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It's the first phone to run Android 2.0, the latest version of Google's smartphone operating system. It's the first Android phone offered by Verizon, which is reputed to have the best wireless network in the nation.
And it's the first Android phone available in the United States that has taken the iPhone's aesthetic into account in its design: The Droid is thin but sturdy and places its large touch screen front and center.
But as much as the Droid improves on previous Android phones, it's still no iPhone. Both its hardware and software lack the refinement of Apple's iconic device.
The first thing you notice about the Droid is that it feels solid in your hand. Unlike the myTouch 3G, the Android phone that came out this summer on T-Mobile, the Droid doesn't feel like it's made of cheap plastic. On the other hand, it weighs about an ounce more than my iPhone, and that difference was noticeable as I held it in my hands surfing the Web or typing e-mail.
Unlike the iPhone, the Droid has a slide-out keyboard. The keys were small for my thumbs, but they give a satisfying sensation when you tap on them.
Unlike previous Android phones, the Droid doesn't have a trackball or any physical buttons on its face. Instead, it has four dedicated touch-sensitive buttons: back, menu, home and search. I found these hard to use. Because they don't depress like physical buttons and don't change color like virtual touch-screen ones, it can be hard to know if you've pressed them or not, particularly if the phone is running slowly for some reason. This kept happening to me repeatedly.
And when the screen turned off, I found myself missing having a big, front-facing button to turn it back on. Touch the "home" button (as you would on the iPhone), and nothing happens. Instead, you have to press the tiny power button on the top of the device.
The software on the Droid includes some nice features. It's one of the first Android phones to be able to sync to Exchange right out of the box, so you can not only check your work mail, but download your work contacts and calendar. Like Palm's Pre and the new Motorola Cliq, it also syncs your contacts with Facebook.
As you'd hope, given the Droid's links to Google, its search feature is much improved from those on previous Android phones. On the myTouch, the search bar only performed Web searches. Now it will search the device as well. You can use it to locate and launch programs and look up contacts.
It's still not as good as the one on the iPhone, though; it doesn't seem to include appointments in its search results.
The Droid does have some nice features that you either won't find on the iPhone or that improve on what's there. It has a 5-megapixel camera, compared with the 3-megapixel one that's in the iPhone 3GS. And, unlike the iPhone, it has a built in flash.
Like other Android phones, the Droid will run multiple programs at once.
So, you can listen to a radio station on Pandora while downloading an application from the Android Market and checking your e-mail. That's great for multi-taskers like me _ and something you can't do on the iPhone.
And unlike the version on the iPhone, the Droid's built-in Google Maps program turns it into a GPS device, offering turn-by-turn navigation.
Google Maps Navigation works well; it plots directions quickly, keeps track of your movements in real time and rapidly re-plots your route when you stray from its course. Best of all, it's free.
But Android still feels unrefined compared with the iPhone _ or even the underappreciated Palm Pre, whose WebOS software is even better than the iPhone's. Unlike those phones, it supports few gestures; you can't pinch to zoom in or out of a picture, for instance. And closing or switching between programs isn't nearly as simple or intuitive.
Still, there's a lot to like about the Droid and Android. It may not be as easy to use as either the iPhone or the Pre, but it's probably the best smartphone available from Verizon, which has far fewer deadspots than either AT&T or Sprint, the carrier partners of Apple and Palm, respectively.
The Android Market is a distant no. 2 to the iPhone's App Store in terms of available programs. But 12,000 applications _ a number that is growing rapidly _ is nothing to sniff at. You'll find versions of many of the most popular iPhone programs on Android; using programs I found in the market, I was able to listen to Pandora, send tweets to Twitter and play a tower defense game.
If I were on Verizon, I'd definitely give the Droid a look. If you've got an iPhone, though, I'd stick with it.
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Troy Wolverton: twolverton@mercurynews.com.
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(c) 2009, San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.).
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