nitpick. as a true geek should care about brains and not beauty. Still, I take note when developers aren’t designing their applications to shine - both inside and outside the app.
Android Pros
But onwards my friend, because it’s the software you’re most interested in. The reality is, the Android software isn’t too different from the iPhone’s. You have a lock screen. You can tap and hold an icon to rearrange it on your screen. You receive notifications as they occur. As reader Daniel pointed out in a previous comment, the Droid has a quick navigational panel that can take you back to your most recently used apps that might be performing actions in the background. Once you learn your way around the device (not all things are as intuitive as on the iPhone), it’s incredibly capable, if not more capable than the current iPhone 3GS.
Where the Droid shines is in its voice recognition software. I honestly don’t know how it works, but it’s pretty incredible. Most anything I say to the Droid, it understands. Occasionally there will be a misspelled street address or odd last name (like Viticci), but 90% of the time, the Droid is able to understand what I say. I can tell it to call my Dad, navigate to a mall, and even search google with nothing more than a tap and hold on the universal search button. It’s almost human.
Mentioning navigation, the biggest reason why I chose the Droid in general was because of the free Google Navigation service. Because I often travel to new and exciting places, I wanted something that could compliment my adventures. The navigation software, even in beta, is excellent. It can not only accurately track where I am on the road, providing information such as estimated time to my destination, but it can also show you a Google Street view of the place you’re going to (or anywhere on your route if possible for example). You’ll never lose your sense of direction, and there’s a myriad of options available for customizing your navigating experience. The phone in general is enhanced by Android’s car mode, activated by a magnetic trigger using Motorola’s OEM windshield mount.
The Droid is smart, and that basically sums up my thoughts about it. For processing information, it works very well. And compared to the iPhone, notifications on the Droid are much better. Screw crappy push notifications, the Droid keeps incoming voice mails, emails, direct messages from Twitter, and more in a convenient notification panel which subsides in the statusbar. I really like this implementation, though it has taken someone like my dad a little while to get used to it. I also appreciate that if I come back to my phone, a green light blinks indicating that there’s something I need to check on.
The Droid also has widgets, which aren’t and are a big deal. The thing I like is that I can get weather and news very quickly, but I also can add things like a sports ticker or music controller. One very handy widget I’ve added allows me to control power related functions on my Droid, such as enabling/disabling bluetooth and wifi. Hey, if it saves me from going into the settings, then I’m all for it.
Android Cons
The Android operating system certainly has it’s perks. But I have to say, I’m 50/50 with its included web browser. It’s pretty quick (though Opera’s is quicker), and I like how it has an omnibar not unlike Google Chrome’s, which also includes a search by voice implementation. But man, navigating between windows kind of stinks. I don’t know if there’s a better way to do it, but I’ve had to go into the menu and select Windows, where I get a list-like interface of recently open pages. I don’t quite know when a page has opened in a new window or not, so I’m often surprised by how many windows are open when I check in. I much prefer Mobile Safari’s implementation of pages, or Opera Mini’s implementation of tabs. I guess I feel that this implementation of Windows is hidden from the user.
The Youtube player is terrible. Not only is the interface quite ugly, the quality of the videos is often crap. You can remedy this problem by going into the settings (after you’ve started the video) and selecting a “high quality” option (which makes it super awesome and takes advantage of the screen), but still, the Youtube player needs some serious improvement overall. I don’t like using it.
But if you thought the Youtube player was bad, the built in music player is a travesty. It’s okay, I use it for playing podcasts in my truck, but it’s definitely not as robust as the iPhone’s excellent iPod implementation. It just lacks flair or even a half decent way to view your music. Quite honestly, I’ve been using a widget to control my music instead of the built in player. I don’t like using it - it feels half baked.
My last gripe would have to be the camera. Now I’ve seen some bad cameras, but the Droid’s is awful. I’ve only gotten a few half-decent pictures out of it, as it never seems to take good pictures. I know it’s only a cellphone, but come on. Every picture is either washed out or blurry, and I can’t stand it. The camera is loud (it makes a weird clicking sound), it takes forever to focus, and quite frankly, the UI is again, really ugly. I can’t stand how long it takes to change settings through its side panel. This has to be the worst thing about this phone. Quite simply, I get pissed off every time I try to take a picture. It’s unacceptable.
On the flip side, taking videos on this thing is amazingly good. I can record all day long and not have any serious problems or camera shaking when recording things like local bar shows. I’m quite amazed how well the video looks compared to how bad still photos come out. So I’ll give the Droid that: it delivers good quality video and OK audio.
Mac Syncing
But how does the Droid sync to the Mac? There’s really no problems here. Once you mount the Droid, iPhoto opens and collects all the photos you’ve taken with the it, and will even delete them off the initially “no-named” device. But what about music and videos?
Check out doubleTwist, which can be use don both Mac and Windows. While I don’t like their photo option (it shows you the Droid’s cache as well as photos you’ve taken), adding music and video to the device couldn’t be simpler. doubleTwist (lowercase intentional) looks at your local iTunes library, and gives you the ability to drag and drop songs and sync in a jiffy. I couldn’t be happier with this solution.
Android Marketplace
Before I end my perspective on Motorola’s pride and joy, you might be begging me to talk about the Android Marketplace. Well, I’ll say this. I really don’t like it that much. To be honest, finding a quality app is a lot harder than on the iPhone. While Apple’s App Store is closed, good developers will follow the Human Interface Guidelines which provides consistency throughout applications. For the Android, every app is different. Fundamentally, the menu button is your access to all things options and menus inside applications, but it’s hit or miss for a good UI. To be honest, I’m not impressed with the offerings here. Sorry developers, but asides from Twitdroid and USA Today, there really aren’t too many interfaces that stand out to me. Even Engadget and Digg provide a more polished interface with more options on the iPhone than on the Android. I will say however, that Google has variety of lab apps you can download that do some amazing things (Google Sky Map is the coolest thing ever).
Conclusion
As a Mac user, I like the Droid. I think it’s a good fit for my lifestyle and what I use it for. I have a feeling most Apple users won’t like it simply for the interface - it isn’t always pretty or doesn’t always have the most useable UI. But you know what? The universal voice functionality and its free Google Navigation make the phone completely worth it. It’s not an incapable phone by any means. If you’re considering Verizon’s network in your area, take some time to play with this phone.
