Well, one of our account managers just got his Droid and I have trying it for 5 minutes or so.

It is bigger than I thought, the keyboard is weird but I think I can get used to it. Android is weird as well, but I see options and customizations everywhere, which I like.

It is not perfect, I think it is too thick, the D-Pad is meh, no frontal camera, etc. But I would get it cheap due to the carrier subsidizing my employer (I will only pay out of my pocket the initial $100, the monthly fee is absorbed by my company); and I get support as well, so I think I will hop onboard.

I guess Tomi Ahonen was right about devices being available through carriers influence decisions a lot. I was completely decided about waiting for year's end to see Nokia's offerings; then I would ask someone travelling abroad (or myself if I go to EU next year); and to absorb the cost of buying it unlocked.

But the Moto Droid is $100, it is modern enough and will get Froyo.

Moto Droid has similar hardware to n900, camera is worse and has no storage. So, all in all, it comes down to android vs meego. Both have strong and weak points. But Droid for a 100e, it certainly is a no brainer. It's just too good to pass, so go for it. Otherwise I'd suggest to wait and see what the n9 will be like.

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

I don't own a Droid, but the person I most frequently speak to on the phone does. We're both long time Verizon customers, we both don't have land-line phones, and we both have lived in our same locations for the last few years. I've been happily using a Motorola RAZR for the past 3+ years, and until he got his Droid a few months ago, my conversations with him have been as clear as you would expect from any phone.

I'm not sure what cheapo cell he was using before, but since he's been using the Droid, the quality of his audio on my end has been abysmal. I have to constantly ask him to repeat stuff, and I constantly mention to him that his audio sounds garbled. He laughs and makes some adjustment (I'm not sure what he does; I'll ask him when he gets back from vacation). Things sound just okay after that, but slowly it reverts back to poor. I've been in his presence when he's talking on this phone, and I've witnessed nothing unusual about his usage. Maybe it's the mic location? Who knows, but it's very uncool.

Anyway, he likes the device (so do I), but he continually says it's not a good phone. I believe him.

I too am looking at Verizon's next Droid offerings, but I'm not sure my RAZR can be replaced if this poor sound quality persists.

From what I can tell, the hardware keyboard of the Milestone sucks, though it looks pretty nice on the first look: four rows and rather large keys. Yet typing of it felt kind of awkward everytime I tried this device out. Maybe it gets better once you are using it on a daily basis.

On another note: I don't know if I misread or not, but the Milestone 2 should be out in a couple of weeks. At least from the photos I've seen yet, the keyboard got a better shape and appears to be more user friendly.

actually preferred the Droid keyboard

Talking about the Droid - it is worth jumping for the new Droid X even though its got no keyboard - but the screen is great and nice and big (like the EVO) ?

Why get a Motorola Droid, while you can dual boot N900 with Maemo 5 and Android together ?

http://www.nitdroid.com/index.php?title=N900

Ah yes! I forgot about that--the Motorola Droid ships with a crappy vocode (vocal codec). I HATED the call quality when I first got it.. but there's a quick and easy fix for that. They ship it with a mediocre quality protocol to give the device a longer battery life during calls.. but I don't stay on the phone for hours, so it's kinda dumb for me.

Let him know he can fix it by doing this (also works on other phones I tried this on, too--although the resulting menu options are different):

Go to the phone dialer, enter ##PROGRAM (##7764726), hit DIAL and it'll ask you to "Enter SPC password". Just enter six zeros (000000) and tap "Verify". VOILA! The cellular radio's set-up menu! This menu is where things might differ on different Android phones. Anyway, on the Motorola Droid, choose menu option "04 Vocode". You have the option of 13K, EVRC and EVRC-B. It'll default to EVRC (medium battery life, medium-quality). Just change it to EVRC-B (lower battery life, highest quality). Hit Apply and hit the arrow BACK key to close it out. Done! From then on out, the calls should sound far better. I don't think you need to reboot the phone.

To summarize:
##PROGRAM
000000
04 Vocode
EVRC-B

There's a lot of other options in the cellular menu--I highly recommend they're not touched, just in case, but the whole cellular phone portion of the device is laid bare for you there.

I hope that comes in handy for that person you talk to.. and for mrojas and his boss.


Because Android isn't really supported on it? No Android Market,no Google apps, etc. (Good luck with getting Froyo or getting support for most apps to look/work right.) Last I checked, hardware wasn't all supported either.