By We’ve gotta give our props to Boy Genius Report – they’ve had a Motorola Droid for the past couple weeks and let me tell ya, they’ve been milkin’ it for all they can. Lots of little posts have finally culminated in this – the Motorola Droid Preview. He offers a DISCLAIMER: this is PROTOTYPE hardware and things have inevitably been improved in the final edition.
That being said, hit up BGR for the full preview while we provide our summarized/bulleted overview below:
- Specs are pretty sick… or as BGR puts it… “jesus”
- Solid, Metal, Heavy feel
- Sliding keyboard satisfyingly “clicks” into place
- Screen = amazing. Best on market.
- Keyboard = average yet better than G1. But with a phone so thin… there had to be compromises somewhere
- Call quality = great
- Android 2.0? Love it.
- Battery life? Best of all Android phones.
Check out a video of a clock/in-car accessory coming with the Droid:
Conclusion:
It will eat in to BlackBerry sales, Windows Mobile sales, and positively murder any lingering Palm Pre sales. It’s that good. Did you notice how Verizon still hasn’t announced the BlackBerry Storm2? Plenty of room for the iPhone and Android to both eat.
The Droid Delivers.
“Spes”? Specs?
beautiful.. now the final question, how much$?
Yeah, I’d like to know how much economic damage this is going to do to my bank account as well.
Having been with Verizon for 8 years, they’ll milk this BIG time. I’m guessing $299 with a 2 year contract.
I HATE the gold… What in the world were they thinkin’?
600
Yeah, I remeber reading 600-ish somewhere. Obviously not sure if the source was reliable.
This will mean a more expensive plan for me. That’s basically how it works here. You can get any phone for free as long as the plan is big enough.
I think this will be about a 2 year plan for €35 a month.
Any chance this will end up on Sprint?
The 600ish price was the retail without subsidy. Expect a lower price with 2 year contract. I just can’t see Verizon charging more than the iPhone for this. With a marketing campaign directly targeting the iPhone charging more makes no sense. I almost expect them to charge less even by $20 or so just to loss lead and draw people back to Verizon.
Hopefully Verizon realizes the Droid would do extremely well if they price it at the $199 mark. I’m also hoping Verizon updates their voice and data plans to match what other carriers are doing but I know that is a stretch.
i will pay 399 and not complain. advertised as iphone competition or not, i honestly dont care if its more money
just check out their rate plans a bit.
looks like i’ll be sticking with my g-1 and t-mo and patiently waiting for a UMA android.
for 4 lines, myfaves, hotspot@home, tmobile@home, and g-1 data i’m paying 150 a month.
for verizon it looks like around 220+ a month.
Before we get into another Snapdragon/OMAP discussion read this:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/1303666.html
I dont remember the engadget link
It seems anyone that’s had hands-on time with this thing keeps avoiding the two elephants in the room:
– Does Android 2.0 allow apps to be stored and run on the SD card?
– Does Android 2.0 fully support multitouch (and no I don’t mean just in the browser)?
Rob please get us some answers!
Full page ad in the San Diego Union Tribune newspaper this morning says 11-06-09. No word on price? I’ve been hounding my business rep since July and cant get any info out of her, she claims she has no information.
This device is launching at $199.99 for VZW and will include a $100.00 mail in rebate. Take it for what it is worth…you will see soon :)
I’m still trying to understand this IPhone obsession. Not an IPhone competitor? Does he mean in terms of functionality or just being able to outsell it? I mean I’m laughing at a friend right now using an IPhone that can’t do something else while staying logged into GTalk. I have to stop messaging them everytime they need to do something else. Well everybody here probably already knows this anyway. But as far as functionality Android 1.0 beat the IPhone out of the gate. I guess some folk will never admit anything close to that as long as the IPhone is being produced.
@ Mark
I agree – it must be priced the same as or lower than the Iphone
The finance guys at Verizon surely understand that concept.
Didn’t BGR said this was FINAL hardware (not prototype)?
@Phil – Great Post!!! I agree 100%
Im disappointed that the ugly music player is still there, i was hoping it gets updated in Eclair
So, wait a minute. This phone which is launching in two weeks has 2.0 on it already when 1.6 just came out? Not that I’m complaining but Hero is still waiting on a 1.6 update (correct me if I’m wrong, which I may be). I’m just hoping that this means 2.0 updates for MT3G, G1 and Cliq too.
I love the D-Pad over the trackball. Although… it’s on the wrong side of the keyboard for NES emulators.
Vincent mac: No, they specified that is was NOT final.
Clearly, boygenius nabs this wonderful review about the new droid phone by Motorola. You gotta love that website!
We made a sumarize review though for newbies who still don’t know how droid phone works and Android OS 101 preview: http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/droid-preview-summarize-a-boygeniusreport/
I just love Android! I mean the whole idea of it, the way it changed the game, made a new set of rules, and forces everyone else to step up or get left behind. No need to play catch up with anyone else. Android has arrived; it is at the front.
No more is Apple going to be in complete control of everything. WinMob had better hit an absolute homerun with 7.0. Palm had better not misfire even once on even one of its cylinders. Nokia is already seeing percentages drop. Finally we might just see how an opensource platform can “win” when the cards aren’t all stacked against it from the beginning.
And, yes, I am biased toward opensource “anything”, but I don’t think I’m just being an overzealous fanboy when I say that I really do believe Android has every potential to quickly move to the top. I don’t care if it “dominates”. That’s not important, and maybe not even good in the end. But I definitely do not want to see any of the other players dominate. Finally here’s an opensource platform that I can jump onto and have every confidence I will not be left hanging in the end. I am so glad I waited, even though it’s been literally years of waiting. Apple, MS, Blackberry, Palm, whoever? No need. Android it is.
dont like the gold d-pad…makes the phone look a bit cheap…
@twrock – I 1000% totally agree w/u. ANDROID, FTW!!!!!!! The takeover has commenced….
best screen on the market? then it must be OLED for sure?
no serious phone has oled, so it’s the best screen on the market compared to those competing with it. yes. best screen.
not sure what’s up with the golden d-pad, but i don’t give a shit.. (guess what, i said it. welcome to the internet losers..)
front facing camera???? orrrr….
i see something there… is that what i think it is??
THIS would be awesome.
@yoal
I thought the same thing but was told that it was either a light sensor for screen brightness or a proximity sensor so you cannot hit the touch screen with your face. I don’t know for sure either way.
One word – LAG.
Heres another – UGLY.
Does it have a Compass?