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.

Complaints About Orbitz and Northwest

Here is an email I wrote to Northwest Airlines detailing the entire day I spent on the phone trying to get her flights straightened out. They were absolutely no help and neither was Orbitz. The basic problem was that I had booked her a multi-city trip with 4 sets of flights over 3 weeks. She missed her flight on Saturday morning and after Orbitz was absolutely no help we decided to try to get her to her next destination on AmTrak. But Northwest tells us that if she does not get on the plane she will have the rest of her trip cancelled. I offered to pay their change fee if they don't make her wait until Tuesday to leave, but they said no, unless she gets on the plane her trip will be cancelled.

This is the most outrageous and absurd thing I have ever heard. I am extremely angry and will never use Northwest, or Orbitz, again.

Email below:
My grandmother missed her flight to Cleveland from LaGuardia this morning even though she was at the airport with plenty of time. Between the time waiting on the lines and her difficulty walking quickly it took her almost 2 hours to get checked in and by the time she was the flight had left.

She is going to see terminally ill relatives in Pennsylvania and she wants to get there ASAP. I called and spoke to an agent who told me that it would cost well over $1,000 to get her to Erie tomorrow but they could do it on Tuesday.

Then she goes on to tell me that if my grandmother does not fly from LaGuardia to Erie they will cancel the rest of her flights. She was willing to pay for an alternate method of getting there on her own, so I don't understand this policy. So I ask to speak to a supervisor and am on hold for ONE HOUR AND A HALF. Finally I call from my cell phone and get to a supervisor who confirms this absolutely ridiculous policy that if she does not fly from LGA to ERI the rest of her 3 week trip will be cancelled. I offered to pay the change fee and asked if she could still take AmTrak and we will GO TO THE AIRPORT to check her in ourselves. I was told, no, unless she gets on the plane the rest of her THREE WEEK trip will be cancelled. We were willing to pay for her to get there on our own, pay your ridiculous change fee, but I was told that the rest of the flight would still be cancelled.

Then after waiting on hold for another half hour with the supervisor I pay the change fee, change it to Tuesday, and she tells me that they need to charge me a $15 call center fee. So I have been on the phone on HOLD for TWO AND A HALF hours now and I have to pay $15 for the privilege of wasting my afternoon dealing with these ridiculous rules and restrictions.

We are all extremely unhappy and will probably never fly with you again. I would like the last 3 hours of my life back that I wasted on hold waiting for someone who NEVER EVEN ANSWERED the phone.

My grandmother is almost 80 years old and all her sisters and brothers are going to be dead within months and you just robbed her of her chance to spend more than a few days with them. You should be ashamed.