Blog.MrHacks.com

Droid Does Quite Well

Generally when I write my critiques, I have an unconventional way of writing them. I like to point out the faults and grevances first before pointing out the praise, features, and benefits. This way, when someone finishes reading the article they can think postively about the thing that I wrote about. This can work the opposite way if you list the postive first and the negative second.

I’ve had my Motorola Droid for nearly a week now. Though it is a good phone it is not without grevances.

First, there is the grevances with Verizon. The usage of mail in rebates is so last century. The fact that I have to pay an extra $100 to get that $100 back is BS. The concept of the rebate system seems to be on the idea that people are lazy and that they will not take the effort to photocopy a sales recept (easily done at the workplace, local library, Kinkos, or if you are lucky to have an open top printer/scanner). I certainly wasn’t going to go to Sam’s to pay $184 for a $199 phone that is worth paying an extra $8 for an insurance policy. It also would have been nice if Verizon would have created a printout of what the bill would look like. Though service will likely be near $100/month, there are a few things that can be done to reduce the cost of service. When I find out, I’ll be sure to write about it.

Next, their is the grevances with Motorola. I was suprised to here that the Droid was Motorola’s Hail Mary Pass in that hearing things like Motorola has been putting out some bad phones over the years. The Droid is a good phone….but Motorola wasn’t truthful in reporting the SAR rating of the phone. While Motorola told the FCC that it had an SAR rating of 0.89 W/kg (body) and 1.10 W/kg (head), the manual for the Droid has different values. Like 1.5 W/kg (body) and 1.49 W/kg (head). Of course, it is not like there is someone who keeps track of these things, right? On the other hand, I did disable the GPS on the phone, which probably explains why I don’t need to recharge the thing every four hours. GPS is a nice feature to work with mapping applications, but it can be a real battery drainer and privacy invader.

Which brings me to the final set of grevances that I have with Google. Google has played a big part in the Android Operating system development. It was kind of a let down that the applications I though Google had availble to use Google’s services weren’t there, or were so much better if used in the Internet browser than on the phone. Sure, you have Google Maps (which is good), Google Calendar (also good), and Gmail (which could use an upgrade), but Google does not have any applications for Tasks, Notes, or Docs. These applications are available for iPhone from Google, but Android users, no matter which phone you are using, will need to go to the Internet for that.

Seeing as how the Android operating system now brings Google applications to a mobile device, one can’t help but wonder if the guy at Google who decided to discontinue Google Notebook isn’t kicking himself right now. Notebook would have been a great app for Android, and the fact that it was discontinued is a foolish mistake. It would be like Microsoft removing Notepad because you have Word. Hopefully, someone will reinstate this service so that moble users can jot down notes.

The Android Market deserves both praise and criticism.

If anyone is not aware of the Anonymous hacker group, you should probably know that these guys mean business even in their quirky unorthodox ways. Anonymous is fickle. To either laud or jeer them would be hazardous to one’s online reputation. However, I find their motives of dealing soundboards in the Android Market (under the guise of “Onymous Heroes”) to be conspicuous. While it is great that the Android has many free appications to try out (although It would be nice to see a few more from Google and the Android group), the fact that one of the most stand-alone-complex group might not be so obvious to many users is a little concerning but at the same time a reminder that not everyone is creating programs in the Market (or App Store for that matter) with good intentions. That is, other groups (not like Anonymous) could have their own applications on the market to do some bad things. It is sort of like a reminder by them to say “hey watch your back” or taking advice from a theif on how to better safeguard your home from intrusion. On the other hand, the fact that no one is really keeping an eye on the Market to weed out programs that can be potential secuirty threats should make Android users wary of who the download their software from.

Reguardless, I do have plans on writing many reviews in the future about Android Apps. I would also like to develop some of them. I probably should put more effort into writing things in Java, to which that is what brings me to the upside of this review.

The Android operating system is Linux based, but many of the programs are written in Java. Perhaps I had alot of bad experiences with Java (as I don’t even use Java when browsing the Internet as the processes will keep on running), but the performance of Java on the Android is remarkable! Back when I had a Motorola RAZR, Java was unplesant. Palm couldn’t use Java work a dan on the Treo. But Android, has pretty much saved Java from being just another legacy language. Android doesn’t use the Java 2 SE or ME standards, which probably explains why Android programs are so fluid.

As stated earlier, the security flaws of the Android operating system is not with the operating sysetem itself, but with programs from some shady individuals selling their wares on the Market. However, there are gems among the junk. Where Palm Treo didn’t have the random number generation to develop a proper encryption key to run things like SSH and IRC (or battery life), the Android operating system does. Security is also one of the main goals of the Android operating system. If anything bad happens to the phone because of a program, Google will know about it. So basically, security is very good on the phone.

The Droid has a beautiful and sharp 16:9 screen. Despite the criticism by many critics about the camera, I think they seem to forget that the camera has two flashes on it. And why is everyone complaining about the 5 megapixel camera? Sure, you have to hold down the picture button to take a photo, but 5 megapixels is a sharp good of not great quality camera. (Perhaps my review of digital cameras is short sighted, then again, I don’t exactly have $700 at the moment to go out and buy the latest Nikon camera on the market. So in my opinion, 5 MP is good.)

Another thing the critics have been ripping on is the audio. Perhaps it is the foolish assumption that because a phone has a speakerphone on it that it can be used as a radio. Well…yes and no. Like just about all other smartphones, you will need to use headphones or an audio adaptor that plugs into your car stereo or home audio equipment. With a 3.5mm headphone jack, any set of headphones can be plugged into the Droid. The iPhone, much like my previous phone which was a Palm Treo, does not have a 3.5mm headphone jack. Instead, iPhone users need to use an adaptor, which in my previous experience of using audio adaptors for headphones, is an unplesant experience as it makes listening to music impossible afte a while. The Droid, like its competitor the Palm Pre, has a 3.5mm jack as opposed with the G1 that has no jack (USB audio only has one purpose: SKYPE!).

Droid does streaming audio much like the iPhone. If there is one Application I can recommend right now, it is imeem Moble. Streaming audio has evolved over the years. Just remember when you do streaming audido, do it where you can get WiFi. Otherwise, don’t forget to bring your music collection with you. (Remember: “unlimited” on the 3G network, no matter which telecom you use, means 5GB.)

So to call the iPhone better because “it has 100,000 apps” and that “it is more popular” is clearly a sign that the critics are not interested in what is new or what is better, just what is cool. Remember that next time when you try to listen to music on your iPhone but can’t because your headphones sound awful because you need to use an adaptor. Remember that when you can’t swap batteries, run multiple applications, take night shots with the camera, or make a phonecall without having to deal with the Jack-In-The-Box-speaker-quality sound.

The Droid Does but Android still needs development.

Tags: Anonymous, Droid, google, motorola, verizon