It isn’t like we haven’t done things worthy of blogging about, but I decided I wanted to write down my thoughts on the new phone while it was still kind of new.
First off, what is it: Motorola Droid 2
Touch screen, with a slide-out physical keyboard.
More raw processing power than the computer I so proudly took with me to college 10 years ago. Has more storage space too.
As a phone it works as well as any other phone I have owned.
Beyond being a phone it is little portable computer, complete with internet, GPS and a camera. This let’s it do a lot of things, that don’t seem particularly novel to me right now, but would have been mind-blowing just a few years ago.
Speaking of the GPS and camera… The camera is quite good. Not quite as responsive as my point-and-shoot, making quick snapshots impossible. On the other hand, the quality is more or less on-par, and I always have it with me. Having a camera with you is one of the first steps to actually taking pictures! The GPS is more than functional, but in most applications requires that the screen be lit at the same time you are using it. Running both the screen and the GPS eats the battery in a shockingly short amount of time. This isn’t a limitation when using the phone as an in-car navigation device, as long as I packed a charger, but it means the phone isn’t going to provide constant aid in navigating an all-day hike. To put it bluntly I would guess the phone life when displaying a map and my position is between two and three hours. I did however discover in rare applications when you don’t need the screen on and only want passive monitoring the battery life is much better! Running a tracking tool for recording bike rides only drained about 10% of the battery life in around an hour and a half.
Hmm, so I didn’t even manage to describe all the features without some editorializing… something I have been fighting every time I thought about writing this post.
The problem is, I feel like I need to be using the phone all the time to make it seem like it’s worth it. I know that isn’t really true… but it’s kind of the thought floating around behind anything else I think about the phone. I imagine that will fade, and I can already tell you it would be hard to go back to my old phone (even if it were still working properly)
TL;DR: Great phone, can’t say I *needed* it, but it’s really useful now that I have it.
-Jordan
Nelsons 