Motorola Droid

 It’s the first device in Verizon Wireless’ lineup in a long time that we would call cool. And that means a lot, especially since it seems as though the carrier’s customers have been whining (and rightfully so) for the two-plus years the iPhone has been available. The Droid from Motorola is not only a cut above the BlackBerry Storm2, but every other Android phone in terms of its rock-solid design and speed. The 3.7-inch display is positively huge, and for the first time on any smart phone you get free turn-by-turn GPS navigation. Plus, with the new Android 2.0 OS under the hood, you can reach out to contacts any way you like (phone, text, e-mail, Facebook) with a tap.

The Droid is not for everyone. It will be too hefty for some, and its hardware keyboard is a bit cramped for rapid text entry. Nevertheless, the Motorola Droid is hip, powerful, and smart, making it our top smart phone pick for Verizon Wireless.

Design

From its scratch resistant glass display to its metal chassis, the black Droid looks and feels the part of a luxury handset. It measures 4.6 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches, which is thinner but longer than the BlackBerry Storm2 (4.4 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches) and a hair longer than the iPhone 3GS (4.5 x 2.4 x 0.5 inches), but just as thick. The front has four touch-sensitive buttons: one to return to the previous page, Home, Menu, and Search. It seems awfully odd to us that there aren’t send/end keys, but you can create shortcuts to your contacts on the home screen, so it’s not a deal-breaker.

At 6.0 ounces, the Droid is significantly heavier than the iPhone 3GS (4.8 ounces) and slightly heavier than the Storm2 (5.6 ounces). We have a feeling some will balk at this extra weight and gravitate toward another device in Verizon Wireless’ lineup. On the other hand, since this device is relatively thin, it didn’t seem too bulky in our pocket, and feels like it can take a serious beating.

The 3.5mm headphone jack is up top with the power button, and the thin volume control and camera launch key are on the right side. Motorola didn’t include a set of 3.5mm headphones with the device, but it does come with a 16GB microSD Card.

Display

The Droid’s 3.7-inch 854 x 480 display is the star of the show. It’s bright and bigger than the screens on both the Storm2 (3.3 inches) and the iPhone 3GS (3.5 inches). In comparison to the iPhone, the screen’s 0.2-inch increase in size doesn’t matter much, but its higher resolution made videos and images very sharp. Its large screen with haptic feedback also comes in handy when it comes to GPS navigation. This is not a multitouch display (no pinching or zooming), but we found it to be accurate and responsive.

Keyboard

The hardware keyboard on the Droid isn’t the best we’ve used. Each key offered good feedback, but the layout feels cramped, and we made errors when we tried to type quickly. Part of the reason why there’s less real estate for a bigger keyboard is because there’s a 5-way directional pad to the right, with a gold center button. This makes it easy to make finer cursor movements, but the Droid wouldn’t need a D-pad if it had a looking glass feature like the iPhone.

The keyboard felt very solid and well built. Our only current gripe is that pulling the keyboard out feels stiff; we’re hoping the mechanism will loosen with continued usage, but so far it has not.

Google slightly improved the on-screen QWERTY keyboard with the Android 2.0 OS update, but we still found it less accurate than the keyboard on the HTC Hero, the iPhone 3GS, or even the BlackBerry Storm2, which has an improved SurePress keyboard.