Motorola Droid vs. iPhone vs. BlackBerry for Email Around The Clock

Verizon, Motorola and Google got together to create a new wireless device/smart phone to take on the Apple iPhone.  Is it the long promised iPhone killer?  Absolutely not.  Is it the smartest device for creating emails?  I actually think the Motorola Droid has taken the crown away from my once beloved BlackBerry.

Let's get some perspective.  I have been using the Droid for a little more than 24 hours.  Not a lot of experience.  But, I have also used all of the following devices at one time or another as my primary wireless email machine:

• Palm VII
• Danger (T-Mobile) Sidekick
• Palm Treo, Treo 650 and Centro
• BlackBerry 7100, BlackBerry 7200, BlackBerry Curve 8320
• Apple iPod Touch
• BlackBerry Storm, but only casually in a store -- never my primary device

So, I think I have some experience with how the devices work for email.  Until yesterday, I would have said that the BlackBerry Curve was the best device that I have used.  My guess is that the BlackBerry Tour would be my highest ranking device.

But now, I am passing the crown to the Motorola Droid.  There are still some things that it could learn from the BlackBerry.  But, overall, it is easy to use and has the best features for creating an email.

KEYBOARD FOR CREATING EMAIL:

it is easier to type on this device than any of the other ones I have tried. Let's put it into perspective:

• Palm Treo 680 - Nice keys, easily defined, a little cramped.
• Palm Centro - Probably the world's most cramped physical keyboard in a commercial product.  Horrible.
• BlackBerry Curve - Great physcial keyboard. But, no on-screen error correction.  I was prone to typos.
• BlackBerry Storm - Do I really need to press down so hard?  I made lots of errors.
• Apple iPhone / iPod Touch - Really nice on-screen keyboard. But, the word suggesting feature makes one guess. Touch it and it keeps the bad word and not the correction.

So, lets talk about the Motorola Droid and entering text.  There are three reasons to love keyboarding on the Droid:

1. You have four keyboards to choose from.  It really matters:

• The first two keyboard are on-screen keyboards that are every bit as good as those on the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.  One is vertical and the other is horizontal. The spacing is beautiful and the letters appear significantly above the key stroke.  (I have two complaints about typing with the  BlackBerry Storm and Storm 2:  (a) The on-screen keys are good, but they glow when you type.  It is hard to see which key you actually hit.  (b)  You need to use a degree of force when you type, which slows down the typing process.) 
• The third is a physical keyboard that slides out from under the screen.  The keys are terrible for touch typing or using thumbs because they are not well defined.  But, they work very well for typing with an index finger.  And, it has the advantage of letting you see the full screen while tying because it does not use space on the screen.
• The fourth is an on-screen vertical keyboard similar to the small BlackBerry unit in which each key handles more than one letter.  I am not a fan of this style of keyboard and I have not used it much.

2.  The haptic feedback creates a small vibration in the device when you type a key with the on-screen keyboard.  This feedback gives you a real confirmation that you have "depressed" a key, even when you have not actually pushed on anything.  It is a great feeling.  It is also better than the BlackBerry implementation for which you must actually depress the glass plate.

3.  The Motorola Droid actively suggests a list of words to complete what you are typing.  Look at the image to the left.  As I typed the word app, there is a list of words that I only need to touch to complete typing.  It pulls words from its dictionary and also from my contact list, so names of people appear in the choices.

I cannot overstate the value of this list of words.  I often find that I can complete typing in a fraction of the time it takes to normally type a sentence.  It is better than my Curve, which does not suggest anything as I type.  It is also better than the Apple iPhone that suggests one word.

EMAIL NOTIFICATION

Unfortunately, the Motorola Droid is the laggard in the pack when it comes to email notification. 

I believe that the BlackBerry leads the pack because of its TODAY screen.  I am not shocked by this as BlackBerry was designed to be an email device from the beginning.  However, I believe the fix for the Android may be a simple widget.

The BlackBerry TODAY screen wins because it shows the sender and subject of the most recent email messages on the main screen.  It is easy to see it arrive.  One simple push opens the right email application.  The native email application has a combined inbox.  That application and the Gmail application both show an asterisk when new mail is received.  It will also flash an LED with new messages.  In my opinion, this works best.

The Apple iPhone and iPod Touch show the number of unread messages in the mail application, but it is the total number of messages across all mail platforms.  There is not a combined inbox, which means it is necessary to switch between personal and work emails.

The Motorola Droid is the worst in the pack for email notification.  There is not a today screen.  (Anyone able to write the application?) It will, however, light an LED and make a noise, if requested.

READING THE EMAIL

The final criteria for an email client would be reading the email.  Both the iPhone and the Motorola Droid do an excellent job of rendering emails.  You get the full HTML and images.  For example, I love seeing  my Dilbert comics daily in full color.  You can zoom in and out on the messages.  They even turn to meet the width of a portrait or landscape mode.  Attachments are attached and applications can be opened -- such as the music player for voice mail and Documents-to-Go for presentations.

I think the Droid and iPhone have a tie here.  Some may quibble about multi-tasking and others may quibble about pinching the screen versus a zoom button.  The bottom line is that they both work well.

Reading email is where I hate the BlackBerry device.  They reformat the messages to fit on the screen and it removes some of the graphics.  They layout of the original message is not preserved.  As messages include more images and more HTML, the re-rendering is a problem.  I also do not like that my BlackBerry does not download entire attachments until I tell it to.  This is a left over from the days of narrow bandwidth.

CONCLUSION

Each device has pros and cons.  But so far, I think I am going to say with my Droid.  I score the categories as follows:

TYPING - slight edge to the Droid because of the list of words that complete my typing.  It really speeds things up.  But, I can make the BlackBerry and iPhone work.

EMAIL NOTIFICATION - BlackBerry is the clear winner.  Droid needs new software.

READING MESSAGES - Droid and iPhone share the winner spot.  BlackBerry needs a lot of changes here.

As I said, the Droid will stay.  Fewer typos and properly rendered HTML matter the most.  I am sure that an unread widget will be coming and then I will feel that the Droid is the clear winner in the email camp.

(I am going to write non-email related reviews of the Motorola Droid versus the Apple iPhone and the BlackBerry on a new blog, Droid Story.  Feel free to follow it there.)