Droid smartphone unveiled by Motorola, Verizon
And Photos:
Posted on 10/29/2009 9:31:00 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
Verizon Wireless opened up to us.
Verizon Communications Inc. and Motorola Inc. proudly and excitedly showed off their new Droid smart phone in a meeting Wednesday afternoon.
First impression: The device is fast, powerful, fully featured and well-designed -- a combination of adjectives we've never used for a Verizon cellphone.
When was the last time a Verizon phone got this much hype? The BlackBerry Storm? Ouch.
Yet, one is coming on Nov. 6, and it has a good chance of living up to the hype. A phone with Google's fast-improving Android operating system, a 5-megapixel camera with a flash and digital zoom, a well-implemented touch screen and a slide-out keyboard.
Despite the Verizon check-mark logo branded on the device, the $200 Droid is all Google inside -- and a little Motorola. The handset manufacturer added some features on top of the Android 2.0 open-source system.
"That's really what open source is all about," said Paul Nicholson, Motorola's global marketing director. "You can layer on top of it."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimesblogs.latimes.com ...
Please stop by the FReepathon thread and give it a bump. If you haven’t donated yet, please give it some thought.
Thank you!
real keys are nice for those who like to txt, email and blog.
Our college aged son is all excited about the Droid Eris.
Guess it runs Google's ver 1.5 of Android...not sure what the differences are.
Want. Oh, want want want. Wantwantwantwantwant.
Motorola's still sore with Apple over the ROKR.
Nov 6 is the date....get your plastic ready.
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Droid only has 256mb for apps!!
Verizon may want to stop telling folks that this phone has 16GB of "onboard storage". Wrong! It has a 16GB SD card included with the phone.
It only has 512mb of onboard memory, of which only ~256mb can be used for apps!! Google Android does not allow apps to be loaded onto a SD card. This is Google’s (flawed) way of preventing pirating.
Verizon is falsely advertising this as “on board memory”. This presents two problems:
1) It kills any chances of the Droid running 3D games because they tend to be larger then 500mb. Tiger Woods golf on iPhone is 1.3GB! It also limits what developers can develop…because they have to make their apps so small.
2) This tidbit is not made knows to the general public so Droids will probably be returned in droves by customers saying “I thought I had 16GB on this thing. Why is it saying full when I download an app”.
In short, by doing this, Motorola and Google assured that Droid and Android Market could never compete with iPhone.
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Jack is spreading misinformation.
While it is true that the apps have to be stored on the on board memory of the device, this is just for the interface of the proagram. I have the HTC G1 Android phone and their are several apps that store data needed to run the prgam on the SD card of the phone. If someone wants to make a large 3D game then the program itself is on phone, but the textures, sounds and other data can be stored on the SD card. Their are already several programs like this.
I’ve been hanging on to my old Verizon dumb-phone, going monthly, for just this event. I’ll be able to FReep 24/7! W00t!
Alas, I am about to lose my job. I can’t spend money on this sort of thing. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting one.
And Obama promised he was going to get everything going again....watching the Financial shows today on CNBC....not many believe anything is going to happen till well into the second half of next year.
One hardly knows what to wish for. For my own sake, obviously I would prefer that the economy improve quickly. It would certainly make life much more pleasant. But I hate to see peop;le attribute any economic recovery to Obama. But I can’t hold out for four years until this goon is replaced, and I doubt many people can. Can’t do much except pray that God’s will be done.
Mostly, we'd just be satisfied with a large screen that had the time in HUGH font, and that, when the phone rang, showed the caller and number in that same HUGH font, so we, with our middle-age presbyopia, don't have to fumble with putting our glasses on in order to read it!
Small type is a problem here too!
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