First Impressions

Today I picked up the Verizon Droid that debuted in a lackluster but second to best glory of the iPhone debut(s). There was a line… but only for the preview unit, unlike the first day at the Apple Store for an iPhone where you see a line around the corner. No complaints though, it just means I got my phone earlier than expected!

First impressions of the Verizon Droid phone: It’s sleek, it’s solid, and it reminds me of batman. That was more than enough to keep me intrigued. It has all the functionality you would expect from a comparible iPhone device and then some… one feature that really struck out at me that no one has really mentioned: vibrating feedback. I find it really cool that the phone vibrates on certain types of touch. It makes the phone feel like it’s responding in a way that my iPhone never responded to me… It’s like a new sensation of love washed over me in awe. Ok… I’ll stop geeking out about it, either way, first impressions were great!

One more thing I’ll add to the first impressions based off other reviews that came out before the release: there was mention of sluggishness in the UI. I experienced and still have not experienced any sluggish behavior with my Droid.

Geek Bonus

The phone speaks a really awesome “Droid” noise on certain events (like new e-mail.) It’s an awesome sound and make me want to hi-5 the closest geek around me.

Time to Compare

Let’s compare the iPhone now to the Droid now. Oh, and I also want to mention that I still own an iPhone. I used to have the 3GS iPhone but I lost it in Ibiza, so now I’m stuck with my back up. Either way… as a current iPhone user I just want to point out that the Droid satisfies me just as much as the iPhone does. I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything except… the camera of the 3GS. We’ll get to that in a second though.

Let’s go over the network quality first:

Network Quality

Coming from AT&T I never knew what was “better” in terms of audio/cell quality. Now I know… Verizon has an amazing network.

Size:

They’re roughly the same size. The Droid is a tiny bit bigger because of the slide-out keyboard, it’s not a huge difference though.

Weight:

They feel pretty much the same.

Marketplace:

You’ll find what you need with the droid. Of course the iPhone has a wider selection but there’s only so many purposes an application can fulfill. I’d say the types of applications you’d actually use on a day-to-day basis are available for both the Droid and iPhone. Oh, and installing the apps is a breeze. I’d say even easier than on the iPhone.

Browser:

It works great on the Droid and the iPhone. No complaints for either.

Maps:

This is where the Droid wins flat out. Holy moly is the GPS Navigation freaking sweet! I’d say the phone is worth it just to take advantage of this feature. It’s perfect… and free! I’m a little pissed off at how amazing this is though because it killed me in my Garmin stock… :(

Camera:

The reviews were true on the camera. The camera does suck on the Droid. However I don’t know if it’s the hardware or the software. Compared to the 3GS it truly sucks, but compared to the 1ST Gen… well you be the judge:

iPhone Shot | Droid Shot

iPhone Gallery | Droid Gallery

To my eyes… they’re roughly the same quality once taken. And if I’m not mistaken the 1st gen iphone is a 2.0 megapixel camera and the droid is 5 megapixels. Yeesh that’s embarrassing. However megapixels isn’t everything about a camera. There’s the sensors and other stuff that I don’t know about. Either way, Droid camera sucks! The videos are decent though.

Contact / Social / Media Integration:

This is another area where the Droid really excels at over the iPhone – the way that all your contacts are synced with Facebook, Google, and other services is really damn cool. As soon as I bought my phone I already had 95% of my contacts in my phone just because it was already in Google Voice (oh, and that’s another amazing feature on its own that the Android platform obviously supports). As soon as I added my Facebook details as well, all those contacts synced with my Facebook contacts and a majority of my contacts now have profile photos, e-mail addresses and phone numbers I didn’t know about… overall a really cool experience.

I know I didn’t write this post very well. I’m not trying to write up an impressive professional blog post. I just want to share a couple feelings I had and my experience with the Droid as well as a comparison to an iPhone.

In Conclusion

The Verizon Droid is a damn good phone. I’d say it is definitely the second best phone on the market but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be your primary phone. I’d settle for the Droid over the iPhone just because it’s a breath of new air, and as a geek I like new toys. I’m not missing any of the features on my iPhone, so what’s the loss? I see only gains with the Droid only features.

How’s everyone doing in the Ruby world? How about the Rails world? Great I hope. I’ve been so busy the past couple months with work that I have not been able to give any attention to this blog at all. However, that may change as I have project availability opening up as of November.

If you’re interested in any Design, User Experience, Auditing, Ruby on Rails Development and or other Ruby work let me know. Also take notice that I can put up to 2 other Ruby Programmers on the project. I now run a 3 person team ruby web-development agency: http://www.abigfisch.com

Give me a call at 323-708-3664 or e-mail me at daniel@abigfisch.com

I was looking around Downtown Los Angeles recently for purchasing a loft and after doing a lot of research I see an immense future for this location. Which led me to the following idea: shared office space in Downtown L.A. I’d love to have an amazing office in the heart of it; however I like to stay independent and this idea is not entirely feasible or even fun on my own.

I’m throwing this idea out there to see if anyone would be interested in building a really modern, inspiring, web-development/graphic-design office in Downtown L.A.

If you’d like to have a meeting about this feel free to send me an e-mail to (daniel [at] abigfisch.com), tweet me, or give me a call: +1 323.708.3664

Easy to Find

How is RailsConf 2009 treating you so far? Any exciting adventures? I’ve had a couple – feel free to join me in one of them. There’s an easy way to spot me at the conference, I have a blue tattoo on my arm. Just shout out at me and I’ll gladly give you a shout back.

Either at the Conference or After

If anyone wants to make plans to meet up after the conference for a couple drinks, let me know and we can arrange something.

How is the conference going so far

How do you feel about the conference so far? Are you enjoying it? I’ve had a pretty good time as of yet. Compared to last year I’ve been really lazy. I’ve missed every keynote so far – I just don’t feel like getting up at 9 A.M after going out for drinks the previous night.

Here’s the tat

Now go ahead and “find waldo” me.

Three Years Strong

It’s that time of the year again… Railsconf 2009! I can’t believe this is going to be my third year going to Railsconf. Can you believe how long you’ve been involved in Ruby and Rails these days? It’s… almost scary how time has gone by.

Vegas? Drunk!

I’m really psyched for this Railsconf. I think Vegas is a good change from Portland. However… there may be one problem: lots of drunk geeks during the conference. Though that situation may lead to quite a hilarious predicament, and that’s entirely welcome.

What are you looking forward to?

What talks are you looking forward to? I actually have not looked at the schedule at all. I should probably get on that within the next couple days. I’m curious to what you’re going to attend though.

Are you going? Let’s meet up

Anyway, who’s going? Would anyone like to get together? Geek out? Hack out? Drink up? Get in touch with me and let’s have some fun.

One week to go!