Technologizer

For the past two months, Verizon Wireless’s Droid by Motorola has had the privilege of holding  the undisputed title of Coolest Android Phone on the Market. But its reign may be short, if everyone’s assumption that next week’s Google Android event turns out to be the unveiling of Google’s Nexus One (aka “the Googlephone”)  turns out to be accurate.

The Nexus One remains unannounced, but there’s information (or alleged information) about it all over the Web. So it doesn’t seem premature to put together a provisional T-Grid comparing it to the Droid. The Nexus One data here is culled from sources such as Engadget and Gizmodo, and for now, you should pretend that each and every field has an asterisk next to it indicating that it’s not confirmed.

What are the key differences between the two phones? The Nexus One (which lacks a physical keyboard) is apparently thinner and lighter. It’s supposedly got an OLED screen which is said to be gorgeous. It runs on T-Mobile’s network rather than Verizon’s (it’ll reportedly only work on AT&T in sluggish EDGE mode). And it’s allegedly got a very fast CPU (1-GHz?) and twice the RAM of the Droid. Plus a newer version of Android that’s been further tweaked by Google.

Okay, enough apparentlys, supposedlys, reportedlys, and allegedlys. Info after the jump–I’ll update it once Google has weighed in…

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Cnet’s Chris Matyszczyk thinks this new Verizon Droid ad is slagging the iPhone. Watch it, then tell me what you think:

I (mostly) like the Droid and like its positioning as a somewhat homely but useful phone. And yes, I agree that the phone under attack in the ad looks an awful lot like a white iPhone 3GS, although the spot cunningly never shows you it from the front:

But the iPhone is anything but a “digitally clueless tiara-wearing beauty pageant queen,” and–unless the ad is taking a very oblique swipe at the thinness of AT&T’s 3G network–it isn’t slow. (Actually, its browser seems to do quite well in comparison to the Droid’s, though neither makes me think of sawblades going through bananas.) I have no idea what it means to be digitally clueless, but I’m positive that the iPhone isn’t. And I can’t believe that Verizon would think that any prospective customer who hasn’t been hibernating in a cave somewhere would buy the notion that the iPhone is clueless in any meaningful respect. (Imperfect? Hell, yeah–but not clueless.)

If the ad’s about the iPhone, it might as well toss in a claim that the iPhone supports death panels for old people, or paroled a vicious murderer, or assassinated Archduke Ferdinand. So I choose to think it’s about pretty phones in general. You know–the digitally clueless ones.

Let’s end this with a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt: “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Verizon Wireless starts selling its first Android phone, the Droid (“by Motorola”) today. I’ve been using a unit loaned to me by Verizon for a week, and remain mostly impressed: The Droid couples impressive hardware with the much-improved Android 2.0 OS, and the result is the first Android phone that’s fully worthy of being compared to the iPhone 3GS and Palm’s Pre. (It’s most definitely an example of the class of device that Walt Mossberg calls “super-smart phones.”)

I don’t expect every Verizon customer who’s currently lusting after the iPhone to buy a Droid instead, but I think a meaningful percentage will–and that overall, they’ll be pleased.

But the Droid is hardly above criticism. As I’ve been using one and mostly enjoying the experience, my mind has been racing ahead to…next year’s model. (I’m assuming there will be one: Already, Verizon is releasing another phone in the Droid lineup, the Droid Eris.)

So here’s my quick wishlist for the phone I’m calling the Droid II–the next major collaboration between Verizon, Motorola,and Google.

A better keyboard. I want to like the Droid’s wide QWERTY keyboard, but so far I can’t muster much enthusiasm for its feel–the overall thinness of the phone has resulted in keys without enough travel for truly satisfying typing. (I do like the fact that it frees up all of the handsome screen’s 854-by-480 pixels for content, not virtual keys.)

It’s gotta be possible to squeeze a better keyboard into the space the Droid has–for one thing, the little five-way controller to the right of the keys seems superfluous on a touchscreen device. Dump it, and you could widen the keys and make them more comfy. I’d also be tickled if the Droid II took a cue from the AT&T Tilt I used to carry and angled the screen up when you slid out the keyboard.

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When I compared the Verizon Droid to the iPhone 3GS last week, I said that the Droid didn’t have multi-touch input–based on the fact that I’d used it a lot and encountered no instances when it did. A commenter said that the phone did indeed support multi-touch, and I tweaked my item. Essentially, the phone is capable of multi-touch; it just chooses not to use it.

Today, Rob Jackson of Phandroid pointed out that the Android image editor Picsay uses multi-touch, and serves as proof that the Droid can do it. He’s right, and Picsay shows the power of controlling your phone with more than one finger at a time. As with iPhone applications, it lets zoom in and out of images by pulling and pinching them. It’s wonderfully fluid–at least as good as the iPhone’s multi-touch.

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Verizon is spending a lot of money advertising its upcoming Droid smartphone. It’s everywhere–from commercials on TV to bills posted on construction sites. But I question whether the iPhone-mocking focus of the ad campaign can generate broad appeal.

The ads target the iPhone’s shortcomings, such as its lack of a camera flash and the rigid application development limitations imposed by Apple. They include statements about the iPhone such as “‘iDon’t have a real keyboard,” “iDon’t allow open development,” and “iDon’t run simultaneous apps.’” Those points resonate with me, because I’m a member of the tech punditocracy.

The question is, does the average user care about things such as open development? I’m an iPhone owner, and Apple’s draconian policies don’t really affect my overall experience. There are still plenty of apps to choose from. I haven’t met too many disaffected iPhone users, probably because the user experience–while imperfect–is pretty great.

Beyond the jailbreaking crowd and some grumblings about Google Voice, I have never heard anyone complain that he or she didn’t have all of the applications that he or she wanted on the iPhone. Verizon’s clumsy wording doesn’t help either. The message would be more effective as something like “iDon’t permit all the apps you want.”

Verizon’s playful advertising campaign keeps the Droid fresh in my mind, and initial buzz on the device is favorable. I might consider buying it when I need a new device. However, that would involve switching carriers, and would leave much of my iTunes music library orphaned. My music, video and phone are all-in-one now, and I do not want to have to carry around a separate iPod.

I chose to buy Apple’s DRM music format, as well as to be locked into AT&T’s network. Aside from some intermittent dropped calls, and poor reception in areas that Verizon fully covers, I’m happy with my decision. If I’m a hard sell, I’d venture that people who don’t care about things like running simultaneous apps aren’t really getting what’s so special about the Droid.

So Verizon’s Droid is official, and officially arriving a week from Friday.  I’m smart enough to know it’s pointless to call any phone an iPhone killer, or even a potential iPhone killer–and that competing with the iPhone is much more about software and overall integration than it is about hardware specs. (If you could kill the iPhone through trumping its specs, it would already be a goner.) But the Droid does pack better specs than the iPhone 3GS does in many areas–including its screen, which has well over twice as many pixels. It runs the promising Android 2.0 OS. And it’s on a network that doesn’t provoke much in the way of squawking from customers. In short, it’s the most formidable Google rival since the Palm Pre.

I have a Droid in hand (lent to me by Verizon) and will report in with a hands-on report soon. But as is my wont, I’m going to begin with a features comparison. Note that the information that follows mostly doesn’t take third-party applications and products into account.

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Verizon has stopped teasing us about its upcoming Android-based Droid phone and made it official: The Motorola phone goes on sale a week from Friday. It runs Android 2.0, has a slide-out keyboard and a 5 megapixel camera with flash, and comes bundled with a 16GB MicroSD card. It also has a beta version of the first edition of Google Maps to do turn-by-turn navigation. (Imagine what’ll happen to the navigation industry if every phone version of Google Maps does that for free.)

Droid is $199 on a two-year contract after a $100 rebate, which is pretty much the price it needs to be to be competitive with the iPhone 3GS.

Here’s a video from Google on Android 2.0, which looks like it’ll be a significant advance on the nice-but-sorta-spartan first version of the OS:

I haven’t seen a Droid in the flesh yet, but early buzz on the phone is exceptional. The only truly great next-generation smartphones to come along so far are the iPhone and the Palm Pre; on paper, at least, it sounds like there’s a chance the Droid will join them.

Phone ubersite The Boy Genius Report has its hands on Verizon/Motorola’s upcoming Droid phone–in non-final form–and says it’s not only the most impressive Android phone to date but also the most impressive new phone since the iPhone. The site hasn’t posted a review, but it’s got a photo gallery up. Like many (most?) smartphones, the Droid looks a lot like an iPhone at first glance. But its big screen slides up to reveal the physical QWERTY keyboard that the iPhone lacks, and probably will always lack.

I’ve grown reasonably adept with the iPhone’s keyboard, but still find physical QWERTY desirable–I’m still looking for a smartphone with input as good as what I had on my Psion Series 5 more than a decade ago, and I’ve said that my ideal phone might be a Palm Pre that ran the iPhone OS. Also, the one thing that almost nobody remembers about on-screen keyboards is that they take up space; the iPhone will never be a top-notch pocketable word processor, because you can only see a little bit of your document as you type. Phones with physical keyboards can devote all their pixels to information rather than virtual keys.

Boy Genius says they like the Droid’s keyboard, and while it’s impossible to judge a tiny keyboard based on a photo alone, there’s nothing about the first views of the Droid’s keyboard that’s alarming. It could be good…

Verizon Wireless, which recently announced it was hopping on the Android smartphone OS bandwagon big time, has started whetting our appetite for its first Android phone. It’s launched a TV ad for the phone, the Droid, and a teaser site. And so far, it’s mostly promoting the phone by bashing the iPhone, with pseudo-Apple text pointing out that “iDont” have a physical keyboard, (third-party) multitasking, a five-megapixel camera, much in the way of customization options, widgets, “open development,” the ability to take photos in the dark, or a removable battery. The Droid (whose name is licensed from Mr. Lucas) presumably has all of the above.

It’s an entertainingly combative ad, and a pretty effective one given that it doesn’t even show the phone (which apparently looks like this). Of course, the fact that the Droid beats the iPhone on a number of spec- and feature-related fronts doesn’t make it a breakthrough. It’s quite common for smartphones to theoretically trump the iPhone in multiple ways, but the iPhone’s level of hardware/software/service integration and the vast quantity of available apps remain unique. No other phone is going to catch up with the iPhone’s software catalog anytime soon, so if I were an Apple competitor, I’d concentrate on trying to vaunt into the same league in terms of integration. Not that that’ll be easy. The Droid arrives next month, so we won’t have to wait long to judge it.

The other interesting question about the Droid commercial is this: Does all its cheeky iPhone-bashing signal that Verizon has no plans to sell the iPhone anytime soon? It not only mocks the phone but mocks Apple in a way that suggests that it doesn’t plan to go into business with it, despite rumors. I took the implied message of the ad as being something like this: “Yes, we know that a lot of people want a Verizon iPhone, but hold on–we’re going to have a smartphone that’s better than an iPhone.”

(Then again, I’m fascinated by this Verizon ad that says a non-Verizon BlackBerry is a paperweight–it might be an effective ad, but it seems like an odd thing to do to BlackBerry maker and Verizon partner RIM.)

Anyhow, here’s the “iDon’t” ad: