Possible new droid owner

[quentinfisher]

Hey, currently I'm using the Sprint HTC Hero. I'm getting tired of my cities lack of 3g coverage from Sprint, when Verizon's had it for a year ... I love the Hero and Android, but I've been looking at the Blackberry Storm 2 also. I imagine the transition from Hero to Droid would be easy, but I also miss some of the email and other features that Blackberry offers. Trying both these phones in the store I have to say I'm equally impressed with both, but having limited usage I haven't decided which is better. So have any BB users gone to droid, and if so how are the pros/cons of it? I really need reliable syncing with my yahoo/hotmail/exchange emails so I'm wondering if it's has easy to sync the Droid has it is the BB Storm 2? I'm already positive the Droid is more appealing to me in terms of apps but is the memory enough for someone who likes to have a lot of app? My Hero got some noticeable slowdown after I downloaded a 50ish collection of apps , so I'm hoping it will fair better. Is there any noticeable performance issues with the 2 devices in terms of browser speed, video playback, camera, etc?

 

[Telexen]

I watched this the other day:
http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/13963-droid-vs-rim-blackberry-storm-2-a.html

It might not be a huge help if your area of concern is the email and syncing capabilities...but I was rather amused by how badly the Storm 2 did with web browsing.

 

[bthoward]

I'm still formulating an opinion on the Droid but I just came from the Storm1 to the Droid. The Storm camera is very nice and the Droid's camera is a ridiculous excuse for a camera. The email depends on if you have an @gmail.com account or an exchange account. BB doesn't do all that well on a GAFYD google account where as the Droid does a good job. There are a few other quirks in that I'm unable to download attachments from my exchange server on the Droid. I'm a bit jaded on the Storm in that it was junk when I got it to start with. It was decent but slower than a 7 year itch and not very stable.

If browsers mean anything to you the Blackberry browser is total crap but they just acquired a company that specializes in browsers so hopefully in the not too distant future they'll be kicking something out but I think its still at least 6 to 8 months out probably quite a bit more than that.

App store is better on Android and has a better selection I feel. However both have enough for my needs.

I've not had the Droid long enough to comment on Battery life yet but I really like the setup that I have with the Storm in that I have two batteries and a battery charger so that I just swap out with a fresh one when the battery dies. This minimizes battery memory and keeps me always running. Not sure if Droid will offer a battery charger for the device.

Droid has more memory than S2 (and S1 of course)

The Droid has an amazing display. I thought the Storm had an amazing display but now when I go back to it for bits I think wow there really is a lot of merit in the Droid display.

The Storm has a fantastic form factor and feels very solid in the hand. Its a bit wider than the Droid and for my hands it just fits very well. The Droid's narrower taller form factor feels good but the Storm is perfect in my opinion.

I prefer the keyboard on the Storm and I think the hardware keyboard on the Droid is pretty lame. I use the horizontal onscreen keyboard on the droid (just like I usually did on the Storm) and I get pretty similar speeds on both but better accuracy on the Storm. Much of that could also be familiarity of the devices. I have been using the Storm for a year.

I don't like having to hit the button on the top of the unit to wake the Droid up. I really liked being able to just click the screen and poof it wakes up.

Navigation and voice search on the Droid is nothing short of fantastic.

I miss having hardware send and end buttons on the Droid but I've yet to run into an issue with not being able to end a call fast enough yet. (keep in mind I've only had it 2 days) But I've used it a LOT in those two days as I've had to fully charge it 3 times now in that time period.

RIM has been keeping updates coming out fairly steady and new leaks come out fairly regularly on Crackberry (and across the net) not sure how Android compares on that front.

Anyway thats my thoughts so far...

 

[bthoward]

I watched this the other day:
http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/13963-droid-vs-rim-blackberry-storm-2-a.html

It might not be a huge help if your area of concern is the email and syncing capabilities...but I was rather amused by how badly the Storm 2 did with web browsing.

Keep in mind that if you install Opera 5 Beta onto the Storm the phone then has a very good browser that I'd not quite pit up as even with that of the Droid but it is very good. I'd say they both have their points where one is stronger than the other. As far as speed I'd say that Opera would probably win when testing on 3G connections. To be honest I loaded the same pages that the review above did on my storm using Opera 5 on my storm 1 and I beat the droid on both. Keep in mind that the Storm 1 has no WiFi so I even beat the droid on WiFi when I was on 3G using Opera 5. Yes its that good!