Poll: Will the DROID have you in its clutches?
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Nov 6th 2009 10:26AM
posted Nov 6th 2009 10:26AM
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These aren't the droids you're looking for.
[after GMane said that with a small wave of his hand]
Appletrooper: These aren't the droids we're looking for.
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.
BREAKING NEWS: 65,000,000 million iPhones have been crushed and recycled by the Droid Army to produce new Droids.
***plays Imperial Theme **** (that is gonna be my ringtone when I get my Droid)
wow, 13th post about DROID in 2 days !! whats going on ? Is it 'that' important ?
I thought the ugly square boxey looking droid over there was the new Droid we are hearing so much about. Sure is UGLY and BOXEY and the keyboard is weird. I think I will stick with the rounded modern looking one that looks like a fruit.
Dude, you've been eating some freaky fruit!
just got back from BB and I am very happy with my Droid. Granted this is my first smartphone, but I find the keyboard to be just fine. The Navigation software is amazing and very responsive even with GPS turned off.
My camera did not suffer from the clicking auto-focus fault found in many of the units. I am very happy with my purchase, now I just need to learn the ins and outs of Android
This is definitely the droid that I am looking for. I get a new phone every year though so my love affairs are short and sweet. But I've been gawking over this phone so badly lately that I've e-mailed my Verizon rep 3 times today to make sure that my address is right or about the shipping method because I'm so excited to get it. ....yes.... I think I may have a problem
@Danthok -- how is the Navigation software AT ALL responsive with GPS turned off?
So this sucks, I finally get an iPhone to join the elite engadget "cool" crew, and now you guys are tooting the Droid's horn?
Just making it difficult, eh?
@tikiteko: let's be fair, the iPhones weren't necessarily crushed (though they may indeed very well be), the calls just dropped.
These Droid smartphones are made by Motorola, the industry leader in failureship. From the early short lines you can see that there will be no turnout to buy these less than average smartphones. The Motorola brand name was destroyed long ago. The ROKR was the final nail in the coffin. Motorola is run by incompetent crooks who've practically destroyed the company over the past few years. They introduce this barely average smartphone and the tech heads are thinking it's some sort of savior phone for Motorola like the Pre was for Palm. The Droid may sell a bit better than the Pre, but in the end it will be a dismal failure just like everything else Motorola has done in the past five years. Verizon will only end up losing more customers to AT&T.
Cool prediction, bro!
I chose: Nice phone, can I get it on an affordable carrier?
@nerdtalker . The Droid is the new it gadget, all the fan girls will be jumping ship. Thats why I wont be.
how is selling a bit more than the palm pre a dismal failure?
1. you're an idiot
2. this thing is way better than average. Father OMAP can you read you that bedtime story
3. Moto SUCKS..... until now. For Christ's sake, give a company the chance to reinvent themselves. Apple had tough times but then they did the ipod and revamped their computer lines. You've got to have some faith and let them do their thing.
I hated moto until this phone. Capac screen, high res, android 2. Dude this phone is high end and well built whether you like it or not
Try one in the hand. Feels Solid as hell
@Banksta3
Do you WORK for Sprint? Seriously, who has allegiance to carriers? We're all supposed to hate them for charging us a ton of money but secretly love their service. And Verizon has better coverage anyway, admit it. So you're not paying for nothing.
Fan girls huh? Stick with your principles, I'm sticking with the actual phone that's right for me (Droid). I'd even get an iphone if it were right phone for me despite all the iTrolls. Get what you want no matter who else is getting it. What are you a freshman in high school?... who has a part time job at Sprint? ; )
I just got back from BEST BUY, they anticipated a big surge for this phone, so they had a sign up list for people to sign up to see the great DROID. They only had 8 people sign up on the list and they have not sold even one as of noon today, so far none of the 8 have shown up. It doesn't help that they don't even have a functioning demo unit on hand, just a dummy phone with a sticker for a screen. They told me they had 30 units to sell but haven't sold any yet. There was no one else in the store to see the phone while I was there looking at the fake phone with a sticker on it. The slide out keyboard is of poor quality, this thing is going to flop after the big excitement surge from the geeks is over.
'We're all supposed to hate them for charging us a ton of money but secretly love their service'
But that's just it. Sprint isn't charging me a ton of money. Forgive me for wanting to spread the news. I guess trying to help people out died in 32 A.D.
32 AD? Verizon probably had more coverage then than Sprint does now.
What's a Droid?
In before the first @$$hole drops an "iPhone" comparison!
Is this like the new "First"??
You're the first person to bring it up darshnoggin
Yes, it is. The "first" posters have finally grown up and gone on to a slightly more intelligent but still moronic meme without adding any extra information to a thread.
Thank god! I hate it when websites about tech compare new tech products to other ones.
Tool
I always love how people say that shit when they're making the comment. You're in before you brought it up? Good job buddy, your cookie is waiting for you.
I see the Droid does not have a front camera, like my HTC Magic. Can it make video calls? Also, have they fixed the Bluetooth to allow other profiles besides headset/A2DP? Looks like it still only has 512 MB to install applications.
Count me down for, "No, there's another phone I'm waiting for..."
Yeah give me a HTC HD2(WinMo)/Dragon(Driod) option.
I guess I'm waiting for an Android 2.0 on AT&T since i took a verizon phone home and the service wasn't good at my house.. i have all 5 bars 3G H on ATT.. :( only had 1 EV bar and 2 1X bars on verizon phone
Oh yeah, baby, the Droid is sweet and all that jazz but the HD2 is a superior device I think.
Yeah, that seems like an important option that they omitted. Pretty much every Engadget poll is missing the one option that it really needs.
ahhhhhhhh! that's EXACTLY what i was thinking! where was that option engadget???
This clearly shows that Engadget has a DROID bias! There was no option about whether you were waiting on another device. Engadget just wanted to scew the results in favor of DROID. end sarcasm
I do think the DROID coverage is a bit out of hand though. The DROID is not that revolutionary. Realistically what does it do that competing phones don't? It is just another Android based handset, only impressively slim with a full slider keyboard, but then again the LG Monaco that is rumored to be released on AT&T this month has the same dimensions and gets barely a peep. Furthermore it is CDMA, and tied to a less than open carrier. Android appeals largely to the open source crowd, and Verizon is the poster child for a controlling closed environment. Remember when they used to disable the ability to transfer ringtones using Bluetooth or USB on every phone so that you would have to buy them? Now they are just continuing that with the nickel and dime for tethering and Exchange syncing. CDMA is not flexible and doesn't allow you to just unlock a phone and pop in a SIM when you want to switch things up a bit and change phone numbers and carriers.
So what I don't understand is why all the folks that love Android for being open source, are fawning over a device that is far less flexible than the alternatives.
Perhaps it is just that the iPhone fad has finally worn thin and people are desperately grasping for a new phone that will make them cool again.
@ Ryujin: I'm kind of in the same boat. The Droid is interesting, but with the larger screens, I don't feel the NEED for a keyboard anymore.
The two biggest drawback to the Droid for me are the lack of xda-developers.com support, and the lack of TouchFLO/Sense, which from my experience is the best mobile GUI I've ever used, bar none. That's why although the Droid is compelling, the HD2 and the Dragon are slightly higher on my list (if they ever make it to Canada). I imagine that Android Sense ROMs might appear for the Droid though, so that would take some of the sting out.
PS: rumour has it Droid will be coming to Telus in Q1. I'm off contract at the end of March, so I'm gonna weigh my options until then.
Yeah, I just don't want to go back to Verizon. Aside from personal reasons (I used to work for them, got charged an ETF on my employee plan when I quit), I just don't like their pricing model. $60 for data w/ tethering? $15 for Exchange support? I'm on Sprint now, and unlimited EVERYTHING is $100, and the data connection in California on Sprint is solid everywhere I go.
Count me in for that option and/or the option that says "I don't actually live in america (or anywhere droid has been announced for release) so am waiting for another phone"
Wow, that DROID give me a chubby. ugggh
Excellent, Ted.
The DROID is a nice phone and Verizon's campaign is on target, however I don't see myself dropping my Pre or Sprint for that matter any time soon to get back with Verizon. Had them for six months and while their service was the best I have experienced, I can't justify the $120 I was paying for just 450 minutes, unlimited data and email (Blackberry) and a tethering option and only 250 txt a month to non Verizon users.
At $84 a month I get unlimited everything except calls to landlines. DROID is nice and all but Verizon needs to lower their prices. They have the best customer service and network coverage I have experienced, but that doesn't justify the outrageous prices they like to charge.
You missed a perfect opportunity to have a poll option be "These aren't the DROIDs I'm looking for".
GOOD CALL SIR!
I'm glad they did miss it. No one else is.
HD2 will be my next phone, this doesnt even come close.
ditto
I'm debating. I'm not totally happy with my Touch Pro these days, but I can never ever buy any device without using it in a store first, so I'll see what using one is like before I buy it.
Have you tried any Android ROMs on the Touch Pro? They're out there (xda-devs), and they don't overwrite your existing OS, so you can give Android a spin. An Android ROM with Sense is a nice thing, even on a sluggish old 400MHz QVGA phone (though battery life sux).
It should run great on a Touch Pro.
That being said, yeah, the HD2 is the phone to beat right now.
You should try the Touch Pro 2 and flash it with MightyMike's Rhodium MightyROM WinMo 6.5. it's fast, stable, and has all the flash of the stock UI with WinMo 6.5 there if you want it. It's very slick.
Whomever answers: "What's DROID?" has been living a rock under the past 20 years.
I mean..... if you don't know the phone at least your know R2D2 !!!!
R2-D2* Rock Boy.
No thanks. I prefer Linux phones that don't have restrictions like Android.
Although my next internet tablet will probably be running Android since it doesn't matter much on an entertainment toy.
Andriod IS a linux phone. And what restrictions are you talking about, its mostly open source.
So.... you are using an openMoko? or...???
i'm tired of people trying to sound cool by using inferior products for philosophical reasons that they don't truly care about, but want other people to think that they actually do care about.
You must be talking about the Nokia N900, too bad you're going to have to import it if you're in the US.
Brendon, I guess you're right in saying that freedom is a philosophical idea no one cares about. maybe next time, we should just let the communists win.
So i already got this thing and sold my iPhone yesterday for it. All it dose is keep restarting and keep restarting, it dose not make it to the home screen. i have heard that damn "DROID" noise like 50 times in a half hour... obviously im going back to get it switched and im still going to give this phone a shot but i am very frustrated with this damn thing
If it was on Sprint and it wasn't a slider I'd be all over it.
But it's not, and it is, so stay off of it.
Am I the only one who thinks that is a fairly ugly phone? Mainly due to the keyboard, that directional button (complete with hideous gold effect) looks like it would be more at home on some 20 year old device...
Go by a pretty phone then and be happy. Apple has caused too many people to care what the phone looks like instead of what it actually can do.
This phone has an "industrial loft" coolness to it.
No, you're not the only one. Why can't it function well AND look nice. That's why I'm hoping vzw gets the HD2 or something very similar in the next 5 months.
Don't get me wrong I'm sure it is an amazing phone, I just like stuff looking nice as well as performing well (as daaper says, these two things are not mutually exclusive).
And while Apple claim to have invented many things, I highly doubt good design was one of them.
i agree with you completely. i hate how the droid looks. however the droid eris look amazing. ya'll all may call me a noob for wanting the "less beast" phone, but it looks amaing. I would love to have the insides of the droid and put them in the eris body. i hate the physical keyboard on the driod, one bc it doesnt look good. and two those buttons are too small for my huge fingers. my fingers work perfectly on an iphone or an itouch and im assuming that the eris will have roughly the same size buttons. might ask why this is, well it's be i dont have to put any pressure on the capacitive touchscreens so i can hit a smaller area, if it is resistive/mechanical then i have to push harder, which means i'll be pushing over a slightly larger area. I'm having this problem right now with the samsung eternity.
i'm also not a fan of slider phones. give me bricks! they can easily be designed to be more rugged.
hm, maybe i'm in the minority. other than the gold accents (should have been chrome, or a very deep red would have been cool), i actually think the droid is a very good looking phone.
The Droid phones have some impressive features and software, but it's still an ugly looking phone. They could have rounded the edges or something to make it more attractive. It's just a square! I'd still get one because I'm a technogeek but they're not going to sway a lot of nontech folks with this.
Geometry major? lol @ square, must be a Crapple user.
@traceroute: Buddy, geometry is not a major...
@David, Google "Geometry Major", and have a gander. It most certainly is. wtf?
A: What's 2 square?
B: I don't know.... what's height?
UGLY is only half of it. The keyboard is TERRIBLE. It will be worthless on the internet without multi touch and did I mention it's UGLY. And it's not fruity so it isn't sweet and cool.
We should believe this guy. After all, he DID do a review of the phone entirely, right?
.....
I agree I think its ugly, I'd rather have a G1 than this thing of all the recent Android handsets, i think this is the worse Android phone on the market compare with the Hero or Eris or Pulse or MyTouch...and once Sony's latest incarantion is released in Q1 this will be nothing more than a sad relic and about what you'd expect from Moto these days
I will wait for the GSM version to arrive somewhere...
Europe?
Seriously though... the days of getting the same phone on multiple networks seem to be over. Even today... AT&T got the Bold 9000, Verizon got the Tour, Sprint is *still* the only place to get a Palm Pre, etc... I think the Blackberry 8300 series was the last phone to be on *every* carrier in both GSM and CDMA flavors...
Carrier/manufacturer politics are more important than the consumers.
There's always a new phone "just around the corner" but with 4 major carriers in the US... your chances of getting it on *your* carrier are slim. You'll have to switch carriers to get the phone you want.
I am waiting to switch at the end of the month partly b/c I'm tired of Sprint's lackluster coverage (complete lack of coverage at my house, most notably) and also because I want this phone.
If Sprint had it I'd consider sticking around though.
Already on order for two for our IT department to test out... just hate that the multimedia dock is not yet available at the online store!
DROID DOES pay people to give a shi* about this thing?
Its fugly...and on Verizon (which is a waste)...so no I will not be getting one. I will just enjoy the Samsung Moment with 1.5 until 2.0 is ready.
So you got a lesser phone on a lesser network and think you got a better deal? I do not understand.
Actually I sort of agree.. Though I don't care about the look of the phone, the moment is probably the second best android phone out (in terms of specs) and it has a MUCH better keyboard than the DROID. Not to mention I prefer sprint to verizon for the prices.
I'm waiting for my next pay check.....
If you're living check to check I don't think a new phone should be at the top of your list of priorities...
Sure. Tell that to an urbanite iPhone owner.
No, I'm not living paycheck to paycheck. Just have everything already budgeted this month.
I'm holding out for the Dell X-Wing 3i
I've been an Android supporter since before the G1 came out, and I think all of the devices so far have been better than the iPhone and Pre. Where's the Poll option for me?
Your poll is over there right next to the official waiting line for DROID. Follow the sound of the crickets...
Thanks for the directions.
I have 8 months left on my contract with Sprint...I'll just get whatever is best when that's up.
If I were off-contract right now, I'd definitely be getting a DROID.
It doesn't cost that much to ETF it. Probably like $80 or so. If you get the Droid from Sears for $150, the total cost is about $230.
Of course, the real cost is in Verizons overpriced plans.
If it was on a network that let you have data access while on a call, sure. But since it's Verizon.... pass.
As opposed to a network so clogged the calls keep dropping? Pass.
Just ordered it!
Paid $284.59 including tax after corporate discount and ONE year contract. ($230 for 1 year contract after discount plus CA tax $54)
I got basic plan = $31.99 and Email and Web for Smartphone = $23.99 = $55.98/month
I think there will be around $10/month tax, but overall I think it's quite cheap device for what it's capable of.
and I'll get the best phone available on whatever network it's on after one year.
Well played, you'll have the hottest phone on the market, at an affordable cost, PLUS the one year contract is mint!!!
No text/mms?
@htowngator,
If I need alot of SMS to my cellphone number, I think I can add $5/month for 250SMS feature later. But I'll try to use Google Voice for SMS feature. Since GV will send me an email every time I get SMS to that number, I won't have problem instantly checking and replying SMSes. I'm hoping Android 2.0 has nice GV integration software.
Great idea: 2 questions. Online the most basic plan is 39.99 so how did you get 31.99? Also, can you send an SMS through google voice as well as receive them? I just got google voice and really haven't used it yet.