The device looked and felt great.  It was sturdy, solid and truly felt like a well put together piece of hardware.  After getting back to my car with Droid in hand, I immediately went to work customizing.  I was pleased to see that many of my iPhone applications were in the Android Marketplace and ready to download.  Sweet!  I happily downloaded them and tested them out.  All worked fine!  I needed to setup my company’s Exchange support for email, calendar and the like, and it didn’t take more than a few minutes to do that either.  I was ecstatic!

On the drive home, I had Pandora playing, and was again so thrilled that I was able to keep listening to music and check email at the same time.  Um, I mean, I pulled over and stuff, of course, never would dream of doing that while driving.   My wife called me and I was able to answer the phone (unlike with my AT&T iPhone) and have a conversation without dropping the call or having to ask “WHAT?” repeatedly.  It was great!  Soon, I was at my desk and ready to really get busy testing out this phone.

I immediately was a bit taken back when I picked up the phone from my car seat, man it was warm.  I’d go out on a limb and call it hot, not even warm.  Well, who cares, my iPhone gets plenty hot too.  Onward.  I grabbed a cup of java and plopped myself down at my desk.  Hmm.  That’s strange.  Only 30% of the battery was left.  Well, it wasn’t fully charged when I picked it up, so I’m sure that is no problem.  I plugged it into the wall to charge and figured I would keep working with the phone while it charged.

After about 15 minutes I realized that the phone wasn’t cooling down.  Man, this baby was hot.  But alas, fine.  I was used to that by now with Smartphones.  They are just little computers, and they have no fan inside to dissipate the heat, so move on, nothing to see here.  Hmm.  Problem.  The Email application showed my corporate Inbox, but it wasn’t showing me my folders within my inbox.  I have a ton of folders in there.  I poked around and finally found where those folders are listed, however they were empty.  Not good.  I need folder support with Exchange, not just inbox Exchange support.  I jumped online to the Android Market and fetched a program that claimed to handle Exchange.  To my disappointment, it too did not have folder support.

By now the phone had fully charged, and it was as hot as my Apple TV, and you know that thing can practically pop a bag of Jiffy Pop from start to finish.  I decided to take a drive and think this through.  I went back to my car and realized that the Droid did not have any video OUT jacks.  Hmm.  I’m used to watching TV in my car from the output on my iPhone.  This device didn’t have any video out, period.  No video out on my multi-media device.  Another big pain spot.  Then I started thinking, never a good thing, I have a boatload of i “devices” that this Droid can’t work with.  Video out, portable speakers, chargers, docks and the like.  Speaking of docs, it then dawned on me that you don’t sync this device.  All of my information is kept up in the cloud.  As a matter of fact, there was no way to back this phone up period.  I could spend days customizing it, and lose it and have no way to recover that data or programs.  Hey, no sync is good; only if with it I have the option to back everything up on my own.

I won’t torment you or me any longer.  At the end of the day, as much as I loved the Verizon Droid, it was not “good enough” to make me part with my iPhone.   I needed robust exchange support, which I couldn’t get.  I wanted my video OUT, and couldn’t.  I wanted to be able to back up my data and again, no option for that was available.  I loved making calls with this phone.  I swear it felt like the first time I used a cell phone, call quality was crystal clear and I actually enjoyed talking on it.  It just wasn’t enough of a draw for me to break away from what I was used to. 

Tail between my legs, I headed back to the Verizon store to return my Droid.  I actually thought about getting a small flip phone, just to make calls on, because the call quality was so darn good!  Love you Verizon Wireless!   If I had to bet, I would bet that give it 12-24 months, the Android platform, and devices like the Droid will overtake the iPhone.  Ok, if not overtake, really be a contender.  Unfortunately, as of now, it just wasn’t ready for me.

This morning, I was the 7th person inline several hours before the Verizon Wireless store opened. I walked out with my new Droid. At first impression, it was very solid. Feels very expensive. The screen is gorgeous. I started hammering out on the slide out keyboard, and it worked just fine. Works like a small slide out QWERTY keyboard should. I punched around the screen and typed a bit on the virtual screen. To my surprise, that worked very very well too. I would be just as happy with this identical device minus the slide out.

Back to my desk I went, with my iPhone 3GS in hand, and Droid. Time to do the basics. I added my company Exchange in about 2 minutes. That was easy. Then I went screen by screen to add applications to the Droid that I currently had installed on my iPhone. I knew there would be gaps, alas here we go.

Pandora, check
Qik, check
Wordpress app, check
Meebo, multiplatform messenger, check
Audioboo, check
Barcode Scanner, check
Facebook, already there, check
Loopt, check
Twitter app, check
Geocaching app, check
Skype, check

For the time being, I’m taking a break. The little Droid has been hammered on for a few hours now, and is, as my iPhone does, getting a bit warm. I’ll let it rest and I’ll do some work. More to follow.

At long last, I can not worry about carrying around ONE more credit card.  Now, my Starbucks card is on my iPhone.