The Orlando Sentinel, Fla., User's Guide column: New Droid is worthy competition for iPhone

Nov 07, 2009 (The Orlando Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- MOT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Motorola was once king of the cell-phone industry. Everywhere you looked, people were using those Razr phones made by the Illinois-based company. But these days, you're more likely to see a Motorola phone in a rerun of 24 than in the hand of someone next to you on a bus.

Friday's launch of the "Droid" smart phone from Verizon ($200 with a two-year contract and after rebate) is Motorola's biggest step yet toward recapturing its former glory. The much-anticipated device gets its name from the Google Android operating system that powers it, but it's the first phone to feature the second version of Android, Android 2.0, which is a big improvement over the original OS.

In its ads for the Droid, Verizon takes the clearest shots yet at the iPhone by any competitor. With cheery, Apple commercial-like music, the spots rattle off a list of iDont's -- things the iPhone lacks -- such as a physical keyboard and removable battery and then declares that the Droid has all these features.

So how does the Droid stack up to the iPhone?

Overall, I think it's a great phone for Verizon customers, Google devotees and anyone who longs for a physical keyboard or removable battery. It mostly lives up to the hype and it comes a lot closer to matching the iPhone's minicomputerlike capabilities than BlackBerrys and many other smart phones. Plus, Verizon's 3G network is generally more reliable and widespread than AT&T's.

Design/hardware: The Droid isn't as sexy as the iPhone, but it still has an attractive design that includes a slide-out physical keyboard without adding a lot of heft. The touchscreen is gorgeous, and it's bigger and boasts a higher resolution than the iPhone's. Being able to use both a virtual keyboard and a physical one will definitely appeal to many people, even though the physical keys are kind of flat, which can be frustrating. I really liked the Droid's directional key, which was easier to use for on-screen navigating than many of the trackballs found on other phones.

Operating system/ease of use: I've always found Android phones to be full of useful features, but a little overly complex because they aren't as intuitive as an iPhone. Android 2.0 is more polished and easier to master than Android 1.0, though it still may require a lot of thumbing through the manual.

Apps: By far, my favorite feature of the Droid is the inclusion of Google Maps Navigation, a free, voice-guided, turn-by-turn GPS program that's as good as the dashboard-mounted units sold by TomTom or Garmin. The iPhone and other phones have voice-guided GPS apps, but they aren't free, and they don't integrate as nicely with Google search. On the Droid, you can say "directions to nearest Starbucks," and with a few taps, you'll get voice-guided directions without having to type anything.

Although it's now easier to browse the Android Market, the number of Android apps (about 12,000) still pales in comparison to the iPhone App Store (more than 100,000). But now that three of the four major U.S. cell-phone carriers offer Android phones (Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon), I expect developers to spend even more time building Android apps.

The phone comes with a slick Facebook app that allows you to include contact information from Facebook in your phone's contacts so when a Facebook friend calls, the picture from the social-networking site pops up.

Multimedia: The Droid's 5-megapixel camera with flash is great for taking lots of photos, but I found it to be a little hard to focus. There's also a video camera, and like the iPhone 3GS, you can upload videos you shoot directly to YouTube. Videos look great on the Droid, but it's not as easy to transfer them, music and photos from your computer.

Web: With a 3.7-inch screen, browsing the Web on the Droid requires a lot less scrolling than other Android phones such as the recently released HTC Hero from Sprint. Web pages are displayed in their full glory, and as you type an Web site into the address box, the phone suggests what you might be looking for. You can have multiple Web pages up, and you can zoom in and out easily, though it's not as easy as pinching gestures used on the iPhone and Palm Pre.

With the Droid, Verizon, Motorola and Google have a winner that will further solidify Android phones as a worthy competitor to the iPhone, something that's good for everyone.

Etan Horowitz can be reached at 407-420-5447 or ehorowitz@orlandosentinel.com. To read his technology blog, visit OrlandoSentinel.com/techblog.

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