I've had a Motorola Droid 2 for several weeks now and I am still gushing over it, marking probably the longest love affair I've ever had with a gadget. For probably close to a decade I'd been telling my corporate and college students that I wanted a universal handheld device that was a phone, GPS and MP3 player. After a few products that came close to my ideal (the Q, which drove me away from Motorola for years not just because Verizon disabled the GPS, and BlackBerry), my grand dream is finally realized. And it ain't an iPhone, which even as a longtime Apple and iPod fan makes me glad.
Yes, iPhones broke new ground and are still wicked cool. And you can jailbreak them so you aren't trapped in a room in hell with Inez, Sartre and Steve Jobs' controlling vision. But competition is good, and I couldn't wait for Verizon to get them.
My old phone was toast, and the Android devices were mature enough so I took the plunge. Never made a better tech decision in my life.
There's a wide array of apps, and most of the apps I want have been/will be ported from iPhone versions. The biggest app gap forme so far: no CSPAN radio from Jacobs Media yet, and no NASA TV app. Yeah, I'm a geek. In that vein, my favorite apps are the Android version of APOD and Galaxy Wire, which provides cool vintage NASA pics daily and This Day in History stuff.
The phone is also incredibly stable. Not that it doesn't freak out on occasion, but what computer doesn't, especially when you load boatloads of software and hammer it constantly with use?
Battery life is a POS, so I have found myself tethered a bit more than I'd like, but management apps and a little behavior mod makes it bearable. The overall utility of this thing more than makes up for power weakness.
Ericka wants an iPhone. Maybe. We're due for a New Every Two upgrade and she'd been chomping at the bit for one. Now that it's not just vaporware here in Verizon Wireless Land, she's less passionate about it since she's seen how great my Droid is. We'll see what happens next month.
ntodd
PS--I was going to blog more about network issues and whatnot, but lost interest. Gotta get back to Angry Birds...
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