Droid vs. iPhone, is there a winner, can there be a winner? I have the luxury of both phones, which I use daily both for personal things and for work. This will not be a whose carrier is better comparison. If I was to do that I would just say AT&T is the worst provider I have ever had to use in Manhattan and that would be the end of it, oh look I did I said it anyway.

Getting back to the heart of the matter: what is bad about the Droid and what is bad about the iPhone. You may be asking yourself why just the bad stuff? I think if you want fanboys to fawn over either device you have a lot of sites extolling their values all over the internet. So lets start.

iPhone: No removable battery Battery life Closed source architecture No tethering * Single carrier Lack of Google Voice

Now let me explain these a bit. The battery life and no removable battery go hand in hand. The battery life takes a huge hit mostly because the phone is constantly trying to find towers and set itself to the proper reception. I alleviated my problems with a mophie juice pack, but I am also a phone abuser. I do not like the fact that the iPhone’s graphical OS is not open source. While tethering is something that the iPhone actually does and AT&T is keeping it from us, I think that Apple should strong arm AT&T a bit more over this one, which runs into the single carrier issue. If they had more carriers perhaps a lot of these issues would be alleviated. The last complaint is just a small problem that opened a very large wound. I like Google Voice, should I have to jailbreak my phone to get it? No, did I? Yes.

Now on to the Droid.

Droid: Keyboard keys are way too close No search in emails Zooming into a web pages feels laggy The home screen has only 3 screens for Apps The home screen feels laggy when sliding The volume up/down rocker Visual voicemail Screen accuracy App quality

Let me expound on the Droid flaws. I loved my 8700c Blackberry, the keys were very comfortable. I wish all keyboards were like that, I have however learned to love virtual keyboards. Searching in emails, I didn’t realize how important this was until I needed it. The iPhone has it, the Droid needs it! I really don’t like the web browser on the Droid. When zoomed in it seems off in terms of how it pans left/right/up/down. The same goes for the home screen, it is sluggish panning left to right and vice versa. Now for the volume key, I don’t like having ringtones going off and my phone is always set to vibrate. However, it can easily be taken off of vibrate and turned on just by putting it in my pocket. There really needs to be a lock button for the ringer. Visual Voicemail is an App that Verizon has made on the Droid. Listening to a voicemail comes through the speaker, this is plain stupid. The accuracy of where your finger is on the screen can also use some improvement, it is not bad, but it is no iPhone. Which brings me to the last complaint. There are Apps out on the Droid that crash and are very broken, it’s a minefield.

I have to say, while the Droid has some growing up to do, I do really like it. Is it a iPhone killer? No, but I don’t mind using it as a replacement.