Tech Review

There will come a day when people call their friends and keep to-do lists with an implanted chip activated by brain waves. Until then, we're stuck with the squarish apparatus you might be staring at right now.

The best of them may well be the new Motorola Droid.

Decision process:

1. I had the opportunity to steal an upgrade slot from my daughter (shhhh).

2. I have Verizon, so my choices were limited.

3. Blackberry phones won't download Army emails and have poor browsers. The Storm, my previous phone, doesn't have a physical keyboard. The Storm 2 is worse than the original Storm- the screen feels flimsier. The Tour 9630 has a keyboard, but the browser and Army email issues remain.

4. The HTC Imagio is an interesting device with more software options than the Google. I was and remain weary of the Microsoft Mobile Software, however, and it doesn't have a real keyboard.

5. The Droid Eris is cheaper. It has physical call buttons and a custom HTC Sense UI. Over the buttons is a Blackberry-style trackball, which seems redundant on a touch screen. It's $100.00 cheaper.

On the other hand, it doesn't have a flash for its camera, a physical keyboard (although the touch keyboard is very good), the Google Navigation app, and cool docking station and car mount. The Eris comes with a lower-resolution screen, an older Android operating system, and smaller 8GB memory card.

6. I heard the chicks dig the Droid.

The goal of any modern multimedia/web-enabled phone is how easy it is to summon, accept, and transmit information. Or, the facility with which you can get that tweet off right after checking your email, annotating your calendar, and browsing the internet. Enjoying music and video on a phone can be a wonderful experience on a phone in the correct circumstance.

But first, the technical stuff:

1. The Droid is world-capable, which might be essential for some of you. Certainly, for frequently traveling soldiers and businessmen.

2. 16GBs of storage, enough for your lossless Michael Bolton collection and two seasons of Night Court. Purchase additional cards and you can have, say, a card for Classical music and another for Rock (I mention that because the iPhone doesn't have expansion slots). The card plays mp3 and mp4. If you have some stuff on AVI, you're going to have to take some time to convert.

3. Call quality if fine. If you use your phone pretty often, you're going to have to charge it every evening.

4. This is my first phone with Wifi and I now consider it a near-essential feature.

Why?

Because Verizon limits download to 5GB a month. Fine for email and web browsing, but not for streaming music or podcasts. Most everybody's wifi connection at home or school is faster than 3G.

5. The screen is high resolution and very nice. It's 480 by 854, besting the iPhone's 480-by-320 by [320/854 %!*math]...by a bunch. A higher resolution makes for a better browsing experience because sites are optimized for higher resolutions.

On to usability:

As I mention in the title, I feel that I need only think a task, press the screen a few times, and the Droid grants my desire.

1. I like the integration with Gmail accounts. Gmail is the best free email, since it's the only one that allows for free POP-3 access. Facebook, Friendfeed, Youtube and a bunch of other Web 2.0 applications use a common login with Google. Google also has webmaster, analytics, and ther apps I use.

2. The phone is easy to use. I can use the Droid's other features while I'm on the phone. The proximity sensor turns off and locks the screen while the phone is close to my face.

3. The camera and video recorder work fine. I can send pics easily.

4. The Android browser is fantastic. Pages look like they would on a regular computer. I used Viigo for RSS feeds with my Blackberry. On the Droid, I just use the web-based Google reader. I use a standalone app for podcasts, but that's another post.

5. Toggling wifi, airplane mode, silence, and Bluetooth are three clicks away, each.

6. The Droid can satisfactorily replace a standalone GPS unit for the car. I bought the car mount that automatically turns on car mode. The Droid speaks the streets like on high-end GPS units. It integrates with Bluetooth, another high-end feature. The display is good and includes some 3-D effects. You can choose to navigate places from a Google search or from contacts. Google Earth pictures show up at times. It'll give you walking and bus routes.

All-in-all excellent except for some niggling features that I can't remember right now. It may have been not having a "Home" button.

7. The GPS allows people to goecode their tweets and pictures. You can plot your journeys and trips as you travel, making a sort of digital keepsake.

8. The music and movie apps are OK: Nothing special, but they get the job done. A big feature coming soon is Adobe Flash 10 which will allow people to view online videos besides Youtube (the Droid already streams youtube) and possibly stream audio from internet feeds.

9. The keyboard takes a little getting used to. It's more difficult than the best keyboards (the LG ENV keyboards are my favorite) because of the flat buttons and the fact that the keyboard is off-center to accommodate a direction pad. Still, it's very handy for precision typing.

10. Lots of apps. I can scan documents into PDF files using the camera. There are Bible and breviary apps. All kind of stuff, and the ones that aren't free, cost a couple of bucks. Even OpenDoc Office is only $14.99.

But:

1. The Google Android operating system doesn't support two services I use: Rhapsody and Audible audio books. I think it's because of DRM issues. I hope they resolve it soon. I'd also like a Sirius/XM app.

There you have it. I really like this phone. With its keyboard and great browser, it's the first phone or PDA I've owned that can reasonably impersonate my laptop for short periods of time (half of this post was written on my Droid).