Motorola Droid Review and iPhone Multitasking?

Got to test out the Droid this weekend, and wanted to give my thoughts on it….plus a story out today saying that the iPhone can do multitasking??

Update – Check out the Best Smartphones on any network post at Gizmodo. Has the iPhone as the tops of all, and Droid comes in second of any smartphone on any network.

Only got to test for about half an hour, but there were a few key functions I was curious about:

1) Hardware – the Droid hardware is pretty solid, and sized well. The slide out keyboard (a big benefit for me) seemed a little hard to use, though. Also, it was noted that there are some quirks with using the screen keyboard vs. the physical keyboard that were aggravating. At the end of the day, it’s Motorola quality (a bit better though than usual) and the iPhone is Apple quality and precision.

2) Touchscreen – The Touchscreen wasn’t as smooth as the iPhone, but it generally did the trick. It didn’t feature multi-touch, though it did have a way around that. Overall the iPhone 3GS runs a lot smoother navigating.

3) OS – the interface on the Droid is much rougher than the iPhones. This means a lot more options (like your own backgrounds and settings), but also a more rough user experience. The icons don’t look good, and the responsiveness is a little slower. The iPhone is much sleeker, but in options the Android OS wins out. A draw here.

4) Browser – the Droid browser in some quick tests was much slower and didn’t render pages as well. Much prefer Safari.

5) Music – Not wanting to give up iTunes, I checked out the Droid music player. Overall not as smooth as iTunes, but passable. Also, Amazon Mp3 buying is pretty good, though not the experience of the mobile iTunes store.

6) Other – The cell service was clearly better on the Droid, the battery seemed pretty good, and multitasking was very cool. The App store left a lot to be desired, but it is young and will probably improve. Google Navigation for the Droid is a major feature, and gives awesome turn-by-turn direction, even using voice, and puts to shame the Google Maps for the iPhone. Android Apps are open and will become awesome (pick your own touch keyboard style)…though currently iPhone is the leader here.

Multitasking is the main feature that would turn me to the Droid side, but today I read that the iPhone does it just fine, they just don’t let you. Like MMS was.

So my verdict – the Droid is no iPhone killer, but Verizon is an AT&T killer, and surprisingly, Apple holds back the iPhone almost as much as AT&T with their restrictive app features and restricted use of the phone hardware. If you have the iPhone, don’t switch yet, if you are in the middle of choosing, take a long hard look at Droid.

This video demonstrates a Jailbroken iPhone app that backgrounds apps. First is the iPhone 3G, then the 3GS. He backgrounds like 10 apps without noticeable slowdown.