This is not the DROID you are looking for…
I think, if anything, today’s xkcd sold me against getting a DROID. Why is a physical keyboard a selling point? I really like Apple’s decision to make all but the most basic buttons virtual. It allows the phone to maintain the same form factor, and with fewer moving parts that’s just one less thing I have to worry about breaking. Granted, Android is an open source platform, which is good from the developer side of things. And running multiple apps at the same time would be nice (or even just having multiple web pages loading at the same time). But for some reason I just can’t look past the physical keyboard. It seems like a red flag of lazy design, so who knows what other horrors may await? In the end, I’ll wait to see what the early adopters think before casting a final judgement. Part of the reason I’ve been looking at the DROID is that my Gen 1 iPhone is getting kinda old. But since there is little price difference between the DROID and new iPhones, I’m more inclined to stick with Apple.
November 13th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I’m glad you posted this, because I’ve been confused for the past month or so with all these commercials, and I’ve been meaning to look it up. 3+ of my friends have had Android phones for the past year or so (I see it was officially released Oct 2008 but one of those friends works for Google, seems he had his before then) & they LOVE it. I can’t speak to the Motorola “Droid,” but you can get it on other phones, probably without the physical keyboard.
I have to say I’m thrilled to see something going up against the iPhone & Windows.
December 7th, 2009 at 8:35 am
I find I use the physical keyboard on the Droid quite a bit, oddly. Something about typing on a touchscreen still feels wrong to me, and I can’t do it nearly as fast as on the physical one. Still, M has a Droid too and she almost never uses the physical one. So it’s perfectly possible to get by without it.
Still, I’ve become a borderline Droid fanboy since I got it, so I’d probably find a way to justify any criticism you had :-p
December 9th, 2009 at 9:45 am
Snap, I didn’t know it had a virtual keyboard as well! I suppose I have to give it props for having a multimodal interface (can you tell I have an HCI exam today?). I think if I saw a live one, so that I can actually test out the functionality, I might be swayed more towards it. Plus I’d really, really like to try out Android, see what that’s like.