The Dodge Retort

Darth Vader is not happy about his iPhone 4….

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I love this…..iPhone mania is lunacy…a bit off color but unambiguous

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I knew there was another reason I liked Droid Incredible better Droid X Android-based smartphone. The “flicker and banding” problems with Droid X displays story broke yesterday after several reports on Web tech talk sites such as Howard Forums.

The review unit of the Droid X I returned this morning to Verizon Wireless’ PR agency had no such problem. Engadget reported Tuesday that Motorola and Verizon Wireless made the following statement to its inquiry about the display issue.

“Verizon Wireless and Motorola are aware of a very small number of DROID X units that have experienced a flickering or banding display. Motorola has resolved the issue and is continuing to ship the phones. Any consumer who experiences a flickering or banding display should contact a Motorola customer support center or Verizon Wireless.”

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What difference does an ounce make? When it comes to smartphones, a lot.

The Droid X made by Motorola and sold by Verizon Wireless is lot of smart phone for 200 bucks:  its big 4.3 inch display is brilliant and crisp. The X’s thin design is sleek and a major improvement upon the brick-like profile of its original Motorola Droid. Verizon Wireless loaned me a review unit late last week and I’ve been putting it through its paces.

Droid X

But I give the Droid Incredible (which TDR followers know I loved)  from HTC with its smaller 3.7 inch screen and profile a small edge.  Given, they are both $200 Verizon smartphones with the usual two year service contract, they beg comparison.

Here’s the weigh-in: The X weighs 5.47 ounces (49 ounces less than original Motorola Droid) versus 4.59 ounces for the Incredible (versus 3.7 ounces for my aging Blackberry Curve). Watching videos on the X, my hand tired holding it up while I was horizontal on the couch.

It feels a bit bulky in my pants pocket, too. It’s 5.02 inches tall, .039 inches at it thickest point and 2.57 inches wide versus. The Incredible is a touch thicker, a touch less wide and 4.63 inches tall.

Both are both based on the Android version 2.1 operating system, but that’s where the innards’ similarities end. The X comes with a different chipset known as OMAP from Texas Instruments,  long a mainstay in cell phones. And it has the Motorola application platform, whatever that is.

The Incredible phone is based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor and is a heavily Google-ized phone. Verizon Wireless  calls the Incredible a “Google Experience Device (GED).” The X is a pure Android…the differences are subtle, but simply put, the GED is an Android-based phone with lots of Google apps built in.

So what does all this mean? I found some of X’s applications a bit funky and hard to use. For example, it was easy uploading photos from the Incredible to Facebook. It took some messing around to set it up on the X. The X’s camera had a pronounced shutter delay (maybe it was the lighting, but it never seemed fast in the 50 shots I took mostly in broad daylight) and it initially took me a few minutes to figure out that the shutter button was on the side.

Verizon's Incredible from HTC

Speaking of buttons, the X does a lot more with physical controls on the phone itself. I was constantly using the go back button, which the third from the right in the photo. I prefer the Incredible’s heavier use of screen-resident controls. The Incredible also seemed a touch faster than the X.

My X’s camera also inexplicably defaulted to black and white shots and I still figuring out how to get color shots back. Mind you, they both have great video cams and 8 mega-pixel cameras. I just had better Kodak moments with the Incredible in the few days Verizon Wireless gave me a loaner.

I also took an instant liking to the Incredible, but had to warm up the X although it is great for watching videos and has excellent apps for texting, e-mail, speech recognition and a great voice phone (as in talk on the phone).

The X is DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) certified meaning it can wirelessly or wired share content with other DLNA devices of which I have none and I suspect there are few. So I could not test this app.

I noticed little differences between the Incredible and the X. The on-screen keyboard on the X is excellent, but the CAPS lock stayed on after a keystroke instead of automatically defaulting to lower case which was the Incredible did – a tiny but smart feature.

One edge for the X is that it comes with 16 GB of memory built in and can be upgraded 32 GB whereas the Incredible comes with eight and can only add another 16 GB via a MicroSD card, according to Verizon’s specs (a friend who works for Verizon tells me the Incredible does go up to 32 GB and that Verizon’s specs are wrong).

Grant you, both phones are good and reason enough to say screw Apple’s iPhone should Verizon Wireless ever carry it. I am not saying this just because Steve jobs last week arrogantly excused the antenna problems with the iPhone 4. The Droids are nearly as good as the iPhone and you get a more reliable network with Verizon Wireless than what iPhone users endure with AT&T.

One iPhone advantage I noticed is that many Android apps cannot be sized spreading/pinching thumb and fore finger on the touch sensitive displays. And the single Android New York Times app is pretty basic compared to the several NYT apps for the iPod touch and iPad. After all, the iPhone, introduced Jan. 9, 2007, enjoys a near three-year head start on Android smartphones.

I could spend months testing out the both phones and still find new things. I always get paranoid that when I say a phone lacks a particular feature because maybe I could not find it or turn it on. But that is the phone’s fault, isn’t it?

I haven’t made up my mind for sure given I am waiting until November when I get my discounted phone plus a another $50 off. By that time, the Incredible and X could be in the rear view mirror, supplanted by a raft of new Android smartphones. Verizon Wireless has five, now (six technically, but one is being phased out).

For those with either  the X or the Incredible, what do you think?

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And you didn’t think you could understand Chinese…..

Well, I’ve had the iPad for a month and I am supposed to love it. Guess what? I don’t know quite what to do with it.

It seems like a toy….great for watching videos, perusing photos and perhaps reading a book. It’s very good for reading newspapers to which I am addicted, but not hugely better than my $290 PC laptop. It competently plays music, but no better than my much smaller and cheaper iPod Touch.

I surf the App Store about every night to find that killer which will tip me from “I like it” to “I love it.” Everybody else seems to.

The iPad technology is sound, elegant and reliable save its annoying habit of dropping my Wifi connection mid-session. My $290 PC laptop doesn’t ever drop as Wifi session.

I just checked Apple’s stock and it’s trading at $257 a share just $22 off its 52-week high. The market must love the iPad so why don’t I. I want to given that I waited a month for the privilege of shelling out $829 for it, but I am just not there yet.

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Update Sunday night, July 11, 10:12 P.M.

The Wifi dropping problem is apparently not unique to me. There are discussion threads in the Apple forum that examine the problem and Apple has a page with about four work-arounds, including adjusting screen brightness off the lowest settings (???), replacing WEP security with WPA or WPA2 security, making sure your router firmware is up to date or renewing the iPad’s IP address.

I’ll try numbers 1 and 4 given they are easiest. If all of them fail, call Apple.

As for loving my iPad, things are looking up. MTV just released a Beavis and Butthead video clip app for a buck ninety nine for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Actually, I’m not sure this is THE killer iPad app.

By now, everyone and their mother has heard about the Bloomberg story yesterday that Verizon will get the iPhone by early next year. We’ve heard this before.

Here’s the top of the story.

Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone company, will start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone next year, ending AT&T Inc.’s exclusive hold on the smartphone in the U.S., two people familiar with the plans said.

The device will be available to customers in January, according to the people, who declined to be named because the information isn’t public. Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, and Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, declined to comment.

I was just on the phone with Verizon Blackberry support tech, who out of the blue offered me the iPhone – in jest, of course, but it was bold offer by a guy whose ilk are usually pretty scripted. This guy was good technically and spoke freely. “Both [Apple and Verizon] denied it so it must be true,” he said (they actually had no comment, which is even more of a loaded non-response).

“Let me tell you, it has been a roller coaster. Yes [we going to get it], no (we’re not going to get it], yes, no, yes, no. Our CEO has told Apple “we are waiting for you…we’re ready when you are…we want it,” he said.

Assuming it’s as powerful as the iPhone 4, the new addition would be one more step to Verizon’s domination of the U.S. wireless market. The Bloomberg story guesstimates Verizon could sell 12 million iPhones in the first year and it fair to assume many would be defections from AT&T’s inferior network.

“We can put AT&T out of business,” the Verizon spokesman volunteered (I was not playing my reporter self – this guy wanted to talk about this as we established a rapport). Coincidentally Verizon just launched it Rule the Air ad campaign to drive home that its network is superior to arch rival AT&T’s. The massage? To make sure “the signal is strong so the most important transmitter is you.”

Last week, I blogged about the blitz of phones Verizon is unleashing, which is hedging its bets if it doesn’t get the iPhone. Today’s expanding crop of Droids do just about as much the iPhone so that base is covered. The iPhone would be just one more red hot offering to Verizon’s 92.8 million wireless customers (to AT&T’s 85.1 million).

How can Apple ignore Verizon’s huge installed base any longer? Fact is, it can’t. Outlook for AT&T? Gloomy.

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Like me, you may have had something to do that prevented you from watching the U.S. versus Ghana World Cup match on TV. I had a wedding that started at 1 CDT in Minneapolis suburb Wayzata, Minn. Two hours for pictures and the ceremony would prevent from situating in front of the TV for the duration.

And representing AT&T....

Smartphones to the rescue. Not really. It was AT&T 3G and an iPhone v. my Blackberry Curve and Verizon 3G. Neither performed admirably. My son had the iPhone and for 30 minutes tried to get a video feed over the Internet and specifically over iTunes. That did not work. Waaaaaaay too slow. My aging Curve doesn’t do video.

So he abandoned that effort and went to live blogging at Guardian.co.uk. I opted for the ESPN live blog of the game which provided minute-by-minute (and very opinionated) updates. My live blog worked well for the first half, but completely shut down in the second. My son’s live blog worked throughout (yes, AT&T prevailed over Verizon).

Neither feed worked inside the church where the ceremony was held. Divine providence, perhaps! We only got reception in the vestibule, which improved near the windows.

By no means is this a definitive test. This was just my experience and where I happened to be when I REALLY wanted connectivity.

The inability for 3G to provide video and consistent connectivity reminded how badly we need 4G before the potential of the latest smart phones can be realized. Follow me on Twitter.

Verizon, which offers more  Smartphones or cell phones for that matter, added the Droid X to its expanding stable of hot Android phones. [Follow me on Twitter.]

The new Droid X has a BIG 4.3 inch display.

Motorola’s Droid X not only competes with its intended target, Apple’s iPhone 4, but other Verizon offerings such as the HTC Droid Incredible, which if you ordered today would not be shipped July 22nd. I chatted with “Charity” on the Verizon Wireless’ site and she offered me $30 off the the Incredible if I bought an accessory. Discounting a phone I can’t get for month!? Seems weird.

Verizon’s strategy is simple: blitz the market with powerful Android-based smartphones, which offer a great web experience, cam/camera, video, music – you know, the stuff brought to us first by the iPhone – and get all those customers to sign up for two years of Verizon wireless. Verizon could care less which phone you buy. It wants to send you those monthly bills which include a data plan.

When I asked Charity what the difference between the Incredible and Droid X, she said she was “unsure” and seemed intent on selling me an Incredible. From the looks of it, the main difference is bigger display. Note that HTC’s Evo 4G from Sprint has a 4.3 inch display – bigger displays is where smartphones are going.

It’s the razor blade strategy on steroids. Give the phones at a discount, which could be lot steeper, by the way. Here’s the Droid X details lifted from the Verizon press release (hype removed) that came out today.

“DROID X [offers] a 4.3-inch high-resolution screen (compared to the Incredible’s 3.7 inch display – TDR)  for viewing movies and video from BLOCKBUSTER On Demand^®presented by V CAST Video, the newest addition to the Verizon Wireless V CAST application, which also includes access to favorite TV shows.  The DROID X video capabilities let customers capture spontaneous fun, combining a dual-flash, 8-megapixel camera, HD camcorder, as well as DLNA and HDMI connectivity to download, stream and share personal HD content.

DROID X also [offers] Android 2.2 and Adobe Flash Player 10.1 with an over-the-air update in the latter half of the summer.  With the update, the Flash Player will allow mobile users to experience hundreds of sites with rich applications and content inside the browser, including games, animations, rich Internet applications (RIAs), data presentations and visualizations, ecommerce, music, video, audio and more.”

Boy Genius liked the Droid X – a lot, according to its first impression. I hope to get my hands on a review unit very soon. Here’s Boy Genius’ summary:

“Our first impressions are very, very positive. Between the phones impressive stat sheet and our initial tests we can’t wait to start really putting this thing through its paces over the next several weeks.”

By the way, a site called Shrinkage is Good sent me a handy chart comparing total cost of smartphone ownership when you commit to a phone and the service agreement that go with them.  Verizon is the most expensive of the four for both unlimited data plans and the minimum plans, which goes to show how relatively inconsequential the price of the phone is: it’s the phone bill, stupid!

The Droid  X isn’t on the chart, but would cost the same as the Droid Incredible. The chart is accompanied by a blog post which explains the usual apple to oranges comparison:

source:  Shrinkage is Good.

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I wish I could tell you this is my first post composed on my new iPad, but its on-screen keyboard doesn’t come when I use WordPress 3.0 in the Safari browser.

That’s just one example of things I can’t do on the iPad that I can on my netbooks, notebooks and tower PCs. Actually, I just found WordPress in the iPad App Store and with a couple tweaks, adapted my blog editor to the iPad. But going into WordPress straight through Safari was a bust.

Apple's WordPress app for iPad

So this post was half-composed with the iPad and I am still figuring out details like embedding links and that sort of thing.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s plenty to like about the iPad:  it’s a great reader, photo and video viewer with a fantastic display, but to three decade PC vet like me, it feels quirky. And the tablet metaphor has some drawbacks.

For instance, I recline using my netbook and notebook. With the display flipped up, I plunk the notebook down on my belly or chest and type with two hands. The tablet requires one hand to hold it up (it feels heavy at one pound, six ounces), leaving only one hand with which to peck away. For me, this is a downside of the tablet.

I have this idea for a sling like device attached to the iPad and fastened to my forehead. That would free up my left hand for typing. Or I could really grow mountainous beer belly and lean it against that.

No Adobe Flash on the iPad also means I can’t play my favorite Facebook game, Word Twist. And funneling everything through iTunes onto the iPad (save a the Camera Connection Kit, which my Apple store seems always out of) is a pain. iPad like Macs are closed systems.

I  like the iPad the more I understand its trove of features, but I won’t be giving up my PCs any time soon.

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