The Droid, the only smartphone currently on the market that uses Google Android’s 2.0 operating system, is Motorola’s second Android device and it’s available only on Verizon Wireless’s network. The device is turning out to be the hit phone of the season, thanks in large part to an expensive and extensive advertising campaign.

Neither company is reporting sales figures. But analysts say sales look good. The companies have likely sold between 700,000 and 800,000 Droids since the device was launched in early November, according to equity analyst Mark Sue of RBC Capital Markets.

“Verizon’s big marketing push for the Droid is strengthening as we close in on the holidays, and following our round of checks, we believe about 700,000 to 800,000 Droids have been sold, making our hurdle of 1 [million] Motorola Droids achievable for 4Q09 [ending December 31],” Sue said in his research note. “Motorola, for its part, has done a good job on the production side, and our survey of over 100 stores indicates strong demand, limited stock outs, and very few returns.”

John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless, said when the device was launched in late October that Verizon would be pouring in more money to market this device than any other phone it has ever sold. And now it looks like the money has been well spent. From advertisements that specifically highlight the Droid to ones that focus on Verizon’s extensive and reliable 3G wireless network, it’s clear that the company has AT&T and the Apple iPhone in its crosshairs.

AT&T has actually sued Verizon over the advertisements about its 3G wireless network coverage.

After enduring a string of disses against its iPhone, Apple joined the month-long battle between Droid carrier, Verizon and iPhone carrier, AT&T this week — releasing two advertisements highlighting AT&T’s “simultaneous voice and data connection” capabilities, a feature Verizon’s network fails to offer. Is it wise for Apple to step in the ring?

Absolutely — AT&T needs the help: After AT&T dropped the ball by responding to Verizon’s “There’s a map for that” attack with their “lame” and “childish” Luke Wilson ad, says Jared Newman in PCWorld.com, Apple has wisely moved the debate in a “different direction.” By dramatizing AT&T’s “simultaneous voice and data” advantage, Apple gives customers “real-world examples” of why the iPhone carrier is superior.

“Apple iPhone Ad Succeeds where AT&T Fails”

These new Apple ads miss the mark: Apple’s new spots fail to address AT&T customers main concerns such as dropped calls and poor 3G coverage, argues Derrell Etherington on The Apple Blog. To defeat the “clever work coming out of Verizon’s camp” the two companies are going to have to “get their acts together.” Here’s a quick tip: “A little Hodgman goes a long way.”

“New iPhone Ads from Apple Jab at Verizon”

This is just the beginning of the war: Apple had no choice but to join the fight, says Chris Matyszczyk on CNET.com, especially after Verizon “decided it would be fun” to explicitly attack the iPhone. Apple “doesn’t mention the Droid or Verizon by name” so far, but get ready: Before this bout comes to a close, we’ll inevitably see “more [explicit] accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.”

Available on Verizon’s 3G wireless network, the Droid is the first smartphone to run on Google’s 2.0 Android software.

I’ve been testing the Droid ($199) for a little more than a week and here are my impressions.

The great

Turn-by-turn GPS: The Droid offers the most powerful and seamless GPS system on any smartphone. The handset easily replaces stand-alone GPS systems which can cost around $150.

Web browsing: Using the Web on the Droid is the best experience I’ve had on a smartphone. Pages load very fast — much faster than on Apple’s iPhone.

Verizon’s network: In my testing on the Droid, I didn’t drop a call once — something that’s a daily occurrence for me on AT&T.

Google integration: Set-up on the Droid took minutes. Logging in with my Google account, all of my contacts were sent to the phone and I was ready to go. The Gmail integration was super clean as well. It’s the most intuitive, full-featured e-mail solution I’ve seen on a smartphone.

The good

The Android Market: Comparisons to Apple’s more than 100,000 apps are inevitable here. The Android Market has a little more than 16,000, but that number is growing. With fewer selections in each app I was looking for (AIM client, note-taking utility, etc.) the app that had risen to the top was rarely as polished as apps I’ve used on the iPhone. However, the marquee apps (Facebook, Twitter clients, news apps, etc.) all work just fine.

Battery life: In my testing, the Droid’s battery lasted just as long as the iPhone’s, but be careful you don’t have too many applications running the background. Battery technology has always lagged other technological innovations. As with any smartphone, it is important to always have a charger nearby.

The bad

The flip-out, physical keyboard: The good news here is that the touch-screen keyboard is good enough that you won’t ever need to use the physical counterpart. It’s a feature that consumers still demand as a matter of principle, but in reality the flat and tiny physical keys are very clunky to use.

Music and video: Using the Droid as a media player is clunky at best. Without a dedicated desktop application to sync and organize music, you’re left to drag and drop files into folders on the player yourself using your computer.

Visual voicemail: It’s a great feature, but it doesn’t come standard. Customers can download the visual voicemail app or free, but unlocking the feature costs $2.99 more a month.

Overall grade: B

While the Droid may not be the much-hyped “iPhone killer” that some claim, it is a compelling entry to the market. And with features like native GPS navigation and Verizon’s powerful wireless network, it is sure to attract many customers looking for a phone that can — almost — do it all.

Contact MARK W. SMITH: msmith@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @markdubya or follow a feed of blog updates at @browserblog.

As Verizon’s gazillion-dollar marketing campaign for the Droid points out, the Droid does a lot of things the iPhone doesn’t. Similarly, the iPhone does a lot of things very differently than the Droid and in a way that no one, including Motorola, has duplicated.

Part of the problem inherent in comparisons between the iPhone and anything else is Apple has effectively indoctrinated legions of consumers with a set of very deliberate features, commands and general expectations. While the Droid may succeed in stealing some market share from Apple, it’s simply not going to convert a significant number of loyal iPhone users who have become accustomed to a very unique kind of simplicty.

Regardless of these reservations, I began by noting the inevitability of comparisons between the iPhone and the Droid, so I’ll proceed in that spirit. Here’s the rundown on how the Motorola Droid stacks up against the iPhone 3GS.

HARDWARE

Any iPhone user who refutes the Droid’s superiority in the nitty-gritty specs department has simply drank too much of Apple’s home-brewed cider. The Droid offers a 5-megapixel camera with a flash. The iPhone offers a 3-megapixel camera and no flash. That may not seem like a big difference until you try to make a print of that photo you just snapped on your iPhone. Go any bigger than a 4 x 6 and you’re risking a very grainy photo.

The Droid also trumps the iPhone with its 16GB removable memory, which can be upgraded to 32GB. iPhone users are subjected to minor torture with the knowledge that their device has as much capacity on the day they take it out of the box as it ever will. However, the cloud is easing that pain, with certain services allowing storage for pictures, messages and even music.

The Droid’s battery gives users an extra 1.4 hours of talk time over the iPhone’s 5 hours. However, battery life on a smartphone can vary by the user’s sophistication. Smartphone users of all brands realize that shutting off Wi-Fi or 3G, as well as adjusting screen brightness, can dramatically improve battery life. Nevertheless, most iPhone users would give their left arm for an extra 1.4 hours of juice.

While the Droid offers a slide-out qwerty, it subsequently suffers the fate of a moving part and the myriad bad things that can go wrong when anything on one of these devices moves (i.e., the Palm Pre’s reported “Oreo” condition). It’s a preferential consideration, but the iPhone’s virtual keyboard is generally well received and lack of a slide-out adds to the iPhone’s sturdiness.

It would be foolish to approach the merits of a device’s hardware without considering the overall package. The way a device feels in the hand is one of the iPhone’s gleaming successes. The iPhone’s slick screen, one-piece design and all around smooth surfaces add up to a device that everyone wants to touch. In this arena, the Droid is also impressive, however, quite heavy. It’s boxier than the iPhone, to be sure, but nonetheless a nice design effort by Motorola.

UI

Here’s the crux of the argument against comparisons. The majority of iPhone users are going to walk away from the Droid feeling frustrated. However, those who just came off a mid-range smartphone will be delighted. The Droid really does have a fairly intuitive UI. It employs certain swipe gestures and easily accessible pre-loaded Google services, including the Android Marketplace, that make it a really great and competitive addition to the smartphone market.

But let’s be honest about the comparison we’re making. Next time you’re out in public, look around and see how many young kids are playing on their parent’s iPhone or iPod touch. The multi-touch, swipe and pinch-to-zoom gestures and commands made so popular by Apple perfectly lend themselves to the tactile impulses of the world’s millions of bored children waiting for their parents to finish dinner in a restaurant. The continuity of Apple’s easy-to-locate icons and menus are equally well received by children.

While geeks everywhere decry Apple’s over-simplification of technology, consumers hold such ease with adoration and idolatry. Droid parents simply won’t find it as easy to hand their 5-year-old their phone and say, “Here, go wild.” It’s true that not every parent wants a phone that can babysit, but the example aims at highlighting the ease of Apple’s UI. And the UI that finds its way into children’s hands with the consent of the parent is not only the superior UI but also the one that wins the most market share in the long run.

WHERE THE iPHONE FAILS

For all its merits, the iPhone has made many a wrong turn. In fact, take one trip from door to door using the Droid’s pre-installed Google Navigation service and you’ll understand why an open-source operating system backed by Google can be one seriously amazing attribute for a smartphone maker. You’ll also understand why stocks of companies that make portable navigation systems tanked the day the Droid arrived.

But the iPhone’s deficits don’t stop there. The Droid’s deep integration of Google’s free services, including Google Voice, points to the more general realization that Apple’s gate-keeper mentality could be the company’s Achilles heel going forward. While the FCC may be a pain in many a side as it preaches any app, any device, on any network, that’s exactly the future for which most consumers are hoping. While that ideal may never be achieved, the Droid comes closer than the iPhone does. Ultimately, it will be money that breaks things open for everyone. It always is. And as it stands, only consumers’ wallets have the power to topple Apple’s walled garden now.

WITH WHICH TO STUFF THY STOCKING

In the end, both of these devices are technological marvels. The Droid makes a relic of that old bar phone sitting in the junk drawer at home. Both the iPhone 3GS and the Droid are at the pinnacle of technology. The lucky person who receives either one in their stocking this holiday season will no doubt find one reason or another to shout with glee (until they get the monthly bill, of course).

However, if you’re an iPhone user who, for one reason or another, has decided to “go Droid,” you might not be quite as happy as the person who just tossed their LG VU in favor of the Droid that just came down the chimney. Does that make the iPhone a better phone? Perhaps. Closer to the truth may be that the smartphone market is finally seeing some diversity, and quality, in a market that was standardized by Apple’s revolutionary smartphone.

More importantly, does it even need to? Let’s have a little look.

The Droid had a comparatively limited release:

The figure of 250,000 units isn’t gospel, but it’s a very decent estimate. According to the same stats from Flurry, it’s over 7 times less devices than iPhone sold during it’s opening week. Droid would need to maintain those opening week sales over an extended period before it comes close to the iPhone.

But Droid has only been released in one country. It remains to be seen how successful it is overseas (I for one would queue to buy one if they release it in Ireland).

Not only that, but it’s relatively late to market. iPhone will never lose the status it gained from being the first proper smartphone as we understand them today. When the iPhone launched there simply wasn’t anything else like it in anybodies pocket. And that is something Droid can never compete with.

The Droid is part of a bigger movement:

If you read reportage of the Droid, you’ll notice something interesting. In a lot of cases, the device isn’t being reported on by it’s own mertis, but rather as a representation of Android as a whole. Droid is now the poster boy for Android, and it’s sales are being regarded as a volley in the Android vs. iPhone war. The question is whether it matters if Droid sales plummet after week one, as long as it successfully pushes Android as a platform? I would say damn straight it does. Once the operator gets its cut, Apple pulls in 100% of the profit from iPhone – which gives it incredible financial leverage for marketing. The same can’t be said of Android. In the case of Droid the profits are going mostly to Motorola and Verizon. But if another Android device does well, those profits are going to drop. Which brings us to the next point…

The Droid has bigger fish to fry than the iPhone:

Some of the biggest competition Droid has to face is from other Android devices. The HTC Hero was the big Android on campus until Droid came along with it’s slick ad campaigns and blew everyone out of the water. And Droid will suffer the same fate. At least when an old iPhone model is made redundant, all the upgrades are still buying devices straight from Apple.

Another problem with this is application consistency. As a friend of mine said to me in an email today, “it’s still really hard to make a consistent user experience with apps on android, because you can’t guarantee any features.” Different Android devices will have different technical specifications and capabilities. So you’ll have developers that have to develop multiple versions of the same app for one operating system, and given the number of Androids we’re looking at over the next one to two years, that could be a lot. Or you’ll be looking at great apps that are only developed for one model of Android – which is the kind of thing that really annoys consumer.

What we think?

I think it’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Android. But I simply can’t claim I’m confident that it will ever really provide huge competition for iPhone. I foresee Android remaining a profitable force in the mobile marketplace for a long time… but one of the major problems for that market is fragmentation. The mobile industry is still running in a hundred different directions at once, and in many ways Android is going to be further fragmenting it’s own little corner of that market. The ability of Android to adapt to any niche, and release a device to fit any segment of the mobile buyer demographic is simultaneously a huge advantage and a huge disadvantage.

With that out of the way, the new Motorola Droid is recommended to almost any smart phone shopper. It’s not going to outsell or render obsolete Apple Inc.’s device. But it’s competitive, combining neat technology with the reliable Verizon Wireless 3G network.

The Droid lives up to its name. Here’s a rundown:

Screen: It’s astoundingly sharp, with much higher resolution than most phones, and text and pictures redefine the word “crisp.”

OS: The latest version of Google’s Android operating system feels polished and sturdy. There are tons of apps, and the new Google Maps Navigation GPS software works great. It’s undeniably cool to just speak your destination into the microphone and see it pop up on the screen.

Browsing: The Web browser is zippy and responsive, and adding e-mail is a cinch. With a handful of apps running, the system never bogged down.

Media: The music app is acceptable. Motorola doesn’t have an iTunes-like program to manage tunes, but there is an Amazon MP3 download app, and plugging the Droid into your PC and dragging and dropping files is easy. Sound quality is good, although the software player is rudimentary.

The video player, though, is unpleasant. It’s buried inside the “Gallery” app, and I had problems getting video files I transferred from my PC to play back accurately. Sometimes I got audio but no video; other times the player crashed altogether.

Camera: Playing back videos I recorded with the Droid’s built-in camera was painless, though. But the 5 megapixel camera isn’t great, and its autofocus struggles with nearby objects. Some people will complain about the lack of pinch-to-zoom and multitouch (although I think that’s overrated).

Keyboard: Flat, unspaced keys on the slide out keyboard make touch typing largely impractical, but the on-screen keyboard is excellent. You’ll probably end up using that.

The Droid is unapologetically brash and different. Despite some rough edges, it’s a standout device that deserves to be a big seller. Motorola Droid

Pros: Awesome screen, bold design and intuitive software make a great first impression.

Cons: If you’re a big music or video user, the Droid will feel limited and awkward.

Bottom line: Cellphone technology is advancing so rapidly that committing to a new handset is becoming intimidating, but the Droid seems built to last and Google’s track record of continually upgrading its software is undeniable. Just don’t call this an iPhone killer.

The scoop: Motorola Droid smartphone (Verizon Wireless service), about $200 (with two-year agreement, plus $70 monthly voice/data service).

What it is: With apologies to Terrell Owens, “Get your popcorn ready!” The Motorola Droid smartphone is ready to take on the iPhone for the hearts and minds of consumers (and, gasp, enterprises). Running on Google’s Android operating system, the Droid features a slide-out QWERTY keyboard as a way to combat the lack of a physical keyboard on the iPhone — but like the iPhone it has a touchscreen (3.7 inches with 480 x 584 resolution) with an iPhone-like UI. In addition to the cell phone, the Droid lets you access e-mail, send text messages and download additional applications from the Android Market.

Why it’s cool: The Droid’s 5 megapixel digital camera is a step up from the iPhone’s camera (the iPhone 3GS has a 3 megapixel camera), and the addition of Wi-Fi on a Verizon Wireless smartphone is a much appreciated feature (unlike last year’s BlackBerry Storm, which was Wi-Fi-less). Accessing applications from the Android Market was as easy as an iPhone, although some of the applications available were not completely formatted for the Droid (I tried the apps out before the phone’s official launch, so hopefully they will conform more to the Droid’s screen size). Connecting to Verizon’s 3G wireless network was especially appreciated in New England. The built-in GPS and navigation application was very cool (and free), especially when it gives you a street view photo of your location when you arrive at the destination (it’s possible Street View can be active while you’re driving, but I had other things to worry about — driving — when I was trying that application.

Some caveats: I’m not completely sold on the slide-out keyboard. The physical placement of the keyboard (it slides out from the side, or the bottom if you rotate the phone 90 degrees) becomes an issue on the right side — extra space is used, making it harder for people with smaller hands to do the thumb-typing method. Since I have smaller hands, typing on the keyboard was more difficult. I gave the phone to a colleague with larger hands, and he was not bothered by this feature.

Bottom line: I’ve seen a lot of iPhone clones and alleged “iPhone killers” come and go by the wayside. It’s possible that the Droid will join them as well, but I don’t think so. I think this device has legs, and it seems to have the support of Verizon Wireless behind it, based on some of their latest ads challenging AT&T’s 3G coverage (somehow I think it means hopes for a Verizon iPhone has dimmed). The final decision on whether to go with a Droid vs. an iPhone could ultimately end up being a choice of whether you prefer AT&T’s network or Verizon’s.

Here we go again: Another swaggering company claims to have the iPhone killer. This time, it’s Motorola and Verizon Wireless, with the Droid. You’ve seen the “Droid does” campaign, but let’s cut to the chase: The Motorola Droid does not do that much. It’s a real letdown after all the hype, with some amazingly dumb design decisions, such as lack of a multitouch screen (no gesture support) and a hard-to-use keyboard.

Worse for Motorola is that HTC, a company hardly known for its investment in design, has come out with a better Android-based smartphone. The consumer-oriented HTC Droid Eris has a surprisingly good user interface that could teach Apple a thing or two.

Despite the flaws, the Droid does show real movement in the high-tech industry to truly compete with the iPhone. The Palm Pre earlier this year was the first credible competitor to Apple, while the Droid and the Droid Eris move that competition along. The iPhone remains the victor, but the number of viable competitors is sure to rise further.

Deathmatch: E-mail, calendars, and contacts The heart of what a smartphone user does — maybe even more than talk — is deal with e-mail and calendars, both of which tap into your contacts database.

The Droid’s Email app is superficially similar to the iPhone’s, but it lacks much of iPhone Mail’s richness. For example, both let you select multiple e-mails for deletion, but the Droid doesn’t let you quickly delete a message without reading it (the iPhone does it with a swipe gesture). The Droid’s Email app doesn’t let you move e-mail into folders, and worse, you can’t search e-mails from the Email app in the Droid.

Although Motorola advertises the Droid as supporting Exchange e-mail, it does so in limited circumstances. If your Exchange server doesn’t have any ActiveSync policies enabled, you should be able to access Exchange e-mail from the Droid. If such policies are enabled, the Droid will let you connect to the server and send e-mail (I had to reboot the Droid after Exchange setup to get it to work), but it won’t display your messages or folders. (My colleague Paul Venezia’s testing shows the Droid can get e-mail from an Exchange server that does not use ActiveSync policies.)

It’s not clear if the Droid supports any Exchange ActiveSync policies — the tech support staffs at Verizon and Motorola had no idea, and the Web sites provide no details. The iPhone doesn’t support all ActiveSync policies, but it works with a commonly used subset, and if it can’t connect to Exchange due to a policy conflict, it sends you an alert.

There is a solid Exchange client app, Touchdown for Exchange from NitroDesk, that works with the Droid, but only by lying to Exchange about ActiveSync policy support for on-device encryption and password requirements. The tech support staff at NitroDesk told me I shouldn’t use the app with the Droid because of that bug. Touchdown is a good app, with iPhone-like capabilities such as setting which folders to keep synced, and it even lets you set away notices, which the iPhone Mail app can’t do. However, it doesn’t display your Sent folders, which is a major gap.

For calendars, the Droid syncs to Exchange calendars (even if your server uses ActiveSync policies), but you can’t accept invitations. On the iPhone, you can — unless the invite came in as an e-mail attachment on a non-Exchange account.

The Droid displays Exchange calendars in a separate app, so you can’t see your personal and corporate appointments at the same time. In the iPhone, you can see all or any calendars at once. (The HTC Droid Eris, which has extensions to the stock Android UI used by the Motorola Droid, also lets you see your Exchange and personal calendars in one app.) The one calendar advantage the Droid holds over the iPhone is that the Droid lets you select which personal calendars to view simultaneously; with the iPhone, you see all or just one.

If you intend to use your Droid for Exchange access, don’t tell Verizon — don’t inform the salesperson that you’ll be using Exchange or corporate e-mail, and don’t call tech support with Exchange questions. Otherwise, Verizon will add $15 to your monthly data plan.

The iPhone can sync to Outlook on the PC, as well as iCal and Address Book on the Mac via a USB connection. The Droid cannot. Both devices support Gmail syncing (which you can use an intermediary to sync with Outlook and iCal/Mail/Address Book), though the Droid can do so over the air without a $99-a-year MobileMe account, as the iPhone requires.

Both the Droid and the iPhone let you view common attachment formats such as Word, Excel, and PDF; the Droid bundles the Quickoffice viewer apps to do so, while Apple has its own document viewer baked in to the iPhone. But neither can handle zipped attachments. I give Droid a nod for letting you save attachments for use with other apps, which the iPhone still can’t do. (The iPhone can save image attachments.)

In its address book, the iPhone lets you jump easily to contacts by tapping an onscreen letter, such as T to navigate to people whose last names begin with T. Or you can search for someone in the Search field by tapping part of the name. The Droid lets you type a letter on the physical keyboard to jump easily to contacts; if you are using the touchscreen, you have to go through a menu command to search just your contacts (the standard Search button searches both the Web and the Droid). Both the Droid and the iPhone let you designate favorite contacts, which are handily displayed in a separate pane, and both have call log and phone dialer panes in their Contacts apps.

The winner: The iPhone, thanks to its real-world Exchange support and better calendar capabilities. The Droid’s only advantages — the ability to save e-mail attachments and over-the-air syncing with Google Gmail — can’t overcome its deficits.

Deathmatch: Applications Motorola has made a lot of noise about the Droid’s ability to run multiple apps simultaneously. The iPhone can’t do that, and often when you switch from one app to another and then back, the first app resets. The Droid easily moves among apps, but it does so in the same way as the iPhone: You have to return to the home page and select the app. I much prefer how the Palm Pre handles multiple simultaneous apps, letting you move among them through the row-of-cards metaphor, and I wish that the Android OS had something similar.

The iPhone, of course, shines in the amazing variety of iPhone apps. Although many are junk, there are some real gems in the App Store. The Android Market is too young to have anywhere near the selection of the Apple App Store, but I am encouraged by the number of high-quality apps that exist for the Droid and other Android devices. (Yes, there’s a lot of junk, too.) And you can download apps for the Droid outside the Android Market and install them directly — Apple gives you no such flexibility.

When using the Droid, I also miss some of the iPhone’s apps-handling capabilities. For example, the iPhone lets you save Web pages as if they were apps; they display on the home screen for easy access. This feature lets me save as such an icon the Web page that tells me how long until my local bus arrives, and I don’t have to wade through my browser’s bookmarks to load it. On the Droid, I can’t do that.

Apple’s method of letting you rearrange your apps is more intuitive than the Droid’s. When you select apps, they shake, and you can move them among the home screen’s panes and put them where you want. If a pane is full, the iPhone moves an app to another pane to make room. On the Droid, you can move apps from the application window to your home screen’s panes, but there is no visual clue that you’ve selected an app. Worse, if you move an app to a full home screen pane, you can’t drop it onto that pane or scroll to another pane. Instead, you have to first go to the home screen pane you want, then the application window and drag the desired app to the home screen pane you previously switched to. It’s the kind of rough edge you rarely see on an iPhone but crops up fairly often in the Android UI.
For business document editing, the $20 Quickoffice for iPhone lets you perform basic edits in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents and retain revisions tracking in the original documents. But it doesn’t work with zipped files. Apple’s prohibition against saving files on the iPhone means that Quickoffice can’t get to those e-mail attachments. Quickoffice does offer a cool tool to transfer files to and from the iPhone over Wi-Fi, but you need your computer up and running to do that — in which case, why would you edit the documents on the iPhone?

There is no business-class Office editor for the Droid. The bundled Quickoffice for Android is just a viewer, and the $30 Documents to Go app from DataViz is unable to edit files sent via Exchange. It does work with files received over Gmail, but few businesses use Gmail.

I tried using Google Docs on both the iPhone and Droid, with the same results. It’s barely possible to edit a spreadsheet; the most you can do is select and add rows and edit an individual cell’s contents. You can’t edit a text document, and for calendars all you can do is view and delete appointments.

The iPhone’s copy and paste capabilities are both richer and better implemented than the Droid’s. To select text on the Droid, you have to use a menu option or keyboard shortcut to turn on text selection, then tap elsewhere to stop the selection, and use another menu option or keyboard shortcut to paste. It’s also hard to tell where your text cursor is on the Droid, due to its tiny, thin appearance. The iPhone, by contrast, doesn’t require menus to select or deselect text, and its menus for copying, pasting, and deleting come up automatically when you select, then disappear automatically when you deselect.

On the iPhone, copying and pasting e-mail text, Web text, or Web graphics is straightforward. On the Droid, copying graphics is not supported. Furthermore, you can copy text in e-mail on the Droid only if you are composing a message in the text-entry window; you cannot copy text in received e-mails. The Droid does detect phone numbers and addresses in e-mails, turning them into hot spots that can be clicked to launch the phone and map apps.

The winner: The iPhone, though its lack of multitasking is a major obstacle to using the huge array of available apps, and it keeps them from working together. The Droid needs more business-capable apps in its repertoire, and it must fix some of the roughness in its UI for apps handling. Its awkward cut, copy, and paste capabilities could use some work too.

Deathmatch: Web and Internet The iPhone redefined the mobile Web experience, but the use of the Safari browser’s WebKit technology in competing smartphones such as the Palm Pre and the Motorola Droid has largely leveled that playing field. Both devices let you scroll through real Web pages and take advantage of technologies such as JavaScript and QuickTime. Neither support Flash videos outside their YouTube player apps.

But Apple’s Safari browser has a better UI. That means you can go forward without invoking a menu, as the Droid requires. You can also easily switch among Web pages without using several steps, as well as select text and graphics on Web pages for copy and paste, another multistep operation in Droid.

The Droid’s lack of multitouch capability really shows on the Web; maneuvering through Web pages is difficult, as you have to use zoom buttons, which means you scroll on your page, then jump to the bottom of the screen to click an onscreen zoom button, watch the page zoom and recenter, then scroll again. It’s just so much easier on an iPhone (or a Palm Pre).

The winner: The iPhone. Both the iPhone and Droid are real Web devices, giving you the true Web experience — minus Flash — but both navigating the Web and copying and pasting Web content are more difficult with the Droid.

Deathmatch: Location support Both the iPhone and the Droid support GPS location, and both can triangulate location based on Wi-Fi signals. Both devices also come with Google Maps, which can find your current destination, provide directions, and otherwise help you navigate. Both devices let developers integrate location information in their apps, so location is just another native feature.

Where the Droid has an edge is in its bundled turn-by-turn navigation app. It may be beta (like most Google software), but it works darn well. The map and directions update as you travel, and you can have the app speak directions to you. AT&T charges iPhone users $10 a month for a similar service; you can also buy an app such as Navigon’s $90 MobileNavigator or the $100 TomTom.

I like the Droid’s implementation of Google Maps better when it comes to following directions. The iPhone pages from one junction to the next, so I lose the context of where I am in relation to my whole trip. The Droid — like the Palm Pre — moves the map along the path, so you have a better handle of the next junction point.
The winner: The Droid. The built-in navigation app sets it apart in a big way.

Deathmatch: User interface Many users hate the touch keyboard pioneered in the iPhone, which is one reason the BlackBerry remains more popular. The Droid tries to let you have it both ways, with a slideout physical keyboard and an iPhone-like touch keyboard.

The Droid’s touch keyboard is very much like the iPhone’s. It lacks the multilingual support of the iPhone, but it lets you choose from suggested words as you type (the iPhone only lets you decide whether to accept its sole suggestion). Both are clear and easy to tap on, once you get the hang of touch-tapping. Call it a draw.
But the Droid’s keyboard is awful. The keys hardly move, and they’re flat and hard to distinguish from each other, so it’s difficult to carry off the two-thumb touch-typing that a BlackBerry Bold or Palm Pre user would expect. It’s hard to type accurately on it; I wish the Droid’s sugegsted-spelling feature worked when I as typing on the physical keyboard, not just when tapping on the touch keyboard. I can type quickly on the BlackBerry Bold’s keyboard, but I barely inched along on the Droid’s physical keyboard. And the rocker-style trackball that works with the physical keyboard is equally awkward. Basically, the Droid’s keyboard is a waste of hardware, and as you’ll likely not use it, it simply drags down the phone, adding unnecessary thickness and weight.

The iPhone’s screen is smaller than the Droid’s, but it’s sharper and consistently holds its brightness level. I like the idea of the Droid’s larger screen, but it tends to flicker if you leave its autobrightness setting on. Also, the Droid’s lack of gesture support, due to the absence of a multitouch screen, limits your ability to maneuver through apps and information.

Overall, the iPhone’s UI is cleaner and more intuitive, as examples throughout this review have noted.

The voice quality of the Droid’s phone is better than the iPhone’s — and in my home town of San Francisco, the reach of Verizon’s 3G network is much more extensive than that of notoriously stingy AT&T, so I expect speedy data access to be more available to Droid users. The two devices rapidly eat through battery life, each lasting less than a workday on a single charge if used for regular data access and a few phone calls. You can carry a spare battery for the Droid but not the iPhone, though most people will instead keep a USB cable handy to charge the devices from their computers (both use proprietary cables).

The winner: The iPhone. The Droid’s poor keyboard and lack of multitouch screen are inexcusable, and the fact that Motorola could think those were acceptable design choices reminds me why Motorola has been a nonentity in smartphones for the last decade. The fault is not just Motorola’s, though; Google’s OS also delivers an uneven UI. The Droid’s Android OS suffers from an ailment common to most OSes: lack of user-oriented elegance. The Android UI is not terrible, but it clearly has not received the care and attention it deserves. It doesn’t have to be this way; the HTC Droid Eris’ Sense UI extensions show that an Android device can compete with the iPhone in terms of UI quality.

Deathmatch: Security and management I was excited when I heard that the Droid would finally support Exchange servers. But as noted, it doesn’t support Exchange ActiveSync security policies, so the Droid removes itself as a smartphone option for many organizations. By contrast, the iPhone supports a decent set of ActiveSync policies and thus can meet the compliance requirements of many companies.

The Droid’s lack of concern over security extends beyond Exchange. It does not support on-device encryption, unlike the iPhone 3G S, and its palette of security features is quite limited: You can require a touch pattern as a sort of visual password to use the Droid upon startup or after a timeout (a nice feature), but there are no capabilities for, say, requiring complex passwords, disabling the device after several failed access attempts, or wiping the device remotely. The iPhone supports several such security methods, though you need to use the iPhone Configuration Utility to set up most of them, and you need either an Exchange connection or a MobileMe account to enable remote wiping.

The Droid supports two additional security features worth noting. One, you can set it so applications use security credentials, such as those supplied on an SD card. Two, you can set up VPN access using several VPN protocols. The iPhone also supports security credentials and VPNs, but because the iPhone does not support removable media, credentials must be installed via e-mail, URLs, or the iPhone Configuration Utility.

The Droid also falls short of the iPhone when it comes to manageability. The iPhone has limited management capabilities via the iPhone Configuration Utility — which doesn’t work over the air and can’t enforce deployment of policies — but that’s better than the utter lack of management capabilities of the Droid. (Note that an increasing number of mobile management providers are promising iPhone and Android support, but that means getting an additional server product.)

The winner: The iPhone. Although it doesn’t match the BlackBerry’s security and manageability, it is far ahead of the Droid. Small and medium-size business can consider the iPhone seriously; the Droid is essentially an option only for businesses that don’t have security or management practices in place.

Where the Droid wins The Droid beats the iPhone in only two areas: location support, thanks to its built-in turn-by-turn navigation app, and phone voice quality. It does have some small innovations that Apple and others might consider adopting. For example, its gesture pattern “password” is an interesting approach that could thwart some device thieves, and its large screen is a welcome bucking of the trend toward smaller displays that are harder for us middle-agers to read.

The Droid also supports multiple simultaneous apps, but it provides no real way to take advantage of that fact, other than the ability to switch among them. The Pre is a better model for taking advantage of multitasking than the Droid.

Where the iPhone wins There’s no question that the iPhone is a better device for both business and consumer users. Its business capabilities are stronger, and it’s a better fit for corporate security needs. Its wealth of apps is unmatched, its ability to take full advantage of the Web is much stronger, and it simply is much easier to use than the Droid.

The overall winner is … There’s no surprise here. The iPhone significantly outclasses the Droid. After all the hype about “the Droid does” and how it could match or even beat the iPhone, the Droid has turned out to be much more like the BlackBerry Storm, a device with interesting ideas hobbled by stupid design choices. There are too many competitors for a Storm wannabe to survive.

The Droid isn’t a serious contender. If you want an Android device, consider the HTC Droid Eris instead. Although not business-capable (it has the same limitations there as the Droid), it has a much more iPhone-like UI.

Verizon Wireless, the carrier for the device, had 200,000 Droid phones on hand, and most stores sold at least half of their stock, Mark McKechnie at Broadpoint AmTech Inc. said yesterday. Including other models, Motorola will sell 1 million phones based on Google Inc.’s Android software in the fourth quarter and 10 million in 2010, he said.

Motorola and Verizon are competing against a new version of Apple’s iPhone, offered in the U.S. through AT&T Inc. Apple sold more than 1 million of the latest model in its weekend debut in June. Motorola’s share of the global phone market dropped to an estimated 4.7 percent last quarter from about 5.5 percent in the second quarter, the company said last month.

“I see the first few days as encouraging,” McKechnie said. “There seems to be pretty good demand — they’ve taken the right steps and picked a good partner with Google on the Android side.”

Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, rose 6 cents to $9.04 at 9:54 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Before today, the stock had more than doubled this year.

The Droid, which uses Google’s Android operating system, went on sale Nov. 6 on Verizon’s Web site and in retail stores. It costs $199.99 with a two-year agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate. Apple’s basic iPhone costs $99 with AT&T, while its newer 3GS model costs $199.

‘Much Anticipated’

Verizon and Motorola ads demonstrate Droid features that aren’t available on the iPhone, including running more than one application at a time and allowing users to swap batteries on the go.

The debut of the Droid was “exciting given its much anticipated arrival,” said Motorola spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson, who declined to comment on sales numbers. Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Cupertino, California-based Apple, didn’t return an e-mail seeking comment.

The Droid’s release is a step in the right direction for Motorola, said Jim Suva, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in San Francisco.

“It wasn’t as good as the iPhone, but anybody that was expecting that had their expectations too high,” said Suva, who recommends buying Motorola shares. Traffic in Verizon stores through the first three days was “continually good,” he said.

Motorola may sell 1.3 million Android phones in the fourth quarter and 9 million next year, Suva said. Apple will sell 8 million iPhones this quarter and 28.5 million next year, he predicts.

Smartphone Demand

Shipments of so-called smart phones, which allow users to surf the Web and compose e-mail messages, climbed 4.2 percent to 43.3 million in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to market researcher IDC.

Still, as unemployment climbs to the highest level since 1983, carriers may have a tougher time persuading customers to sign up for the pricier data plans that come with smart phones, MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen said in an interview.

“I have this nagging suspicion that Android is being overestimated by technology enthusiasts,” said Kuittinen, who is based in Greenwich, Connecticut. He advises investors to sell Motorola shares, which he doesn’t own. “They haven’t really resonated with average consumers.”

Motorola Inc. (MOT) launched the Droid on Friday in an exclusive deal with Verizon Wireless, which is heavily promoting the device for the holiday shopping season. Although long lines did not form at Verizon stores, analysts say the Droid appeared to be selling well.

New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ), the No. 1 mobile operator in terms of customers, hopes the Droid will help it better compete with AT&T Inc. (T), which is the exclusive U.S. supplier of the iPhone. AT&T outgained Verizon by a net 800,000 customers in the third quarter, largely because of latest iPhone’s strong sales.

“Demand seems brisk,” Broadpoint AmTech analyst Mark McKechnie wrote of the Droid in a report Monday. “While we heard of no stores that were completely sold out, the majority reported that more than half of the initial stock was sold and some said they had just a few remaining.”

Verizon and Motorola released the Droid this week to take advantage of the fast-approaching holiday season, when wireless-phone sales traditionally peak.

Though some may compare the low turnout to the long lines that greeted the launch of the iPhone 3G last year, analysts say Motorola does not have to draw a crowd of that size to be successful.

“Although the press is stating the Droid launch was not as successful as the iPhone launch, we don’t believe investors expected an iPhone-like launch, but rather a first step in a cadence of products that will help bring Motorola’s handsets out of the death spiral experienced during the past three years,” wrote Jim Suva of Citigroup in a note to clients Monday.

The Droid also has the benefit of drawing the buzz of a new device. Apple Inc. (AAPL) updated its iPhone line over the summer, which is also when Palm Inc. (PALM) launched its much-anticipated Pre device.

Analyst Mark Sue of RBC Capital Markets forecasts Verizon Wireless could sell as many as 1 million units of the phone in the fourth quarter.

The Droid has a touch-screen similar to the iPhone, but it adds a slide-out keyboard and a higher quality camera. The device also has a fast processor and speedy access to the Internet via Verizon’s network. Other notable features include GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth and Google Inc.’s (GOOG) easy-to-use Android software.

“It sure looks like we’ve captured the marketplace’s imagination and the buzz is good,” said Verizon spokesman Tom Pica. Yet he emphasized that Verizon is releasing a slew of new phones, including the HTC Droid Eris and BlackBerry Storm 2, in time for the holidays.

“It’s more than just one phone,” he said.

Independent reviewers have mostly praised the Droid–with caveats. Avi Greengart of Current Analysis praised the quality of the hardware components used in the Droid and said the latest version of Google’s Android software is much improved.

Jane Zweig of The Shosteck Group said the Droid represents a welcome addition to Verizon’s lineup of phones.

“My biggest complaint is that it’s not as intuitive,” Zweig said. “It’s user friendly once you get the hang of it.”

The Droid will turn out to be a success, analysts say, if it keeps Verizon customers who want an iPhone-like device from defecting to AT&T. So far the vast majority of Verizon subscribers have remained loyal because its network is widely viewed as the best in the U.S.

Verizon customers will be disappointed, however, if they think the Droid can mimic the entire iPhone experience, analysts say.

“Is the Droid an iPhone equal? In my view, no,” Zweig said. “From a consumer standpoint it has a long way to go.”

-Jeffry Bartash; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com