The DROID by Motorola, which will be available on the Verizon Wireless network Nov. 6, will be the first smartphone to use the Android 2.0 operating system. The device, according to one analyst, is a threat to Apple's iPhone and Motorola's last best chance to thrive in the increasingly competitive smartphone sector.
Tim Bajarin, president of consultancy Creative Strategies, wrote an e-mail that the device is well designed. "I believe it will be considered one of the top smartphones in the market. Clearly, its goal is to help Verizon give their customers an alternative to Apple's iPhone, and to that end it should get a lot of Verizon's customers interested in it if they were considering an iPhone."
Do or Die for Motorola
The stakes are high for Motorola, and Bajarin wrote that the device delivers -- at least to a point. "This is a do-or-die product for Motorola," Bajarin wrote. "They needed to hit a home run to even stay in the game. The initial Droid is a solid product but I think only gets them to third base. Apple's ease of use and media synchronization still trumps the Droid. However, if they solve these problems and the Android world delivers more exciting and innovative apps, it could clearly help them get a product into the top tier of the smartphone market."
The DROID is the first result of a marketing and distribution agreement between Google and Verizon Wireless that was announced on Oct. 6. It also is the marketplace debut of Android 2.0, code-named Éclair.
The phone has a 3.7-inch-high and 854-pixel-wide screen. The companies, in a joint press release, say the screen's size and resolution -- which is driven by more than 400,000 pixels -- reduces the need for side-to-side panning. The DROID features voice-activated search, the ability to run multiple tasks simultaneously, a thin QWERTY keyboard, a five-megapixel camera, and turn-by-turn directions with the Google Maps Navigation beta.
Verizon's Answer to the iPhone?
Preloaded features include Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Google Talk, Android Market access, Facebook integration, Verizon Wireless Visual Voice Mail, and Amazon's MP3 Store. The DROID will cost $199.99 with a two-year contract after a $100.00 mail-in rebate.
Bajarin's theme -- that the DROID is a promising device, but there is much work ahead to challenge the iPhone -- extends to Verizon's involvement in the project. "This finally gives Verizon a smartphone that can compete directly with the iPhone," he wrote. "However, the iPhone is still the better product and Verizon will need to focus on showing what it can do and not what the iPhone can't do to win over potential buyers."
Bajarin added that the smartphone isn't likely to appeal to business users because it lacks Microsoft  ActiveSync and Outlook.
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