Well, I’ve finally done it. I’m in process of switching everyone at Stonetree from an “all  AT&T/iPhone” based company into a “embracing the new Samsung Fascinate” Android based company.  My reasoning? First, and foremost… cost.  It seems that the folks at AT&T are really proud of their service… if that’s what you call it.

…and second, my personal experience has been that the iPhone 4 is more of an iPod touch that comes with a phone App that “sometimes” makes phone calls… with no guarantee as to who will actually end the call… the caller or AT&T.  I actually do love the iPhone 4 iOS… and the Retina Display is, IMHO, second to none, including a comparison to the new AMOLED screens of the Samsung Fascinate devices we just purchased…

I’m really not sure I have the time to learn a new interface right now… however, I’m excited to realize the benefit of being able to make, hold, and manually terminate my own phone calls without random help from my wireless provider. I’m anxious to see how the switchover goes and will keep everyone updated on any “bumps in the road” I experience… I expect that there may be a few…

Recently I have been carrying around two phones. As most of you know, once you marry a cell phone carrier it is like trying to divorce a celebrity, messy, costly, and you have no rights. I was elated when I was given a shiny new iPhone from work, but that did not mean that I was off the hook with Verizon, no sir. After a while I got an offer I could not refuse and I purchased an HTC ERIS phone on the Verizon Network.

Background

Droid software is not limited to one phone like Blackberry is to RIM or Apple is to iPhone. Google quietly released its operating system on HTC phones on the T-Mobile network about two years ago, with almost nobody noticing. Fast forward two years and a huge marketing campaign by Motorola, and droid is now a household name. Soon you will be able to carry a droid programmed phone on any network you wish, eliminating the need to switch networks if you want a smooth smart-phone.

Review – Features

The Droid has a pleasing touchscreen, keyboard, and eraser head compatible interface with motions that mimic Apple’s iPhone, which, for anyone who has ever had an iPhone will attest, is not a bad thing. Droid eliminates the need to learn to use the touchscreen, if you dont like it, buy a phone with a full keyboard. The HTC ERIS has is touchscreen only and it’s accuracy is about on par with Apple’s iPhone and far and away better than anything Blackberry or Microsoft has ever produced.

Email content is delivered via standard POP and IMAP connectors with quick set-up available for Microsoft’s Exchange server and Google’s own gmail platform. Quick shortcut menus allow you to divide all your email accounts in one area so you can pick which e-mail account you want to access from the home screen. Generally I found email to be very reliable, only having to reboot a handful of times when the sync failed for no apparent reason. Emails are easy to read and it underline addresses and phone numbers for quick use, similar to Blackberries.

The browser is the most fully featured mobile browser I have seen. It supports flash smoothly and loads most web-pages as if you were sitting at your computer, forgoing the stripped down “mobile” sites designed for first generation smart-phones. One small widget in the browser automatically senses your location (via cell towers or GPS) and delivers Google search results with local hits first. This was a feature I didn’t know I needed until I had it.

Phone call quality on the HTC (and the Moto Droid, which a friend let me review) was fine to superior. It functioned just fine as a phone and has not yet run into some of the smart-phone bugs I have become used to. For example, the iPhone will often be unable to complete a phone call; I had a Moto-Q running Windows that quite literally would refuse to hang up, making me pull the battery out just to terminate a call. I tried several bluetooth headsets and was able to connect each with no problem.

Apps are delivered via the Google Marketplace which is a gem in the rough for the droid operating system. Almost every conceivable iPhone app has a droid equivalent. Many apps that have been mysteriously purged from Apple’s app store are still available for the droid. Downloading and installing is easy and you are informed of updated via a notification icon, which you can ignore by clearing your notification window. Droid OS 1.6 and higher support Google’s turn by turn GPS which has been 100% accurate in my tests and on occasion even gives me a Google street-view image of my final destination, to make sure I arrived at the proper destination.

The batter life is average to sub-par. I can normally get a whole day out of one charge but if I had a long conversation during the day I find myself frantically looking for my car charger by late afternoon. The Motorola Droid gets better battery life than my HTC, and Samsung claims to have superior battery life on their models. The battery in the HTC and the Motorola is removable, in case you want to carry around a spare.

The HTC ERIS and the Motorola Droid sport a 5 megapixel camera. The HTC does not have flash but the Motorola does. The camera auto focuses and takes surprisingly good photos in automatic mode. Dig in the menu a little bit and you are greeted with things you expect in a real camera, zoom,white balance, focus priority, JPEG quality, and shutter and aperture settings. This phone has completely replaced my iPhone as a mobile camera.

Media is handled differently than in the iPhone. Plug your Droid in and install the appropriate software, your phone will notify you that you need to “mount” the flash drive. Once you agree to that you can copy your mp3 collection to the aptly named “music” folder. The droid will recognize playlists made in Windows Media Player or iTunes and automatically load them into the “playlists” option of the media player.

All droid phones support tethering. I downloaded a free app which successfully tethered my computer to Verizon’s 3G network when I was “in between” internet service providers. Nothing more needs to be said about that.

The Idiosyncracies

Like a lot of Google products, they are brilliant but flawed. The interface can become slow and will sometimes simply not do what you commanded. The touchscreen may need to be calibrated for accurate typing, and I have noticed people who have trouble seeing close up have a doubly difficult time navigating the touch screen. For some reason the email interface in the corporate email (powered my Microsoft’s Active-Sync) is slightly different than the gmail interface, which can be confusing. This is unlike the iPhone which serves a uniform interface no matter the e-mail account. While its nice to have multi-tasking, some software simply does not know when to quit, running the background until the phone is rebooted, no doubt this has a negative impact on battery performance. You can tell Google is run by geeks-at-heart, only they would think that “mounting” the flash drive so your computer can access the file system is a self explanatory process. They should have spent a couple of more minutes in making that automatic.

Pros

- Nice interface

- Good browser

- Business features (Microsoft Exchange, VPN)

- Multi-network

- Google voice integrated

- Best camera on a phone that I have seen

- TETHERING!

- Cool turn by turn navigation

Cons

- Battery life is rubbish

- Interface can slow and stop completely

- Some menus are not very intuitive

- Extra fee for data (Verizon, ATT, and T-Mobile)

- Some phones are not sexy at all

- Screen not as large and bright as iPhone

Verdict

The droid operating system is a viable business and personal platform and is a must consider if you are planning on upgrading your smartphone. Its multi-network capability will remove any need to change networks, and its business features (Active-Sync, mobile VPN) are becoming de facto standards for business phones. It automatically syncs to facebook and twitter, making it friendly to the young and socially active.

In case you were wondering, the Motorola droid has been overwhelmingly popular, outselling the iPhone in the first ninety days on sale by a wide margin. This insures that this platform will remain relevant for at least the life of any phone with this software loaded on it.