Quick Thoughts On Droid
I had a chance to play with a Droid phone earlier today for a couple of minutes. A few random, quick thoughts:
The onscreen keyboard actually seems over-sensitive. Every other letter I typed seemed to show up twice. The iPhone keyboard letters enlarge and pop-up when you move your finger over them, giving you a bit of visual feedback. The Droid keyboard seemed to duplicate inputs unexpectedly.
The screen itself was great. Super clear and crisp. I was not, however, a fan of the overall look of the interface. Google gets knocks for their design, and I felt the same way here. The polish wasn’t there. The top menu bar was a disaster, filled with crammed icons that seemed unnecessary and unclear. It reminded me of the top menu bar on a 1999 Nokia candybar phone than a modern smartphone.
The phone felt solid, yet clunky, both physically and design-wise. The slide out keyboard was usable, but the physical markings on the outside of the phone are made for portait use. When you slide the keyboard and rotate to landscape, the screen rotates, but the four physical home buttons on the bottom, of course, do not. That means that they’re sideways when you hit them. Obviously this is something you can get used to, but it’s also something that other companies would never allow.
I want the Droid to succeed. I want the Pre to succeed. The competition is good. Other than people that are having so many problems with AT&T that they need a new provider, I can’t see many people that are iPhone users going in that direction. You’re too used to how it works, and the little refinements.
Everyone’s heard countless stories of people going into an Apple Store, playing with an iPhone for a few minutes, and saying “I have to have this.” There’s a wow factor, and it’s immediate. I just don’t think that’s there with the Droid. It’s got a lot of great features that can match the iPhone point for point in many cases, but the overall impact wasn’t there for me. Like Lebowski’s rug, there’s something about the iPhone that ties all the pieces together—it’s greater than the sum of its parts. The Droid feels like just parts.
