Verizon Droid

Highlights of a review from Electronista
HTC’s Hero is the company’s first signal that it’s serious about taking the lead in Android smartphones; it’s the first to try and improve in a significant way on Google’s platform — including multi-touch and in-browser Flash — as well as the first to reach multiple North American carriers. Much is riding on its success, especially as it’s one of the most important phones for Sprint, Telus and Verizon (through the Droid Eris) all at once. Our review hopes to gauge whether the phone has the strength to carry that burden and give the iPhone serious pause.

the Hero’s design: Telus, Sprint, Verizon

Discussing the ergonomics of the Hero is difficult than for most smartphones simply because of the liberties HTC has taken with customizing the design for different regions. While our review unit is the world version that ships to Telus, the Sprint model and the Droid Eris at Verizon have both undergone major cosmetic overhauls.

wrapping up

The Hero has a knack for creating an oddly emotional attachment with its owner. While we’ve had gripes with the strictly average performance or the lackluster camera, the subtle but unique design and the customizations to Android make it feel like a constant companion. Its design always seems tailored specifically to help you, especially in terms of long term wear and tear. The Sense UI additions also provide just that much extra help, saving the trouble of going one layer deeper or having to resort to an outside app. Combined with a very Internet-aware OS with a robust app market, the net effect made us eager to hold on to the phone for as long as possible — something we can’t often say for the phones that pass by our desk.

Our only true disappointment is that the Hero at times feels more like a bug fix for the Magic than the follow up you’d expect. Besides expanding carrier choices, there doesn’t appear to be any real reason for the Hero to exist without the Magic being phased out. A truer upgrade should be available soon with a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and other possible improvements, so if you’re willing to spend the premium those are likely to command, consider that option first.

Sprint’s Hero or Verizon’s Droid Eris won’t have the design advantage, but they’re still well-shaped. Whether or not the handset is a good deal depends entirely on which of the three networks you use, even so. Arguably, those worst off are Sprint customers: the phone there costs $180 on contract and comes only with a 2GB microSD card, which will be enough for photos and apps’ content storage but far from adequate for serious media playback. In the States, the Droid Eris is the better bargain as it not only costs $100 but packs a much more reasonable 8GB card. The international version we tried with Telus sits somewhere in between: it has the anemic 2GB card and requires a three- year plan, but it too costs $100 and has the best call quality and design traits of the three.

Sprint customers may have the option of levelling the playing field by shopping through a third-party or simply waiting for a sale; we should also add that Cellular South has the Sprint version of the phone for $100 if you happen to live inside its coverage area.

Regardless of how your geography dictates your purchase, the Hero is arguably the best touchscreen-only Android phone in North America for 2009, even when pitted against the technically more advanced Samsung Behold II at T-Mobile. HTC’s ability to balance hardware and software design makes it a tough phone to defeat, and if it weren’t for the existence of the Motorola Droid, we’d consider it the go-to phone for Android, full stop. We don’t think it will unseat the iPhone from its throne as the iPhone 3GS’ speed, browser and media features still give it an edge, but anyone disillusioned with Apple’s policies in the App Store, who craves multitasking, or who simply wants to be different will be satisfied with a Hero.

eWeek has a review of the HTC Droid Eris, here are some highlights:
The other high-profile Google Android phone, the HTC Droid Eris, takes a different approach. Unlike the Motorola Droid, which slides apart to reveal a physical QWERTY keyboard, the Droid Eris is a single-piece touch-screen device reminiscent of the iPhone. At 4.23 ounces (and no physical keyboard), it is substantially lighter and sleeker than the Motorola Droid, which feels like a miniature brick in your pocket.
However, the HTC Droid Eris comes with a trackball for navigation, which I feel was a substantial mistake; Research In Motion has been eliminating trackballs in favor of trackpads for a reason. Besides clogging with grime after weeks or months of use, the trackball made certain functions of the HTC Droid Eris—such as snapping photos—into mildly annoying chores.

Verdict
At the risk of instigating a flame-war, I feel that the Verizon Droid is the closest that an Apple rival has come to creating a true iPhone killer. Subsequent versions of Google Android will iron out the few kinks, and the Android Marketplace will expand its apps offerings—maybe not enough to challenge Apple’s App Store, but certainly enough to make it a more robust challenger.
The one drawback to the Verizon Droid is its form-factor. I did appreciate the physical keyboard, but I felt it also came at the cost of a weightier-than-necessary device and blocky form-factor (the Palm Pre had a sliding physical keyboard, too, and yet its designers managed to keep it fairly light). This may be a benefit to people who prefer to carry a physically substantial phone. I am not one of them.
The HTC Droid Eris shares many of the same benefits of the Verizon Droid. It is also lighter, and I didn’t mind relying only on a virtual keyboard—although that could be an insurmountable problem for some users. The one major drawback to the Droid Eris was that trackball, which was annoying and made some functions decidedly un-user-friendly; but future editions of the device may take a page from RIM and adopt a trackpad. At $99 after rebate, as opposed to $199.99 for the Droid, the Droid Eris may present a better price proposition for some users, depending on their data-plan.
In my own opinion, I declare a three-way draw between the Verizon Droid, HTC Droid Eris and the iPhone—but the next generation of the latter two devices could very well overrun Apple, unless Steve Jobs has something particularly innovative up his turtleneck’s sleeve.

There’s no doubt about it, the HTC Droid Eris is one of the best smartphones we’ve used. Like the nearly identical Sprint HTC Hero, it represents a serious step forward in smartphone design, and if you’re a smartphone user looking to step up to something better, the HTC Droid Eris does a great job at nearly everything it can do. Ironically, comparisons to the Apple iPhone 3GS don’t quite pan out, because everything Apple’s phone does well, the Droid Eris doesn’t, and vice versa. From advanced calling features to deep social networking integration to wide customization options with active, useful widgets on the desktop, the HTC Droid Eris on Verizon Wireless bests Apple’s device, and even comes in ahead of the slightly faster, much larger Motorola Droid. But where the Apple iPhone 3GS excels, in ease of use, multimedia features and the deep App Store library, loaded with high-end games and apps, the HTC Droid Eris, like all Android phones, falls flat. We’d also like to see a much better camera tacked on this phone, and Verizon would be wise to patch up some holes in the feature set with VZ Navigator and tethered modem support. Still, the Droid Eris isn’t just effective, it’s delightful, and though new smartphone buyers might be intimidated by the complex system, time spent learning the ins and outs of the device will be rewarded handsomely. Release: November 2009. Price: $100.

Pros: Best interface on a mobile device. Social networks integrate neatly with online contacts and calendars. Detailed and useful information presented during calls.

Cons: Interface may be too complicated for new users. Lacks GPS turn-by-turn navigation. Camera is horrible.

Score – 81% Very Good

Read the full review in Info Sync World

Verizon has just made it perfectly clear what the upcoming Motorola Sholes will be called in their network: Verizon Droid. And Verizon is positioning it to be a direct threat to the iPhone in a new advertising campaign it launched at the site DroidDoes.com. Verizon isn’t pulling any punches: it calls out basically every major weakness on the iPhone, from its inability to run background applications to the App Store’s walled garden. The site kicks off with a stream of things that the iPhone can’t do, mimicking the black text-on-white background commonly seen in Apple ads but replacing it with statements like iDon’t run simultaneous apps. After a handful of these, the site kicks you to a page with the heading “DroidDoes”, with a banner rotating through a number of the Droid’s features that include Android 2.0, background tasks, and video recording support. Some of the differences mentioned, like the Droid’s inclusion of a physical keyboard, are really a matter of personal preference. Others, aren’t. For one, Droid can claim to run on “The Network”, which runs circles around AT&T. Source: TechCrunch

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