BUILD & DESIGN

While many current Android devices are thinly veiled attempts to mimic the iPhone, the Droid Pro clearly has another target: the segment of business users that are mostly addicted to the BlackBerry and it’s constant email access.

I’m not a BlackBerry user myself, but I am a member of the demographic that must have a keyboard, preferably in a one-piece design like this. So I came into this review curious about the Droid Pro, both because of it’s slightly unusual design, and because it seemed to have the qualities I look for in a smartphone: a great spec sheet, simple design, and — hopefully — a solid operating system.

Screen
A key difference between the Droid Pro and its rivals is that while QWERTY-bar phones often include a relatively small  screen with a landscape orientation, the Pro has a larger portrait-oriented screen. This makes it a little longer than it’s relatives within the class, but considering everything that is packed into this device, the Droid Pro is actually surprisingly compact.

Compared directly to my usual phone, a Samsung Jack, the Droid Pro is about a third of an inch taller — and that’s it. They’re the same width, and roughly the same thickness, though the Droid Pro is actually a tiny bit thinner over most of the casing, with a small bulge along the top rear. Even granted that my Jack is cheaper and is a year old, I was pleasantly surprised by the size.

Despite it’s compact footprint, it squeezes in a 3.1 inch, half-VGA screen — not the largest or highest resolution on an Android-based device, but roughly comparable to the first three generations of iPhones.

Keyboard
Given the device’s size constraints, I had been half expecting the keyboard to be cramped. So it was another pleasant surprise that it was, in fact, every bit as usable as the better thumb keyboards I’ve tried out.

Good key travel, key separation, and feel. The number keys are spread out along the top row, instead of being placed in a conventional grid formation. The good news, though is that this is made up for by a large and very usable on-screen keypad available from the phone dialer application. Or, you can just speak the number that you want to call — but we’ll get to that later.

Other Buttons & Controls
One of the ways the Droid Pro saves space is by not having a directional pad or directional control of any kind, which is a departure for most QWERTY-bar style phones. At first, I didn’t think that I was going to be happy about that omission. Now, after having gotten to use it a bit, I’m not nearly as put out as I expected to be. Yes, there’s some situations where it would be nice to have a physical directional control — particularly navigating cramped web page elements, or relocating a cursor for text entry. But for the most part I’ve gotten along quite well using touchscreen gestures for scrolling and practicing accurate fingertip clicking.

My biggest complaint about the Droid Pro’s design lies in the four navigation buttons right above the keyboard. Because they’re part of the screen, and therefore touch sensitive, it’s fairly easy to accidentally “push” them if your finger brushes the screen accidentally. Since the center two buttons — those most likely to be hit accidentally — both take you back out of the application you’re using, it can be very annoying to have to go back and re-start what you were doing. Since you can’t vary the sensitivity of these buttons — and they really do have a hair trigger — the only real cure for this is time and practice, to get used to having them there and not letting your fingers stray.

With the memory card tucked under the battery cover, the only open ports are the Micro-USB plug on the lower left hand side, and the 3.5 mm audio jack on top. It’s nice to have a standard audio plug again, though I wouldn’t object to having all the plugs on the bottom, so that I could have a nice car dock for the thing, but that’s rather a nitpick.

Overall, the build quality feels good, the design is sleek and very usable, and it packs all it’s features into a very reasonable size and weight.

PERFORMANCE

Even if you thought the physical design of the Motorola Droid Pro was a bit basic, you’ll love what’s under the hood. On paper, this model has almost everything you could possibly want packed into a business phone.

It starts with a hardware set designed for performance: a 1 GHz TI OMAP 3620 processor and 512 MB of RAM, plus 1.5 GB of internal storage for your data. There’s also a 2 GB microSD card included.

All of this stacks up to mean amazing performance. Full-screen transitions, sliding gestures, window animations, even with plenty of stuff running in the background, it was all as smooth as an oil slick behind a Zamboni. I’m certain that there’s some situation or program which could slow this thing down, but I couldn’t find it, even when running high end games or applications.

Wireless/Call Quality
Add to that high performance base the standard wireless accessories: CDMA/EV-DO Rev. A for-voice and data on Verizon in the U.S., GPS with network-assistance and geotagging, WiFi b/g/n, and Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR.

Then you start on the rarer components. A secondary cell phone connection in the form of quad-band GSM/EDGE and tri-band HSPA adds worldwide coverage: unlike most Verizon phones, you can take this phone overseas and it will still work.

Mind you, if you intend to use Verizon’s overseas roaming service you’re going to be charged by the limb, but that’s kind of to be expected. You can, of course, get the GSM module unlocked, and then use cheaper prepaid services around the world, at the expense of not having your usual phone number.

It also features dual CDMA antennas for better than average signal performance, giving me multiple bars in areas that are normally sketchy.

Productivity
Despite the fact that I’ve been neck deep in mobile technology for many years, the Droid Pro is actually my first extended chance to use a device running Google’s Android OS. I was very curious to see how it would turn out, since I hadn’t really developed a firm impression or opinion of the Android platform from the brief look and play opportunities I’d had.

My first impressions were extremely positive. Granted one has to attribute a lot of the software experience to having good quality hardware behind it — the smooth-as-glass performance, the advanced looks, and the robust storage all help to ease the learning curve. But more important than the performance is the true software experience. Complete interoperability between applications, down to the level of being able to hand off a scanned barcode from one app to another from a different, competing developer. Or the integration of OS-level security into the mix to allow you the protection of guaranteed apps, as well as the freedom to go beyond what Google gives you.

Speaking of apps, they’re the centerpiece of the experience. The minute that I got into the Android Marketplace, I think I fell in love. It is, to put it simply, the sort of one-look-one-touch system for finding and installing applications I’ve been looking for for years. Or put another way, the thing that Microsoft never did for Windows Mobile, and should have. If it had, the company might have been in the position Google is right now, instead of having to jettison their entire former platform and start over.

The apps that come with the Droid Pro are basic but good — a complete Office suite and PDF viewer, multiple-account email client with support for a variety of platforms, navigation apps (both Google’s own and Verizon’s VZ Navigator), along with the usual packing peanuts.

Unsurprisingly, the device’s email implementation is most friendly toward GMail. Since I normally use Exchange Server synchronization on my Samsung Jack, I attempted to set up the same, only to discover that it’s a little more complicated. Not that I should be surprised, since Exchange is a Microsoft platform, and here I am asking it to play nice with Google. Eventually, I got it working with the help of the instructions off the Motorola website, but the lesson is to plan for a little more complexity when interfacing across platform brands. Nevertheless, it does work out of the box, even before the wandering eye is drawn to Google’s support framework.

Here’s what I did: I touched the button on the phone marked “Marketplace.” About ten seconds later I was scrolling through a list of hundreds of brilliant, absolutely free applications, all of which could be downloaded and installed in the background with two button presses, while I kept searching for more apps. It’s hard to overstate how easy to use it is.

And these aren’t your run of the mill free calculators and miniature pocket dictionaries. These are some amazingly powerful applications. One of the first ones I downloaded was Google Translate — and if you’ve never actually seen this app in action, it is hard to describe just how impressive it is. Speak any phrase into it, and within seconds it can read aloud a proper translation for the phrase in the language of your choice. This ranges from “Where is the airport” to “Do you enjoy anchovies on your pizza?” For that matter, it will tell you how to ask about anchovies in Welsh or Yiddish.

Or let’s talk about Google Sky Map. This free app uses the device’s internal gyrosensor to track where exactly you’re pointing the thing, and act like a perfect window to display constellations through, and can adjust the orientation automatically based on your GPS location.

Or ZXing Barcode Scanner, which can use the camera to automatically read and look up both 2D and 3D barcodes, including the QR codes that provide instant links to application downloads or websites. And it reads them right off the computer screen.

From Google-search-by-voice to recording DVD-resolution video; from being able to solve complicated math questions almost as fast as you can read them out loud to being able to signal in Morse code using the camera’s LED flash, the standard software package is impressive, and the available add-ons are even more so.

I also need to mention the voice command integration. The impressive part about the Droid Pro’s voice command system isn’t that Android has it — we’ve been experimenting with voice-commanded computers for a very long time. The impressive part is how ruthlessly accurate it is. I have yet to have it get a word wrong when I’m enunciating properly, and it’s still far better than 90% when speaking casually. In fact, I just read the previous sentence to it, and it picked the thing up word for word. I even tested it with obscure, easily missed words like “ferrets,” “anchovies,” and “Wookie.” For the record, it had the most trouble with “ferrets,” which it mistook about half the time for “parents.” But it recognized “Wookie” fine.

In a much more practical application, right out of the box you can order it to dial your contacts by name — without recording voice tags or doing any other setup work. Once it had slurped down my contact information, I simply said “Call Adama,” and my regular cell phone was ringing. You can also dictate text messages and emails with a fair degree of accuracy — not something that you’d need to do in most circumstances, but highly useful if, say, you’re driving somewhere and need to write an urgent reply.

Entertainment
The Droid Pro isn’t sold as a multimedia phone — it’s solidly targeted at business users, a fact Motorola isn’t shy of, emphasizing the bundling of Office applications and the strong password administration support. But make no mistake, if you don’t mind the slightly smaller screen, you can have a very happy multimedia experience.

To emphasize that, the Droid Pro comes equipped for working with Digital Living Network Alliance products, a system for allowing various entertainment products to work together. For instance, being able to stream video from a set-top digital video recorder, or use the Droid Pro to control the interaction of other DLNA equipment like a remote. Lacking any other DLNA-certified equipment, I couldn’t really test this, but the concept looks like it could be brilliant if it takes off and is implemented well.

Even the default browser is quite comfortable, more so even than my usual standby of Opera Mini. I suspect that would change outside of 3G range and the high browsing speed it provides, but for now, the dynamic zoom and automatic reflowing win the day.

As mentioned above, the Droid Pro is faster than hell. And it handles all it’s applications like a champion, even the high end ones that it’s not marketed towards.

Battery Life
The only sour note I have to sound about the Droid Pro’s performance is the one which, when you think about it, is fairly obvious. The more you use all that amazing hardware, the faster you’re going to eat the battery.

I had my review unit fully charged at 2:30, and by 7 PM with all the playing I had done, the battery was down to 15%. I’ve seen worse, but it’s certainly nothing to write home about. I’m accustomed to getting a full day of heavy use, but that expectation isn’t based on a larger screen and what is, in fact, a relatively small battery for the hardware it’s powering.

There’s a nifty little OS component that will tell you in detail what is consuming your battery life. To no surprise, 65% of my power drain was in the form of the screen. The Droid Pro does have a setting to automatically adjust the screen’s brightness, however the automatic setting is too low for my taste relative to the ambient lighting, and unlike on other devices with a light sensor, you can’t give it any guidance as to whether you’d like it just a little brighter or darker than its defaults.

It doesn’t help that Android’s default menus and screens are almost all white text on black backgrounds, making them much harder to see in a lit environment. Indeed, I had to turn up the brightness considerably to be able to see clearly, which led me to my second noteworthy complaint. Specifically, Android doesn’t make it easy for you to choose anything but the default color scheme. There is no way built into the device to choose different colors, and even with some of the third party launcher replacements, you can only get part of the way. I installed ADW Launcher, which allowed me to change the color of the app drawer, but menus were still all white text on black backdrop.

This may seem like a little thing, but it’s important because it has to do with user comfort. Users shouldn’t need to crank up their screen brightness to compensate for absurdly dark colors they can’t change. When you’re not dealing with that, the automatic screen brightness is much more to my taste.

As far as the larger power issue goes, there are some settings you can tweak to help reduce battery drain, such as the frequency of data and GPS updates, there’s supposed to be an extended battery option available soon through Verizon, however it’s rated at 1820 mAh, only 28% larger than the standard 1420 mAh cell. I’d really like to see an option to add a little padding to the entire back of the device in trade for, say, 2 to 2.5 times the standard battery power. That would give the power hogs like myself the guarantee that we could get through a rough day without worrying overmuch about conserving juice. If I’m lost and depending on the GPS, or making a lot of calls to manage a situation, I don’t want to worry whether the battery will hold out.

While these two things are my biggest issues with the Droid Pro as a device, in the big picture they’re relatively minimal. Both can be either fixed or reduced by software eventually, and frequent charging is a reality of life for smartphone users, particularly high end ones.

CONCLUSION

I have to say that it’s been quite a long while since I got the raw thrill from playing with a gadget that I have from the Motorola Droid Pro.

While it’s obvious that the state of the art in mobile tech improves, the difference is more than just a hardware upgrade — it’s the fact that the Droid Pro and the Android platform are well thought out and robust in ways that others simply aren’t.

The difference is like driving every day in a basic sedan, and then suddenly being handed the keys to a well built luxury car. It shows you all the little things that you didn’t realize could be done so much better. And while in the end you may not technically need those things, I dare say that most people would choose to have them.

The Droid Pro delivers a solid business-oriented device that also makes plenty of room for recreational use. I’m sold.

Pros:

• Great hardware specs
• Sleek, easy-to-use design
• Excellent operating system

Cons:

• Can eat battery power quickly
• Some buttons too easy to push

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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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BUILD & DESIGN

When I took the Omnia II out of the box, the first word that came to mind was “sexy” — this really is a nice looking device. It’s a little on the large side compared to other phones, but that’s due to the 3.7-inch, AM-OLED screen, which is absolutely gorgeous. The overall design is sleek and modern, mainly black with chrome accents on the buttons and hematite around the edges of the device.

The battery cover on the back is basically black, but it has really cool red accents that show up more depending on how they catch the light. It’s a subtle effect, nothing too over-the-top or cheesy, but just different enough to set the Omnia II apart from the crowd of similar-looking devices. The top of the back panel is where you’ll find the lens for the 5.0 megapixel camera with flash and video capture capabilities.

This device has a nice heft to it — it’s not so heavy you don’t want to carry it with you, but it’s not so light it feels like an insubstantial toy. At 4.75 inches tall, 2.4 inches wide, and 0.5 inches thick it’s not something you’ll forget that you have in your pocket, but it does fit.

Buttons and controls are relatively minimal, though there are quite a few of them. The call and disconnect buttons on the front of the phone are lightly textured, while the navigator button in the middle is smooth. The left side houses the standard headphone jack, the very small volume up/down buttons, the uncovered microSD slot, and the OK button. The right side has the covered charge/sync port, the lock button, and the camera button. The lock button is easy to manipulate and is cleverly recessed in comparison to the camera button, so you shouldn’t have any problem with the phone being accidentally unlocked when in your pocket or purse.

Display
I’ve already mentioned the display, and for good reason — it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s a bit larger than usual, and everything is so big and bright it made me realize just how much squinting I seem to do with other devices. Everything is sharp and neon bright, with saturated colors. Video looks great, with no ghosting issues.

Whether you’re viewing pictures or video or just composing a text message, you’ll like what you see on the Omnia II’s stellar display.

Keyboard
This device has a virtual keyboard, not a physical one, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the same-old, same-old. This is the first device I’ve used with Swype technology, and it’s nifty.

Instead of picking up your finger or your stylus each time you want to move to the next letter, you just slide your finger or stylus to the next one. It was a little strange at first, but I’m really starting to like it. It’s easier on my fingertips than pounding the virtual keys (I always tend to push harder than I need to) and it’s fun too.

If Swype perfectly understands what you just entered, it’s exactly like typing. If it doesn’t, you’ll get a selection of as many as eight different possibilities. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how the Swype system works. Typically turning off the auto-complete or word suggestion utility is one of the first things I do when I get a new device, but so far I really like how Swype is working for me on the Omnia II.

If it turns out that you’re not a big fan, you still have your choice of block recognizer, letter recognizer, the standard Windows Mobile keyboard, the Samsung Keypad, or Transcriber.

PERFORMANCE

The Omnia II runs Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional, but it looks a lot different than you may expect. Samsung has really jazzed things up the user interface with TouchWiz 2.0, homescreen widgets, and the multimedia Cube.

There’s a lot going on here, and even after spending a couple of weeks with this device I can still lose my way now and then. Thankfully performance is nice and fast — I really haven’t seen any delays or hiccups, and applications like Word Mobile start quickly.

You can put widgets on the three-panel homescreen, and everything is fully customizable. You can even shop for new widgets in the Widget Store. You’ll find a wide variety, with everything from E! Online, G4TV.com, and the Urban Dictionary to entertainment apps like a lighter, glow stick, and Magic 8 Ball. All of the widgets currently available are free, though of course that can change at any time.

Tap the Menu button at the bottom of the screen to bring up a list of all the software installed on the device. It runs several pages and includes absolutely everything, from My Contacts and My Pictures to games and Office Mobile. You can move things around if you like, and you’ll probably want to do so — the Office applications are buried on the fourth page of the menu, with all of the carrier-specific stuff like V Cast Music and V Cast videos on the font page.

Wireless/Call Quality
My call quality tests have been OK, but not stellar — my callers can definitely tell that I’m using a mobile phone. Background noise wasn’t too much of a problem; the issue was more one of volume, making me feel that I needed to talk somewhat louder than normal in order to be heard.

3G mobile broadband, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work exactly as expected, without any issues.

Productivity
Since this is a Windows Mobile 6.5 phone, there are plenty of productivity applications included, from the usual suspects like Office Mobile and Outlook Mobile to extras like MSN Money and Adobe Reader.

Voice Recognition from Nuance is also included, and my results are quite positive. If you find the five(!) pages of menus and the 3D Cube media interface overwhelming, you can say any command from “Call Brad” to “Go To Calendar” and things happen exactly as you say. It works very well, and was a joy to use, unlike most voice recognition apps.

The Opera Mobile Web browser works great, and I like how text is re-flowed as necessary when I double-tap the screen to zoom in.

The e-mail experience is, however, extremely frustrating. Everything seems to have been optimized to minimize bandwidth usage to an unreasonable extreme. Do you want to browse folders, not just your Inbox? You can do it, but you have to change the settings to choose which folders to access, and that menu option is pretty well hidden.

Even worse, only message headers and the first 2 Kb of each message are downloaded by default, without any graphics, unless you tap to “download Internet pictures” on a per-message basis. You also have to tap to download the rest of the message, which will only happen the next time you “connect and receive e-mail” unless you choose send/receive in the menu to make it happen immediately. Want to scroll to the right in order to see the other half of your message? You have to tap in a specific place to enable horizontal scrolling, which is a real pain. I’m hopeful that some of these settings can be tweaked on a global basis; otherwise the Windows Mobile e-mail experience will be extremely unpleasant, and not one to which I would wish to subject myself on a long-term basis.

Entertainment
There’s a lot of fun to be had with the Omnia II, and it starts on the home screen. When you select the Cube menu option at the bottom of the screen, you’re presented with a really cool spinning cube that highlights your available options, from games to V Cast music and videos, to photos and the Web.

If you don’t want to use the cube, you can make your selections at the bottom of the screen. Choose video and you’ll see a flip list of every available video on the device, whether it was preloaded or something you shot with the phone’s camcorder feature. It’s a nice interface that works well and quickly gets you where you want to go.

Entertainment options include Media Player for music and videos and a collection of games and demos such as Solitaire, Bubble Breaker, Dice, and Ferrari GT Evolution (which utilizes motion controls).

The external speaker is loud enough and clear enough to offer a good gameplay experience without requiring the use of headphones.

V Cast Song ID is included with the phone, and it works very well, even with the relatively obscure songs I tested.

Camera
The 5.0 megapixel camera takes really good quality photos and videos, with a nice array of options for scene settings and special effects. The zoom is quite nice — it gets you much closer to the action, though the picture quality does suffer a bit.

I’m quite pleased with the quality of both still photos and video I’ve been able to take with the Omnia II — it won’t replace a standalone digital camera, but it’s much better than what you’d typically expect to find on a mobile phone.

You can also edit photos on the phone: flip, resize, rotate, crop, brightness, contrast, and color effects.

Battery Life
Battery life has proven to be a real standout with the Omnia II, though I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised considering how the e-mail experience has been throttled back so severely. I was able to get a full week on standby, and probably could have eked out a couple more days before plugging it in.

CONCLUSION

There are parts of the Samsung Omnia II that I really like — the beautiful display, the fun gaming experience, the Swype keyboard, the excellent camera, even the cool red accents on the battery cover, etc. There are also a few things I don’t like, most notably the almost wretched e-mail experience.

If you want a phone that offers a lot of entertainment options and don’t plan to use the e-mail functionality too heavily, the Omnia would be a solid choice. If however you tend to get the shakes if you don’t check your e-mail every five minutes, this isn’t the device for you.

Pros

• Gorgeous display
• Innovative Swype keyboard technology really works
• Good quality camera with video
• Offers a strong mobile entertainment experience
• Good battery life

Cons

• Painful e-mail experience
• Average voice quality
• Somewhat confusing UI/menu system

The Storm outperforms most BlackBerrys with its crisp, innovative touch-button screen. Boasting a 3.2 megapixel auto-focus still and video camera, the Storm impresses by packing numerous features into its sleek and sturdy form-factor.

There is a lot to like about this device, including its sharp display, an auto-focus 3.2 megapixel camera, and applications like Visual Voicemail, but there are still some glaring problems. Even after updating its operating system with Verizon’s new patch, there is still lag present in a lot of applications which hinders the phone’s functionality in many areas. And the lack of Wi-Fi and QWERTY keyboard, and unrelenting fingerprints detract from the innovative hardware.

There are issues that Verizon and RIM will be able to address via further firmware updates, but there are others (read: lack of Wi-Fi) that can only be incorporated into future Storm versions.

BUILD & DESIGN

Touchscreen

The Storm’s touch-button screen is the focus of this smartphone.

There are two options for working the screen. Using one of these, you slide your fingers across the screen to select an item or to shift between two items like the iPhone. Switching to the second setting allows you to select items by depressing the screen. Pushing the BlackBerry key (one of four keys on the front of the device) pulls up a list of menu items. You can navigate the menu by dragging your fingers to move across rows or columns and selecting items with a tap.

When I first picked up the Storm, I would just click right onto a button to select something the way I’m used to on an iPhone. I’ve since learned that I can rest my finger on the button first and then press in the screen to select. This doesn’t take much longer than pressing the button right away as you would on an iPhone, and it greatly increases accuracy when selecting or typing. When you rest your fingers over a button to select it, it highlights blue. Although this is helpful in confirming your choice, it is also a little counter-intuitive because the letter or item that lights up is the one that your finger is on. If you have larger fingers, this could be a serious problem.

Though there are some inconsistent screen features that need development, the brightness of the screen is rock solid. The screen is so bright that I reset it to 10% and even at this level the screen is readable indoors and out.

Under ideal conditions, the screen works well, and is pretty fun to use. It’s evident that the folks at RIM did their due diligence in researching and designing what the screen should do, how it should do it, and had a clear vision for the Storm’s screen experience.

But there are two things to consider about the Storm’s screen: One is how it looks and the other is how it functions. Does the screen look good? Yes, absolutely. Does it function the way it should, every time, without any frustrations? Absolutely not.

I haven’t experienced any problems with the actual responsiveness of the phone, as the Storm has never missed my click or misinterpreted my finger slide. Rather, most of the problems seem related to executing the instructions. These are so significant that I have devoted an entire section of this review to them, called Bugs and Slow-Downs.

There are a number of other smaller issues with the Storm’s display, too.

One of its quirks reveals itself at night. Because there is a gap around the screen — about four paper-widths’ wide — when it’s dark, you can see light around the edges of the screen. It doesn’t distract from the Storm’s functionality or impact its performance, but it is noticeable. Like seeing a light around the cracks in a door frame, I wondered what’s going on behind it, and seriously considered opening it up to find out. In the end, rationality prevailed and I simply accepted it.

An oversight with no easy solution is the inability to use this phone when wearing gloves. The touchscreen is unresponsive, and even pressing the screen to select whatever is currently highlighted doesn’t work. This is an issue with the iPhone as well. The hard buttons on the front of the phone mean you can still pick up and end calls, and even call the last person in your call log.

The last question about screen design is how long can it last. It feels as if the entire screen sits upon very few contact points to give it the push-button feeling. If this is the case, then every time the screen is pushed down, these contact points are being worn. On a traditional BlackBerry or other smartphone, there are multiple contact points to distribute the wear over; I can’t help but wonder if this touchscreen will have the same longevity as other phones.

Design
The Storm’s creators kept its design simple and functional.

It has a trapezoidal shape with rounded edges. The screen dominates the front of the phone, and there are four simple buttons on the bottom: “talk”, the BlackBerry menu key, “return”, and “end/power”. These keys, unlike those on the Bold, are proportional and do not take up more space than needed.

The sides of the phone feature one convenience key on each side as well as volume buttons.

The back of the phone boasts a brushed metallic finish, with the camera lens and flash near the top of the device.

A mute key and lock key crown the top corner of the phone. Unboxing the Storm, it was not immediately clear to me that these were keys but once I got used to them, they were actually pretty cool. Locking the phone can take up to four seconds after depressing the button and leaves room for improvement; unlocking is quicker.

PERFORMANCE
RIM has long been praised for its reliable, well built devices aimed at the business market. With the advent of the Pearl Flip, Bold, and now the Storm, these perceptions are changing. Although the newest RIM products (specifically the Storm and Pearl Flip) are more consumer friendly, there are still some kinks to be worked out. The most noticeable glitch in the Storm is lag present across a range of functions.

When I first powered up the Storm, the persistent lag gave me ample opportunity to appreciate the sharp screen. The screen would take on average up to four to five seconds to switch between landscape and portrait modes when turning the phone, with only the base applications running.

Late last week, RIM and Verizon officially released an operating system update for the BlackBerry Storm 9530 — Firmware 4.7.0.75 – and I immediately installed it on my review unit. There is often still a couple of seconds of lag with the updated OS, but it quickly and more reliably switches than the original version did. I discovered that with a suave flick of my hand I could prompt the phone to switch quicker, but the novelty of that trick got old fast.

The updated OS addresses the major lag problems associated with the Storm, but it still doesn’t work as seamlessly as it should. Before, the lag while flipping through pictures took so long I sometimes wondered if the unit had frozen. Now, the pictures flip more reliably, but there is still lag when trying to flip through a whole scroll of pictures.

Using the Keyboard
With the touchscreen and letter/item highlighting, typing on the Storm is easier than the iPhone, but not nearly as easy as typing on a hardware keyboard.

There are inaccurate strikes inherent with any small keyboard, but the button-screen is, in some ways, a major downfall for this phone. If you’re typing quickly on the phone, it’s possible for your fingers to move too quickly for the screen to come back up before you need to press it in again. This results in a cap on how fast you are able to type on the Storm regardless of how accurate you become.

this won’t be a problem for an occasional user, but if you’re a power-user on the fast track to arthritic hands, stick to the Bold. In short, even when correcting misspellings on the fly, the touch screen is no replacement for a regular keyboard.

Call Quality
Verizon’s CDMA call quality on the Storm is consistent and good. It often connects calls faster than ones I make over AT&T’s network, though there is a bit of delay answering calls via the touchscreen as compared to hitting the talk button on the phone itself.

When on a call, the speaker, mute, flash, and add participant features appear as buttons on the screen by default. Although they’re conveniently placed, they’re easy to hit by accident if you’re trying to balance the phone on your shoulder. There is nothing more confusing to both parties than wondering why the other end can’t hear your yelling, only to realize that you’ve accidentally muted the call.

My only other qualm with the in-call functionality is that holding on to the back finished-metal battery casing can become quite cold now that winter is upon us in the north-east.

The Storm 9530 offers both CDMA and GSM support, so you can use it when traveling outside of the U.S. You can’t use the GSM service in any place where Verizon’s CDMA network is available, and I didn’t travel to Europe or Asia while writing this review, so I wasn’t able to test this feature.

Browsing the Web
The Storm’s web browser is leagues ahead of other BlackBerrys. Although it still lacks support for certain streaming services, it is more robust and capable than the ones on many smartphones. It renders pages well, supports sites such as  the mobile version of YouTube.com, and even allows you to select emulation modes to help pages with rendering issues.

When using the browser, it’s easy to display a page at a comfortable zoom level in landscape mode. You can navigate the page by dragging your fingers across the screen. Resting your fingers on hypertext will highlight the link, and you can select it by pressing in the screen. The ease of navigation for the Storm showcases the best browsing experience I’ve seen on a BlackBerry, and is better than what I’ve experienced on most other smartphones.

You can tell the browser to represent itself as the BlackBerry browser, Firefox, or Internet Explorer. I haven’t come across a situation where I’ve had to use this feature, but it could come in handy under the right circumstances.

The Storm’s lack of Wi-Fi is most obvious when browsing the Web. While having a capable browser is great, it needs to be paired with a capable connection. Verizon’s EV-DO network is usable, but is consistently slower than AT&T’s 3G network in my experience. The exclusion of Wi-Fi bars the Storm from consideration as a truly capable device.

Texting and Messaging
The Storm’s list of applications and messaging services is another testament to its consumer-centric orientation. Included with this smartphone is Flickr, Facebook, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger, and BlackBerry Messenger.

Combining these with texting, MMSing, and email, it’s easy to see why you’ll likely spend most of your time on the keyboard rather than on the phone.

Other Applications
Visual Voicemail – The Storm boasts Visual Voicemail, which displays on the screen who left you a voicemail and how long it is. The application takes about 10 seconds longer than normal to report the voicemail, but it’s usefulness is worth the short wait. Under the Visual Voicemail menu, you can choose to compose a new text/MMS, call back the caller, erase the message, or reply to the caller via SMS or voice message.

VZ Navigator – The Storm features BlackBerry maps as well as Verizon’s VZ Navigator. The VZ Navigator give spoken turn-by-turn directions, and incorporates traffic into its narration. It works as claimed, but beyond the voice narration, it probably isn’t worth the $10/month. Alternatives such as Google Maps are free (though lacking in audio directions). Google Maps also offers transit directions and walking directions, neither of which VZ Navigator offers.

DataViz Documents to Go – As with the Bold and the Pearl Flip, the Storm boasts DataViz’ Documents to Go suite, which offers a mobile solution for managing, editing, and creating Word documents, Excel files, and PowerPoint presentations. You can easily view, download, and edit files, but creating a file and more advanced editing and formatting options are available only with a $70 update to the premium version.

Application Center – The application center offers a centralized place on the Storm to manage OTA updates for applications. This is a convenient solution to opening up individual applications to check for updates.

Camera/Video/Audio Recording
The camera is one of Storm’s strongest assets.

When the camera is called up, the screen serves as the viewfinder. Resting your finger on the camera button displays a white box, a feature of the auto-focus. After focusing, the box becomes green, at which point pushing in the screen will take the picture. Zooming in or out is as easy as rolling your fingers across the screen.

The resolution on the camera is great; however the shutter speed is slow, so there is some blur if the subject is moving.

The camera’s menus have a logical layout and are user-friendly. The screen displays the approximate number of pictures remaining, zoom level, flash mode (defaulted to automatic), the flash status, and the status of location-aware features. After snapping a pic, the photo is displayed along with options across the bottom of the screen including “new picture”, “set picture as a caller ID or home screen”, “rename”, “delete” , and “send.”. Any social networking applications such as Flickr, Facebook, messengers etc. are integrated into the “send” option, in addition the standard email and MMS options.

Opening the pictures folder, you can view your pictures and thumb through them slide-reel style by dragging your fingers across the screen.

Overall, this is among the best of the phone cameras I’ve used, but it’s still no replacement for a digital camera.

The video camera also stands out on the Storm. Videos have fairly good quality, clear sound, and the 8 GB card that came shipped with my unit can hold plenty of footage. The video camera also has the option of a video light, which is bright enough to be useful when shooting in low light. This also doubles as a handy flashlight in a pinch.

Battery Life
With the original version of the operating system and moderate use (mostly data as opposed to voice), I was generally able to get about two days of battery out of the Storm. With the updated OS, I’ve experienced slower battery drain. After keeping the Storm on for 36 hours with only light use (mostly email), I still have 50% remaining life.

The .75 OS update also resolves the previous issue of not being able to use the phone while it was charging.

I went out of town shortly after receiving my Storm, where I soon discovered the largest design flaw of the phone – it has a micro-USB as opposed to the mini-USB that other BlackBerrys feature. I raised the same issue when reviewing the BlackBerry Pearl Flip, and warned that this could be a potential deal breaker. I reaffirm that sentiment now and warn that if it’s not a deal breaker, it’s definitely an annoyance. With a phone so new, not all traditional electronic retailers (e.g. Radio Shack) carry the chargers. I was able to pick up a generic charger at Best Buy, but charging the phone was a painful process, as the Storm sometimes didn’t recognize the charger.

Accessories
Billed as a “world phone”, the Storm includes several European chargers in the box. A pretty neat inclusion, however I nearly instantaneously learned that this was included because chances are you won’t be able to find a replacement for this device’s plugs when traveling.

In addition to the user manual, quick shortcuts guide, CD, USB cable, adapters and AC charger, there’s also a flash drive thrown into the box. Cool.

I’ve already mentioned the 8 GB microSD card that comes bundled with the Storm, but it bears repeating.

CONCLUSION
The Storm has some unique features that unmistakably mark RIM’s attempt to capture some of the strong consumer smartphone market that the iPhone currently dominates. RIM is relying on its name to be able to build buzz around the device, but unfortunately it largely fails to deliver an infallible device that would live up to BlackBerry users’ high expectations.

The touch screen is cool, but I’m not sure it’s a better solution than alternative navigation methods. However, the large, crisp screen is nonetheless phenomenal and is easily the best feature of the Storm.

The sharp screen with its button-like functionality is a major selling point; the abundance and usefulness of the preloaded applications give users plenty to play with out of the box, and the camera is exceptional. All of these bode very well for the Storm but it is not without its shortcomings. The lack of Wi-Fi, the upper limit on how fast and accurately you can type on the touchscreen, and the current lag are all major downgrades in my book. Although the latter can hopefully be rectified with an update, users should be able to buy a reliable device that performs as promised out of the box with no updating necessary.

As a smartphone enthusiast, I like the Storm because it represents the start of a new generation of touchscreen-based devices from RIM. Those familiar with BlackBerry will find the Storm an entertaining gadget, but hardly the pinnacle of this company’s capabilities.

The bottom line is that I’ve been carrying a Storm and a Bold in my pocket, and when I need to use a phone for something, it’s the Bold I instinctively reach for. In my opinion, the Storm is still one revision away from becoming the phone that RIM and most users want it to be.

Pros:

• Large, high-resolution touchscreen
• Mobile broadband

Cons:

• Buggy
• On-screen keyboard only
• No Wi-Fi

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