Members Comparison-Storm2 vs Droid vs Eris

[P3Designs]

Okay I currently have all three and I put them through their paces for a week. They all have the same account information on them, including sms. On the Androids I am using Handcent instead of the stock sms messenger. This is my assessment after having the phones for the last 7 days.
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Battery life: All phones were charged, turned off, overnight and taken off the charger at 5:30 am MST.

Right now with light usage (32 emails, 2 phone calls, 1 sms message, 46 twitter updates) The Android phones are set to pull email from 4 different accounts every 5 minutes.

6 hours uptime
Storm2 - 80% remaining
Droid - 80% remaining
Eris - 70% remaining


Battery update
10 hours uptime
Storm2 - 70% remaining
Droid - 80% remaing (this is odd must be wrong) ??
Eris - 40% remaiing (really wtf)

Battery update
14 hours uptime
Storm2 - 50% remaining
Droid - 40% remaining
Eris - Had to be put on charger (warning came on)

So far for me the Eris is pulling up last in the battery test. I am really concernced about this because today is a light usage day and what would happen on a heavy usage day. The Storm2 and Droid are both performing very well in the battery department.
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Size: I will admit that I like a phone with some body on it. Having said that.

Storm2 - feels great in hand, nice design plus good weight
Droid - feels good in hand, takes some getting used to the keyboard, and great weight.
Eris - feels too light, and the narrow design caused me to drop it once.

Pocket Test: I normally will carry my phone in my front pocket so this is important to me. (I carried each of these phones in my pocket for 2 hours)

Storm2: A bit bulky and on the heavy side, you know its there but it is not a problem.
Droid: Its a brick in the pocket, you will know where it is at all times because it is just heavy in the pocket.
Eris: You will not even know its there, this is the best feeling smartphone that I have ever carried around in my pocket, it may be the best phone of all time.

If I were buying a phone simply on the pocketability factor the Eris would win hands down, then the Storm2, and last the Droid.
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Operating Systems: I have used every single smartphone (O.S.) and and owned most of the devices put out in the past two years, not tested but owned for an extended period of time.

Storm2: Familiar, Slow, and Clunky. Those are the three words I would use to describe this OS. Yeah it looks like and acts like a blackberry, all blackberrys for that matter.

But I find the OS to be a bit slow and clunky in doing things. I did not feel this way when I moved over from WinMo 6.0/6.5 but now I feel that it needs an upgrade/change of direction.

The media/video players are bad to terrible, they lack functionality and design elements are missing. Its just bare bones.

Personalization, not easy to do it yourself for most this means finding or purchasing a theme to do this for you.

Browser is just pathetic, really it is unusable now that I have tried the other two phones.

The upside for the Storm is email, enough said. But also Blackberry Messenger. There is nothing else out there like BBM.

Applications are lacking and the app world is just a real pain in the ____ to use. Not to mention the constant need to reboot when installing or uninstalling apps is a big drawback for the Storm2.
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Droid: The operating system is new and fresh to me. I think that the basic screen is easy to navigate but the many different options makes it a little difficult and as my wife said intimidating. I personally like this and am looking forward to the challenge of setting up my phone the way I like it.

The operating system is just plain fast, transitions are instantaneous, landscape to portait and back is instant as well. Of the three phones this is the fastest I have seen a phone move. I had the iphone and thought it was fast but this is faster than that phone as well.

The stock media player is usable but nothing to write home about. Luckily there are many free options in the marketplace to replace the stock players.

Email intergration is just so/so on this device. I am not sure why but I was able to set up only 2 out of my four accounts automatically, the other two imap accounts I had to manually set up because they would not take. ??? (WTH droid)

The most striking feature of this phone is its screen, it makes viewing the full webpages a joy. It is the best I have ever seen. I watched Matrix 2 on all three devices and it was simply amazing on this phone, nothing compares to it right now.

The marketplace is a joy to use and is loaded with useful free apps, and prices are low for paid apps, cheaper than the appworld. And some paid apps on the blackberry are free in the marketplace. (WTF RIM)

Now the Bad news: the on screen portriat keyboard is difficult to use due to its size, the slide out keyboard is usable but after 5 days of use, I prefer the onscreen landscape keyboard. The email functions are limited, mine keeps loading old emails that I have read, and batch deleting is tiring.
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Eris: Here I will start with the Sense UI, because this is the first thing you see on the phone. Sense UI works great on the homescreens, you get 7 vs. 3 for the Droid. You get more widget options than the Droid and the homescreens scream - modern device.

The operating System is 1.5 not 2.0 and it is a bit slower than the Droid, it is on par with the Storm2 but faster than the Storm1. Rotation between landscape and portrait sometimes seem to hang but for the most part it rotates quickly. I have one annoying problem with this O.S. and that is I don't like having to hit the little button to bring up the applications.

Email intergration is done better here than on the Droid but again not as good as the Storm2. I was able to quickly add 3 of my 4 email addresses, the fourth only loads on the Storm2. (cmon)

The media player is much better on the Eris than the other two devices, easy to navigate and add things, the homescreen widget works well and I liked having my album art on the homescreen.

I am not sure why you would need to add a theme to this, the sense ui is fabulous but incase you get board you can change the basic layout of the homescreen with the scenes option. I am sticking with the standard HTC layout.

Again as an Android device the marketplace is easy to use and navigate through, it has plenty of free and paid apps.

Now the bad: I find the Sense UI on the homescreen to be easy to use but I don't like the up arrow to pull up the applications (I prefer the droids method). I don't like the settings menu (compared to the storm2), and I find the placement of the off endcall/standby button to be poor. I have put my phone into standby on more than one occassion when hanging up the phone. I also have to say that I don't like using the trackball to take pictures, it doesn't seem natural to me. At times the lag bothers me but that is only after using the Droid.

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This has been both a tough and easy decision for me. Let me explain. I am very tired of the old, played out stale UI of the Blackberry platform. I find it uninteresting and lacking (for some reason which I can't name). The Droid handsets perk my interest because they are new and I like new things.

The Droid I would rate a 9/10 (for what I need & the apps I have added really completed the Droid for me)

The Eris I would rate a 9/10 (I would rate it higher but the form factor is actually too small for me, I dropped the phone 6 times in 2 days because it is so slim.) I really love the sense UI, who wouldn't.

The Storm2 I would rate a 8.5/10 (Overall it is not a bad device, it makes phone calls well, retrives and pushes emails great, but the feel is off (old).

Which phone should you get, well that depends on your needs, wants, and personal taste. After a week with all three, yep I carried around 3 cell phones everyday for a week, phones I have come to a conclusion. We are not dealing with vast differences in phones but more like shades of grey. If I need the best on device email experience I would go with a Storm2, if I wanted the sleekest phone out in a sexy small footprint then I would chose the Eris. If I want the best web experience with the largest screen plus the newest O.S. then I would chose the Droid.
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Grand Finale: As it stands I have them all and one is going bye-bye and I'm keeping the other two.

So far I have decided to keep the Droid, it just fits me best of the three. I have to decide which of the two remaing phones will join the party.

[trillonometry]

fkn killer review man... best i've read as far as comparing these guys... i wish the Passion was out so i didnt even have to think about my decision tho

[dukins]

Very nice, unbiased, thread. I was looking forward to something like this. Just about all my questions were answered that I had.

A few questions if you dont mind. How easy was it to transition from the s2 to the droid and did you have any yahoo emails that you added to droid to poll every 5 minutes? Thanks and always enjoyed your themes on s2.

Also can you rotate to landscape in every app like you can with the s2? I know you cant on the homescreen.

I like the blackberry because of its ease to use. Im basically familiar with it and a little hesistant trying something new.

[P3Designs]

Originally Posted by dukins

Very nice, unbiased, thread. I was looking forward to something like this. Just about all my questions were answered that I had.

A few questions if you dont mind. How easy was it to transition from the s2 to the droid and did you have any yahoo emails that you added to droid to poll every 5 minutes? Thanks and always enjoyed your themes on s2.

Also can you rotate to landscape in every app like you can with the s2? I know you cant on the homescreen.

I like the blackberry because of its ease to use. Im basically familiar with it and a little hesistant trying something new.

Question 1: I think I am probably not normal, I have used them all (O.S.) types, so I acclimated pretty quickly. I didn't think there was much of a learning curve for the basic functions, in moving from the s2 to the droid. But it will depend on each persons abilities and understanding of (smart)phones. They are all going to do most of the same things.


Question 2: I did not move over my yahoo account, I know that there is a walkthrough somewhere (androidcentral.com) on how to to do that but I didn't.

Question 3: Every app that I have used (I have 28 right now) rotates between landscape and portrait (vice versa) fluidly with no lag.

Thank you for the kind words about my themes, I am working on a new one but I am moving slowly, lol.

I think you may have to give the droid, or any phone a try for at least a week to see if it really fits your needs.

[Joker35]

Thanks... i really enjoyed your review on the 3 phones. i have the storm1 and want to uograde to an android phone. i am having a tough time deciding which phone i want.. the droid or the eris. the slide out keyboard is not a factor for me, i like the virtual keyboards. if you get rid of the eris out of the 3 i may be interested in buying from you, if you want. thanks again. real good review.

[Caddyman]

great review, thank you.

i have had the eris since launch and love it. 2 things to point out. for the camera, you can simply long press anywhere on the screen to take the pic, no trackball required.

and the battery does suck, until you learn some tricks. apparently htc's native sms app doesnt let the phone "sleep". download handcent sms (free from market) and turn the native sms app notifiations off. you should be good to go then.

i am on a day and a half charge now, bout to go on the charger, moderate use.

[P3Designs]

@ Caddyman,

I performed the sms trick first thing, before even setting up the email. That damn battery is the achilles of the phone.

[Caddyman]

how long have you had the phone, battery report are DEFO sporadic, some people are fine, some not. make sure your phone is "sleeping" ok....lol

i hear android/linux "learns" to manage your battery after a while, and people say avoid task killer apps.i use advanced task manager and it seems to work well for me

[philchang]

Yeah, battery life sucks! But everything else is so nice I'll put up with it. The size is nice. My other negative is the keyboard. I installed BetterKeyboard. Its not as sensitive as the stock HTC keyboard and they even have an iphone skin. problem solved. Love the Sense UI and number of applications. I have no problem managing my email accounts either. I wifi when I have it.

[BzB]

good review p3. being a former storm 2 user myself i can relate.

Originally Posted by dukins

I like the blackberry because of its ease to use. Im basically familiar with it and a little hesitant trying something new.

felt the same way, but...

Originally Posted by P3Designs

I think you may have to give the droid, or any phone a try for at least a week to see if it really fits your needs.

exactly. coming from 5 years of blackberry addiction, it took me about a week to get comfortable with the phone and android 2.0. also had to experiment with settings and download a few apps to replace the standard apps (for example i now use touchdown as my exchange email client). still settling in, but lots more comfortable with the droid now.

that said, i'm probably more open minded to new/different technology than the average person. i can see the transition being difficult for many blackberry users though, especially if it was their first smartphone and they've been using it for a while.

[fubaracing7374]

Nice review of all the phones...very nice job!!!

[HeroBerry]

Excellent review P3. I have all three phones as well, the most recent being the Motorla Droid, and I have to say this is the most insightful and unbiased review I have read on all three phones.

The Droid is the phone that I chose at the moment. Seems to fit my needs well. I liked the Eris but the battery life killed me. I burned through it so fast. The Storm2 was good but the Android OS was just refreshing. And although I didn't think I would at first, I really like the size and the substance of the Droid.

Again, Great Job.

[DA6]

Nice review Mr. P3D. Now send the loser phone my way. UPS ground is fine, no rush, I can wait for that S2.

[OAL]

This is the new standard of crackberry phone reviews. Unbiased and through. Thanks for taking all the time and effort.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[shimojunk]

Great reviews! I'm looking to upgrade my 8330 in the near future. I may hold off to see how the Droid pans out.

Maybe it'll be possible for you to give an updated review in a few more weeks between the two phones you kept? When you get better acquianted with the phones, I'm sure you'll find more stuff you love and loathe.

Thanks and I appreciate your insight!