Motorola Droid – Is it Really Worth $200

Well, it certainly looks like Motorola’s Droid, the first major Android 2.0 smart phone is getting some decent reviews, although it’s also getting a bit of criticism, and at least one major personal tech device reviewer is claiming that the “flattened keyboard” is difficult to type on, yet, I did not find it difficult myself, rather simply awkward which I assume is because I just wasn’t used to that. If you are moving from a regular cell phone to Motorola’s Droid it is a big move in technology.

Is it worth the $200, well, I’d say it is compared to its competing smart phones and their applications.  It is pretty cool looking and a big screen for a smart phone 3.7 inches, with decent backlighting, making it workable in bright daylight too. Personally, I thought the resolution of the screen was much better when I put them side-by-side, although a gal (daughter of a yuppie) next to me tried to convince me that her Apple iPhone was “Way Better – Way!” and I’m like whatever, look, this Motorola Droid is much crisper, and quite frankly it’s a nicer product, at least for what I need.

Indeed, I found the surfing to be fast, and you could move from screen to screen navigating quite quickly, and if you are using Gmail – whooya! You will enjoy this phone. Someone told me it was a little heavier than the iPhone? And I’m like so what? Why, are you so weak you can’t pick up something that is a half-a-pound? Please, this is a very nice phone, so, I’m giving this one my highest rating, or maybe a fraction under a perfect 10. Most of the buyers I met seemed to be quite excited with their purchases and were then considering their choice for the data smart cell phone plan.

Google to Make Billions With Android!

The guys and gals over at Googleplex are brilliant! There’s nothing like creating a huge, multi-billion dollar advertising market, where before, there was nothing. What I’m talking about is Google’s obvious long term goals of turning Android into a marketer’s dream, with push advertising.

What I mean by push advertising is that Google will be able to track Android enabled devices and push ads to the users based on GPS location and the user’s known preferences in products and services. As Millions of users flock to the new Android enabled phones that hit the market the first week of November, Google’s tech and advertising guys must be drooling thinking about the revenue potential available to them in the near future.

Here’s how I see the future of Android. If you think I’m going to far, or not far enough, drop me a line and we’ll discuss it. LOL

Android enabled phones have built in GPS and the ability to get driving and walking applications for free. With that ability, ”THEY” will always know where their users are. While that’s good for your run of the mill 911 operator, it’ll be even better for Google, and here’s why:

1. Google’s been working on “Local Search” pretty hard the last few years.
2. Google knows where all the restaurants, gas stations, grocery stores, pizza places and coffee shops are. (Well, who cares about what Google knows? You should, that’s who, especially if your wife or husband loads a child tracking app on your Android phone and see’s who’ve you’ve been hanging out with when you said you were at the gym. But I digress…)
3. Currently, with Google’s “Adwords”, you can choose to advertise in local markets and select a radius around a town or zip code to specify where you want your local ads to show up, and in the future, I’m sure they will let their advertisers add a GPS location for mobile ad placement.
4. Here’s where Google creates it’s new Billion dollar baby. With the ability to track it’s users via GPS, Google can now push ads to potential customers as they wander around town. In other words, if you’re driving within half a mile of Starbucks, Google could flash an add on the screen of your Android phone with a coupon that gives you $1.00 off of a Grande’ green apple martini macchiato if you stop by in the next 15 minutes and let them scan the bar coded coupon they sent to your phone, or better yet, just deduct it from the credit card you already have on file in your “Googlebase” account. With that kind of power, they will soon be able to control Billions of dollars worth of advertising as they push coupons to Android enabled phones all over the world.

 What do you think? Did I undershoot the market, will they really be making trillions and take over all radio and TV advertising in the future? Let me know what you think…

Phonebot

Try before you buy

While Android is available on the G1 phone from T-mobile, some may not have a G1 phone. Or maybe you want to wait for another device to come out. Either way, the Android emulator, included in the Android SDK allows you to try before you buy and do almost everything you would do on an android device, and you can download it a few places. Softonic is a great software downloading site. Or you can just go to Googles official development page. I went to Softonic to check out their software and downloaded mine there. They have a step by step guide to running and installing the Android emulator.  They also have some apps you can download and try.

Android G2 PC

With a Via C7-based Nano-ITX board, 1 Gb of RAM, an 800MHz processor and an 80 Gb HD, the Android G2 PC was Put up on Ebay As a collectors item. You can Bid on it right now at Ebay. The proceeds are to be donated to DonorsChoose.org

This desktop PC was built By Gos as a tribute to the new Android G1 mobile phone. There are pictures of it being built here.

Update: That G2 sold for $860! Thats crazy! A desktop pc with those specs would normally sell for like 300 tops…….

Google’s Android

34 mobile and technology leaders came together to form the Open Handset Alliance offering consumers an extremely cost efficient, powerful mobile experience, a mobile platform freely available to all handset makers and wireless carriers. Although most of us can’t get our hands an android enabled phone yet, we can take some sneak peeks at it and at least get the latest updates on whats happening with this mobile industry changing, ANDROID!

On November 5th, 2007 the open handset alliance announced Android. November 12th, 2007 Google released a software development kit for the platform and is already encouraging third-party development by offering $10 million in prizes to those who build the best applications. April 17th 2008 1,788 submissions were received. 20 winners were announced on Aug 28th. $5 million was awarded to developers for great Android applications. September 23rd, 2008 The world’s first Android-powered phone is announced. Phones will be available to consumers on October 22 at a much more reasonable rate than many would have expected, Tmobile, the only carrier so far, has been selling the G1 to customers at around $180 with a two year agreement of course! Although,….. customers have to pre-order and it takes some time before you actually get your phone. There are leaks out that Best Buy is selling the T-Mobile G1 in October or early November.

Well, we may not be able to get our hands on anything yet but You can find multiple decent quality demonstration videos on the so far only, android enabled phone, the TMobile G1 at android.com heres a link to the site, Make it your own

Android and Iphone: Great Devices Require More Software

Matt Kapko posted an article on Yahoo that pointed out that iPhone’s users are downloading a ton more applications than other cell phone users. As a matter of fact, he said that they downloaded apps “47 times more than regular cell phone users”.

The word on the street is that this is because the iPhone is a kick-ass platform with the ability to handle great apps. When we consider that the iPhone is just a forerunner of the upcoming Android Enabled phones, we can see that Google has hit on a great idea that will make a whole bunch of developers more money than they can shake a stick at.

So, all you Android Developers out there, don’t forget to drop us a line so that we can be the first to test out and post your new apps as they come online.

Greg

Android Enabled Wireless Devices

With Google claiming that they will be ready to ship Android enabled cell phones in time for Christmas, I figured it was time to get this site up and running. Over the next couple of years, Android should help Google make inroads into the massive cellular market.

I’ve heard many people say that if Android is anything like the iPhone, but with better web based abilities, then Google’s Android could take the mobile market by storm, eventually controlling the “Wireless” market the same way they currently dominate the “Search” market.  I do know one thing, whatever happens, it will be interesting to watch Google’s move into the cellular communication’s market. (Do you think that Verizon, Sprint, AT&T and Tmobile are as nervous as they should be?)