Initial Thoughts on the Droid

I've had my Droid for about 12 hours now. Before that I was using some model of the Palm Treo for at least five years. I thought I'd post my initial impressions of the Droid.

Cons:

• I HATE the keyboard. It is terrible. The keys are flat which makes it difficult to type without looking at the keyboard. On my Treo I could easily type by feel alone. Also the keyboard is a bit too wide to type with thumbs alone.
• The calendar integrates with Google which is what I had been doing with my Treo. My one complaint is that there is no way to categorize events. I have my Treo integrating with Google integrating with Thunderbird which worked great for keeping everything synched. That still works, but the Droid doesn't allow me to classify events. I usually classify events as "Personal," "Medical," "Business," etc. Being able to see that color-coded on the screen was very useful. This calendar is usable, but not nearly as nice as the Palm's was.
  
• Backup - I know everything is supposed to back up to Google but everything does not. I am going to have to find a way to back all of my data up to somewhere, either the SD card or my workstation or somewhere online. I don't trust a phone enough to leave all my data on it with no backup. I have found several backup apps but apparently a lot of them won't restore the settings and config to a fresh phone, which kind of defeats the point.
  
• Intuitiveness - the Palm was not very intuitive, and neither is the Droid. I am the kind of person who is willing to click (or touch) around to find out how and where to do things and I have had to do this quite a bit to find various settings on the Droid.
  
• Touch screen - I am not a big fan of the touch screen. I almost never used it on my Palm. I prefered to use the navigation button which is only possibly on the Droid when the keyboard is open. Even then you need the screen to do some things. The touch screen has great resolution but it's a bit clunky. Sometimes I need to try several times to get the right level of pressure of whatever to make it work properly.
• Google - I am most definitely not a Google fanboy, and while I like the Google integration for me Gmail is not my primary email account and I wish I could get the phone around to my way of thinking.
  

Pros:

• The app store is great so far. I've been able to find the missing functionality with apps that were fairly easily located.
• The email is nice. I had some problems setting up my POP accounts, but I was able to work around those (note: not solve them, work around them.)
• The GPS and map - I haven't used these yet but this promises to be a huge plus.

All around it is a very nice phone. After five+ years of using Treos I think it will take a little getting used to the new interface. I kind of wish I had waited for the Pre, because I tried a Pre and I liked it (especially the keyboard!) I figure that the Pre may be more similar in user experience to the Treo than the Droid is. But so far I like the Droid.

Update: Some additional complaints:

• When using the (non-Gmail) email in keyboard landscape mode there is no easy way to navigate between messages, at least none I have found.
• The screen locks too quickly.
• I also miss have quick keys to get to the functions I use most. I had these custom assigned on my Treo so I could get to email, SMS, phone, calendar, etc. with one key press. With the Droid getting to these involves several key presses, touch gestures, swipes, etc.
  

Some very useful apps I have installed:

• Astrid - to do list, much better than Google Calendar tasks
• Note pad - the free androidware version, not the commercial version
• Twitdroid - A decent Twitter client.

Note that just about every app that does anything will want to notify you of anything new happening with the phone beeping, vibrating and in the notice bar. Not only will this drain the battery but it is rather annoying to have the phone beeping every 30 seconds when someone I follow posts a new Tweet. I had to disable a lot of these notifications. I usually prefer a silent phone anyway.

mRing for Treo

Looking for a way to do MP3 ringtones on my Treo I found this app, mRing. I downloaded and installed it and it works great for assigning MP3 ringtones, but I'm about to delete it for other reasons. I hate the way it changes the incoming call screen.

Gone is the little picture with two big, clearly marked buttons for answer and ignore. This is replaced with a giant picture with two little tiny buttons, and it's not really clear which one is selected at any given time. Tapping the screen ignores with text.

My other complaint about this is that every time I try to adjust the volume on my phone it ends up turning the stupid thing back on. The volume button was reassigned to be the profile adjustment for mRing. Today I will delete it completely.

If you want a completely new contact manager and to have to go into a different application to get more flexibility for assigned your contacts ringtones and pictures it is great. If you just want MP3 ringtones I would suggest playing them out of speakers and recording them using the Treo's sound application.

Blackberry vs Treo

Lately I've been thinking about trading in my Treo for a Blackberry. I've been trying to do some research on the two of them and stumbled across this article today, which isn't about Treos but about iPhone vs Blackberry.

The feedback I've gotten from people who have used both phones is that the Blackberry user interface is nicer, but it has some drawbacks - namely the lack of a touch screen and the lack of threaded SMS.

I haven't been able to find much about the threaded SMS online. I get the impression that Blackberry user's don't know how the Treo handles SMS because the reply is usually, "it does do it." But while they have come up with a way to sort of do it, it defeats the whole purpose of keeping things clean and simple. I am shocked that someone has not written a Blackberry app to do that.

Anyway I will be sticking with my Treo for now. Hopefully soon Blackberry will add this feature. I could live without the touch screen, although I love my Palm touch screen, but the threaded SMS I can not do.

Palm Treos

I have a Treo 700p. I've been using Treos since the 600 came out. I am thinking about upgrading to a 755p, but am not sure if I want to do this if there is going to be a new Treo out soon, and the new Blackberry looks kind of nice as well.

Does anyone have any advice or reviews of the 755 vs the 700?