Just a couple weeks ago I got a new Motorola Droid to replace my aging HTC Windows Mobile Verizon 6800. I've not worked out all of the kinks yet, and haven't stretched my experience to any limits, but I thought I'd tap out a few of my early impressions.

First, physically comparing it to my old phone, it's a little heavier, but not really any bigger. Maybe a touch longer, no wider, and a little less thin. Probably the same volume, but it feels like half-again as much weight. This is probably due to the glass on the front of the screen, which is nearly as large as the other phone, and is incredibly more crisp.

When it powers on, it's a lot better to look at, and tons more responsive. The interface is different, but much of the same touch screen "click and things happen" occurs. It's not any harder or easier to add applications, although with the Android market, it is a lot easier to find them. The Android market, though, could use some work to help find specific apps, but that's really just another app on the phone.

It cleanly links everything to my Google accounts, which is pretty handy. I did move a bunch of information from my old phone to my new phone, but I did this by finally adding the contacts to my GMail list. They were automatically added to my contacts on my phone, in many cases faster than I could grab the phone and scroll to where the new contact should appear! Making changes to a contact on the phone is immediately reflected in Google, too.

Less than some, I am a Facebook user. For the contacts that had an easy pairing with a Google account, the software automatically synchronized a Facebook contact, so in the contact list I see their Facebook profile photo and some of their last status update. It took a little bit of experimenting to get some contacts to link up, mostly those where the contact had a shortened (or longer or perhaps maiden or married or otherwise changed) version of their Facebook name. A little more experimentation and I discovered how to join contacts with a full listing that allowed me to skip the process of making a bogus Google contact to match the Facebook contact...

I got the full-keyboard phone, and while the keys are a just little larger than on my old phone, there's enough space on either side of the keyboard that they aren't quite generously larger. Also, they're noticably flat, where on the other phone there's a distinct bubble, which makes them a little hard to discern from each other when trying to quickly thumb-type. Of course, the keyboard is much too small to even attempt a finger-tight home-row approach, and it's a little unweildly to try to hunt and peck with both hands, so I've reverted to a single finger or finger and thumb (for shifting or special characters) typing. The soft keyboards are both (landscape and portrait) quite nice, and have the fun feature where you can change the key by sliding your finger before releasing (in case you missed when  you pressed), but they take a lot of screen space when they pop up. The software keyboards also tend to include an auto-complete helper that doesn't seem to get triggered by the physical keyboard.

Quite a few apps come with the phone. It's hard to remember just what they are since I've added a whole bunch. Of course, there's a Google browser, calendar, chat client, messaging, a phone dialer (it's an app, so presumably one could replace it), and contact manager, that all, as mentioned, interact with information from your Google account. Also from Google are Maps and Navigation, which function with the phone's GPS. Other apps include Facebook, Amazon MP3, and YouTube, as well as the ubiquitous calculator and camera applications.

Of course, also included is the Android Market application, which allows you to add software from the thousands of applicaitons delivered and sold through it. I almost immediately added the Pandora player, a Weather Channel browser, and a whole bunch of things to try out (and many of which I've also since removed).

Using the applications almost invariably hits the Internet. The 3G network seems to be always attached, well, when it's available. The only places I've experienced a lack of 3G connectivity are places you'd expect to experience a lack of connectivity, such as deep within a building. While I've played with the built-in WiFi, I've not had to actually use it to replace the 3G, and I've not been able to tell the difference in performance either; in fact, the only case where I knew I was hitting a site through the WiFi (by using a private network IP address) the response was at least as fast as the 3G response to the same Internet-routed host (after turning the WiFi off, to be sure it wasn't using the same).

As I mentioned, Google updates almost instantly. The phone proudly announces the arrival of new GMail, chat, or SMS messages with a distinct "droid" call (it actually says "droid"). Reading an e-mail in a computer browser will almost immediately remove the alert from the phone. Similarly, reading the message on the phone will less quickly change the browser view (next time one hits the inbox or the page refreshes).

Browsing the Internet on the phone is quick, but with its own quirks, mostly due to the size of the device. In order to see plenty, the page needs to be zoomed down. This makes it difficult to click on things. Also, the touch-screen scrolling leads to errors of tapping instead of grabbing. Practice will no doubt make this more comfortable, but I find that it's a good augment, not replacement, for another source of browsing. Good for when that quick answer is needed to get that "what was it?" off your mind, but not so good for doing something all day, like tapping this blog post.

Of course, blessing and curse, there's no Flash player on the phone yet. This makes the Internet much more streamlined when hitting Flash-heavy pages, but makes it unfunctional when visiting those sites who hide within Flash, like that's what the Internet is supposed to be (I'm kind of anti-Flash...in case you were wondering--at least for immersion in sites...it has a place, but I digress...). There's supposedly a Flash player scheduled for January, so we'll see how that messes things up at that time.

I find I use my phone most for SMS messaging. Even with chat available, I don't log in on the phone, more because it just makes me too available than because it doesn't work well. The contact-based threaded conversations are nice. The interface is easy to use and responsive.

The next most used applicaiton on the phone is actually the navigation. More as a toy than anything useful, I use it to peer ahead on my routes to and from work, where the admittedly not entirely accurate traffic reporting can help avoid potentially frustrating traffic jams. Like some other GPS systems I've encoutnered, it wants to direct you to the most thoroughfare roads on the route, and will squack "make a u-turn" or direct around the block instead of picking a lesser used street for quite some time. I'm sure their logic is sound, but I sometimes prefer my visual input or at least just crawling through the streets instead of sitting in traffic. On at least one occasion, I made it home a full fifty-percent faster than the initial estimate by avoiding the freeway to which it insisted I return.

I do use the phone as a phone sometimes. Like my Windows Mobile before it, it's a better PDA than it is a phone. It instantly paired with my Bluetooth devices, which is nice, but since I don't always carry that with me, it's speakerphone or flat phone with glass-to-face. It's plenty loud, especially on speakerphone, where I often have to drop the volume to below half even in the rumbly Jeep. Everyone has said that I sound soft on it, except the couple conversations I had with my Bluetooth phone, which is a larger retro handset that fits my larger retro head.

If there's a drawback to the phone, it's that it's got a barely day-long battery. Probably longer than a day if you just let it sit and wait for calls, but with the regular "droid" alerts as e-mail passes through my Google accounts, the occasional SMS message, and using the GPS through traffic, it's pretty easy to drain the battery in less than a day. We did get a charger for the car, but it isn't the Verizon-sold one (I wanted one with dual USB adapters so we could both plug-in), so I don't think it kicks out enough voltage to charge the phone, at best holding the drain at bay--I'll get a better one soon.

The big draw to the phone, that I can write software for it, is something that is turning out to be more promise than reality. This is totally my own fault, as I've only really experimented in bits and pieces, and  not applied myself to developing a full-on application. My pal has written a little version of a game, and it's been done pretty quickly, giving me hope that once I get my keyboard pointed in the right direction that I'll be able to fulfil this opportunity. I'm not expecting to do anything grand or even necesarily profitable, but hopefully useful, even if just to me.