Motorola Droid Phone v.s. iPhone 3GS

[Shayla]

Motorola Droid - the first phone from the DROID series was unveiled today in a press conference held by Verizon Wireless. Droid will be the first phone to be powered by the new Google Android 2.0 operating system and will be available, starting from Nov. 6th for $199 (after a $100 rebate) with a two-year contract on Verizon. Below is a quick rundown on how Motorola Droid stands against the ever so popular iPhone 3GS.

Source : RedmonPie

[SMELTN]

It looks great nice stats too

[PT 13]

If this motorola comes to Portugal, I'll give it a serious thought about getting one...

Never really liked android, but this 2.0 looks very solid :D

[c3i89g]

This is a huge disappointment. It's nearly as ugly as the G1, the first few rows of specs are sub-par (core components, weight & dimensions) and the pricing is unacceptable. $300 out the door? Really? The iPhone doesn't have a mail-in-rebate and is the same price out the door as the Droid is after the mail-in-rebate.

I hate the iPhone, but for another phone to de-throne it, the other phone has to be either jealousy-invoking or come in under the iPhone's price point. The average consumer: "For less than that I could just get an iPhone."

Sadly, this Droid isn't going the iPhone haters saviour.

[hjf288]

No multitouch killed it for me, but there is a GSM version as well

[Ohwhyme]

Well unless the two phones are using the same architecture, I don't think you can compare the speed of the processors fairly. Remember the phone includes a keyboard compared to the iphone. What I don't understand is why there is a part sticking out of the phone when closed. I hope the n900 will be as good as this phone if not better.

[Rudy]

I would say it depends where you live....in Canada we unfortunately don't have access to paid apps in the Market.....and really that makes owning an Android device pretty lame :( I really wish I would have gotten an iPhone

[Subject Delta]

Multi touch will be included in the Android 2.0 core, so you can bet that as soon as google release the source code, rom cookers like Cyanogen will soon be putting working implementations into their roms.

The CPU speed is pretty disappointing considering it was supposed to have a 1GHZ cpu but apart from that, its a pretty impressive phone, but for me the QWERTY keyboard would be the biggest selling point, as I have large fingers touch keyboards aren't ideal.

[gazebee_]

So the Droid has a capacitive screen but no multi-touch? I thought the whole point of the c-screens were to do multi-touch.

[Subject Delta]

Yeah. It's apple's stupid patents on certain touch input methods that are holding it back really.

[zagor]

Are you guys sure it is not multitouch?

[Subject Delta]

As I stated, the core of the OS has multitouch support so it is possible to build support into apps for it, but none of the apps built in have support for it. Multitouch was patched into the browser some time ago, but with support for it in the core of the OS, you will soon see ROMs with it patched into most of the built in apps. Like a lot of phones nowadays jailbreaking/rooting opens up a lot of possibilities

[chevyordeath]

What the hell is multi touch mean exactly? I think the phone looks pretty cool. I have Verizon, I love Verizon, have had them forever. I currently have an LG Voyager, and was looking to upgrade here soon, this looks like the ticket!

[hjf288]

What the hell is multi touch mean exactly? I think the phone looks pretty cool. I have Verizon, I love Verizon, have had them forever. I currently have an LG Voyager, and was looking to upgrade here soon, this looks like the ticket!

Means you can use more than one finger to do something..

I.e "Pinch" to zoom into an image

[Gabe3]

Multi touch will be included in the Android 2.0 core, so you can bet that as soon as google release the source code, rom cookers like Cyanogen will soon be putting working implementations into their roms.

The CPU speed is pretty disappointing considering it was supposed to have a 1GHZ cpu but apart from that, its a pretty impressive phone, but for me the QWERTY keyboard would be the biggest selling point, as I have large fingers touch keyboards aren't ideal.

about multi touch. are you sure this phone is going to get rooted? because I don't think the sprint hero has been rooted yet.

[profets]

what happened to the 1ghz snapdragon for the droid???

[epple]

Who knows, judging by the hands-on videos it's pretty damn fast and scrolling in the browser is sick fast and that's all on initial software. Don't forget it has a dedicated GPU (like most high-end phones, though).

Would it benefit from an even faster CPU? Sure. Would you notice a huge difference in everyday tasks? Probably not.

[Remote Sojourner]

Few things are incorrect there about droid

1) The phone is multitouch and browser implements it as well as some other apps and developers can leverage multitouch as well. It can track 3 pointers.

2)Tap to focus must be there because I have it on my Hero. Photo geotagging is available too.

3)Droid has few more sensors than iphone.

4)Also there are a lot more things which are possible in droid only e.g. detection of a specific dock and a homescreen specific to that.

Oh and iphone doesnt fully support Bluetooth like the OPP.

[thealexweb]

I thought the iPhone had bluetooth but it couldn't use it because Apple had it switched off. Anyone know anymore about this?

Edited October 29, 2009 by thealexweb

[SMELTN]

depends on what you mean by fully supported bluetooth. iPhone has bluetooth for headsets, and such.

[thealexweb]

depends on what you mean by fully supported bluetooth. iPhone has bluetooth for headsets, and such.

Can you send files to other phones, thats what I mean by having bluetooth, it if cant do this then it doesn't have bluetooth in my mind.

[maash]

one more FUD article here. this DOES have multitouch

[Subject Delta]

about multi touch. are you sure this phone is going to get rooted? because I don't think the sprint hero has been rooted yet.

I am pretty sure they will find a way to root it sooner or later. The HTC hero runs a lot of closed source third party code, but the Droid will be running practically stock Android 2.0 firmware, and as the OS is open source I wouldn't imagine it will take that long to find a rootable vulnerability.

Would it benefit from an even faster CPU? Sure. Would you notice a huge difference in everyday tasks? Probably not.

The fact that most of the core applications are in Java means that they execute more slowly than native C++ applications, meaning the phone would actually still benefit from more CPU speed.

I thought the iPhone had bluetooth but it couldn't use it because Apple had it switched off. Anyone know anymore about this?

Pretty much. The bluetooth antenna in the phone is fully capable, but Apple have purposely crippled the bluetooth stack to disable OBEX (object exchange) probably to lock people into buying things from iTunes and to stop the wireless sharing of files. With Android 2.0 I believe OBEX support is included, I know it will be coming to the G1 as well with one of Cyanogen's roms.

[thealexweb]

I am pretty sure they will find a way to root it sooner or later. The HTC hero runs a lot of closed source third party code, but the Droid will be running practically stock Android 2.0 firmware, and as the OS is open source I wouldn't imagine it will take that long to find a rootable vulnerability.

The fact that most of the core applications are in Java means that they execute more slowly than native C++ applications, meaning the phone would actually still benefit from more CPU speed.

Pretty much. The bluetooth antenna in the phone is fully capable, but Apple have purposely crippled the bluetooth stack to disable OBEX (object exchange) probably to lock people into buying things from iTunes and to stop the wireless sharing of files. With Android 2.0 I believe OBEX support is included, I know it will be coming to the G1 as well with one of Cyanogen's roms.

I thought 1.6 was the last version to come to the G1 because Android had become a few MB to big, have the managed to squeeze it on?

[Subject Delta]

That was actually a lie by T-Mobile, they are dropping support for it so that they can sell newer handsets. 1.6 fits quiet comfortably onto the G1 as should 2.0 I can't see it being a lot bigger. HTC released 1.6 roms for their developer G1s which are in hardware terms almost the same as the normal G1, so there is no reason for the device to not be updated. Of course it is better to root the device and use an Apps to SD which sorts out the issue of there being a shortage of app space on the device.