My Motorola Droid Experience

So you might have seen my last post about my major need for a new phone.  Contrary to what I thought earlier I’ve actually had my current phone for over 5 years.  This weekend I retired my old LG flip phone and finally bit the bullet on a $30 per month data plan and bought the Motorola Droid.  I’m impressed with the lifespan of my old phone, but it got to the point where it was a joke to take it out of my pocket and show my smartphone-toting friends.  Now I have the Droid, and although I still have a lot to learn on how to actually use it, I’m really happy with it so far.  Here is my take on the phone after my first week with it.

Pros:

Google Navigation – This app is freakin’ awesome…there’s no other way to put it.  I can activate the voice search and simply say the address of where I want to go and it automatically calculates my route.  If it doesn’t recognize it exactly (which it usually does) then it brings up search results of what I said for me to choose from. **  The layers feature on the map is also amazing.  I can overlay traffic data for my route and it will show me what parts along the way will have congested traffic.  If I have too much red (high traffic) in my route I can have it suggest an alternate route for me with better traffic.  The satellite view is insanely detailed, and I prefer to use that as the default view when I’m driving just because it looks really cool.  I can see what the land looks like around me, which was helpful this weekend when I was looking for a tennis court and I could see on the map exactly where it was located within the apartment complex.  I’ve also used the “Suggest Alternate Route” feature that worked flawlessly and got me to my destination 10-15 minutes faster than I would have been able to because of traffic.  The traffic data is not always 100% accurate.  For example, the phone told me a 3 mile trip was going to take 26 minutes because the traffic was so heavy.  It really only took me about 7 minutes and traffic was not a problem.  My guess is that the traffic would have been pretty bad in that same area during rush hour, but my trip was at about 6:45 so the actual traffic had subsided and the map was not updated as fast.

**One slight problem I ran into was that you need to say “Navigate to” before the address or point of interest that you’re trying to get to.  If I was searching for an address it would sometimes bring up “Navigate 244 W Main St.” instead of “Navigate to 44 W Main St.”  I’ve also had one instance of GPS signal being lost when I was about 2 minutes from my destination.  The problem was that I still had about 2 turns left and it was a place that I had never been before so it was a struggle to figure out what I was doing.  I was close enough so it worked out, but I hope that doesn’t become a common occurence.

Multi-Tasking – I love being able to listen to music or a podcast and then see the notification that I got a new email which I can simply pull down and read the email while my music plays seamlessly in the background.  That’s the type of functionality that I’ve come to expect in any computer so it seems weird to me that the iPhone can’t do that.  I can also make a phone call and talk on speaker phone while my navigation still takes me to my destination.  I can’t browse the web or check email while on the phone, but the fact that the Navigation still works is awesome because that is the only application that I think would be a major nuisance if it didn’t work.

Android Apps – I’ve downloaded quite a few apps for my phone so far, and overall I’ve been extremely happy with the quality of applications.  There have been a few glitches (most of them I think are due to the upgrade to Android 2.0) but I’m sure they will be worked out soon.  A few of my favorite Android apps…

Sports Tap

I have this constantly running so I can get score updates on all of the major professional and college games.  The app is fast, gives real time updates, and comes with a outstanding interface to view all games on a given night.  I can easily view detailed stats such as player scoring, and even see current drive info for football games.  The only thing I’d like to see is further detail in the college baskebtall stats.  I can see all the game scores updates in real time, but it’s hit or miss on actual player stats for those games.

Locale

This app lets me customize my phone settings based on where I am, what’s on my calendar, or what time it is.  I’ve used it for location only so far, and the GPS signal has mixed results.  It doesn’t always find where I am, but updates have been coming.  It has been able to detect when I’m at work and as soon as I pull into the parking lot of the office my phone automatically goes to vibrate, and notification vibrates are turned off because I don’t need my phone to tell me I have a new email when I’m sitting in front of my computer and it’s already popping up there.  At home I have it set to automatically turn Wi-Fi on so I can connect to my home network.

Feedr

Great for all of the blogs that I read on a regular basis.  They are frequently updated and presented in an easy to read and scroll format.  This is the only app that I’ve paid for so far and it was $0.99 so it wasn’t too bad.  It’s been a worthwhile purchase because I’m often in this app to catch up on anything I’ve missed on the web.  This app is quickly becoming my replacement for ever reading blogs on my laptop.  I used to spend a lot of time going through blog articles, but now I can just use this app when I have a couple minutes of downtime and I never have to spend part of my evenings on my laptop reading blogs

CardioTrainer

I haven’t gotten a chance to test this out a whole let yet, but I like the fact that it is both GPS and pedometer enabled to get the most accurate distance measurements of my runs.  Plus it can play songs from my music library when I run.  The voice feedback on how long or far I’ve gone is a great feature, and I haven’t tried it yet, but the ability to race against yourself from past runs is a nice addition to the premium, paid version.  It syncs all your data to the website where you can see detailed reports of all your runs.

Qik

I haven’t used this yet, but I’ve tested it and it works really well.  I can stream live video to the Internet and anyone has the ability to log in and watch.  There are tons of potential uses for this so I hope I get the opportunity soon.  If I’m at an event and want to show my family what’s going on, I can launch this app and stream DVD quality video onto the Qik website for them to watch.

USA Today

Although it’s not my favorite news source the USA Today app has become my default app for breaking news and weather simply becasue the interface is better than anything else that I’ve found so far.  It’s very easy to use and there’s a ton of information available in a nice format.

ActionComplete

This is a great GTD style to-do list with projects, notifications and due dates.  I haven’t used it a whole lot yet, but it’s great for reminders.

Gmail, Exchange, Facebook, Calendars – I’ve synced all my major accounts to my phone without any problems.  My email pops up in the notification panel as soon as I get one, and I can easily read it, move it to a folder, delete, or reply.  Absolutely great experience with notifications coming in any kind of form – sound or vibrate – and this is one of the features I use most often on the phone.

Cons:

Media Player

Like most reviews mentioned the media player is just average.  It works just fine, but there’s a lot that could be improved.  I can’t complain too much though because the sound quality on the music is great and it sorts by song, artist, or album.  Videos are somewhat of a hassle because it doesn’t support all file formats like MP4, but a third party video player app worked great for this so I’m able to watch most of my videos.

Camera

The camcorder works wonderfully, but the camera is slightly less than stellar.  I guess I was expecting pictures of the same quality as my regular digital camera.  With 5 Megapixels I thought it would be nearly on par with some of the 7MP – 10MP cameras that I’m used to.  The images tend to turn out grainy and with weird lighting.  It works, but the quality could definitely be improved.  Plus there is a long pause between pressing the button and when the picture actually takes.  Then you have to wait a few more seconds while it processes before you take another one.  Hopefully this can be updated through a software release or third party apps, but right now I won’t be using the camera a whole lot.  I do like the social functionality in the camera application that lets me easily share a picture to Facebook, Twitter, Email, or SMS right after I take the picture.

Overall the Droid has exceeded my expectations and truly an exceptional device.  The GPS functionality has made my life easier on several occasions through the course of one week, and my phone has become a major source of information consumption during my commute and during down time throughout the day.  I’m able to be more productive and that is why I’m extremely happy with my Droid!