Gift Tip 80: Motorola Droid - The First Android 2.0 Smartphone

Dec 8 2009, 12:00pm CST | by Luigi Lugmayr

The Motorola Droid, the first truly lust-worthy smartphone from Verizon Wireless, has finally arrived after much anticipation. Designed to be the first real “iPhone killer,” the Droid offers a plethora of next-gen features paired with the open-source and ultra-flexible Google Android OS 2.0. Integrated Google Maps turn-by-turn GPS navigation, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and high-quality camera are just some of the features that make the Verizon Wireless Droid stand out among other smartphones.
The Verizon Wireless Droid's 3.7-inch display (0.2 inches larger than the iPhone) offers a resolution of 480 by 854 pixels, which is sharper than the 480 by 320 resolution found on the iPhone 3GS. The Verizon Wireless Droid measures 4.6 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide. The front is a bright capacitive touch screen. Below the huge screen are four lit-up, touch-sensitive buttons, and then a bit of a lip with the microphone on it. The back is burgundy soft-touch plastic.

The Verizon Wireless Droid comes with the Android 2.0 operating system powered by an Arm Cortex A8 550MHz processor. As far as memory is concerned, the 256MB built-in RAM with 16GB microSD card, which is easily expandable up to 32GB, is more than enough room at an amazing price for all your photos, videos, and music. The 5-megapixel video camera with dual-LED flash, auto-focus and image stabilization ensures amazing photographs in nearly every environment. The Droid features the advanced Webkit browser, the same technology that powers Google’s Chrome browser, fully capable of displaying Flash. In addition, the Verizon Wireless Droid comes with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS.

The Verizon Wireless Droid has a solid exterior, intelligent interior and is one of the thinnest full-QWERTY slider phones available. It is a no-fuss, high-tech, location-aware, voice-recognizing, over-the-air updating, multi-tasking machine. This device comes with pre-loaded applications like Google Talk, YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, Android Market, Amazon MP3 store and many more. The battery back is also an excellent part of this sleek device.

The features that make this device excellent are the side out keyboard, haptic feedback touch screen, 16GB of built-in storage, and 3G network support. Android is playing catch-up on the apps offered, but what it comes down to is that the Droid is the best Android phone at the moment. There is just no other Android 2.0 phone on the market yet. The Droid also just got better with the new Android 2.0.1 firmware update.

Great Gift For
Supported by the aggressive Verizon Droid commercials the Droid is the ideal smartphone for Apple critics.

Price and Where to Buy
The Verizon Wireless Droid is on sale for $149.99 on Amazon.com with new Verizon Wireless contract.

This gift tip is part of the I4U News Top 100 Holiday Gift Guide. Find many more tech gift recommendations across 10 categories and shopping tips here.

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Luigi Lugmayr
Luigi is the founding chief Editor of I4U News and brings over 15 years experience in the technology field to the ever evolving and exciting world of gadgets. He started I4U News back in 2000 and evolved it into vibrant technology magazine.
Luigi can be contacted directly at ml@i4u.com. Luigi posts regularly on LuigiMe.com about his experience running I4U.