DVD’s, Books, and Games
Google Goggles picked up results for Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii), Caddyshack (DVD), and The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Book) with ease.

Business Cards
Though the format of the business card I used may have been an issue, I wasn’t able to pull up as much contact information as the example on the app’s website. It found the name and company, but not the phone number or email address, even after a couple of tries.

Logos
In general, logos work really well. The first thing I did when I installed Goggles was take pictures of the numerous empty bottles on my desk; every one of them was found successfully. However, the logo on my sweatshirt did not work, which is pretty disappointing considering the reputation of UC Davis.

Places
Goggles also allows you to identify nearby places using your phone’s GPS and compass. The app displays the names of businesses in the direction you point the camera at the bottom of the screen. In areas where I had good GPS signal, this feature was fairly accurate. This would be really handy for exploring new places, though I imagine you would look pretty silly using this to find the nearest Starbucks.

Conclusion
I had my doubts with this application; it’s not everyday someone invents a Pokédex. The verdict: it works almost as well as advertised and faster than you would expect. After you snap a photo, the analysis generally takes less than ten seconds. If you have a phone with Android 1.6 or later, head to the Android Market on your phone and try out this app. PC World reports that Goggles will reach other platforms, but if you have an iPhone or Blackberry you are out of luck for now.

Links: Google Goggles

The Hardware – 4/5 stars
I was quite interested with the Samsung Moment since I first noticed the large display and the physical slide-out keyboard when it was announced. Initially it does appear to be bulky, but once you get handle it for a bit, it’s not too bad. It’s actually not that bulky and relatively light weight too (5.67 oz.) The Moment is coated with a metallic chrome finish that complements the black trim well. Sliding the phone’s keyboard out feels solid, however it is a bit flimsy when slid-out. The two different pieces wiggle slightly. I’m not sure if it was just my unit, but other slide out devices such as the Motorola Droid didn’t have this issue. On the front face you’ll find a physical Call and End button. There’s also the Home, Menu, and Back keys right above a touch pad. It’s a well appreciated alternative to the trackball found on BlackBerry and HTC devices. The optical joystick registers your finger’s touch just like a regular touch pad. I found it worked well and at times more preferable to use than the touch screen. There is a dedicated button on the right side of the phone that brings up voice recognition as well as the camera. On the left side there’s a volume rocker. I was glad to see a standard 3.5mm headphone jack at the top and a flash included with the camera on back. Overall, the phone is definitely a bit larger than other smart phones, but won’t make much of a difference when carrying it around.

The Display - 3/5 stars
The touch display on the Samsung Moment is a 3.2″ AMOLED (320 x 480) wide-screen. When I first used it, it looks just fine. It’s a bit recessed into the phone’s frame, but isn’t an issue. However, once you compare the display to an iPhone or HTC Hero, you’ll be in shock. The colors on the Moment has a blue tint to it while other phones seem to have much warmer colors. It’s still better looking than the display on Sprint’s most expensive device, the HTC Touch Pro2. The screen was slightly lacking in terms of responsiveness. I often had to flick panels or items slower deliberately for it to detect my command properly. The Android OS interface seems to run a bit smoother (less choppy) on the HTC Hero and the Droid Eris. I don’t know if I can attribute that to a display issue, a software bug, or a processor lacking, but it’s there. To sum things up, the screen just doesn’t have that vibrant spark that you sense when you first look at other cell phone displays.

Slide-Out Keyboard - 4/5 stars
Don’t get me wrong, I love my touch-screen device these days, but I often become frustrated with its shortcomings. I sometimes do yearn for the original speed and feel of that physical keyboard. On the Moment I was pretty satisfied with how texting played out on my fingers. The keys are for the most part well mapped out and placed. It did at first take me a while to get used to the bottom row of keys which were positioned slightly to the left. It doesn’t pose much of a problem but you’ll have to tuck your thumb if you need to hit the ‘Z’ or ‘X’ buttons. The keys are well-sized and offer a bit of an edge over a touch-screen keyboard that sometimes won’t register your keystrokes properly. Plus it’s easier to have the physical feel when multitasking and can’t keep your eye on the device at all times.

Camera & Camcorder - 3/5 stars
Something that was left out and that I was longing for with my current phone is a camera with flash to complement it. To that end, the Samsung Moment does oust my HTC Hero. The Samsung moment sports a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus. I took some outdoor shots with the Moment and the iPhone 3GS. The Moment resulted with brighter images, but the colors were slightly washed out. While the colors weren’t as rich as with the iPhone 3GS, it still looked better overall. Unfortunately the viewfinder isn’t as snappy as the iPhone. When held side by side and panning in different directions, the Moment was clearly a fraction of a second behind. The inclusion of the flash definitely does help with dark shots. The largest problem comes in with the software. It lacks any custom settings or features. The only available options are to enable geo-tagging, choose Hi or Low for Video Quality, and enable Flash. There’s not even an auto setting for the Flash. There’s no custom resolutions for images either. Even cheap camera phones offer some special effects and settings, this phone doesn’t. I should not that, it does allow sharing images with web services, email and MMS. There’s also an image crop feature built in. Overall, there’s still a lot of room for improvement for Samsung to do with a future iteration of this phone.

Music, Media and Syncing – 3.5/5 stars
Music playback through the phone’s speakers as well as the standard 3.55mm audio jack both sound great. The jack is protected with a plastic cap cover which I found to be a bit annoying and cheap-looking, nonetheless it’s there. Especially seems like a small complaint, when they finally adopted a standard earphone jack. The Music app that comes with the Moment is fairly basic. There’s no fancy album cover flow features as found on phones like the HTC Hero/Eris. Graphic layout aside, it is easy to navigate through, browsing by albums, artist, and songs. There’s also the standard play all or shuffle all option. Music on the Moment functions well enough and audio quality comes in at an enjoyable level. Being that it is an Android OS phone you have the option of downloading more enticing music apps and services such as Shazam, Pandora, and Last.fm.

User Interface – 3/5 stars
Perhaps I came into this review with the expectation bar set too high , but after using the Samsung Moment’s interface for a few days I began to appreciate the interface on my HTC Hero more. The Sense UI that HTC has customized Android is truly marvelous. On the other hand, the default interface on the Moment is quite bland. The only extra custom widgets are from Sprint and aren’t exactly too attractive. Some even look like 8-bit Nintendo era icons. Well maybe not that bad, but you get my point. There’s just not that WOW factor. That being said the phone does come with some extras. These include an Instant Messaging, Nascar Sprint Cup, NFL Mobile Live, Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV, and a few more. This aspect is quite neat since other Android devices from competing providers don’t include these features by default. I also did all my data syncing with Google this time around. I was able to instantly pull in my Calendar, Contacts, and Email from the ‘cloud’. The Google features worked smoothly.

Battery Life - 3/5 stars
Just like with my current HTC Hero I feel that the Moment is a bit pressed on battery life. The projected 5.5 hours of continuous talk time is a bit ambitious. I felt as though I reached a lot for the charger through my day-to-day tests. I would recommend having most services turned off  when not in use (GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth). This will just mean not checking your email and Facebook updates as often throughout your day. Additionally, I would consider the option of investing a little money in a portable external battery to take with you if you do run a little low on juice. That being said, most smart phones are known for their horrible battery life. The Moment isn’t an exception. Even the famous iPhone 3GS gets rendered useless in no time.

Bottom Line
My initial reaction to the Samsung Moment was definitely positive curiosity. After spending time over my week with it, to be quite honest there were definitely some shortcomings. None that would at all impede the average user who just needs a little bit more control over the features of their phone. The physical keyboard adds a nice functional flair to the phone and will be likely appealing to the heavy texting crowd. I know I voiced my complaint over the interface to be bit a little bit lacking as well as the battery life, but when it works, it does just about everything you want it to do. The display’s colors was a bit odd to get used too, but if you don’t have another device to compare it with, you won’t notice. The Samsung Moment comes packaged with Micro-USB charger, Headphones, and Micro-USB transfer cable and documentation. I would have to say that the Moment is a mid-range Android phone. It certainty isn’t as well designed as the Sprint HTC Hero. Even the Palm Pre offers a lot more for nearly the same price. Speaking of cost, the Samsung Moment will run you about $179 with a new 2-year agreement after a $100 mail-in-rebate.

DEAL: Samsung Moment for $80
Links: Sprint.com Samsung Moment

Faster and More Responsive
Android 2.0 was by no means slow. The update did make some noticeable improvements on speed and stability. Programs open, close, and switch quicker than before.

New “Unlock” Screen
The most obvious change when you first open the Droid is in the “unlock” screen. Though the principle is the same, the interface uses drag-able “tabs” rather than the “wheel” used in 2.0.

Battery Life Increased
This is Verizon’s claim and not my own, however, the phone did last the grueling holiday drive from Sacramento to San Diego with some juice to spare. That includes a solid two hours of music streaming with Pandora and a half hour of using Google Maps Navigation to find my way out of a shady corner of Los Angeles.

Auto Focus Fixed
Some people have reported problems with the Droid’s auto focus ability. The update fixes this and shortens the delay time between shots.

Improved Call Audio
Somehow, Google managed to improve the already impeccable audio during calls. The difference isn’t drastic in my opinion, but I’ll take their word for it.

Speakerphone Fixed
I never ran into this problem before, but when receiving a call on call waiting, the speakerphone turns off. The speakerphone now remains on.

Bluetooth Improvements
The update eliminates the background echo created when using a Bluetooth headset. If you have a car like the Lexus R400h which allows you to transfer contacts via Bluetooth, you are in luck. Android 2.0.1 improved the ability to beam up your phone book with Bluetooth.

Support for Seven-Digit Numbers
You can now send text messages and multimedia messages to seven-digit numbers. Also, you can merge contacts with seven-digit numbers.

Visual Voice Mail Delay Fixed
Verizon Visual Voice Mail provides an interface for your voice mail. It allows you to view caller information and voice mail information for each message without having to deal with the standard “to replay this message, press 7, etc.” New voice mail messages now appear right after they arrive. It used to take a few minutes for the message to show up. WiFi access has also been enabled.

Other Thoughts:
On another note, I’m hoping Google finds a better way to control the audio volume. Right now, there are separate volume levels for calls, ringer, media playback, and navigation.  To adjust the volume, you have to open a corresponding application and then use the buttons on the side of the phone to adjust the volume. For instance, I have to open the media player to change the media playback volume. So, if I’m listening to music at a reasonable level and the navigation decides to scream at me, I have to switch to the navigation application to relieve my ears. I’d like the side buttons to control the master volume have individual volume controls in the notification area. That way when I need to make a “LEFT ON ANDERSEN PARKWAY IN ONE QUARTER MILE!”, I can quickly turn it down.

Support: Droid Update Info
Related: Motorola Droid Review

After swiping your card, authorizing the payment for the correct amount, signing the transaction using the touchscreen, Square will instantly send you a receipt via email or text message (see image on right). If you setup a Square payer account, you can speed up and secure payments through photo recognition. In addition, Square tracks repeat customers, so it can easily offer rewards to them. You’ll no longer have to carry those punch cards around with you.

The Square service won’t have any contracts, monthly fees, or hidden costs. They will even donate a penny after every transaction to a cause of your choice. Square hasn’t mentioned the cost per transaction, but this could definitively be a hit if the number is low. This would be a great way to accept payments from a buyer through Craigslist when you meet with them. If this goes well, it can easily become an easy way for both small business and average customers to accept credit card transactions on the go.

Our Senior Editor, Sahas Katta, just heard back from Jack Dorsey. We will be getting access to this service fairly soon and should be able to publish a review prior to an official launch.

Links: SquareUp.com

The Hardware – 4/5 stars
The Droid Eris is one of the best-looking smart phones I’ve come across. It’s definitely looks friendlier than the robotic Motorola Droid and cuter than it’s Sprint sibling the HTC Hero. It has an attractive soft black-coated finish and silver trims on the side. It’s fairly light weight and can slip into just about any pocket. There are four touch sensitive keys below the display: Home, Menu, Back, and Search. The inclusion of physical send and end keys are appreciated. HTC also implemented a special trackball for navigating the interface. It even lights up when notifications are available. There’s a standard 3.5mm headphone jack on the top, a 5 megapixel camera on the back, and a volume rocker on the side. I was slightly disappointed to find that the Eris uses a HTC proprietary USB cable and that microSD expansion slot (8GB card included, supports 16GB card max) was hidden behind the rear plate.

The Display – 4/5 stars
The HTC Eris sports a 3.2 inch capacitive touchscreen display with a 320 x 480 pixel resolution. The display is bright, has great viewing angles, and colors. The ambient light sensor automatically brightens up the display, making it easier to read, when outdoors and dims down the display to save battery life in darker areas. The built in proximity disables accidental inputs during phone calls by locking the display when held to your ear. The UI can also switch to a landscape mode from portrait using the built in accelerometer, but unfortunately only works in one direction. While most people would be quite satisfied with this display, they’ll still be stunned to see detail, quality, and difference in resolution when compared to the Motorola Droid. Despite that, it’s still looks great for the UI, images, web pages, and videos.

Camera & Camcorder – 4/5 stars
The HTC Droid Eris sports a 5 megapixel camera. It supports digital zoom and auto-focus, but unfortunately lacks a built in flash. Max image resolution is 2560 x 1712 pixels. The interface allows customizing the white balance and brightness. The advance settings reveals a self-timer, time stamp, geo-tagging, ISO, and other enhancement features. Launching the camera is a split second faster than the iPhone 3GS. The view finder was quite snappy and more responsive than I had expected. When it comes to capturing images, quality is about on par with the Motorola Droid. Just like most camera phones, the Droid Eris works great outdoors, but faces difficulty in low-light situations. The HTC Eris supports recording videos of any length, only limited by storage space, in a max resolution of 352 x 288 pixels. While the quality was decent, it’s still not a match to the Motorola Droid’s DVD quality recordings.

Music, Media, & Syncing – 5/5 stars
While the Apple iPhone has been known for it’s phenomenal media playback capabilities and an amazing user interface, it’s hard to have high expectations for other devices. The entire Android platform still isn’t entirely on par with Apple iPhone OS, but it gets quite close with the HTC Sense UI. With an included 8GB microSDHC card and support for up to 16GB of expansion, this is definitely a worthy alternative/replacement for a dedicated multimedia player. First off, there’s a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so no adapters are needed. Syncing music is easy. The power cable is actually modular, it separates from the AC adapter plug, becoming a USB cable. Just plug it into a computer and tell the Eris to mount the microSD card from the notification menu. It immediately becomes a standard mass storage device, much like a USB flash drive. Unfortunately, there’s no official tool to sync music or other media, you’ll have to do it manually. Windows Media Player 12 in Windows 7 was able to work with the Droid Eris quite smoothly. Motorola actually offers a sync tool for their Droid. Once you get the music onto the device, there’s a neat little HTC widget that goes on any of the home screens. It lets you control playback and view album art without launching the player. Since it’s Android, the phone supports playing music through the built in player or through an application such as Pandora in the background while using other applications. The music player interface allows browsing your library by Artists, Albums, Playlists, Songs, Genres, and Composers. The Droid Eris also supports setting songs in your library as a ringtone and purchasing new tracks from the Amazon MP3 music store.

User Interface – 4/5 stars
The Droid Eris by HTC runs on version 1.5 of the Android Operating System. It’s a step behind the Motorola Droid which is running Android 2.0 and even the HTC My Touch 3G running on Android 1.6. The Droid Eris supposedly might get a jump to version 2.0 sometime next month. Despite that, the OS seems to be quite well polished for the most part. Especially with HTC using their Sense UI, the user experience and flow is vastly improved. In fact, I found that I liked the variety of widgets available on the Droid Eris over the flagship Motorola Droid. The only issue I found was occasional lag. Even with a 528MHz processor, 288MB of RAM, and 512MB of ROM, the HTC Eris is still not as snappy as the iPhone 3GS or the Motorola Droid. The messaging tools via both the Gmail App and the Mail client are both impressively powerful and compatible with just about any email service. (IMAP, POP, & Exchange supported) SMS/MMS integration is quite well implemented. It displays contact images and displays an entire conversation history. The Android OS also supports linking contacts to their Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter accounts. Simply clicking on a contact card will display their contact info, their location on a map, conversations with them, their Facebook status updates, their photos from social networks, and call history. It even syncs with Google Contacts and becomes available to modify and add too through a web browser. The on screen keyboard has both landscape and portrait modes with haptic (vibrating) feedback, making it fairly easy to use. While I wouldn’t be able to begin to mention all the amazing Applications available through the Android Marketplace, there are 10,000 of them available. The only thing this phone doesn’t have is the free Google Maps Navigator app with turn-by-turn voice guided directions that was originally available on the Motorola Droid and then became available to other Android v1.6 devices. The learning curve is quick and most customers will love it.

Call Quality – 5/5 stars
Over the week or two I’ve had this phone, I’ve definitely had a better signal and call quality compared to the Apple iPhone. The Verizon Wireless network was by far more superior in terms of signal strength, call quality, and 3G speeds in Northern California compared to AT&T’s network. I had no dropped calls with the Droid Eris, while I often couldn’t even place calls or had to redial multiple times with the iPhone 3GS. Call quality wasn’t anything special, but was clear and reliable. The SpeedTest.net App showed that the the ping time to the same servers with the Droid Eris had a tenth as much of lag over several tests as the iPhone 3GS. The download speeds with both AT&T and Verizon in the same spot at the same time were fairly identical for Download speeds coming in at 1400kbps for the iPhone 3GS and 1500kbps for the Droid Eris. However Upload speeds were quite astonishing, Verizon had a clear win with about 800kbps on average while AT&T struggled with a mere 100kbps. For the most part, the Droid Eris has great hardware and utilizes the excellent Verizon Wireless network seamlessly. If you enable WiFi to connect to a broadband network, things only get even better.

Battery Life – 4/5 stars
Most smart phones have fairly poor battery life since they are often running applications and constantly using cellular networks to check for email and retrieve other bits of data. The HTC Droid Eris has a replaceable 1300mAh lithium ion battery which can handle up to 5 hours of talk time or at least a week on standby. In reality those numbers were significantly less due to constant fiddling with the phone to use the browser, listen to music, reply to emails, or utilize any of the phone’s variety of features. Most customers will actually see about 3 hours of talk time and about 3 days worth of standby, which isn’t a bad thing. It just means you’re using your phone.

Bottom Line
I was quite impressed and satisfied with the Droid Eris for Verizon Wireless just as we were with the HTC Hero on Sprint. It’s got all the goods needed to be a good smartphone from the Android operating system, a touch screen, a good camera, WiFi, and a App store. There’s plenty of features to keep you entertained, informed, and busy at all times. The HTC Sense UI takes the personalization and customizations features to a whole new level which customers will appreciate. It’s also cheapest Android device on the market costing just $99 after a $100 mail-in-rebate and signing a new 2-year contract. A data plan is required. If you are looking for a new entry level smartphone and don’t want to spend too much, this is definitely the best one out there.

Buy: Droid Eris on Amazon for $99
Links: HTC Droid Eris – VerizonWireless.com

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UPDATE: Droid Eris Review is here!

If there is anything you should take from that last paragraph, it should be that I am hypercritical when it comes to reviewing smart phones because I have yet to experience the recipe for a so-called “iPhone-Killer”. So when I say that the Motorola Droid is my new favorite phone, you can take me seriously. Yes, yes, all of the smart phones in this generation do just about everything short of cooking for you. But the Droid just does it better with Motorola’s feature-packed hardware, Android’s new open source operating system, and Verizon’s high quality network. I’ll explain.

The Hardware
This phone is built like a tank. It weighs about an ounce more than the iPhone, but the extra weight just makes the Droid feel like it’s expensive and has a lot to offer rather than just a heavy burden. I was initially concerned about the sliding mechanism for the keyboard, which is often the first to break on phones with a similar form factor. However, this isn’t the case. The Droid is far from flimsy. Although the phone doesn’t sit flush on a flat surface; the shape of the back elevates the phone just enough so that it doesn’t vibrate off of a table or let the camera get scratched. The lip below the screen didn’t seem to serve any purpose, but I soon realized that it houses the microphone and helps the user to tell the speaker from the microphone.

I only have a few small complaints. My first complaint is with the external buttons. Don’t get me wrong, all three power, volume, and camera keys work fine, but they sit loosely in the frame, which feels as though it takes away from the quality of the build. My second complaint is with the battery compartment cover. It slides off rather easily. It even came off once when I pulled it out of a tight pocket in my backpack. I suppose that’s better than not being able to take it off at all, but it’s something to keep in mind if you like your jeans extra tight.

• Overall Quality – 5/5
• Mechanical Parts – 5/5
• External Buttons – 4/5

The Display
Measuring 3.7 inches and 480 x 854 pixel resolution, the Droid’s touch-screen display is beautiful, bright, enormous, and knocks competitor’s displays out of the park. The screen is both larger than the one found on the iPhone and also has over two times screen resolution. That means it can easily fit and render websites normally designed for computers. Plus, it’s large enough of a resolution to playback DVD quality movies. It’s also accurate and sensitive enough to register touches properly. Like all glossy touch screen phones, the screen tends to get covered with fingerprints and smudges, but it’s nothing your t-shirt can’t fix.

• Size – 5/5
• Resolution – 5/5
• Brightness – 5/5
• Quality – 5/5

The Keyboard
The Droid offers both a physical keyboard and an on-screen keyboard to suit your taste. The on-screen keyboard works perfectly in both horizontal and landscape modes. A key press results in both a sound and/or haptic (vibration) feedback. In fact, the on-screen keyboard is almost the same as the iPhone’s, so it should be an easy transition for those used to Apple’s keyboard.

The physical keyboard is pretty standard. The buttons are square and the keys become illuminated when it’s dark. There’s nothing incredibly special or annoying about it. The only issue is the layout. Rather than having slightly offset keys as found on standard keyboards, everything is aligned in a perfect grid. However, just like any other phone, you get used to what you have after a day of use. I shouldn’t understate the keyboard. Many smart phone owners are first time buyers who are accustomed to the traditional click and feel of physical keyboards. The Droid wouldn’t have been as interesting of a phone if it didn’t have one.

One major drawback to the keyboards is the lack of language interchangeability. Android does not offer native on-the-fly language switching. There are a few applications on the Android Marketplace that will do this for you, and something may be in the works for future upgrades, but I’m disappointed that the Droid can’t handle more languages than I can out of the box.

• On-Screen Keyboard – 5/5
• Physical Keyboard – 4/5
• Language Options – 2/5

The Interface
The touch screen interface is flawless, responsive, and frequently used, which makes the Droid extremely intuitive. Surprisingly the Droid lacks multi-touch gestures, while the European version, called the Milestone, offers it. I can’t imagine why they left this out, but hopefully it can get fixed with a future software update. But even without that, the Droid is just as easy to get along with. I felt that the double-tab to zoom command was easier than the pinch-to-zoom since it can be done with just one finger.

There are four touch-sensitive spots below the screen: back, menu, home, and search. The interface controls for nearly every application stay in an orderly manner, so the touch sensitive keys work perfectly everywhere. My favorite by far is search, which looks through both your phone and Google. Thanks to the Droid’s ability to multitask, this feature can be used at just about any time without losing your work. For example, say you are in a call with a friend and need to find the address of a restaurant. Just hit search and type in the name of the restaurant. If the information is not already saved in your address book, it will search Google and display results while remaining on the line.

• Multitasking – 5/5
• Touch Interface – 5/5

Voice Recognition
Android’s voice recognition engine is unparalleled and works with almost everything. That includes slang and even thick accents; “Call Kreestan” works just as well as “Call Kristen”. Android was even able to recognize my French and (bad) Spanish without changing any settings. “Direcciones al gymnasio” (Spanish for “directions to the gym”) gave me a list of nearby gyms while my locale was still set to English. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow using this feature to dictate text messages, but if it did I would image it would work better than the Samsung Rogue. With laws prohibiting texting while driving, it would be a great idea to let you speak your texts through a hands free device.

• Voice Recognition – 5/5

Phone Calls
With all the other stunning aspects of the Droid, it’s quite easy to lose sight of its primary function: a phone. The Droid does not fall short in this category. Calls are as clear as ever and the microphone intelligently cancels out background noises. During one particular call, a caravan of buses passed by not three feet away from me, and the person on the other end didn’t even notice. Until I mentioned the busses to see if anything was heard, the caller thought I was in a quiet room. Signal strength was strong just about anywhere I went in Northern California and I didn’t face any dropped calls. And as I’ve mentioned before, it’s easy to multitask while on the phone. You can add callers, look up contacts, search for information – the only thing you can’t do while on the phone is use the microphone.

• Call Quality – 5/5
• Signal Strength – 5/5

The Android Roadtrip
The Motorola Droid’s features integrate incredibly well with its operating system, Android 2.0, so it’s hard to talk about one without the other. I decided the best way to really discover the capabilities of both by taking the phone on the road and use the Droid for everything and really push it to the limit.

We had no idea where we were going, but we knew what route we wanted to take, so we packed a lunch, hopped in the car, plugged the Droid into the stereo, and created a station for The Kills on Pandora.

Navigation
The Motorola Droid on Verizon is the first device to feature Google Maps Navigation. It’s a completely free service that offers 3D maps with voice guided turn-by-turn directions. The VZ Navigator available on most Verizon Wireless phones costs an additional $10 a month for use. A decent turn-by-turn direction App on the iPhone sells for a one time fee of nearly $80-$100. On the other hand Google Maps Navigation is entire free and is offers a lot more.

Our journey through Sacramento was a familiar one. Kristen (my lovely driver) and I were feeling the familiar drone of the autopilot set in, and decided that a caffeine fix was necessary. The Droid features a “Car Home” mode, which offers quick access to on-the-road navigation features. I hit Quick Search and asked for “directions to Starbucks”. The voice recognition registered all the terms successfully and gave me directions to a Starbucks right off of the highway in Folsom. The navigator showed us a Google Street View of our destination, so it was easy to point out where it was upon arrival. If I had the official dashboard mount, the Droid could have easily replaced my current GPS.

The drive through El Dorado National Forest is beautiful. There were lots of trees and mountains that probably should have thrown off the GPS or at least our streaming soundtrack, but both remained strong. We lost GPS signal once while weaving through mountain roads, but that lasted less than five seconds, and the only reason we noticed was because the navigation voice started to give us alternative directions. After seeing a couple small rivers running along side the highway, we had the urge to go find a waterfall. With the GPS and Pandora still running, I searched for “nearby waterfalls”. The browser remained fast even while driving through a forest with the other programs running in the background. I was given results relative to our location – our new destination was Vikingsholm in South Lake Tahoe.

• Navigation Interface – 5/5
• Accuracy of Directions – 5/5
• GPS Accuracy – 5/5

Camera & Camcorder
The Droid sports a 5-megapixel camera. It produces images with a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels. The scenic road through El Dorado was a perfect place to give the camera a shot. With 16GB of memory on the included Micro-SD card, I wasn’t afraid to keep snapping. The camera took some great shots, though I did find that the automatic stabilization function needed the camera to remain still for a few extra seconds to work properly. The digital zoom produced some pretty grainy pictures, as expected. The flash kicked in at appropriate times and improved pictures taken in darker environments. Plus the geo-tagging feature marked coordinates of where those photos were snapped. With a program such as Google Picasa or Apple iPhoto, you can easily import and view your photo library on a visual map.

The Droid’s large screen is great for reviewing photos and videos, though I was most impressed when I played back the captured videos on my laptop. Videos are shot at an impressive 720×480 pixel resolution at 24 FPS. The quality was excellent and it didn’t jitter at all. Android also supports sending images and videos via MMS, email, or uploading to services such as Facebook and YouTube. The Droid’s camera won’t be replacing a traditional camera anytime soon, but it’s a big step up from other camera phones.

• Photo Quality – 5/5
• Video Quality – 5/5
• Camera Interface – 5/5
• Media Sharing – 5/5

Notification System
Android has a centralized notification system to keep track of the things happening on the phone. By simply dragging down the top toolbar, you can view alerts for new emails, texts, missed calls, finished downloads, calendar reminders, and voicemail. On the other hand, the iPhone simply places a number above Apps that have an alert, but that requires swiping through multiple pages to check on them. The BlackBerry Storm2 probably has the most similar ability with its built in news feed. Simply organizing those updates into one place makes thing easy and responding to those alerts is just a single click away. The system also provides a simple interface to access applications that are running in the background. For example, it will show what song it playing on Pandora. It’s definitely going to be hard to go back to other systems after giving this a shot.

• Notification System – 5/5

Speakers & Headphones
The Droid uses a standard 3.5mm audio jack and has no problem putting out high quality sound. It sounded just as good as my iPod Touch. But using headphones on this trip would have been selfish, so I cranked up the volume of the external speakers so that Kristen could listen in. The speaker’s sound quality was absolutely fantastic; they sounded better than my three-year-old Macbook’s speakers! The speakers would not put out much bass, but surprisingly they did not garble the rest of the audio. From ten yards away with a river running in the background, Kristen was able to clearly comprehend Jack White’s lyrics.

• Speaker Quality – 5/5
• Headphones – 5/5

Media Player
While listening to Pandora, I came across a song I really liked by the White Stripes. I clicked on the “Buy” button in the menu and it took me straight to the song’s page on the Amazon MP3 store. I bought the song and opened up Music for an encore. The purchased song was added into my music library with the existing songs from the White Stripes album. Although the phone’s media player offers all the basic functionalities such as browsing by Artist, Album, Genre, or Songs it does have a few issues. For example, you can’t view all the songs by a single Artist, but rather have to jump back and forth through the Albums by that Artist one at a time. Edit: The media player does allow you to view all songs by a single artist, but it was a little tricky to figure out how (touch and hold the desired artist, select “Play”, and hit the “Playlist” button to view all songs). It’s a well developed player and includes Album Art, a shuffle and a repeat feature. Although it could use a few tweaks, it’s a completely viable alternative to purchasing a dedicated MP3 player.

• Music Player – 4/5

Syncing
Before my road trip, I manually copied a few hundred songs from my computer to the phone with the included Micro-USB cable. The phone appeared as a mass storage device and didn’t require any software. Android automatically recognized the music and other content. Although people despise the bloated iTunes software, it offers an easy syncing relationship between a computer and an iPhone/iPod. Unfortunately, neither Motorola nor Verizon suggest nor include a tool to manage your media. Edit: Scratch that, Motorola just released a tool called Media Link which easily lets you manage music, photos, and videos. Computer geeks will find a solution that suites their needs, but others will be left in confusion.

• Library Management – 4/5

Battery Life
The battery was at about 75% when we left Davis. After four hours of multitasking, the Droid was just about finished with a little bit of juice left to take a few pictures, exceeding my expectations completely. The official specs claim 6.4 hours of 3G talk time and about 11 days of standby.

As we headed to the car to start our trip home, after four hours of heavy multitasking, the Droid gave me a low battery notification. It wasn’t just a standard, single-line message; it brought up a panel that displayed the power consumption of each running application. Right at the top of the list were my power hungry applications. I knew where we were going, so with 5% battery left, I closed all applications and put the Droid on standby. It stayed on for another hour, which was both unexpected and impressive, though I would recommend purchasing a car charge if trips like these are a regular occurrence. It only took about three hours to completely charge the phone once we got home.

• Battery Life – 4/5
• Power Management – 5/5

The Bottom Line
So that brings us to the big question, “Would you recommend the Motorola Droid over the Apple iPhone?” Yes and No. In terms of technical specs, yes the Droid is better. Yes, the Droid does have more features. And yes, I would absolutely recommend that you check it out, but in the end it is a matter of preference. I don’t believe the Droid will be the mythical “iPhone-Killer”, but there’s a good chance the Android platform will. For example the HTC Hero which we reviewed last week and the upcoming Samsung Moment on Sprint both run on the Android platform. This means all the same set of applications downloaded through the Android Market, similar to the iTunes App Store, will run on any of those devices. Unless Apple drops a bomb in the near future with some major changes to the hardware and opens up the software, Android has a clear shot to take out the iPhone.

If you’re convinced and ready to buy a Motorola Droid, it’s going to hit Verizon Wireless stores this Friday, November 6th, 2009. Due to high demand, Verizon is opening all it’s stores earlier than normal at 7 AM. It’s not that expensive either considering the powerful camera, GPS Navigator, and 16GB MP3 player it packs inside. It will only set you back about $199 after signing a new 2-year contract and sending in a $100 mail-in-rebate. If you’re an existing customer who’s eligible for an upgrade, you should be entitled to an additional $50 or $100 discount based of the price of your current calling plan.

Links: VerizonWireless.com Motorola Droid

Note: This review was edited by Sahas Katta.

The Hardware: 5/5 stars
Although the HTC Hero shares similar elements of style from it’s European predecessor, this model has a new and revised body. The distinctive bottom lip (Jay Leno chin?) that characterized the original Hero has been replaced with a more traditional rounded edge. I never spent much time handling the chin-ed version, but I’m satisfied with the comfort the new HTC Hero offers. There’s a large illuminated trackball centered below the display. A send and end button are on the far left and right of the bottom portion, respectively. A Menu and Home key are on the left of the trackball while the search and back key are on the right. The mini USB port is on the bottom, the camera is centered on the top portion of the back side, and the headphone jack is on the top of the phone. The trackball was quite responsive and the inclusion of physical keys for answer and ending calls suited my taste. The phone isn’t the most fancy device on the market by any means, but it’s smoke gray coat with gun-metal accents look elegant. The phone’s also has a great grip to it and feels durable enough to survive a few small drops.

Touch Screen Display: 4/5 stars
The HTC Hero features a 3.2 inch 320×480 HVGA display. I should note that this is one of the few Android devices that supports multi-touch gestures. Even the Motorola Droid on Verizon lacks it. The screen is pretty bright and sharp. It isn’t extraordinary, but meets the standard of other smartphone displays. The default touch sensitivity was just right and was quite responsive. Since the phone doesn’t have a physical keyboard, the on-screen keyboard is the only option. It takes a bit of getting used to especially if you are moving over from a device that had a physical QWERTY keyboard. Even with a bit of practice, it’s still isn’t as easy to use as the virtual keyboard on an iPhone. The screen is a bit smaller and slower to respond. Photos and Videos either captured by the phone or transferred over all looked great on the display.

Battery Life: 2.5/5 stars
After using the phone for about a week or so, I have become quite disappointed with the battery life. A full charge should be able to last at least a full day. And of course, bearing in mind that you only run a fair amount of applications at a time. I found myself having to cut back down on checking emails, refreshing Facebook, and browsing Twitter just to save enough charge. Although HTC claims 5 hours of talk time and 360 hours of standby, I can testify that it didn’t last nearly as long. I did however see standby time improve after disabling the GPS, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, however features such as those are what make this phone a good phone. I feel as though improvements could be made as easily as by releasing a software upgrade to manage power usage better.

User Interface: 4/5 stars
The user interface is a distinguishable factor of the phone. Dubbed “HTC Sense”, the interface is composed of seven customizable panels. These provide a wrap around panoramic view of everything going on. The panels are fully customizable offering you the power to select which widgets or application shortcuts appear. I found that the preloaded layout to be quite adequate for the average user, but it’s fun and useful to spend a few minutes and pick the things that fit your needs and taste. I wish more freedom was offered to rearrange items on the home screen. Overall, the interface looks quite wonderful, colorful, and exciting. Plus the widgets offer plenty of information on those panels without even having to open applications. The HTC Hero runs on v1.5 of the Android OS, but rumor states that an upgrade to the v2.0 OS will be possible in the near future.

Messaging + Email: 4/5 stars
The preloaded messaging app has a solid set of features. For SMS, it displays history of conversations between you and your contacts. Following a threaded message is more convenient than a mess most phones call an inbox. The default options such as quick text and attaching files are available. Unlike the the iPhone prior to the 3.0 OS, the Android supports copy and paste. Multimedia messaging worked seamlessly with Sprint’s network. Although the casual texter should be satisfied with the default app and a quick search on the Android Market will uncover more powerful messaging tools for the power users. Email on the Hero was quite remarkable. The setup process was easy and I didn’t have any configuration issues with any of the accounts I added in. The Mail App even provides the ability to consolidate multiple email accounts into a single view. Emails can also be tagged or labeled for organization. The Android 2.0 OS takes it a step further with more features, but even the current version offers just about all the features anyone would want on a mobile device.

Camera + Camcorder: 4.5/5 stars
The HTC Hero offers a powerful 5.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus. Unfortunately, a flash is missing and would have been a welcome addition. Photos can be shot in either landscape or portrait mode. Images max out at resolution of 2560×1920 pixels. There are a number of other features found in the setting including self-timer and timestamps. Photos in your library can also be easily uploaded to web services including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. The camcorder functions almost as well. It wasn’t remarkable, but decent for a phone. Recorded videos can also be uploaded to YouTube or shortened clips can be sent out through a MMS.

Music: 5/5 stars
The Hero comes preloaded with an easy to use and functional music app. A widget displays the album cover and offers a few basic controls. Tapping on it will launch the full application. There’s a cover flow view similar to what iPods offer. There’s also a list view which allows browsing by Artists, Albums, and Genres. The phone even has a built in tool to create custom ring tones with your own music, take that iPhone! Sound quality through the speaker was decent. The quality with standard headphones plugged into a 3.5mm headphone jack is a lot better. No cumbersome headphone adapters required! And since Android can handle multitasking, you can do just about anything else you want while listening to music. This is especially handy with Pandora. Once again, iPhone can’t do that either. The Hero utilizes Amazon MP3 as it’s primary music store just as the iPhone does with iTunes.

App Store: 4/5 stars
The Android Market offers over 10,000 applications. That may sound like a lot, but that’s still a 10% of the 100,000 found in Apple’s App Store. Despite that, the quality of the applications I found were quite impressive. The interface allowed an easy way to browse, find, or search for programs. The reviews and ratings also help making decisions towards purchasing paid ones. Installation is as easy as tapping a button. The Android Market continues to grow and I’m fairly confident that with more Android-based phones hitting the market, there will be even more quality applications coming along.

Other Features: 5/5 stars
The web browser is fairly powerful and is close to what the Palm Pre and Apple iPhone offer. It utilizes the same pinch gesture to zoom in and out of web pages. There’s a tabbed interface to browse through different pages. Although it jerks at times, it isn’t too much of an issue. If you have decent amount of signal, pages load fairly quickly on Sprint’s 3G network. Plus with WiFi built in, everything becomes a whole lot faster. I was happy with the GPS performance on the Hero and the ability to use two very powerful navigation tools is a huge advantage over some other phones. Other features like the Sprint TV and Navigation package is a very nice benefit for being with Sprint. With Sprint’s Everything Data plans you have unlimited access to both.

Bottom Line:
The HTC Hero is a powerful smartphone and has a lot to offer. The hardware is excellent and the Android software is truly flexible. If you are currently in the market for a new phone, I would highly recommend taking a look at the Hero. I would definitely rank the Hero as one of Sprint’s best phones along with the Palm Pre. I wouldn’t suggest it for customers that aren’t tech-savvy, want a cheap plan, or don’t need business features. The packaging includes an AC adapter, a USB cable, a 2GB micro SD card, and documentation. If you are ready to grab one, it’s priced at $179.99 with a new 2-yr contract.

Links: Sprint.com HTC Hero | HTC.com HTC Hero Info

I had some time to handle the device and mess with the interface. My first impressions were quite positive. Everything from Verizon’s marketing to the quality of the hardware to the Android 2.0 software are stunning. Ian Thackston will be publishing an in-depth review of the phone in the next couple of days, prior to launch. This should give you guys some time to read the review and decide whether it’s the right phone for you before you pick one up. In the meantime subscribe to our RSS Feed, Email Subscriptions, or on Facebook/Twitter to get notified when the review is up!

UPDATE: Read Our Full Review!

Link: Verizon Wireless Motorola Droid

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Links: Sprint.com