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Does The Motorola Droid Spell The End For Standalone GPS?
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by: Anastas Mikoyan
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Motorola has a history of producing cell phones which are every bit as good as, if not better than, those of other manufacturers in the market. Yet customers often opt for other brands. This state of affairs may change with the advent of the Droid, Motorola's newest smartphone. The Droid, a collaboration with Verizon and Google, is Motorola's most attractive phone to date.
The Droid is divided into two sections: the top part contains a screen and the lower section of the body contains a keyboard . The display screen is a generous 3.7 inches wide. This will make for a better viewing experience because the display will run from edge to edge. Just below the screen are navigation buttons: back, menu, home, and search.
Sliding the top part of the phone upwards reveals the full QWERTY keypad. This is especially useful if you want to enter longer or more detailed messages. The top of the phone holds a 3.5 mm headphone jack and a power/sleep button. On the edge are the the camera button and volume rocker positioned across from each other. The left side contains a Micro USB port and the back of the phone houses the camera and flash. The speaker is camouflaged by a thin gold crosshatch.
Most of the phone's innovations are under the hood. But there are some pleasing visual improvements as well. Google has added some cross-application animations and new fades in version 2.0 of Android, the mobile operating system. This lends it a more up-to-date look. The icons and other visual elements have also been updated. More importantly, the Droid comes integrated with Google Maps and has stood the GPS industry on its head with its Turn by Turn navigation application.
Google seems to have pulled out all the stops for this one - providing location, map, satellite and traffic information. The text-to-speech function makes directions simpler to understand. More useful perhaps is the variety of information such as ATM, parking, gas station and restaurant locations. The inclusion of Google Maps at no extra charge is really very useful as mapping software for use with standalone GPS devices is very expensive.
There are also some useful extra features. The phone comes supplied with a dock and a car mount so it can serve as a proper GPS unit. The car mount uses a sensor to automatically switch the phone to navigation mode when contact is made. This smartphone sure is creating waves in the industry.
About the Author
Anastas Mikoyan is a regular contributor to Cellphone 3g. Click here for smartphone reviews and resources:motorola droid
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