I've owned an 8GB iPhone 3G, and a 32GB iPhone 3GS.
I'm also a previous owner of other Verizon devices that were touted as "iPhone Killers" the Voyager and the Storm.
My company that I work for started a new policy where you had to leave your iPhone or any other Apple products for that matter at the front security desk before entering the building. Only natural since we work exclusively with Apple products in the hundreds of thousands. I have my work number, but I feel naked without my cell for 8 hours or more a day. I sold my iPhone and was using a Samsung Eternity for the last month or so, lemme tell you this phone sucks balls. I wanted to toss it out the window every day I had it. I needed another "smartphone".
I was going to Verizon fully intent on buying the Storm2 last Wednesday after work and leaving ATT behind. That was until I went online to do some research and read about the Droid. Needless to say, I waited and got a Droid.
After having almost a week to play with this bad boy, Here is my take on it compared to the iPhone 3GS on ATT.
The most striking thing about the Droid was the screen. Absolutely amazing resolution, I have 20/20 vision and can read a whole webpage without zooming in since the text is small but still super clear. Impossible with the iPhone unless you double tap to zoom in.
The layout on the Droid to me feels a little clunky, I find myself accidently tapping the search button, or menu, or volume button ect. while simply trying to open the keyboard with one hand. The gold accents are gross, I wish they would have gone with dark silver or something.
Software on the Droid doesn't feel as stable or polished like the iPhone, obviously since it's still new, hopefully future updates will make it feel more...intuitive and fluid.
I find myself REALLY missing the pinch zoom function on iPhone's Safari. I told myself it's not that big of a deal since the screen resolution on the Droid is so high it doesn't need much zooming and moving around. Wrong. You really miss the browsing experience without the pinch zoom feature, PLEASE MOTOROLA/VERIZON/GOOGLE, ADD THIS FEATURE for the love of god in a future update. The hardware and OS is fully capable and up to the task as we can see
Camera quality and Video quality was surprisingly great on the iPhone 3GS. Crystal clear pictures with autofocus. Here is a sample I took when I first got the iPhone 3GS.
I've played around extensively with the Droid's camera and frankly..it sucks compared to the iPhone's lower MP camera. Hopefully the update in Dec will address it.
Next is carrier, we did a test with my friend's iPhone 3GS vs. my Droid and everytime we tested my Droid was much faster when loading pages from 3G areas. Surprisingly since most of the reviews online shows the iPhone being faster, not from my experience. Verizon 3G data seems to be much faster and consistent overall than ATT.
As we all know, Navigation on the Droid absolutely OWNS all. It's much better than the system in my BMW 335i, and even better than my fiance's Acura TSX which are known to have some of the best navigation systems in the car bizz. As far as bluetooth, for some reason the Droid doesn't seem to like my 335i, it takes about 2 minutes from the time I start my car to it actually connecting, and there is static every 30 seconds or so during a call. The little signal antenna on my navigation screen doesn't seem to get updated from the phone either, it stays static and shows how many bars the phone has when it intially paired and stays like that for the duration of your drive. I'm guessing a software glitch, hopefully fixed in an update again.
Lastly. Applications. The Droid is great because it's open source and anybody can develop for it without needing authorization, but man do the app's suck or what? The apps and games on the iPhone look like they spent big money and time on them, also there are a hundred thousand of them! We're talking PSP quality games and graphics. The apps on the Droid looks like they were developed by a 12 year old with a little programming know how. I really miss all the amazing apps on my iPhone thats for sure.
To sum it up, the Droid is no iPhone killer, close but no cigar. Hopefully once the OS gets polished up a bit, more better apps gets released it will get close. For now it feels like the Droid is still playing catch up. One of the biggest wish I have for the Droid is pinch zoom, with that feature it would have made me miss my iPhone A LOT less, and even maybe forget about it. I miss it so much that I even considered returing my Droid for an Eris....then realize how slow the processor is, and the low resolution screen knocked some sense back into me. Plus the Eris looked a little girly next to the Droid.
Multitasking is a big plus on the Droid, I forgot to mention that. It's great to have Pandora opened listening to music, having an IM chat from Meebo going on and browsing the web at the same time. This is something that I really like which the iPhone could not do.
Overall, I miss my iPhone but I am really liking this Droid also. It's something new to play around with and I'm still learning all the cool stuff you can do with it. Kinda like getting into a new relationship, everything is new and exciting right now. We'll give it a couple more weeks to see if this is the phone I'm keeping.