First Week With DROID

Naturally the DROID features extremely tight GMail integration, and you can set threshholds on how many days of your mail and which folders you want to sync. The app is cloud based so whatever you do on the device is reflected in your GMail account. If you delete or archive a message on your DROID, it happens in GMail in the cloud.

The Android 2.0 FaceBook application is extremely well-designed and closely replicates the desktop FaceBook experience in terms of aesthetic and functionality.

Android Market has thousands of applications, and is growing very quickly with the release of the DROID. Many of the applications are free, in fact all of the ones I am currently using are free. You can also easily install 3rd-party applications hosted on the Internet outside of the Marketplace using a configuration setting, so the device is already "Jailbroken".

There are a number of Twitter clients available for Android. I'm partial to Swift, a free application. To my right is the Contacts list which also allows me to message/contact anyone using the service I desire.

Meebo is a free Instant Messaging program that has support for multiple IM services, including Google Talk, AIM, Yahoo and FaceBook. The DROID includes excellent built-in support for GTalk but you'll need a multi-protocol client like Meebo or IM+ or any number of others which will allow you to talk on different services.

The DROID is the ultimate device for the news and information junkie. Shown here is a native Wikipedia client, Nubinews, a news aggregator, and the New York Times. I can also look at ZDNet's and other news site mobile feeds using the built-in Android browser.

There's no lack of multimedia apps for Android. Pandora will stream free music using your genre and artist preferences. Google Audio is a podcast search engine. TV.com is CBS's free video on demand service, and 1Cast News aggregates video news feeds from all around the Internet.

The Google Maps integration is extremely useful, especially with the built-in Latitude support that allows you to track your own movements in real time as well as that of your friends.

And yes, the DROID is an excellent phone which with the Google Voice plugin allows you to make VOIP calls using Google Voice credits.

Many Android applications are location aware, such as "Where" (shown left) which will give you local recommendations and news. OpenTable is a popular application for restaurant reservations (center) and Google Places is tied directly into Google's locations database and has reviews of popular restaurants, bars and clubs.

You also can't beat the DROID's voice recognition integrated with Google's search engine. Google Finance (middle) allows you to track real-time stocks and indices, and the Weather Channel will give you local weather reports based on your GPS location, also in real time.

Here's a look of the Android 2.0 browser rendering capabilities.

Amazon.com's native Android application allows you to browse and buy anything your heart desires, right from your smartphone. The Flixster movie application (center) shows you what movies are playing near you and allows you to preview them on streaming video before you make a purchase decision. The DROID's built in "Car Home" app is a home screen for the built-in GPS navigation features and works with the optional car mount accessory.