Review: Does Verizon Motorola Droid Suck?

Posted at December 1, 2009

A few weeks ago Verizon unleashed their most powerful (or is it?) cell phone to date, the Motorola Droid. This is the first ever cell phone on any network running the impressive Android OS 2.0. The new OS includes an impressive beta version of Google Maps GPS which provides free turn by turn directions. This free software has the Sat/Nav companies shaking in their boots.

The Droid is first noted for having an impressive screen which is slightly larger than the iPhone's but crams in almost 2x as many small pixels for the sharpest screen short of a laptop. The device itself is a tad bit larger and thicker than the iPhone and much less sexy. Basically, Motorola has gone for an industrial feel with this phone. it is solid in the hand but has very sharp lines, rather than rounded corners.

The device runs on the exact same chip (we are told) that the iPhone is using. The OS is fast and ultra responsive and looks much better than early incarnations of the Android OS. The web browser is fast and zooming can be achieved by double tapping. The pinch and zoom multi touch is not available in this software version for some reason. Some sspeculate that licensing of technology issues stemming from Apple have delayed this feature on the Droid.

The call quality is to be expected and sounds as good as other cell phones on the market. The 3G network is excellent and proves the biggest strength of Verizon's network- the fact that it makes AT&T's look terrible. The worst part of the Motorola Droid is the full qwerty slider keyboard. This thing is pretty useless because the tiny chicklet keys are almost completely flush with the bottom of the keys (they do not bump up) making typing slow and painful at best. The key is simply using the adequate onscreen vertual keyboards to get most of your typing done.

Bottom line- the Verizon Motorola Droid is a powerful, albiet somewhat rough device that will surely be tamed in future improvements (software and hardware wise). It does give Verizon users a very capable multimedia phone that is essentially a powerful little computer right in your crusty jean pocket.