Motorola Droid Takes Aim at iPhone with Google Mobile Services

by Nicholas Kolakowski

Packaging for the Motorola Droid and the Droid Eris by HTC demonstrates how those manufacturers, along with Verizon, are trying to create a brand to compete with the iPhone.

The box for the Droid looks like a friendlier version of the packaging that the HAL 9000 from “2001” might have come in.

The Droid features a 3.7-inch touch screen. The phone is weighty at 6 ounces, and large at 2.4 by 4.6 by 0.5 inches.

The Droid’s sliding form factor includes a physical QWERTY keyboard. For those who prefer to tap a screen, it also includes a virtual keyboard.

The Droid has a standard-issue 3.5-millimeter headset jack.

The Droid’s 5-megapixel camera (with 4x digital zoom and dual-LED flash) includes automatic focus and image-editing tools such as cropping, rotating and geotagging.

Motorola boasts that the Droid offers up to 385 minutes of continuous usage time thanks to its lithium-ion battery, and up to 270 hours of standby time.

The Droid runs Google Android 2.0 as its operating system. This home screen is customizable.

With Google Maps Navigation (still a beta) the Droid uses GPS to provide users with voice-guided navigation.

The Droid connects to the Web via either Wi-Fi (802.11 b,g) or 3G connectivity.

When it comes to making calls, the Droid offers a variety of options, including speakerphone, advanced speech recognition, conference calling and phone book.

The Droid is backed by Google Mobile Services, which include Gmail, Android Marketplace, Google Calendar, Google Contact Sync, Google Latitude and Google Talk.

Given that YouTube is a Google property, it’s natural that the Droid would include a widget for one-tap connection to that site’s videos. For those who want to download songs, the Droid has a widget that connects to Amazon.com’s MP3 Store.

The Droid allows users to search for nearby locations, such as gas stations, through voice commands.

In a bid to appeal to the enterprise, the Droid syncs with Exchange 2003 and 2007. The device will also display Microsoft Office and PDF documents.

The Droid says it’s time to wake up.

The Droid allows users to dial a contact by voice command.

The Droid also lets users search the Web via voice commands. Here, the device is processing the spoken word, “eWEEK.”

The Droid interpreted the spoken term “eWEEK” as “a week,” producing this screen of search results.

The Droid’s dedicated keys include volume control, camera, back, search, menu, power/lock and home.