Dig It

“It rips through the web like a circular saw through a ripe banana.”
“It’s not your next phone; it’s the one after that.”
“Everything iDon’t, Droid does.”

The Droid has benefited from no shortage of commercial hype in its short life. With Verizon, Google and Motorola lined up behind this black monolith of a mobile, their ad copy is playing for keeps.

The first impression, after extricating it from FedEx cardboard, is the solid and weighty feel of the Droid. Combined with a velvety back and metallic sides, it feels like a very expensive brick. Thankfully a gorgeous high-resolution touch screen comes to life to dispel the brick impression, if not the expense.

A slightly faster processor than its sister phones runs Android 2.0, an open mobile operating system tied heavily to Google services — like a champ. Almost zero lag was experienced while opening and using numerous applications simultaneously. The applications themselves, however, are often not fully matured.

The clock app that ships with the Droid, for instance, lacks stopwatch and timer modes. Trying to find a suitable replacement for these functions poses challenges.

Android comes with a market for applications that boasts several thousand entries. Unfortunately, it faces the same information overload as other app stores. Truly polished apps are few and sometimes difficult to find, and app customer reviews complain loudly of glitches.

The Droid’s high resolution actually singles it out for one such problem: some app graphics designed for lower resolution screens appear fuzzy.

Google and the Android community will need a few more releases to make everything copacetic. The good news is that the Droid, as the current flagship device, is likely to receive those updates, and they’re likely to be painless. An upgrade to 2.0.1 installed seamlessly over a wireless connection during testing.

The camera is passable but not as impressive as the five megapixels and dual flash bulbs would suggest. If recognizable pictures or video is desired, the scene better be well-lit. Plans for a Droid-filmed Blair Witch remake have been duly cancelled.

The on-screen keyboard is intuitive, but the slide out physical keyboard requires special contortions to use. Typing an e-mail on it was almost painful.

So does it live up to the hype? It certainly has the potential, but it remains one or two steps away from the fantasy promised by its marketing. That said, its only competition in this generation of smartphones is the Apple iPhone, Palm WebOS devices, and other Android phones. It so far bests these, except perhaps the iPhone.