and the new phone is...

[dsrtao]

a Droid. Phone number remains the same, though I may play some Google Voice games at some point.

After an hour or so of fiddling around with it:

Good: that screen is very nice. Scrolls really quickly, and stops on your thumb. Voice quality is excellent. Feels solid, although I always expect a slide keyboard to be spring loaded, which this one is not. Dense. About the same weight as my previous phone, a Palm Treo 700P. The browser is good, after I futzed with the settings.
Connecting to WiFi or 3G or 2G data is all seamless.

Bad: Google knows everything.

Ugly: the case is kinda angular.

Comments

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

There was a video on the Droid on CNN yesterday about it. Not great news.

[dsrtao]

In what way? I'm not concerned about having the most popular phone, just one which works for my needs -- which seems to be this one.

[its-just-me.livejournal.com]

Not too sure. If you do a search on CNN video it should still be there.

A little futzing around

[metageek.livejournal.com]

I played with it a bit at the Verizon store Sunday night. I was impressed, mostly. I wasn't so happy with the keyboard, though; it seemed that the keys were a little too close together, and I kept fat-fingering them. I wanted to look at cvirtue's LJ as a sample page, and I kept typing "cvirtur" instead. I actually had better luck with the onscreen keyboard, which kept knowing what I meant to type even when I thought I must've missed it.

When I tried to use the browser during a call, I was told there was no Internet connection available—I didn't expect it to work, because EV-DO can't do that, but an error message explaining why it didn't work would've been welcome.

But the UI was nice, and the browser was a lot faster than my N810. I'll have to see.

Re: A little futzing around

[dsrtao]

The keyboard takes a little practice, as does the virtual keyboard -- I'm about 99.9% successful on the virtual keyboard if I use my right hand alone, 75% on my left.

When it has a 3G signal (most of my bus ride and here in Cambridge, but not at my house) or a WiFi signal, data and voice can be simultaneous.

Lots of messages appear as headline icons, which can be expanded with a swipe.

Re: A little futzing around

[metageek.livejournal.com]

When it has a 3G signal [...] data and voice can be simultaneous.

Really! Oh, that makes a huge difference. I thought I had 3G at the store, but maybe not. (This was on the first floor of the Burlington Mall, so there was plenty of mass between me and whatever tower I was talking to.)

Excuse me while Temptation and I go off and wrestle for a while.