Hey folks, this is an EXCLUSIVE first hands on preview of the new Motorola Droid from a nerdcast insider, you won’t see this anywhere else. Read on! - SLIM

Motorola Droid: A First Look At The Next Wave

It was a June day in 2007 that saw queues of business professionals, tech geeks and a major city major or two waiting for what has become THE smartphone benchmark. Looking back, it was a stinging loss for Verizon to not secure the deal to add the iPhone to their device portfolio. This line-up has since been affiliated with the sleek, stylish LGs and Samsungs that we’ve come to know and expect; the curved phones that appease the eye, that surf the web, but don’t do all the things you want them to.  Form over function.

This has been the common theme with Verizon’s phones.  It’s not the fault of the manufacturers, but rather Verizon’s reluctance to embrace early on the things that have become device and customer “must-haves”: WiFi, open streaming, applications, essentially anything 3rd party related.  Looking at this now, it’s easy to see where the Verizon/iPhone deal fell apart and what has helped Apple sell a product we now have to refer to in the tens of millions, while America’s largest network provider have turned themselves into the Fox from Aesop’s fable, sophomoric name-calling and all.

Well there will soon be a newcomer to the Verizon stable, a direct challenge to the iPhone as evidenced by their national “Droid Does” campaign, billing it as a device that can do all the things its nemesis can not.  What affect the advertising blitz will have remains to be seen, but determining if the Motorola Droid will dethrone Apple’s innovation as the smartphone benchmark depends on whether you consider the Droid to primarily be a phone.

I should preface my further comments with the fact that I did not get a lot of time with this product for obvious reasons, about 10-15 minutes, which is roughly the maximum amount of time someone would spend exploring a device in a store. Nonetheless, here are my thoughts.

The Droid is not an attractive device, especially when you compare it to cell phones and smartphones of the last 5 years.  If you were the go back to the advent of cell phones and tell the product design team they had to make a phone that had to fit in a pants pocket, this is probably very close to what they would have come up with, a split-level brick. I’m hoping that the device I used was more a prototype with a sexy chassis still to come, but I don’t believe it will.  This can be remedied by a 3rd party case or covering for the Droid, which will only be a matter of time, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that rooms full of people decided this was the best they could do.

The next observation is also the Droid’s most unforgiving feature, its weight.  The Droid is HEAVY, a dense piece of metal that feels like every cubed millimeter of space is crammed with components.  My thoughts immediately reverted to old movie images of robbers scoring gold bullion and tossing them to each other, shocked by the weight.  The Droid is heavier than any device I’ve ever been able to carry in my pocket, and when you start to measure it not in comparisons of other phones, but in multiples, you’ve got yourself one heavy piece of equipment which is only slightly larger than the LG enV Touch, and of comparable thickness too.

When you go to use the Droid, things take a swing for the better.  The first time you click one of the 4 buttons on the Droid’s face, the screen comes alive and is single-handedly the best looking screen I’ve seen on a device this size.  The resolution is so well defined that the user interface more closely resembles a computer desktop with its detail and color compared to any phone I’ve used before.  And ‘desktop’ was my first thought when I entered the Droid.  It didn’t look like any of the screenshots I’d seen on the web, but more like a computer desktop with small icons that could easily rival Windows or Mac OSX.  This particular Droid was probably set up to resemble Windows XP, but I’m sure there are many options one could choose from to arrange and design your home screen to suit your particular needs.

The next nice feature is the full QWERTY keypad that slides down.  This has been one of my biggest gripes with touch-screen devices for years.  They’ve only given you the QWERTY interface on the touch-screen by covering up what you’re typing into.  Or they’ve given you a touch-screen with a full QWERTY keyboard inside that you can only use with a traditional screen.  Only recently have manufacturers come around to embedding a physical keyboard on a device where you can simultaneously use the touch-screen to maneuver while typing.   It’s a liberating feeling to have this function, and the Droid’s keyboard is both large and sturdy enough to type away with ease.  The D-pad takes a little getting use to; it’s flat and on phones I’ve used before there’s been some measurable size difference between the center and outside of the pad.  This may not bother some people, but could take some getting use to for others.  My main criticism with the keyboard is that the part of the phone it’s on is larger than the top screen and the extra lip serves no real purpose other than housing a miniature Verizon logo.  It would have been more appealing to the eye to keep the top and bottom of the Droid flush and even.

The Droid is a speedy and responsive unit, sometimes too responsive.  While going through menus and websites, the Droid sometimes initiated actions where I had barely touched the screen, occasionally when my finger had come to rest after scrolling.  This started to get annoying, but I’m use to older LG devices where I practically have to put my fingernail through the unit in order for it to do what I want.  Possibly another learning curve, but we’ll see if other users have these issues.  Navigating the interface and surfing the web come with incredible speed.  Full websites load up very quickly and I managed to surf around ESPN as if I were on my notebook, compared to waiting for the mobile version to process on my current phone.  The built-in map application also loads and refreshes screens very quickly, and it’s nice to see that Verizon is allowing mapping services without having to pay for VZNavigator or apps.

I’ve been waiting for a long time to get a phone that could do all the things I wanted; have a full physical keyboard, surf the web where websites actually looked like websites instead of glorified text messages, real e-mail capabilities instead of text-mail and internet streaming, as I have a long drive in the evenings and a lot of what I want to hear (this show included) is on at that time. And although I loved the screen, keyboard, interface and the speed of the Droid, I could not get over the weight and looks of it.  It is a physical turn-off of a phone, enough to say “What’s next”.  When I gave it back, I asked the guy if he liked it and how long he’s been it out.  He was ecstatic with the Droid and had been for several weeks now.  He went on about how he uses it for business and is a great portable device.  When he asked for my opinion, I told him what I liked, but was just so appalled by the looks and the weight of the phone.  He agreed with the looks, but as to the weight he told me, “Think of it as a netbook”.  This phrase would have a lasting impression on me.

The weight of the Droid is its most cumbersome feature.  Having to use that as a phone must certain annoy you after a while, maybe even tire your arm.  But with all the capabilities it’s billed as having, is the Droid really a phone that can run programs, or a netbook that can make calls?  Is the Droid the first handheld computer that is truly portable, no backpack needed?  It’s definitely easier to stick one device in your pocket than to walk around with a Brenthaven filled bag: netbook, cords and you would still need a phone.

It is safe to say is that the Droid will make people rethink how they view phone devices.  It is much more of a business device for professionals than a smartphone for the everyday user, thanks to its function over form design.  But while this is good for the people that buy the phone, it will definitely deter a lot of people at first and affect sales.  The bad thing about having a phone that can do so many things is that the customer will not have the time to experience all of them in the store, and will have to make a decision based off their initial thoughts.  The exterior and the weight of any handheld device is a near-instant decision.  You only need a few seconds, if that, to tell whether something looks good or not, how heavy something is and whether that weight will pose a problem.  In these two respects, the Droid almost fails from the start, and it needs the good things that come afterwards to redeem respect in the consumer’s eyes.  The screen will immediately win some of that respect back, but everything else takes time to explore and it may not be enough at first to change minds.  If this was the device that came out in June 2007, people would not think twice about buying it.  But with so many products out there to compare it to, the Droid will probably be more successful with word of mouth praise than hands-on store experiences from the onset.

Will I be running out to buy this device on Day One?  Probably not.  As much as I love the things I saw, the weight is a real drawback for me.  And although I could get used to it, I’m going to wait to compare it to the 2nd Verizon Android phone, an all touch-screen, supposedly sleeker iPhone-shaped phone, that is due out late December.  Eliminating the physical keyboard will certainly cut down the weight, and I may be willing to trade some of what I want for a lighter device. I’m already “on the network”, I just want the best phone for it, and for me.