Samsung Galaxy S 4G from T-Mobile

BUILD & DESIGN

This phone is extremely thin and light. It measures 4.8-inches long, 2.5-inches wide, and 0.4-inches thick, and weighs just over four ounces. Unlike some modern smartphones that will hardly fit in your largest pocket, the Galaxy S 4G won’t add any bulk to your mobile lifestyle.

The sides of the phone are shiny silver, and the back cover is a platinum gray color with a cool color shifting effect. There’s nothing flashy or garish about this phone, but it does stand out from the pack in a good way.

The Galaxy S 4G can be somewhat “slippery” and difficult to hold on to because it’s so smooth. It doesn’t have any prominent ridges, and is rather curved at the sides. The only slight bump is at the bottom edge on the back, but that may not be enough to help you figure out which end is which when you dig it out of your pocket or bag.

Since the power and volume buttons are almost flush mounted, they don’t stick out enough to give you much of a clue about which way you’re holding the phone — you’ll have to look.

Aside from my slight frustration with the slipperiness of the phone, I found the Galaxy S 4G to be of excellent build quality. The phone feels solid in the hand and is well made. You won’t find any bending, creaking, or flimsy parts here.

Display
The 4-inch Super AMOLED display is simply gorgeous. While I might not often want to watch full length movies on the small screen, the clarity and detail are just outstanding. Colors are rich and sharp, and I can see everything clearly, be it text on a web page, photos, videos, or games. Even when I look very closely, I can see little to no evidence of jagginess or pixelization on the 800 x 480 pixel display.

I also found the screen to be entirely readable outside in direct sunlight, though of course the colors did wash out a bit. The screen can be a bit too bright indoors, at least for my taste. I found myself turning off the automatic brightness control in the settings area so that I could dial it down just a bit.

Keyboard
You’ll be relying on the on-screen virtual keyboard here, since the Galaxy S 4G doesn’t have a physical QWERTY keyboard. Thankfully the Swype technology is included, so you should be typing quickly and accurately with a minimum of practice. That’s especially important since this phone is relatively narrow in portrait mode, so the keyboard keys are rather long and narrow too.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Swype is a text entry method in which you slide you finger from letter to letter, rather than pecking at each one. It’s become quite popular in the last year or so, and Samsung put it on virtually all its phones.

Swype is smart enough that it does a very good job of reading your mind. If it ever isn’t sure about a particular word choice, a handy menu pops up with several likely choices, and a single tap is all that is needed to pick the right word and move on.

Other Buttons & Controls
The menu, home, back, and search “buttons” are touch-sensitive areas located directly under the screen on the front of the Galaxy S 4G.

The charge/sync port is at the top of the phone, and is covered by a sliding door. I really like that extra touch, because phone ports can get really dusty/linty if your bag is full of junk.

The headphone jack is also up top, the power button is on the right side, and the volume button is on the left side.

As mentioned above, the keys are very small and don’t stick out much at all — until you become more familiar with the device, you will likely have to look each time you want to find and activate a button.

The microSD card slot and the SIM card slot are located on the back side of the phone, underneath the back cover. I was glad to see that neither one of those slots was stuck under the battery. While you do have to take off the back cover to access them, the cover is easy to remove and replace.

PERFORMANCE

The Samsung Galaxy S 4G is snappy all around, whether you’re switching between applications or using the web browser. The combination of a fast processor with a fast network made it a joy to use in all circumstances.

It runs Google Android OS 2.2 on a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, a user-friendly operating system that has become very popular. On top of this is Samsung’s own TouchWiz, which makes a few modifications to the user interface.

I did find the lock screen one to be rather annoying, however — it doesn’t use the puzzle piece standard I’ve grown accustomed to on other Android devices. Instead you have to swipe the lock screen far enough to unlock the device, which is harder than it sounds. If you’re not forceful and aggressive with the movement, the lock screen “snaps” back into place and you have to try again. I believe this is part of Samsung’s TouchWiz interface, and it’s not something you can turn off in the Settings app. It’s a small frustration, but a very real one that annoyed me every single time I had to wake the phone.

Communication
Voice quality on this phone was somewhat disappointing, though not horrible. One of my test callers complained that everything sounded “buzzy” while another said that it sounded as though there were plastic wrap over the microphone. There weren’t any major problems with background noise, it’s just that everything seemed rather muted–perhaps the noise cancellation feature was a bit overactive, causing human voices to lose their depth and richness of tone.

I got the same results whether I was making a regular cellular call or using the built-in Wi-Fi calling feature. I really enjoyed using Wi-Fi calling, because it made the phone much more reliable in my office. The feature still uses your plan minutes, but it’s a big plus if your office or home happens to be in a dead zone and you have access to a wireless network.

I was able to connect to my home and office Wi-Fi networks with no problems at all, and Bluetooth works as expected.

The Galaxy S 4G has replaced the Samsung Vibrant in T-Mobile’s product lineup because the two are very similar, but only the new model offers support for this carrier’s HSPA+ network. I’m fortunate to have access to T-Mobile’s 4G network here in Dallas, and it really sings — downloads, navigation, and web browsing are all blazing fast. It was refreshing not to open a web page and have to wait (what seems like) forever for it to load. If you’re in a 4G area, you will likely be thrilled with how fast you can accomplish network-dependent tasks.

In theory, this smartphone should be able to download data as fast as 21 Mbps, but reality is something different. According to the benchmarking app Speed Test, in my real-world test this smartphone achieved download speeds of 4.088 Kbps and upload speeds of 1.305 Kbps on the 4G network. That’s with 4 signal bars.

The social networking experience on the Galaxy S 4G is good, though I missed the tight integration/unification of all of my online social info provided by the FriendStream application on the HTC Android devices I’ve tested in the past.

Facebook is pre-installed, of course, though you will have to go to the Android Market to get the free Twitter app. Thanks to the blazing fast speed of the Galaxy S and the multiple home screens that make launching your favorite apps a matter of a swipe and a tap, keeping up with your friends is simple and fun.

The email and web experiences are also good. There’s not too much to say here since this is pretty standard across all Android-based devices. The controls are straightforward, and you can choose which Gmail labels to sync. You can star, archive, and delete messages, and if you use the menu, you can mark individual messages as important or report spam (the latter takes two taps now).

You’ll find smooth scrolling in the web browser, as well as outstanding performance if you’re in a 4G area. The flash support works, though the experience isn’t very smooth. Animations were slow and sometimes rather jerky, and in one instance, the edges of the site kept getting cut off because it wasn’t being properly sized for the screen. I couldn’t manipulate any of the controls at moodstream.gettyimages.com either.

Productivity
Calendar, contacts, a memo pad, basic calculator, alarm clock, a news & weather app, and a file manager are all included with the Galaxy S 4G, and they work just as you would expect them to.

The first two, calendar and contacts, pull down all of the information from your Google account so you’re always up to date. ThinkFree Office is pre-loaded, so you’ll have access to your Microsoft Office files.

There’s also a Mini Diary app that is very cool if you’re into journaling; it provides a space each day to enter your thoughts and you can add a photo to each entry as well, either from the camera or from the photos already stored on the device. When you save each entry, it includes your GPS location as well, so that you’ll always know where you’ve been.

If navigation is your thing, there’s plenty here to check out. Google Latitude and Places are pre-loaded, as well as Google Maps. TeleNav GPS is pre-loaded, with free basic access to points of interest and turn-by-turn directions. If you are interested in real time traffic updates, traffic camera locations, and voice search capabilities, you’ll have to upgrade to the premium version of the app for an additional $2.99 per month. The directions and maps provided by TeleNav were excellent, clearly spoken and easy to understand. The information is really up to date as well — I didn’t find anything obviously wrong or incorrect.

The included Layer app added a social aspect to navigation, with multiple layers of information. When you first launch the app you might get information about nearby restaurants and shops, but there’s much more than that. Tap the layers tab and you’ll find that you can add listings for everything from dating sites and employment listings to entertainment and nightlife to local parks and even crime reports.

While it’s a fun app to use in your hometown, it will be even more valuable for road warriors — if you’re constantly traveling, Layar can help you get the lay of the land much more quickly and break you out of the rut of eating in the hotel restaurant every night.

Two more navigation aids round out the on-the-go package. Car Home provides a quick access screen that includes voice search, navigation, maps, phone, contacts, music, and settings. You can also mute all sounds with a single touch, or dim the display so it’s less distracting when driving at night.

If you’re an extra responsible driver, you’ll probably appreciate DriveSmart, an app that “encourages safe driving” by automatically silencing notifications, routing calls straight to voice mail, and even providing customized automatic responses that let your callers know that you’ll get back to them when you’re not behind the wheel. A DriveSmart upgrade is available on the Android Market which starts the app automatically by using speed detection to tell when you’re driving, plus parental controls parents can use to help their teenagers stay safe on the road.

Entertainment
The Android built-in Music Player app is rather basic, but it works: view a list of all songs or group them by playlist, album, or artist. Amazon MP3 is pre-loaded, as well as the doubleTwist app that syncs iTunes playlists, podcasts, and videos from your Mac or PC.

The Galaxy S 4G  gaming experience is a very good one, thanks to the extra sharp clarity and bright colors of the Super AMOLED screen and the powerful external speaker. Angry Birds and Jewels look better than ever, and I didn’t experience any lag or crashes or any other problems while playing them. It was slightly disappointing to find that T-Mobile didn’t include any pre-loaded games or even any demos, but there are plenty of options, both free and paid, available in the Android Market.

If you like video, there’s plenty to choose from here. YouTube videos look fantastic. They automatically expand to fill the whole screen, and the clarity (depending on the original source, of course) is very impressive. If you want to watch live TV, the T-Mobile TV app is included. It’s very easy to use, with several live music and sports channels, plus a good selection of network shows.

The Amazon Kindle app is pre-loaded, and if you’ve already got some Kindle books in your account they will appear on your device as soon as you sign in. The reading experience with the Android app is just the same as on iOS or PC, so it should be familiar to old users and easy to figure out for new users.

Camera
The Galaxy S 4G’s rear-facing five megapixel camera takes very nice photos. Regular photos are clear and sharp, and certainly good enough for everyday memories. The zoom feature generally works well, though depending on what you’re shooting you may see moderate loss of detail. If you look at my sample photos, this is especially true for the church, as it is impossible to make out the individual bricks so the building looks a little fuzzy.

The camera does take a while to focus, so if you’re trying to catch an action shot, you need to press the shutter a little early if you’re going to capture the moment. As you can see from the image taken on a busy street corner, it was hard to capture a car before it had almost completely left the frame.

There are several different shooting modes, including beauty (for portraits), smile shot, panorama, and vintage. You can tweak the white balance to match the situation, and you can also set the camera to send photos to an online album, a new email, or a particular recipient by default.

While I found it frustrating that I had to tap a tiny little arrow on the screen to access the camera settings, because the standard menu button wouldn’t work, that is a relatively minor complaint. Most users will find that the camera on the Galaxy S 4G is good enough for everyday use, though it won’t replace a dedicated digital camera for special events.

This smartphone also includes a front-facing VGA camera for video chats, as well as the QIK video chat software. This app is about to be replaced by Skype, so I didn’t see a point in testing out something that’s going away very soon.

Battery Life
I’m very pleased with the battery life experience offered by the Galaxy S 4G. It lasted five days with light use: watching about 30 minutes of Inception, downloading and playing three games, with some email and web surfing plus three or four calls each day.

With much heavier use, taking lots of photo to try out the camera and one long session surfing YouTube, I was able to get through almost two complete days. The battery was down to about 20% by the time the evening commute came around, but I was able to read in the Kindle app until I was able to plug in the phone when I got home.

CONCLUSION

The Samsung Galaxy S 4G is an entertainment powerhouse. If you’re looking for a phone that can offer excellent photo and video quality, with excellent choices for live and on-demand TV, this is the phone for you. The screen is gorgeous, the battery life is impressive, the camera/camcorder capture everyday memories with excellent quality, and the gaming experience is fun.

Though there were some issues with voice quality and a few minor frustrations relating to the lock screen and access to the camera settings, the Galaxy S 4G is a solid device with some impressive features.

If you’re more interested in Facebook, gaming, video, and email than you are in gabbing on the phone, this is the device for you. Voice quality isn’t horrible by any means, or even particularly bad, but it is the weakest point for what is, in all other respects, a powerful and fun device.

Pros

• Thin and light
• Excellent screen
• Good sound quality
• Highly responsive
• Useful bundled apps
• Excellent battery life

Cons

• Slippery to hold
• Disappointing voice quality
• Frustrating lock screen
• Flash web experience can be glitchy and frustrating

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BUILD & DESIGN

The G2 is a very well built, solid phone. It’s plastic with aluminum accents and battery door, giving it a high-quality feel. It’s substantial without being heavy. It feels comfortable to drop it in my pocket to carry around, and I hardly notice it is there.

Screen
The 3.7-inch WVGA (800 x 640) Super-TFT touchscreen is very sharp, and seems to have the right amount of sensitivity. On my old T-Mobile G1, I often found myself needing to swipe more than once to get the screen to change or browse through apps. I rarely need to do that on the G2.

The on-screen keyboard (for use with the device in portrait mode) is also accurate, and I rarely miss a letter, which for me is an accomplishment.

This device also has a sensor near the top of the screen that detects ambient light levels and adjusts the screen brightness accordingly. This works surprisingly well, and only occasionally seems to get dim briefly when in normal light, but usually will correct quickly.

Overall I am very impressed with the screen quality and touch sensitivity.

Keyboard
One of the big draws for me to the G2 was the hardware keyboard. Even though touchscreen keyboards have improved, I still prefer a physical keyboard when doing any lengthy typing. I thought the G1 had one of the best hardware keyboards of any phone I have used, and was anxious to try its successor.

The G2′s keyboard is accessed by pushing on the bottom in landscape mode (the left side in portrait mode), and it rises up and back, then folds down flush again. This is called a “Z Hinge” by HTC, and has proved to be a bit controversial. Many find it too easy to open, possibly a result of some loose hinges in early batches. I am happy to say that I have not had this problem. I can hold the phone upside down and the keyboard does not fall open for me. It only opens and closes when I intend it to.

Although I would rank the keyboard below the one on my G1, it is still a very good keyboard. The G1 had 5 rows of keys, with the fifth being a dedicated number row, which I found very useful. The G2 has four rows of keys, and therefore you have to use the ALT key to enter numbers.

There are also three user-assignable buttons. There is an app called “quick keys” used to assign them. I set mine up for email, messaging, and Docs to Go.

Overall the keyboard is very good, and the buttons have a good feel to them. They are raised slightly and give good tactile feedback when typing.

Other Buttons & Controls
The front side is taken up mostly by the touchscreen, but there is a trackpad centered near the bottom, just below four touch-sensitive buttons for Home, Menu, Back, and Search. These buttons took a bit to get used to for me. The G1 had physical buttons, and were easier to hit since you could feel them. Still, once I got used to them, I became much more comfortable, and have fewer misfires.

The trackpad is centered below the screen, and has a small border around it that lights up for notifications, and is fairly easy to use. The G1 had a similarly-located trackball, but I find the G2′s trackpad much easier to use.

The left side of the device contains a volume rocker, and a Micro-USB port. The top has the power button and 3.5-mm headphone jack. The right side has a camera button and a battery door release.

The volume rocker on the left, and camera button on the right side both are raised enough to be easy to operate, but not so much that they are easily bumped.

Overall the button layout is very intuitive, probably because of the similarity to the G1.

PERFORMANCE

Performance is where the T-Mobile G2 shines. It runs Google’s Android OS 2.2, AKA Froyo, with little carrier modification. This should mean it will be one of the first in line for any operating system upgrades in the future. It is basically “vanilla” Android, with a bunch of preloaded Google apps. Most of these apps I would have installed anyway, but some people prefer a minimum of pre-installed software.

Although it has a processor rated at 800 MHz, it feels faster than many 1 GHz devices. This is due to the architecture of the Snapdragon MSM7230 processor, and the Adreno 205 GPU. I ran a Quadrant benchmark and it placed higher than the Nexus One with Android OS 2.2, and that model runs a 1 GHz processor.

Don’t let the megahertz on this device fool you — this is the fastest phone I have ever used. I played with the Samsung Vibrant, and the My Touch 4G at the T-Mobile store, and the G2 felt the snappiest overall.

Of course the real test is how well does it play Angry Birds? I can happily say it is silky smooth on the G2, and there has not been a single second of slowness or hesitation while playing it. For those that don’t know, Angry Birds is a large graphics intensive game that can test the performance of many phones. It ground my G1 to a halt when playing it.

I use an app called Touchdown for work email and calendar synchronization, and it opens very quickly. So far I have not found an app that really slows it down.

For those of you who are daring, the G2 has been rooted and overclocked to 1.9 GHz, with a Quadrant benchmark of 2800, which is insane fast.

The phone has 512 MB of RAM, and 4 GB of internal storage plus a pre-installed 8GB micro SD card, which is expandable to 32 GB.

Wireless/Call Quality
With all of the capabilities of smart phones today, they still need to make phone calls, and the G2 does not disappoint. There were early complaints of radio issues when the G2 was released, but a maintenance release in early November seems to have fixed it. I have not had any dropped calls, or data connectivity issues. I can clearly hear callers, and they hear me clearly as well.

I often use a Bluetooth headset, and that is clear and loud as well. The speaker phone is a tad tinny, but works adequately.

I generally have a solid connection to the T-Mobile high-speed data network, which is indicated in the notification bar with an H when connected to 4G. Using the Speedtest app, I usually get between 4 and 5 Mbps down, and 1.5 to 3 Mbps up, which is pretty good since I am near the edge of the 4G network in Minneapolis.  Using the browser is fast and responsive, and market downloads are amazingly fast. I downloaded a large 28 MB game in under a minute.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections are rock solid, and I never have a problem connecting via Wi-Fi to coffee shop networks, or my home network. I use a Bluetooth headset, and once paired, it automatically connects when I turn on my headset. Also included with the latest maintenance release was Wi-Fi calling and tethering. Wi-Fi calling was easy to setup and use, but does count against your mobile minutes.

Productivity
All of the standard Android OS apps are included with the T-Mobile G2, such as Gmail, Contacts, Calculator, Voice Search, Google Voice, and Email.

There are a few nice, extra touches bundled, including Quickoffice for viewing Office Documents such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Also, there is an App called Car Home. Basically this places large square icons on screen to make it easier to see and select while you are using your smartphone in the car. It has six buttons per screen which are customizable, but default to Navigate, Phone, Voice Search, Contacts, Music, and Exit. There are four screens to swipe through and other buttons can be added.

Other bundled apps include the most common Google apps such as Maps, Sky Map, Google Earth, Goggles, Translate, Listen, Shopper. Twitter, Facebook, and Photobucket. The Facebook and Twitter gadgets are set on one of the screens, but can be removed if wanted.

The Swype keyboard is pre-installed, and has quickly become my favorite touchscreen keyboard. Swype is a way of typing without actually pulling your finger away from the screen to complete words. What you do is draw a line through all of the letters of a word, and the software can recognize it. If there is more than one word recognized, it pops up with a box and you select the correct one. I have gotten to the point I am opening up the hardware keyboard less often because of the accuracy and speed of swipe.

Entertainment
There are no “extra” apps bundled for entertainment on the G2, but for most the stock Android OS apps are adequate.  The built-in Music and Movie players are not exceptional, but work well.

There are many apps both free and for purchase in the market, so there are options. Speaking of options, there are several web browsers available, but honestly I really like the built in browser. I have tried a few others but for various reasons I end up going back to the stock browser. It just works, and with Adobe Flash installed, I have not been to any websites that give me problems.

Camera
The camera is a 5 megapixel camera with LED flash, and is capable of HD 720p video recording.

Still images are quite amazing. They rival my Canon 8 megapixel point-and-shoot camera for clarity, and colors are crisp.

The LED flash is usable, and can come in handy in dark situations. Of course it only really helps in close-ups, and will not be of much use more than 3 or 4 feet away.

The stock camera app has adjustments for flash, zoom, white balance, location, focus mode, and exposure. Pictures can also be uploaded to Photobucket or Facebook.

I took a couple of videos in HD, and I was surprised at how well it performed. It has some blurring if there is too much close-up movement, but far away (sports events) it works well.

Battery Life
The battery life is excellent on the G2. I always found myself taking every opportunity to charge with my G1, and even carried a spare battery. Now I can get through an entire day with moderate usage and still have battery to spare.

A 1350 mAh battery is included, but after market 1500 mAh batteries are available, as well as 2800 mAh with an expanded battery door.

A typical usage day for me is like this:

Unplug my phone at around 7:30 AM, check mail, and get the kids off to school. I drive to work using a Bluetooth headset, and my travel time is roughly 1 hour from leaving the house and arriving at work. During my commute I am getting push email from work using Touchdown, and Twitter, Weatherbug, etc are updating every 30 minutes. Usually at work I will occasionally check RSS feeds, Facebook, Twitter, email, and at lunch play a game, read news, etc. I have plenty of widgets running and updating all day. I usually use my phone for calls about 1 hour out of the day, and then the drive home is similar to the drive in. I can web surf, play games, check updates etc all evening. At around 9 PM I will have about 40% battery left.

On my old G1 my battery would have died in the early evening with the same usage pattern.

Overall I am quite happy with the battery life, and I haven’t really taken any battery saving steps yet.

CONCLUSION

The T-Mobile G2 is by far the best smartphone I have used. I am still constantly picking it up and playing with it just because it is a joy to use.

Everything is quick, and the battery lasts long enough that I don’t need to worry about it. It works well in all areas, and should be quick to receive operating system updates like the upcoming Gingerbread due to its stock Android OS.

Pros:

• Excellent design
• Fast processor, ample memory
• Keyboard mostly well laid out

Cons:

• No dedicated number row in keyboard,
• Not as thin as many devices
• Long-term use of Z Hinge unknown

With the reunion of HTC and the best OS manufacturer in the name of Windows, the smartphone market will surely experience a lot of improvements and this power tandem will set the bar higher. HTC’s alleged phone called the HTC 7 Pro will be another jack-of-all-trades type of phone as it will cater and surely be a hit in many different aspects of its functionality. Here’s why:

Talk About the Externals

HTC Pro 7 will surely win the crowd by its physical look alone. Boasting a side-flip type of phone with a full QWERTY keypad and a smooth screen tilt manoeuvre, the HTC 7 Pro will be a perfect Gizmo for tying things, watching movies and videos or simply browsing the internet.

Also, its 3.6 inch touch capacitive screen will surely give its users an unmatched experience granted by its speedy 1 GHz processor and OS which features the Windows 7 phone OS.

HTC 7 Pro From the Inside

As mentioned earlier on, HTC 7 Pro will carry the latest Windows 7 phone OS and apart from that, also has a built in Dolby Digital and Surround Sound ability. The memory built inside the phone hasn’t been specified yet so we have to watch out for that one up but yes, there will be an expected memory card slot for memory upgrades. Data can also be accessed through Wi-Fi network as well as 3G and HSPA.

Still unconvinced? Probably we have to wait for until next year’s first quarter when they are rescheduled for a release and rumours say there will be some fantastic phone deals available for this phone! So better keep your ears open and eyes more vigilant than ever.

BUILD & DESIGN

This is the latest addition to the line of relatively large smartphones, roughly the same size as Verizon’s HTC Droid Incredible and the Samsung Captivate from AT&T. It feels very solid in the hand, to the point that it’s hard to tell at first that this is a slider phone with a pull-out physical keyboard underneath the screen.

This device is weighty but not too heavy. You won’t forget that it’s in your pocket, but it won’t weigh you down too much either. Most of the weight is centered in the keyboard portion of the phone, which means that the device is still easy to hold when you have to slider open. Some phones are too top-heavy to easily use when the screen is pushed up, but the Droid 2 has a very nice feel to it.

You’ll need a large pocket to put it in, but the phone isn’t so thick that it will be too unsightly. However, you may have a hard time determining which end is up when you take the device out of your pocket — there’s not a good way to tell by feel alone, unless your fingers happen to find the ridge underneath the display.

The overall appearance of the device is a cross between modern and blocky. The corners are curved for comfort and there are some nice dull silver accents, but I wouldn’t call the Droid 2 a particularly stylish or edgy phone, at least as far as looks are concerned. It isn’t ugly, by any means, or even unattractive, but it isn’t beautiful either.

Display
The 3.7-inch Touchscreen display has a WVGA resolution (480 x 854). It looks OK, but I’m not blown away by it. Pictures and video are sharp, and there weren’t any problems with ghosting.

One negative is that colors aren’t as rich as I would like, and in some lighting conditions what should be white seems to have a slightly yellowish cast that is definitely unappealing.

Outside, however, the Droid 2 performs quite well. The display washes out quite a bit in direct sunlight, but it is still readable. You may want to shield the display with your hand in order to improve your view, but the good news is that you will still be able to use your phone outdoors – which is not something that is true of every smartphone.

Keyboard
The physical QWERTY keyboard is located under the display; you access it by holding the bottom of the phone and sliding the display up or to the right, depending on how you’re holding the phone. The sliding action is very tight, and it is possible to do it with one hand, but difficult. That may change as the phone “loosens up” with extended use.

The keyboard is nicely laid out, with clearly marked keys, and large alt, shift, space, and enter keys — something that I really appreciate.

Unfortunately the keys are very flat and indistinct, so even though they’re fairly large overall, it will take some time to get used to the keyboard.

With practice, I can type fairly quickly and with few errors, but I have to constantly look down at my hands in order to be sure I’m hitting the right keys. Thankfully the keyboard is illuminated for use in low-light conditions, because I’m not sure that I would ever be able to touch type on the Droid 2 without looking at the keyboard.

Other Buttons & Controls
The power button on the top of the phone is very small and extremely unobtrusive. I’ve had the phone for just over a week now, and I’m still frustrated by how hard it is to hit that little button. My finger can’t seem to find it and I usually have to stop and turn the phone up so that I can see the button and then punch it.

The volume buttons are on the top right edge of the phone and the camera is on the bottom right side. Just like the power button, they are rather small and hard to hit without looking.

I’m not terribly thrilled by the virtual buttons along the bottom of the display. They’re right above a ridge, where the phone gets slightly thinner, so my fingers tend to hit that edge instead of the button I’m aiming for.

Overall I found the buttons to be not quite big enough and distinct enough, making them hard to use. The virtual buttons are somewhat poorly placed, making for a frustrating experience.

PERFORMANCE

The Motorola Droid 2 is the very first smartphone to launch running Android OS 2.2, a new version of Google’s operating system. It’s based on a 1 GHz processor, a faster one than the original Motorola Droid uses.

When I first got this device, my impressions regarding performance were mixed, due mainly to whether or not the task I was trying to accomplish required heavy Internet access. Internal apps like the calendar and contacts were very responsive, but email and web browsing were painfully slow.

Thanks fully I was notified of a firmware update a couple of days ago, and now that my review unit is running Android 2.2.20, things are working much more smoothly. I won’t say that the performance now is blow-your-socks-off great, but it is good and I don’t have any major complaints.

Wireless/Call quality
Results on voice quality are quite mixed. I have no problem at all hearing my callers very clearly, but the same isn’t true on the other side of the line. When I called a fellow phone reviewer, he gave the Droid 2 a solid “B” and said that I sounded distant, and he could definitely tell that I was on a mobile phone. I didn’t have any trouble hearing him, and everything came through loud and clear on my end.

When I called one of my friends, he asked if I was “outside on a busy street in a wind tunnel.” I didn’t have any trouble at all hearing him, but just like my first caller, he had a hard time hearing me–and I was inside my extremely quiet office.

I generally have good Verizon network coverage in my area. My personal phone is from Verizon, and I have no complaints — so it’s hard to tell if there’s a real problem with voice quality on the Droid 2, whether I got a bad review unit, or if there’s some other reason for the problems my callers experienced.

I’ve tried the wireless hotspot functionality, and I’m having some problems with it at the moment. The Droid 2 shows that my laptop is connected, and my laptop shows that it’s connected to the Droid 2, but for some reason I can’t do anything that requires network access, like checking my email or using Google Talk. I’m not sure at this point whether this is a random network issue or a serious problem with the device.

Productivity
Like most Android OS phones these days, the Droid 2 comes with Calendar and Contacts applications, plus a calculator. The Quickoffice file viewer for Microsoft Office is also included. Other apps include the News RSS reader, as well as a News and Weather app that includes top headlines from several of the major outlets.

The included web browser works well, albeit rather slowly. Once the page is fully loaded, panning around and zooming in are very fast. The email experience on the Droid 2 is much like any other Android device, though again it is a bit slower than I expected.

Google Maps works great, though it was surprising to me that the phone could only pinpoint my location to an accuracy of 1300 meters. The new mass transit information was included, and I was very impressed with the accuracy of the information — train and bus departures for each station were included. The Labs features are also very cool, especially Measure, which is used for quickly finding the distance between two points without having to go through the hassle of getting directions.

Entertainment
All of the usual suspects are here, from the Social Networking app and YouTube to the Music Player and a demo of Need for Speed Shift. The game played well, using Tilt controls, but the sound from the external speaker was disappointingly tinny and not very loud, even at full volume. Video quality on YouTube was good, though again sound using the external speaker was rather disappointing.

If you want to listen to music, the built-in Music application works great, allowing you to view your music files by artist, album, or song, or you can set up your own playlists. I would strongly recommend plugging in earphones if you want a good listening experience.

There are also some preloaded extras, such as the Amazon Kindle app, which was a nice surprise. Amazon MP3 was included, if you like to get your music downloads from Amazon. Of course “entertainment” means different things to different people, and when you’re ready for more apps and games, you can head on over to the Android Market app to find what you need to keep yourself entertained.

Camera
The Motorola Droid 2 has a 5 megapixel camera. but was am not tremendously impressed with it. Many of my photos look somewhat grainy, and the quality on zoomed-in photos is only acceptable.

The camera doesn’t focus until you press the shutter button, so it takes a while to capture a photo and I found i very hard to get a decent action shot–they tended to be somewhat blurry.

As manufacturers focus more and more attention on the camera they put in each smartphone design, consumers are rewarded with better options, which means that their phone can often replace a simple point and shoot camera. Unfortunately the camera on the Droid 2 doesn’t measure up to that lofty standard. It’s OK for typical day-to-day uses, but if you’re a real shutterbug, look elsewhere — there are more capable smartphones with far better cameras out there for you.

This is a bit disappointing, as there were numerous complaints about the camera on the original Droid, and Motorola didn’t listen to its customers.

Battery Life
The Droid 2 performed well in this area, though not spectacularly.

After the first day of use, I managed to almost completely drain the battery due to syncing all of my information, taking lots of practice camera shots, etc. In normal daily use I find that battery level isn’t something I have to watch too closely, and it’s nice not having to keep the charger in my gear bag at all times.

CONCLUSION

I was excited to receive the Motorola Droid 2, but unfortunately that excitement hasn’t lasted. This is certainly not a bad phone, but it’s not a “wow” phone either.

The main disappointments, aside from a major glitch with the mobile hotspot service, are the annoyingly indistinct buttons and the mediocre voice quality. If you’re interested in this phone, I’d advise you to try it out in person before buying it.

In my opinion, there are better Android smartphone options available from Verizon.

Pros

• Solid overall design
• Nice display, usable in direct sunlight aside from some problems with yellowing
• Good battery life

Cons

• Keyboard is OK, but not great
• Small buttons
• Voice quality is average at best — I have no problems hearing my callers, but they have a hard time hearing me clearly
• External speaker is underpowered and tinny
• Disappointing Camera

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