Holiday smartphone guide: Motorola Droid vs. Blackberry Bold 2 with some iPhone and Pre thrown into the mix

My good friend S, who works at a major law firm, wrote me a few days ago asking an age old question: buy the Motorola Droid or go with the tried and true Blackberry platform on their new, slick BlackBerry Bold 2.  My friend had no idea the puddle he was jumping into when he asked me that question…

If you do not want to read the whole post, here is a summary (I would also check out Mobile Crunch’s phone gift guide here):

Best network (in order of quality): Verizon, Sprint, AT&T, T-Mobile

Best smartphone option on each: Verizon = Droid, Sprint = Pre, ATT = iPhone, T-Mobile = Bold 2

Best choice for consumers: Droid or Pre

Best choice for business (but just barely now): Blackberry on any of the networks

Best choice for cost: Pre or anything else on Sprint.

The email(s)

Below is an edited version of our email conversation.  I hope this helps anyone out there who is asking themselves – what smartphone should I buy this holiday season.

S asks: my plan is up for renewal and I am thinking seriously about moving from T-mobile to VZ to use the Droid [editor’s note: VZ and Moto, those weird ads are reaching people, nice].  I know you work in the industry and pay attention to this stuff, do you have thoughts on the matter?

Me:  I do have thoughts on the matter, in fact!  I love phones way too much and hate the fact that my co makes it difficult to use other phones [with service that they pay for at least]. [editor’s note: my company provides me with a global data plan and phone.  The only requirement: I have to use a BlackBerry].

S, to start off any decision, you have to ask yourself this question: is the service more important or is the phone?

If service is more important, than I would go with Verizon (or, to be honest, Sprint).  I know of too many people with issues/dropped calls on ATT.  I never experience any on Verizon and very few on Sprint.  I can’t speak for Tmobile but since you have it already, you can judge that service for yourself.  Note: VZ used to have an edge in DC with the metro but now all the platforms have service on all the carriers (VZ is still the only one with service in the tunnels, I believe).

If service is not as important, then it is a device decision.  You need to ask this: what is my main phone use?  If you main use is for work, then a Black Berry is still better (although only barely at this point if your company supports non-berry email devices).  If your main use is personal emails, then the sky is the limit.

This holiday season is filled with awesome devices.  To your specific question: Droid vs Bold II.  I tested the Droid this weekend.  In short, it is an awesome device but the physical keyboard is terrible.  However, the on-screen keyboard is as good, if not better, than the iPhone.  If a software keyboard does not bother you and [your law firm] supports non-BlackBerry email devices, the Droid is a great way to go.  The GPS/Google Maps is awesome.  There are a ton of apps (best non-iphone number of apps).  One bad thing: it is a bit buggy right now and not super intuitive all the time but a) Google is constantly innovating and updating their software, b) less intuitive only because there are so many options and things you can do (vs Blackberry). [editor’s note: I hate the fact that my Blackberry seems like such a controlled device.  However, I am a geek who loves to install and test out different apps.  The average user appreciates how stable and difficult to mess-up the Berry platform is for users].

The Bold II, from everything I have read, is going to be the best BlackBerry out there this holiday season.  Of course, it is still a Blackberry.  Minus their email/calendar functionality, I basically hate all things made by RIM.  I think they try to put in just the minimum to make it work and know they have a captive audience [ie lazy Corporate IT staffs].  All Blackberry’s are chronically short in memory (for use with apps), their software is extremely outdated even with a fancy new software skin, and their browser is terrible.  Finally, their app store is small.  With all of that said, the hardware [of the Bold 2] looks good, is probably rock solid (i.e. hard to break), and the software just works (of course, it can only do maybe 50% of what the Droid can do).

So what are your priorities?  Truthfully, this is a very difficult call.  I probably lean slightly towards the Droid but only slightly.  Blackberry is still probably much better for work.  [Editor’s note: while I do use my Berry a lot for work and it is an important productivity tool, I also use it for personal things.  An ideal phone should be able to do both.  The average user should ask themselves – what % of my time do I do work with my phone and what % is personal.  If it is more personal, then you have no reason to buy a Berry].

Adding the iPhone and Pre to the discussion

S replied and I brought up other options (since this holiday is filled with them):

Since you only asked about VZ/Tmob, I kept the discussion to those phones.  With that said, if you care about price, my favorite phone from a functional/looks standpoint is the Palm Pre.  It has the best hardware design out there this holiday.  Supposedly the hardware keyboard is okay (better than Droid).  Apps are weak but probably not too far behind Berry.  I happen to think Sprint’s network is really good (a lot of ppl have left so they have extra capacity).  My friend who is a lawyer for Sprint absolutely loves his Pre.  He writes a lot of emails on his phone so he obviously doesn’t mind it from a corporate perspective.

If you do not mind a non-keyboard phone on a terrible network [i.e. AT&T] but with an app for everything, then the iPhone is still king of the hill.  I happen to think that Apps are a bit overrated once you hit a certain number but that is a discussion for another time.  The iPhone is a beautiful piece of hardware with great underlying software.  Of course, it is also owned by nearly everyone.  Think different!  (check out this iPhone vs droid battle, here)

Editor’s side note on Apple and iPhone apps: If the phone can do 95% of the same things as the other phone but has better key metrics (such as the network, hardware, and core software) then will a larger app catalogue really make the difference (since every app store will have all the major programs)?  Ex: Apple computer software (i.e. Leopard) vs. Windows.  Windows likely has millions more apps than Apple yet many people still prefer to buy a Mac.

S’s response (we are taking this offline and going to lunch to continue the discussion):

The long email is definitely appreciated.  I also spend way too much time thinking about phones (probably spent 10 hours in the last few weeks reading up now that I am out of contract).  And what you are saying jives with what I’m generally reading/thinking.  My thought right now is that I’m going to wait for the December 11 software update for the Droid to see whether they fix the fact that you can’t search Exchange Sync emails (and hopefully a few of the other bugs I’m reading about).  Unfortunately, not being able to do that is a non-starter for me since it’s so important for work.  If they do fix that, I’m leaning towards the Droid.  The Google Navigator looks awesome and I generally think Android is a more fun platform if not more functional from a work perspective.  I may also wait to see what this new HTC Android phone due out in December ends up being.  I really wanted to get something new as soon as I went out of contract, but it seems like giving it another month to let the holiday roll outs play out is a good idea.

 

Why I can finally use Google Voice

I was a beta tester of Grand Central.  It was a great service but one that I could not directly use.  Why? I could not port my number.  Without number porting, I could send calls to my Grand Central account but could not dial out.  In practice, this meant that I would give my friends and family my Grand Central number but if I ever called them back, they would see my cell number provided by my carrier.  This meant that these people would be required to have two numbers for me, which was more work and confusion than I wanted them to bear.  Due to this, my Grand Central account received almost no usage.

Google bought Grand Central in what, about three years later (might be off by a bit), is turning into a prescient move.  Google is slowly but surely making Grand Central (now Google Voice) into the pre-eminent, centralized place for all of my calling that is outside of the carriers control.  This should (and does) scare the carriers.  It is a powerful idea, which will force innovation (avoided like the plague by carriers).  However, Google Voice, despite all the rucus earlier this year when they were slowly opening the beta, changing names and launching their cell phone apps (and being rejected by Apple/ATT), still had the one glaring flaw carried over from Grand Central – number portability (and the subsequent hassle required).

What changed today that incentivizes me to finally use Google Voice?! Enablement of non-Google numbers for usage with Google Voice.  Read about it here, here, and here.  I enabled call forwarding on my cell phone and now all calls that are not answered go to Google voice.  Goodbye Verizon voicemail and hello, in no particular order (since they are all great features, none of them offered by VZ on my phone), my new Google Voicemail: 1. Voicemail transcription, 2. Automatic email of the transcript (plus the voice message), 3. Customized answer messages for different people.

The first two options are great and will now allow me to actually manage my voice messages (instead of listening to each and every saved message to find the one I want).  However, it is the third option (answer messages for different people) that has me the most excited (even though it has the least utility).  I can now make specific messages for my brother, mother, father, girlfriend, boss, friend abc, and so forth.  It is personalized and fun.  This is the wave of the future.  In five to ten years, everyone will be able to customize their voice messages (assuming we are still leaving them).

Thank you, Google, for innovating and pushing the boundaries.  My life just became easier and more fun.

p.s. Google is going to fix the glaring number portability problem.  It is on the way (supposedly sometime soon).

Why I went back to Firefox — Feedly

In my previous post, I spoke about why I left Firefox for Safari.  The basics — Firefox ran too hot for my liking.  Safari is better optimized for my Macbook Pro.

However, a few weeks ago, I read about a program that has “forced” me to go back to Firefox.  It is called Feedly.  It is an add-on for Firefox.  Scoble and Louis Gray have both spoken about it, which piqued my interest.

What does it do?  Generally, it aggregates all of your feeds and creates a magazine like digest of those feeds.  However, it has another function that makes it worth Firefox abusing my computer’s fans.  Feedly Mini sits at the bottom right hand corner of my Firefox screen.  Feedly Mini essentially turns every web page into a Google referenced page.

What do I mean?  I can share any web page or article that I read through my Google Reader shared items feed.  I can email it using Gmail.  Feedly also ties into some other great web 2.0 programs, which I rarely use.

Feedly is great for me because my reading habits are not just confined to my 250 RSS feeds found in Greader.  I read many other websites such as the Nytimes, Cnet, Techmeme, WSJ, WashPost, etc.  I prefer to read over these general sites because they open me up to greater variety of information than I would otherwise gain from my more directed and specific RSS feeds.  Until Feedly, I was never able to share (and, why I really like Greader, it allows me to save these feeds) the articles that I read outside Greader.  I would read many great articles that were quickly forgotten.

With Feedly, these articles no longer go through my head and then a few days later, leave it.  I have a record of my favorite articles that is kept for posterity (or for however long Google is around).

Feedly is not available for Safari so now I am back as a Firefox user.

iPhone vs. gPhone — a marriage unraveling fast?

If I were Apple, I’d be pissed by the announcement of the gPhone/Android.

Android’s default user interface may be strikingly similar to the iPhones (and why not, people love it).  I am sure Google collected a lot of helpful information when they were intertwining their Apps with the iPhone.

Poor Apple is stuck in a multi-year relationship with AT&T.  Apple is forced to brick phones and force developers to slow and/or stop development of 3rd party apps.  By the time Apple’s contract with AT&T is over, Android may embody everything the iPhone’s OS is plus a ton more.  Imagine Apple’s iPhone OS, tightly integrated with Web 2.0 tools, thousands of 3rd party apps to choose from, on devices ranging the entire smartphone spectrum.  I like what I see.

Unfortunately for Apple, I am a consumer.  They are a company stuck in a deal built on their own greed and hubris.  By the time an iPhone variant launches on a cellular service that I use, I’ll probably quite happy with my gPhone(s)/Android.

The iPod built Apple by becoming the default MP3 player.  With its multi-year lock-in deal with ATT, the iPhone will never become the default.  However, Android does have a chance.

A note I saw from Google to Apple: “Thanks for teaching us the mobile phone market.  We look forward to having our software available to 100% of the U.S. market.  Can’t wait to compete with you in a few years!  Bummer you are stuck with only +25% of the market.  Love your former friend, Google.”

How much longer will we see Google Apps as default programs on iPhones?  I wonder…

The Google Phone (aka Android) not such a new idea

On Monday, Google notified the world (the part that cares) about their Google Phone plans. This was a hyped announcement. The hype was nearly iPhonesque. However, it landed with a loud dud.

Instead of a groundbreaking phone (let’s leave Apple to those sort of things), we get Android. Android is an open mobile platform. There have already been a bunch of interesting conversations about Android and what it means. Read two of the more interesting posts (here) and (here).  Microsoft is a bit scared but not quaking in their boots.  Nokia has open-source symbian and a huge portion of the smartphone market.  Motorola is trying to create their own open-source linux mobile OS.  Apple has the iPhone and a very closed, but safe and secure little world.

So what does Google bring to the market?  Android is maybe more open than the other systems.  However, does the average consumer really care what system their phone runs unless they are already tied to a proprietary system?  The people who are comfortable in an MS environment and easy compatibility with Office (and that is a huge number), go with Windows Mobile.  Blackberry offers crackberry addicts their daily fix and some people swear by the environment and email functionality.  I love Google applications.  Gmail is my main email.  Google Reader is the best rss reader.  Google maps is my default mapping service.  Good thing I already have all of those applications already installed on my phone!! Point is, why would anyone care about having a Gphone?

As Google knows well, the best price for anything is ZERO.  However, phone hardware costs money and I am sure that Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure phones running their software are comparably priced to any gPhone.  Yet those phones will also sport features and abilities any gPhone may lack.  When I buy a gPhone, I can install most of the Google Apps on it.  Phone price, design, and hardware features are important.  I buy a phone based upon those three categories.  I have yet to read anything about how Google will win on any of those fronts.

Everyone knows what Google is doing here and they all know the stakes.  No company will cede any turf (although this might push them to change their platforms and grow).  I wish Google a lot of luck.  They have changed the way many of us think about a lot of things (search, email, and maps come to mind).  I hope they do the same for the staid mobile market.

Why I switched from Blogger to WordPress

I recently started blogging. I started with Blogger because it is one of the main services and is part of Google. While Google scares me at times, its programs tend to be some of the best. Plus, despite the eerie privacy issues, I love having a single log-in name for everything. Basically, I tend to really enjoy Google services and do not want particularly want to leave their bubble.

However, blogger lacks the functionality of WordPress. My customization options are few. Adding widgets beyond the mere basics is difficult. Frankly, it was not up to the level of other Google programs and is easily beaten by WordPress.

I still have some playing around to do with both sites and will reserve final judgement for later. One thing holding WordPress back from winning outright is that adding my Google Reader shared items to my WordPress blog is difficult. I am working on this now. Wish me luck.

Adam