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Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

engadget.com

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Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#21

Post by enjo »

scottjackson wrote: post #13

I'm excited about the Droid. It looks good and it seems like it runs pretty well. It's the first non-iPhone that I've looked at and kinda thought "I would not mind one of those." However, not to bring the mood down or anything, but do you guys remember the hype around the Pre at CES in January? Yeah. I really hope the Droid doesn't pull a Pre. Because I really want this phone to succeed.

One key difference: The hype around the Pre was all about pre-production hardware. It was folks looking at what they had at CES and going "in a few months this is sooo going to be awesome." In typical Palm fashion, they very conservatively didn't really improve it from CES to launch.

It clearly needed some improvement (does everyone at Palm have the worlds smallest hands?)

Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#22

Post by GeneralMaximus »

human_v2 wrote: post #11
jasonlbaptiste wrote: post #6

I personally don't think it's better than an iPhone, but I don't know if it needs to be. It's the first viable alternative out there. It's good for the market, which is in turn good for everyone else. I hope they don't rely on the whole "iDont" thing too much in the future, since Apple can make all those claims obsolete if they feel like it.

I was an early adopter, I pre-ordered a G1 and have had it for about a year now. I really love hardware keyboards, so +1 for the G1 and for the Moto Droid. However, the article talks about a bit of lag here and there, which is quite irritating, probably the thing I hate most about android phones. Though, I do feel like the G1 was a competitor to the iPhone off the bat because it could do everything the iphone did, ju…

One of the reasons why Android is slow could be its heavy reliance on Java. You can spend months tweaking and optimizing the VM, but you're still not getting close to C (and Objective-C) speeds.

I wonder what will happen if you put Symbian (which runs on most low-end smartphones from Nokia) on a high-end device like the Droid.

Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#24

Post by joezydeco »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #22
human_v2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an early adopter, I pre-ordered a G1 and have had it for about a year now. I really love hardware keyboards, so +1 for the G1 and for the Moto Droid. However, the article talks about a bit of lag here and there, which is quite irritating, probably the thing I hate most about android phones. Though, I do feel like the G1 was a competitor to the iPhone off the bat because it could do everything the iphone did, ju…

One of the reasons why Android is slow could be its heavy reliance on Java. You can spend months tweaking and optimizing the VM, but you're still not getting close to C (and Objective-C) speeds. I wonder what will happen if you put Symbian (which runs on most low-end smartphones from Nokia) on a high-end device like the Droid.

Dalvik has a pretty robust JNI implementation, and you can certainly put native code in an Android application. The NDK is getting more and more useful every release, and there's always building with the full distribution to have access to everything else. I've done it, and it's not that painful. I only worry about what might happen if Android starts showing up on other architectures. You'll have to pack in libraries for every single architecture.

I applaud Rubin's team for choosing Java as the high level library and UI implementation. While ObjC might be speedier on iPhone, it's a huge learning curve for someone that wants to write a UI-heavy app.

Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#25

Post by jsz0 »

This review doesn't touch on the lack of good desktop syncing software. I think people underestimate how big of a selling point this is for the iPhone just as it was for the original iPod. iTunes might not be the most fantastic app but for power users but it solves a lot of everyday problems for people who don't know any better. This phone, and basically all of the iPhone competitors, are lacking. They seem to be pitching this phone towards a more technically literate audience based on the advertising campaign so perhaps it won't matter much. I think the true "iPhone killer" is going to need to match or exceed iTunes and have a conduit to a market place for buying content to really catch on with a mainstream audience.

Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#26

Post by fpgeek »

nailer wrote: post #9
maximilian wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount of money to be made doing this stuff, it was inevitable that other good smart phones would arise. Props to google for realizing that its the OS that really makes a phone, not the hardware. Obviously, the Droid is a nice piece of hardware, but any other Andriod 2.0 phone will be very close to the same. I wish Nokia would get their shit together and really make a good OS.

Nokia has had a great OS for years, but the Maemo engineers haven't been allowed to put a radio in their devices until the N900. Now they can.

Unfortunately, Nokia paid the price for dancing with the carriers for too long. I do wonder if Apple is headed down the similar road with the iPhone (i.e. dramatic success that is eventually overtaken because of the entanglements of their required partners - carriers and media companies).

Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#27

Post by fpgeek »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #22
human_v2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an early adopter, I pre-ordered a G1 and have had it for about a year now. I really love hardware keyboards, so +1 for the G1 and for the Moto Droid. However, the article talks about a bit of lag here and there, which is quite irritating, probably the thing I hate most about android phones. Though, I do feel like the G1 was a competitor to the iPhone off the bat because it could do everything the iphone did, ju…

One of the reasons why Android is slow could be its heavy reliance on Java. You can spend months tweaking and optimizing the VM, but you're still not getting close to C (and Objective-C) speeds. I wonder what will happen if you put Symbian (which runs on most low-end smartphones from Nokia) on a high-end device like the Droid.

I think the reliance on Java has little or nothing to do with Android's overall performance.

I suspect the real difference is that Google has chosen to spend its time and energy in other places (e.g. setting up the open-source project, supporting a wide range of devices, creating flexible and complete developer APIs, etc.) rather than optimizing aggressively for performance from the start. I'd bet all of the interesting bottlenecks (e.g. browser rendering) are native code anyway and the Cyanogen ROMs clearly demonstrate that Google has left plenty of performance on the table so far. Given the pace of Android updates, I expect that to change in the not-too-distant future.

Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#28

Post by hyperbovine »

Andys wrote: post #16
human_v2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was an early adopter, I pre-ordered a G1 and have had it for about a year now. I really love hardware keyboards, so +1 for the G1 and for the Moto Droid. However, the article talks about a bit of lag here and there, which is quite irritating, probably the thing I hate most about android phones. Though, I do feel like the G1 was a competitor to the iPhone off the bat because it could do everything the iphone did, ju…

Its the price we pay to be able to listen to mp3s whilst GPS navigating in the car! Or leaving my SSH session open while replying to a tweet and checking a website. My point: until a super-fast android is released, would you rather have things slow but the ability to multitask, or fast but no multitasking at all?

The iPhone can play MP3s while doing anything else, there are GPS Nav apps for the iPhone, and nobody wants to ssh from a phone anyways.

Re: Engadget reviews the Motorola Droid

#30

Post by ComputerGuru »

fpgeek wrote: post #26
nailer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nokia has had a great OS for years, but the Maemo engineers haven't been allowed to put a radio in their devices until the N900. Now they can.

Unfortunately, Nokia paid the price for dancing with the carriers for too long. I do wonder if Apple is headed down the similar road with the iPhone (i.e. dramatic success that is eventually overtaken because of the entanglements of their required partners - carriers and media companies).

There's a fine line to walk. Nokia went over it a long time ago, and now they're on the opposite side of the line.

Keeping phone and provider separate is great for the consumer, but not in the long run since the phone companies don't get the market they need.

i.e. it would be great if I could use the iPhone on any network I wanted, but without an exclusive deal with AT&T, Apple wouldn't have made the kind of cash it needs to be truly profitable and stay at the top of the market.

Nokia pandered to cell companies for too long, but then went in the exact opposite direction and lost a huge chunk of the US market with them....

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