I’ve been getting a lot of questions on Twitter about the Droid, which I stood in line for and picked up Friday morning. Now that I made it through a weekend with it, I have enough experience with it to give a good review. If your question didn't get answered, it's because I don't know the answer. Sorry!

If you don’t want to read the entire thing, I’ll sum it for you. This phone isn’t perfect, but it rocks. I’m really happy with it.

Hardware

The first thing I noticed is that it’s a little bit on the heavy side, but not too much. I actually kind of like it because it makes the device feel like a nice solid piece. The slide out keyboard feels very legit, and I’m not worried about pushing it too hard or doing something weird that breaks it. I think this phone might actually take the abuse I tend to dole out on my devices.

The next thing I notice is that the screen is awesome. It’s really sharp and really bright, with more than twice as many pixels as the iPhone. I was using the phone in direct sunlight this morning and could see it without any problems.

The Droid also seems really snappy. Switching from one app to another goes really fast, with hardly ever any lag.

The Phone

To me the most important part of a phone is how good it is at actually making phone calls. It’s on Verizon, so the coverage in my area is really good. In fact, I switched to Verizon from T-Mobile several years ago because Verizon is the only carrier that provides reliable reception in our sound booth.

The call quality is really good. It’s by far the best sounding phone I’ve ever used. I’m not sure what the mic sounds like to other people, but if it is similar to the rest of the hardware, it’s probably very high quality.

While you’re making a call it’s totally intuitive to add another call or to merge calls. There’s an add call button which brings up a keypad to dial a call, or you can select a contact form your address book. Merging and switching between the two calls is equally intuitive.

The bluetooth integration works great. If a bluetooth headset is paired to the device, you can connect or disconnect the call to the headset with a button that’s on the main call screen. No menu diving or anything annoying. It couldn’t work any better.

The speakerphone is loud and clear. This is the first phone I’ve used that seems to have a loud enough speakerphone that I can use it in my truck without straining to hear what people are saying.

And the best part as far as using the phone in regards to being a phone is the Google Voice integration. If you enable it, your phone calls will appear to the person receiving the call as coming from your Google Voice number. You can enable that manually for each call, or automatically for all calls. It would be nice to be able to enable it per contact.

I don’t make phone calls with my Google Voice number, but I do forward my voice mails to Google Voice which saves them in a gmail-style inbox and transcribes them. On the Droid it ends up looking and behaving like visual voicemail on the iPhone, but with transcriptions. The transcriptions have a lot to be desired in terms of accuracy, but they’re generally close enough that I don’t actually have to listen to the voicemail to get the gist of what the person was trying to tell me. And most importantly, once Google Voice is all set up, it’s completely seamless. It behaves just like it was built-in.

Keyboard

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the keyboard. There’s actually 3 keyboards, the physical keyboard, and the horizontal and vertical on-screen keyboards. I’ll break em all down for you.

The on-screen keyboards are good enough that I can type without thinking too much about them. As far as a keyboard that small goes, that’s a pretty good recommendation.

The predictive text is the feature that really makes them good. As you type, words that the Droid thinks you might be spelling start popping up in a horizontal line directly above the keyboard. This is a lot more convenient than the iPhone’s one word. The iPhone gives you auto-correction, where the Droid is more like predictive-text. On longer words, you usually only have to get the first few characters in before the word you want is on the screen. Once you tap it you can move on to the next word.

As far as size of keys goes, I find that the vertical on-screen keyboard is just about the perfect size for typing with one thumb, and the horizontal keyboard works really well with two. I find myself most comfortable on the horizontal on-screen keyboard and defaulting to that most the time.

However, they’re not perfect. I have to pretty big gripes with them. First is a lack of multi-touch on the keyboard. Check this out to understand what I'm talking about.

The reason that’s a big deal for me is that when I’m typing fast, I don’t always get that first finger 100% off the keyboard before I press the second finger down. On the iPhone that second key would still register, on the Droid it doesn’t. I type words with missing letters in them often if I don’t force myself to slow down.

The other bummer is the lack of audio-feedback when you hit a key. The iPhone gives a nice subtle clicking sound every time you press a key that reassures you that the key actually registered. The Droid does have an option to give you audio-feedback, but it plays a ridiculous old-school typewriter sound that is way too loud and really annoying. It’s a lot more annoying having it on then a lack of audio-feedback is. 

As far as the physical keyboard goes, “meh” pretty much sums it up for me. The only physical keyboard I ever really liked was the one on my Treo 700p. The buttons had big gaps between them and were very three dimensional. The Droid’s keyboard is exactly the opposite. The keys are flat and right next to each other, which makes it pretty hard for me to type on. I would have been perfectly happy to get a version of the Droid with no physical keyboard and save the weight.

Software

Having never used Android before, it took me a little time to get used to how things generally work on it. But I’ve picked it up pretty quick and can navigate it easyily now.

Google Maps integration with your GPS and digital compass is awesome. Turn-by-turn navigation is built in and free. Even voice search seems to be good enough to be useful. I’m really glad that I saved the money on the dedicated GPS, because there is no reason I would want one now. Sorry Garmin! Say “hello” to the telegram and 8-track player when you meet them.

Gmail integration is seamless. In gmail you can archive, tag, star and all the other options you have with a message in gmail’s webmail. Usually third party IMAP apps don’t quite get all the things that gmail let’s you do... this is seamless. 

Really, I haven’t found any Google service yet that isn’t perfectly seamlessly integrated with the phone. Google talk works just like text messages, which is awesome. No weird app to install, no messing around with SMSs to some special number. It just works.

I really like how the Droid pulls information for my contacts from Facebook. People’s profile pic and status are constantly updated in your address book. I’m not sure if their contact information also syncs or not. You have the option to sync everyone from Facebook to your phone, or (what I do) only grab information from Facebook for people that are already in your address book.

In my opinion, the ultimate difference in apps between the iPhone and the Droid isn’t the quantity of apps in the app store or any individual app. It’s an option box in the Droid's preferences to allow the installation of applications form unknown sources. Anybody can develop and distribute an app without getting approval from on-high, as in the Apple App Store. You can’t integrate Google Voice with your iPhone because Steve Jobs, in his infinite wisdom, decided that he doesn’t want those features on your phone. It’s always bothered me that the iPhone is such a powerful piece of hardware but is intentionally limited by Apple. With the Droid, I’m free to use it as I like. (I’m typing this up on a mac, and use a mac all day long.)

Camera

The camera is 5 megapixels, but it’s not very high quality, which was pretty disappointing. The images have a lot of detail, but not a lot of life, and are often out of focus. Check out this flickr gallery for some iPhone / Droid side-by-side comparison shots.

Gripes

I do have a handful of minor gripes.

• Removing apps is way too many steps. You have to dive neck deep into menus to get to the remove software screen. That kinda bugs.
• When I get a text message, I have to unlock the screen, bring down the notifications panel and then touch the text message in order read it. Why can’t I just read it on the lock screen like on the iPhone? There is an app that lets you do that, but it felt janky to me. This should be a native feature.
• The physical keyboard doesn’t have the predictive text that the on-screen keyboard does. That makes no sense to me.
• There is no multi-touch. Supposedly the hardware supports it, but none of the built-in software does. What is that all about? Pinching to zoom is such a natural gesture that it’s really missed in maps and while web browsing.

Conclusion

This quick jotting-down of my thoughts has turned into nearly 1700 words. How’d that happen? The bottom line is this: the Droid is fast, solid, easy to use, open, and has the best network behind it. While it’s not without it’s annoyances, I think it has the least annoyances of any phone out there. I’m extremely happy with my purchase.