Droid Vs. iPhone
It’s been almost 2 months since the first Android 2.0 device hit the market, the Motorola Droid on Verizon Wireless. Since launch in November, I made the switch to Verizon because the release of the Motorola Droid has finally brought a device to Verizon which has a chance at competing with the Apple iPhone currently available exclusively with AT&T Wireless. This a comparison of my experiences on both mobile platforms.
I switched back to Verizon mainly because of the solid network Verizon has established across North America. I spend a good amount of time up north in Canada and AT&T so far doesn’t have a good plan for extended stays. The best you can do is have your roaming rate reduced. When you have a device like an iPhone a data plan is a must to keep your sanity. Fortunately, Verizon offers a North American plan which is easy to switch to when spending a week or two in Canada. While CDMA Verizon phones are generally useless outside of North America, Verizon has their stuff together when staying within the continent.
Pricing of smartphones with contracts is really not a big issue. When you are already spending $70+ per month for two years for an unlimited data plan in the US, device pricing with new contracts are insignificant in the long run. The Motorola Droid is currently priced at $200 with a two year contract on Verizon so it is comparable to a 16GB iPhone 3GS.
Operating System: The iPhone OS and Android appeal to different people for different reasons. The iPhone maintains its speed mainly from only running one app at a time. Sure there are push notifications and some processes running in the background, but the system is usually focusing on one task at a time. iPhone OS is dead simple and can be mastered within minutes, you touch an app to start and press the home button when you are done. Everything is separated, quick, and easy to do on the go. Android on the other hand puts a lot more control into the consumer’s hands. Android multitasking especially appealed to me when I discovered I could listen to online radio like Pandora while browsing the web, all over 3G. The Android OS manages notifications a lot better than iPhone. In iPhone OS, when you get a notification, you read it, press ok, and its gone… forever. And you can only read one notification at a time. Android manages multiple notifications in a pull down menu and lets you address them one at a time. IE you can see that you have a new email, Twitter update, and IM reply all at the same time. So far, Android is a great alternative to iPhone OS.
Apps: Phone’s App Store is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The iPhone has the best app support around on a mobile platform, period. If someone is making an app for whatever reason, you can be sure it will be on iPhone. Skype for example has created a solid mobile (WiFi only albeit ) client for the iPhone which is great VoIP. Android is still has no official true VoIP clieerent on Android. The App Store also leads in pure numbers; there are over 100,000 iPhone Apps out there while the Android Market has about 16,000. But hopefully Android will catch on as more people are buying Android devices on many different carriers. The disadvantage to the App Store is Apple’s notorious screening process. PDAnet, an app that allowed internet connection tethering was quickly pulled from the App Store after it was released. PDAnet along with console emulators and other great software reside peacefully on the Android Market. iPhone’s App Store has better support, but the Android Market lets you get away with things that would make Apple cry. One area that is so far lacking on Android is gaming. Because Android developers are producing for a wide range of devices, most games are dumbed down so that they have very basic hardware requirements. The iPhone has a rich library of fun games that render very well across iPhone and iPod touch devices. For basic tools and utilities, the Android market is more than sufficient and Google has many interesting apps that will keep you occupied. Stay tuned for specific App reviews for iPhone and Android.
Hardware: At first glance, the Apple iPhone and the Motorola Droid are pretty similar in size. The iPhone is little thinner and wider and they both have the same over all height. The Droid makes up for it’s pudginess by packing a full physical qwerty keyboard once the screen is slid to to the side. The keyboard doesn’t have actual 0-9 keys and relies on an alt button which can thankfully be alt locked. Other physical differences include a multicolored notification LED in the upper right corner, a dedicated camera button on lower right side, and four home buttons for the Android OS on the bottom of the screen. The home buttons are part of the capacitive touch screen and cannot be used with gloves. Also, the only way to wake up the device is to press the lock button on top or slide the phone open. The home button placement on the iPhone feels better and is more convenient when whipping it out as everything can be accessed with the thumb of either hand while the four other fingers cradle the device. Pressing the lock button can get awkward for single hand use. The iPhone 3GS and the Droid share the same ARM processor and it serves both devices very well.
Screen: The screen on the Droid is the best I have seen on a mobile device (people who have used the Nexus One disagree). The 3.7 inch 854×480 screen makes text look sharp and images crisp. I struggle to see the individual pixels with the naked eye. After using the Droid and looking at the iPhone, text on the iPhone actually looks blurrier, and I find myself zooming in on text much more often. The screen of the Droid multitouch support, however Motorola and Google decided to leave multitouch out of the OS (read keyboard and browser) for reasons unknown. Palm did it with the Pre and hasn’t gotten yelled at. Anyway, multitouch Android apps in the Market work fine. For people like me who need multitouch, the Dolphin Browser and Picsay image viewer are decent substitutes for the real thing in the OS. However, you are stuck with zoom buttons in Google Maps. Videos encoded at the native screen resolution render beautifully on the screen with the Android Gallery app. The only complaint I have about video viewing is the four home buttons are backit in the dark and you are forced to stare at them on the side as you watch your movie. Not a big issue, but a minor inconvenience.
Camera: The camera on the Droid isn’t good for photos but handles videos exceptionally well. The 5MP camera was plagued with a buggy autofocus until Android 2.0.1. While the autofocus has since been fixed, the image quality is poor and the colors seem off. Video on the other hand is great. It can record at 720×480 at 24fps. The dual led flash is useful for taking pictures in the dark but honestly you are asking for a nosiefest for using a cell phone camera in the dark to begin with. The button on the side of the Droid is nice because it allows you to half-press for focus and full-press to take the shot.
Keyboards: The onscreen keyboard takes a bit of getting used to. The lack of multitouch really begins to become evident when using the onscreen keyboard. Sometimes I feel like I must slow down my typing because without multitouch, the keyboard cannot keep up with my fingers. After a week, I adapted. In my opinion, the iPhone has the best keyboard on a mobile device out of both physical an virtual keyboards. For people seeking some tactile feedback, there is an app in the Android Market called BetterKeyboard which allows you to use a Blackberry Storm-esque keyboard with a vibration after each click. Its worth a buy if the Android keyboard really bothers you.
Maps: Android 2.0 introduces voice-to-text functionality and Google’s Navigation Beta for use within the United States. For finding a way from point A to B is extremely easy. You just speak the name or address into the device and let Google find it for you and guide you with navigation. The speech recognition is frighteningly accurate. Google also supports contextual searching so you could specify the name of a painting, and Google will find the museum with the painting. The maps application allows the control of map layers so you can see which roads use to avoid traffic or information about your surroundings on Wikipedia. As mentioned earlier, there is no multitouch for the Maps app, you are stuck with zoom buttons.
Bottom Line: If you find yourself playing games more often than using tools and utilities on an iPhone, you should probably stay with iPhone. However, if you want to the ability to micromanage and control everything on your phone, Android may be best for you.
Written by RotPod.net
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Great Review, and very thorough as well. In my opinion, the Droid is the best phone on the market right now. Well Maybe the Nexus One, but I don’t know much about it since it is so new. I believe that Android is a better operating system. Especially because you can multi task on it, unlike the iphone OS.
About the apps, I think the Android Marketplace is going to catch up in the near future as more and more phones come out with the Android operating system.