This is my take on the Droid phone now that I’ve had it for a month. I’ll admit up front that I’m a Droid liker…not a Droid lover…for now.

I just recently purchased a Droid phone about a month ago. I’ve never had an Apple IPhone much less a smart phone…yes very deprived for someone perceived to be a techie.

Needless to say, I was very excited and ready to see what this phone was going to do for me.

I’ve been used to the physical keyboard so I was glad to have the slide out keyboard function. It was initially a must have in my opinion especially since I could see myself fatfingering the qwerty style keyboard.

The 5.0mp camera on the phone was the highest resolution camera phone at the time of release from what I read.

I was told the tons of apps the Droid has is amazing for the short time it has been out and the ease of use was a selling point.

So now that I’ve had it for a month, what do I think? Let me give you a rundown of likes and complaints.

The Good:

Droid is a Google OS so all you need is a Gmail account to use it. It integrates all your Gmail contacts into the contact section of the phone.

It’s got wireless built-in which is fantastic. I can hook up to my wireless router at home or any hotspot which will give me much better Internet connectivity. The Verizon 3G is no slouch either though…

The Apps are broad and amazing. I’ve heard the IPhone has tons more from silly to very useful stuff. Well, I’m not a needy person and easy to please at times. I want apps that are resourceful, informative, and basically saves me time when doing things if that’s possible.

My favorite app thus far is something called Free Caddie. There are others that serve the same purpose but check it out. If you are a casual or avid golfer, you’ll love this app. Think of the purpose of having a range finder and how it can cost $200-300 on up. Because the Droid has a GPS built-in with Google Maps, I assume this is where it is able to have a functionality like this. Okay for those of you who don’t know the purpose of a ranger finder (Picture being on a golf course: you just hit your first shot and luckily lands on the fairway. There isn’t a yard marker in sight to tell you the distance from your ball to the flag on the green. So what club would you use? Well, this trusty app has the design layout of a boatload of golf courses within your area. You bring up the name of the golf course you are playing on and select the hole # you are on. It will tell you the distance from the ball to the flag thus allowing you to know which club to use with hopes to land safely on the green.) This app alone could be pay-off enough to kick out the cash to pick up the Droid.

You want to know when your wife is on her cycle because you guys are trying to have a baby? They got apps to tell you the when she’s most fertile. Oh yea, it’s true.

Like most smartphones from what I’ve heard from friends, you’re able to use Facebook, Myspace, Gmail, etc…you know the most popular applications out there. I really like the fact that there is a Yahoo fantasy football app that allows me to check how my team is doing and actually make changes right there on the phone if I can’t get home to a computer.

Another good thing is the voice recognition ability the Droid offers. I know what you’re thinking…am I going to have to program my voice in order to use this function? Phones in the past never recognize my voice right and it becomes a useless feature. Wrong…no need to program anything. You just hit the microphone icon and speak into it. Sure, it doesn’t always pick up what you’re saying the first time but for the most part it is pretty responsive. It’s awesome if you need to do a google search for a restaurant in the local area and don’t want to or can’t type at the moment. It is usually pretty good about picking up solid search results.

After releasing a firmware upgrade in early December 09, the picture quality from the camera improved a little.

The phone takes great video clips. No complaints there.

The Not-so-Good:

I don’t like the slow boot up time. I’ve had to do a shutdown of the phone on a few occasions because the phone hangs. I turned it off via the power button and it seems to take 30-45 seconds to come back to the home page.

Phone calls: call quality is great. Here is the issue: When I put the phone against my ear, the screen goes black. When I pull it away (when I’m ready to hang up), the screen doesn’t always bring up the dial pad where I can hit the ‘end’ key to end the call. What do you do when the touch screen is not responsive when you are ready to hang up the phone? This has happened several times that ended in me powering off the phone.

I have some complaints against the sports apps not updating live scores automatically like advertised but that’s mainly a knock against the apps not the phone. I just had to add that part in there though.

Google Maps: Great feature but the voice direction guide part of it has some lag to it. If you pass through an area where there is much congestion or construction going on, the voice direction guide can’t seem to keep up causing it to give you late and/or wrong directions.

Although the camera produces high res pictures, the response time or shutter speed is slow. I’m beginning to think that is how it is with all camera phones? By the time I try to take a picture of my toddler son, he is running off with a toy and I’m left with a picture with no baby in it. Is this common?

I am not too keen on the fact that my gmail stays open all the time. If someone got ahold of my phone and figured out the pattern to unlock it, then they have access to my emails. Is that really a Droid issue or just a physical security one? Debatable huh?

So this is my short list of likes and dislikes of my recently purchased Motorola Droid smart phone. I do like it…things could be better and I anticipate it improving as they continue release firmware upgrades and enter the mainstream market.

For those of you who have the Droid (any flavor) and those with the IPhones, tell me what you think…be constructive.

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