Need advice: S2 or Droid

[Mooneypilot]

I anxiously awaited the arrival of the Storm 2 after having the Omnia about 8 months ago. I returned that PDQ (the only phone I ever returned). When the Storm 2 came out and its reviews were great, I said that's the phone for me. I spent a great deal of time with it and have a good working knowledge of the phone. I'm still not too accurate with either keyboard, but getting better.
So, here's the question.
I am retired and travel regularly in the US for pleasure. I want to be able to receive my emails and have access to internet when I travel. I feel the internet is more important to me, as I would use that all the time, but access to emails is convenient and of more importance when I travel. The specs, and the demo of the Motorola Droid seem to be more toward my requirements of frequent access to internet and as needed access to emails. The Storm 2 is clearly a very mature, stable product whose kinks have been pretty much ironed out. Email is virtually overwheling me, though I am finding it convenient. However, its browser is very slow compared to the Droid. The Droid's has a very well done voice recognition feature reducing the need to type all the terms when using the internet. It has many, many more very clever and useful features, particularly utilizing the internet and the Android operating system. However, what stops me? The Android is new and has some bugs needing to be ironed out. People complain about the many steps it takes to access the phone (seems illogical with all the clever features built into the Droid they didn't pay much attention to the phone - including no send or end buttons). Camera is said to be poor. Physical keyboard said to be poor. Periodic echos during phone calls, and more. Sure they will be ironed out and Motorola seems to be attending to them quickly.
Honestly I was about to make the change and then I read that BB is planning a web browser upgrade in a few months. That may be a game changer. While I don't expect it to include the many features of the Droid, that's okay. But if it will significantly improve web access, then that might be the answer as the other features of the phone are stable and work well. I can't seem to find out more about this upcoming browser. I tried opera mini and it was not the answer.
Eqch day I learn more of what the Droid does and decide to switch. Then I hear of a complaint from users and think the stable BB is where I should stay. I am not normally unable to make such decisions but this has me spinning.
Any wisdom you can shed to help here would be appreciated. Please try to respond with how either phone would work for me.

[jlsparks]

It sounds like you have a similar mix of needs to me, though I'm extremely email-dependent.

It also sounds like you're a fairly heavy browser user, or would be on the right device. I love my S2, but it is no match for the Android phones with respect to native browsing. Sure, I could get Opera or Bolt, but I've tried them both and, though they were faster than the native BB browser, I didn't find them all that simple to use.

If you need fast browsing, and email is secondary but important, I would lean towards an Android device. You might check out the Eris, if you're looking to make a purchase fairly soon. If you can hold off, the HTC Passion should drop in the next few months, and it looks like a beast. It might be the one device that would get me to switch from a BlackBerry.

Another item for consideration: do you travel abroad? If so, keep in mind that the current VZW Android phones are CDMA only... they're not world phones. Of course if you stick to domestic travel this is a non-issue.

Yes, RIM is developing a webkit browser thanks to their purchase of Torch. When will we see it is the real question. Knowledgeable CB members have indicated Summer 2010. Regardless, it will improve the BB browsing experience.

It sounds like you're comfortable with your S2. I am as well. I'm going to wait and see what the Passion looks like, if it's CDMA/GSM capable, and then decide about adding it to my account. The Droid's design just doesn't do much for me, I'm not terribly impressed with how it handles email, but the browsing's great. Sorry if that's not a ton of help; just some thoughts that come to mind in my own evaluation of which device to go with. Good luck.

[McNooberson]

Just loo at the @rest of the posts on this subject. You'll get yur answer

[garment69]

Here is plenty of reading on the subject. The search function is always a good place to start.

http://forums.crackberry.com/search....rchid=24450788

[dave1812]

Originally Posted by Mooneypilot

I anxiously awaited the arrival of the Storm 2 after having the Omnia about 8 months ago. I returned that PDQ (the only phone I ever returned). When the Storm 2 came out and its reviews were great, I said that's the phone for me. I spent a great deal of time with it and have a good working knowledge of the phone. I'm still not too accurate with either keyboard, but getting better.
So, here's the question.
I am retired and travel regularly in the US for pleasure. I want to be able to receive my emails and have access to internet when I travel. I feel the internet is more important to me, as I would use that all the time, but access to emails is convenient and of more importance when I travel. The specs, and the demo of the Motorola Droid seem to be more toward my requirements of frequent access to internet and as needed access to emails. The Storm 2 is clearly a very mature, stable product whose kinks have been pretty much ironed out. Email is virtually overwheling me, though I am finding it convenient. However, its browser is very slow compared to the Droid. The Droid's has a very well done voice recognition feature reducing the need to type all the terms when using the internet. It has many, many more very clever and useful features, particularly utilizing the internet and the Android operating system. However, what stops me? The Android is new and has some bugs needing to be ironed out. People complain about the many steps it takes to access the phone (seems illogical with all the clever features built into the Droid they didn't pay much attention to the phone - including no send or end buttons). Camera is said to be poor. Physical keyboard said to be poor. Periodic echos during phone calls, and more. Sure they will be ironed out and Motorola seems to be attending to them quickly.
Honestly I was about to make the change and then I read that BB is planning a web browser upgrade in a few months. That may be a game changer. While I don't expect it to include the many features of the Droid, that's okay. But if it will significantly improve web access, then that might be the answer as the other features of the phone are stable and work well. I can't seem to find out more about this upcoming browser. I tried opera mini and it was not the answer.
Eqch day I learn more of what the Droid does and decide to switch. Then I hear of a complaint from users and think the stable BB is where I should stay. I am not normally unable to make such decisions but this has me spinning.
Any wisdom you can shed to help here would be appreciated. Please try to respond with how either phone would work for me.

I've spent quite a bit of time reading through various droid forums and have come to the inescapable conclusion that the OS REALLY needs several more iterations before I'd seriously consider it. There are obvious deal breakers at the current time, such as lack of BT voice dialing. But that's just ONE issue. I read a particularly lengthy post by a CB'er on the issues that the droid interface currently presents and they aren't all trivial problems. I suggest you read the droid forum here on CB, as well as at Motorola and HowardForums. The hype, as usual, ignores the real-world usability issues plaguing the droid OS. The more I read of their problems, the more turned off I am, if that's even possible, given the deal-breaker issue for me regarding BT VD. When my S2 worked properly it's an awesome phone. Bummer for me, it acted up (2nd S2) last friday and several reloads of the OS failed to get it working properly so i returned it. I think a "good" S2 is superior to the droid. oh, and the droid's screen, while pixel-rich, isn't nearly as bright at the Storms and is difficult to see in bright sunlight.

[StaticFX]

I have read that the Snapdragon may come as soon as mid DEC.

I also have read a ton of complaints about the droid... while the eris seems to be for the most part very well liked.

[lyoko37]

I had the Droid for about 1 week 2 days and actually returned it for the Storm2. I switched with high hopes because of its fast processor and the Android OS.

I was initially very happy with the device (loving the new OS / browser speed) but overtime I found multiple bugs / shortcomings of the Droid compared to a BlackBerry device. I'll put them into lists..

Missing Features:
*Spell Check (Word suggestion is only available when using the touch screen keyboard.)
*The physical keyboard is hard to type with because all the keys are flat and the symbol keys aren't logically placed.
*Doesn't have Speed Dial
*No review function when taking photos
*Very poor music support (and Bluetooth Audio has a 30 second delay)
*Can't transfer contacts via Bluetooth

Bugs:
*Camera is slow to start, has a bad focus bug (which has been related to a strange 24 day cycle of good and then bad [b][/b][b][/b][b][/b][b][/b]s {sounds like bad coding to me})
*My bluetooth got disconnected when trying to send multiple songs.
*I had multiple times when the taskbar would die and had to restart the phone.
*Started vibrating randomly sometimes.
*Near the end (day before I returned it) it would disconnect calls after 30 seconds.

Now some of these bugs I'm sure are very rare and the phone has a great screen and browser but in the end the Android OS still has a ways to go. If you like BlackBerrys I would stick with them for just a little whole longer. Maybe hold out for the Passion or one of the other Snapdragon processor phones to come out (Should come out Q1 2010 and have 1Ghz processors)

[OAL]

IMO Best review eva

http://forums.crackberry.com/f169/me...s-eris-365693/

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[HeroBerry]

Originally Posted by OAL

IMO Best review eva

http://forums.crackberry.com/f169/me...s-eris-365693/

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

+1

great unbiased review. Definitely give it a read

[mrspock2002]

What sucks is the Moto Droid has great hardware. Love the phone. Hate the OS. As stated above and in most reviews Android OS needs some work still and really isn't ready for prime time. It's centered more around being a internet device than anything else. Very poor bluetooth support is a main issue. Crappy music player, etc.

Played with it for hours, just wasn't my thing. If Google steps it up and polishes it more and fixes the phone issues with the OS it could be great.


Edit: Now awaiting the Droid fanboys to come start a pissing match. 10...9....8.....7.....6.....5.....4............... ..

[dcgore]

Try one and if you don't feel satisfied return it for a full refund. Then get the second device. If you feel you should go back to the first one, then just do an exchange. This way you are covering all bases.

[silenttt123]

Omg... Why do people continue to open threads about this when there have been ATLEAST 5 about this already. A few with well over 100 posts in it...

ITS ALL A MATTER OF OPINION! If you like the Droid, get the Droid. If you like the S2, get the S2.

[Mooneypilot]

If you are tired of this subject, why did you even open this thread. The title was very clear as to what it would be about.
I actually got some very well considered responses that were quite helpful to me. Thanks to all who responded so far. I will keep monitoring but pretty much decided to stay with my storm.

[Mooneypilot]

It is now about a week since I initially started this posting and I want to once again thank those that shared their wisdom to help me make this decision. As I originally said, I don't usually have this much trouble making such decisions but was finding the research a bit difficult. Many of the opinions I was finding were from people who were excited about picking up their new phone, or who rated a phone by repeating what others have said before they even experienced the phone for themselves. Your actual experiences were helpful and maybe this will help others with the same conundrum.
I kept the S2 and now, a week later, I am glad I did. I settled in to actually enjoy using the phone and found its dependability and stability to truely be very strong attributes greatly outweighing any lack of features compared to the Droid. Rather than being upset for any features it lacks, I am enjoying it for what it has. Yes, I would love the abilities of the Droid but no, I do not want the frustrations of waiting while the Droid goes through its teething stages. I also had not been aware that RIM has announced that it is working on a new browser to address the current browser's shortcomings. I am hopeful that the next BB browser that RIM is promising in the next few months will make the web portion of the Storm experience the equal of the competition's. It was really that deficiency that had me on the fence, but once I learned that they are working on a new browser my biggest concern was alleviated. So wanted to let others know that I am glad now that I stuck with the Storm 2 and I did so after your considered input. Thanks.

[becks66]

Just my $.02... I had the Droid for about 9 days too. My experience agreed with some of the earlier posters. Great hardware, really fast browsing, a lot of interesting applications available (some that work well, others that didn't work at all... it is open source after all), really lousy at the basics like email, no bluetooth dialing, spell check, etc. I took it back and replaced it with a Storm 2 which is my second Storm device. I do see great potential for that type of device if they can get some of the basics right and increase the security in the OS so that it'll work with Exchange Servers correctly.