A UK mobile phone comparison website interviewed more than a thousand mobile users and found that the phone is "eating" MP3 players, cameras and calculators, as reported in Mobile Entertainment.
This was my point two years ago, when I wrote a piece on the Mobile Juggernaut.
The power of mobile is reinforced by similar news items nearly every day. The list of products and services that mobile has profoundly effected (or sent to the museum) continues to grow. In telecoms alone, mobile has filled a graveyard: payphones, calling cards, domestic long distance (and the companies that offered LD), even landline phone service. Consider that over the last decade, the number of fixed telephone lines has been declining by 4-6% per year while mobile penetration has grown from 39% to 92% today, according to UBS. The crossover point, when mobile lines exceeded fixed in the US, was 2004.
That's just the telecoms industry. And it's not just MP3 players, cameras and calculators in the UK study that have been cannibalized by mobile. Handheld navigation devices, wristwatches, PDAs, TV, games, and soon wallets will be a thing of the past. And with the Kindle and soon iPad, don't forget books (not on my Juggernaut list two years ago) or laptops.
Why put anything else in your pocket?
I arrived at the local Verizon Wireless Store a little early this morning to make sure I could get a Droid, VZW's first Android (Google) handset from Moto. At 9:15, 45 minutes before normal opening time, the doors were wide open, balloons hanging, and nearly a dozen Black Droid-shirted VZW employees greeted me. They opened at 7:00 am, already had sold 50-60 Droids, and the early rush had subsided. "You came at a good time," the VZW rep told me. (The Van Ness store was equally festive, with a table on the street with coffee, and the indoors buzzing with Black-shirts.)
These VZW employees were well-trained on the handset, and in a carefully scripted sequence, walked customers through phone set-up, first e-mail, then phone features, contacts, sending an email (to VZW, so they now have my e-mail address) and a test call. With Android users being the geekiest smartphone users, VZW apparently told reps in its training that some people will come in to buy a Droid, and not want any help setting it up, in which case the VZW reps quickly abandon the script, turn up the phone (and make sure it works), letting the customer go on their way.
I told the VZW rep, who was quite good and almost as enthusiastic as every Apple Store employee, that maybe VZW at last has a handset for customers walking through the doors who want an iPhone. They've been without a response since the iPhone launched. He said, "I hope so; do you really think this is true?" So after you've read all the others' reviews (Mossberg and Pogue) and iPhone comparisons, here are my first impressions with the Droid, which is being charged now.
Screen: Big, bright and scrolls almost as smoothly as iPhone. Surprisingly good, especially given previous lame iPhone wannabe's
Build: Solid, great feel (metal vs. plastic), thicker than iPhone but there's a keyboard, which slides open and closes like a Mercedes door
Keyboard: If you want a keyboard, get a BlackBerry. I found myself using the touchscreen, but at least there is a keyboard
Android: Takes some learning but this will be open OS of choice
Voice/Call Quality: Excellent, top-rated
Browsing Speed: Faster than iPhone
I will update this, but someone asked for a review. There are plenty of reviews for this exciting new phone. And it's quirks will become more apparent than Day 1 of handset lust.