Let’s add to the hype, shall we?
I’m so excited about the Motorola Droid that I stopped by a local Verizon Store to check and make sure that nothing with my account would prevent me from getting one. No joke. In case you worried for me, I will have no problems attaining one… except for the fact that my friend just has to get married on Droid’s release date (seriously Eric, WTF?).
So on that note, we do have a release date for the Droid, and it’s November 6th. It will cost $199.00 with a contract after a $100.00 mail-in rebate. That’s more good news because I budgeted a bunch more money than I will need.
Engadget got their hands on the Droid, and this is what they had to say:
“* That big screen is killer. Bright, crisp, and tons of room for your icons and widgets.
* Speed is noticeably improved — particularly when moving from app to app. We did notice that some of the home screen scrolling looked laggy.
* Android 2.0 is definitely cleaned up — but it’s most definitely still Android
* The browser seems significantly improved — pages now load up in a fully zoomed-out mode, and the load times and scrolling are way snappier.
* The keyboard takes some getting used to, and it suffers from a similar hand-position issue as the G1, but it’s fairly usable. We think it’ll be second nature once we spend some time with it.
* Facebook is integrated into accounts, which means some of that BLUR functionality is here (though now it’s part of Android 2.0 natively). The good news is that when you add a Facebook account you can choose to pull all Facebook info and contacts, or just info related to your existing contacts — a real clutter buster.”
They also have some video of the phone, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Finally, Droid is going to have free Google Maps GPS Navigation. Score. Again.
The Geek Whisperer 
Cheaper than I thought!
Can’t wait to get it.
First off I wanna say nice mobile version of the website – when did this happen???
Next, I wanna say I’m very surprised by your excitement for the droid. Personally, I might move to the blackberry soon and an android eventually, but the droid isn’t looking like it. The last review I read criticized it for having worse tech specs that the iPhone. Also, as for verizon, didn’t their CEO or somebody just comment that they would be more than happy to get the iPhone because they know the droid can’t push it??
Here are some links – sorry if they don’t work, I’m on my phone.
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2009/10/to-partner-or-not-to-partner-verizon-ceo-throws-ball-into-apples-court.html
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2009/10/motorola-droid-specs-revealed-is-this-actually-an-iphone-killer.html
OK. First… you completely characterized the “Verizon CEO Throws the Ball into Apple’s Court” article. Verizon wants to sell iPhones because they are a good phone and they sell really really well. Verizon wants to make money.
Verizon wouldn’t stop selling Droids if they could sell iPhones… and I wouldn’t buy an iPhone even if Verizon sold them.
Second, yes the Droid is a bit less powerful than the iPhone 3GS. However, my impression is that it makes up for it on a few fronts.
A – It has a touchscreen and a slide-out keyboard (I hate typing on a touchscreen)
B – Removable battery
C – Multitasking apps (it’s really annoying that Apple won’t allow multiple applications to run at once)
D – Screen Resolution 480 x 854 compared to the 3GS’s 320 x 480
E – No crappy AT&T network
F – (This is the big one) Android apps aren’t subject to the draconian approval BS that iPhone apps are
There will be a boom of Android apps coming very soon.
BTW – Can you send me a screenshot of the mobile version of this site? I have a lot of improvements that I am working on, but I haven’t done anything to improve the mobile experience yet. WordPress must have done it on their own.
Did you really just call it a screenshot?