Verizon Motorola Droid and Verizon HTC Droid Eris

[Michael McNamara]

I finally took the plunge today... leaving behind the traditional cell phone (Motorola Razr V3) and jumping into the 21st century.

I purchased a Motorola Droid from Verizon for myself along with a HTC Droid Eris for the wife. The monthly reoccurring costs gave me the most cause for concern, especially given the current economy. I didn't mind paying a few hundred dollars for either the Droid or the Eris but I was having a difficult time getting past the cost for the entire contract (24 months) length. Thankfully the organization I work for uses Verizon as their mobile carrier of choice and I get a discount that should help a little.

I also took advantage of the holiday Verizon promotion, buy one Motorola Droid get one HTC Droid Eris free, which helped keep the initial purchase costs under control.

In the few hours I've spent with the phones I must say that I'm impressed... I do have a concern around the battery life, so we'll need to see how that works out. I've found quite a few discussion forums (searching Google) that cover the Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris, so I'll probably need to spend some time reading up on those sites.

I'm hopeful that my decision to jumped ship from AT&T Wireless won't come back to haunt me. I was really interested in the Motorola Droid and HTC Eris and I was dismayed by the number of lost and disconnected calls I have had over the past 2 years with AT&T.

Anyone else have any experiences they care to share?

[John T]

I've been an iPhone user for almost a year now and absolutely love the device. The battery life could be better but it's an acceptable trade-off for all the applications and functionality that the iPhone brings. I'm neutral with respect to AT&T's network, I haven't had to many issues to speak of.

[Michael McNamara]

Hi John,

I've been enjoying the Droid... learning all the features and installing a few different applications. The battery lasts me about 3 days with medium to light usage.

Thanks for the comment!

[Michael McNamara]

Anyone have any recommendations for after market wall chargers and car chargers for the Droid and Eris?

Seems like the generic eBay ones don't put out enough mA and some even run at the wrong voltage! WoW!

Thanks!

[John T]

I think you'll find that those phones are so new that third party manufacturers have yet to really get products into the marketplace. As time passes you should have more options beyond the Motorola/Verizon products at the store.

John

[modestgeek]

Hey! Just got these Moto Droids for work. Some of our Execs were really pushing for them. Before that we were using a Windows Mobile based phone that worked perfectly with Exchange 2007/2010. However, they didn't like the OS and wanted the Droid instead.

The apps are awesome but the support for Exchange kinda sucks. There is no native access to the GAL. You need to install add on from Moto. Even after that, the interface is clunky and kind of a pain in the butt to use. I ended up just having people (<10 users) copy the GAL to their outlook contacts so it'll be easier to use. I really hope Google works on fully supporting activesync. I understand that they want people to use google services but people still need to work.

I've not found many 3rd party chargers and etc. I tried to use a wall/car/usb/firewire combo device I had and when it was plugged into the wall, the phone screen went crazy! If your company has an account with verizon, just mention your company name when purchasing accessories. I've gotten over 30% off on everything I've gotten to date. The reps say that our corporate discount is actually better than what the VZ wireless employees get. Go figure.

[modestgeek]

Oh, yeah. I meant to ask. Have you found any "must have" apps to make your life easier as an IT pro/network/security admin? I've found some CIDR calculators, speed test apps and simple port scanners.

I'd like to see Kismet and Nmap added as an app. I know they need to be run as root but I suppose root could own them and then they can be SUID to run as root launched by any other user. Otherwise, putty would be great as well as some decent RDP console.

[Michael McNamara]

I'll be totally honest here... I intentionally avoid using the Droid for "work" other than using the cell phone capability. I purposely don't link it to our Microsoft Exchange server because already spend enough time "working". With that said I did export and download my personal contacts out of Outlook 2007 and imported them into Google so I could sync them with the Droid. Outside of that I'm using it for personal communications and entertainment. I actually get a lot of email at my personal email address. So I use the Droid to read those messages and I have the Droid connected to FaceBook and Twitter (Sesmic).