Motorola Droid, Outlook Sync & Brief Review

Friday I got the, "let's get our net admin an hour before he leaves" approach. Seriously, don't you ever notice that? Usually problems will be minimal and easy throughout most of the day until about 1 hour before you leave, and usually the issue takes a little more than just an hour? Maybe it's just me, but at this time I wasn't too bothered by it considering I had the chance to play with the new Motorola Droid.

I had time to configure it and set it up, but quickly realized it wasn't without its flaws. Let is first though cover a few of the things I really found attractive.

First of all, it looks good. You cannot tell from the pictures though, but it has a nice finish, a very smooth screen a decent keypad and it is thin. The first thing I noticed, compared to the iPhone, (oh yes we are going to compare them) is that the screen is a bit taller. This is probably due to the fact that Google/Motorola saw the complete uselessness of Apple's big fat round button that does just about as much as the Any Key. The width of the screens are pretty much the same width, which is good because it keeps it small and comparable to the iPhone. However, even though it does have a taller screen than the iPhone, it is still the same size on the outer dimensions.

So does this mean that the Droid has no "home key"? Absolutely not! It in fact has FOUR different buttons on the face screen, FOUR buttons. A "Return," "Menu," "Home" (for you Apple fanboys), and a "Search" key. Sure an iPhone user could argue, "these aren't real buttons they aren't depressible in case the phone freezes up!" Oh but of course, as has been already noted in another post, this wouldn't be needed if there was a detachable battery--none of the hold-down-for-5-seconds-crap here. It comes with a battery that can be removed, like any real manly phone should have. What is more, the back slide-out cover is metal! Yes, metal, not some crappy plastic like the MotoQ had on the back, but a solid, sturdy metal cover. Underneath the battery hidden, is the microSD chip, this one came with a 16GB one (pre-installed) and expandable up to 32GB--but technically, infinite, as many as these mini cards you can fill up. One thing I forgot to mention with the face "buttons" were that they each make the phone give off a short, sharp-burst vibration, almost like a "shock" which at first I wondered: "wtf was that?" Until a few minutes later I realized it was the phone doing it. While this may be more of an "experience" feature, it was nice and satisfying to know when I hit the button I got a response from it. It's cool, if you get your hands on one, try it, it can become addicting, BZZ!

On the outside edges of the phone exists a USB port (not some proprietary connection), Volume Control, Quick Camera, and the usual Power/Lock button. Also included is a standard audio jack, (normal sized 3.5mm) unlike the MotoQ which had a smaller port--very annoying.

The camera comes with a Dual-LED flash lamp (can alternatively be used as a flashlight, no App needed for that) and a 5MP lens with auto-focus and 4x Zoom. See that Apple? All built-in, all standard. Additionally it also comes with built-in photo editing software, (also built-in is the bar-code reader). There are a ton of specs that are listed here, but I will not cover them all, for specs are specs, I am here to cover most on what I actually liked from the phone or didn't.



Another thing I did enjoy was the fact that they got rid of the big bulky bump on the right hand side of the phone that made the previous Google phone look ugly and almost made the keyboard useless. They also made it much slimmer and flat, again unlike the previous version that was thick and also had an angle (wtf?).

The speakers are nice and loud as well, which I appreciated even from the previous version, you can hear anything on it, again unlike the iPhone which in my opinion was only really loud with stock ringtones--everything else was meh.

There are plenty of things I really liked about the phone that could take me the rest of the day to cover but let me now discuss some of the things I found annoying.

The Droid's keyboard is a nicer feature now since it is even more slimmer, it can hide or slide out when you need it. However the buttons look a bit small and close together that it almost felt as if I had to be more careful on the keyboard than on the touch screen, imagine that. It also did not look as sturdy as the rest of the phone, it looked more plastic than plastic, but it worked fine.

I also didn't like the location of the microSD card, where on one hand it is nicely protected under the battery, swapping cards will take an extra couple of steps instead of just popping out the old and putting in the new. Small annoyance.

The screen wasn't as smudge proof as other phones I've used, it is very smudge prone--but maybe it was just my fingers? Either way, it is nothing a nice screen protection cover can't remedy, which also provide anti smudge protection.

However I think the biggest problem I had with Droid was the fact that it does not support (or come with any software to do so) Syncing with Outlook! Seriously? Why the heck not? Most PDAs and Smart phones have this as a standard. Granted, the Droid is new and has its own unique OS, so it cannot use ActiveSync but a solution should have been made available just for this. There are many Outlook users that don't use a Gmail account. The only way to sync your Outlook data is by having an Exchange server, 2003+. If you don't have Exchange your only option is to import all your contacts into Gmail and import all your calender events the same way. Interestingly there is an application that will sync your Outlook calender to Gmail Calender by Google, but not one for your contacts. It is free and it is here.

I came up with a theory though to why this is so at this time, Google wants all your base, I'm going with that. They probably want to encourage consumers to use Gmail if they aren't already, which will then encourage them to use Google Docs, calender, contacts etc nearly making a standard Microsoft Office install useless--cloud computing anyone? However this has a neat trick up its sleeve. Theoretically, Droid doesn't need to "sync."  Sure even Google calls it "syncing" and so do a bunch of other people, but if you look at it in practice, it isn't syncing in the sense that most people are used to with their Windows Mobile, Palms and iPhone solutions. What I mean is, Droid doesn't need to connect to your computer physically nor through a network to "sync." Let us say all  your data (contacts, events, email etc) is in Gmail, Droid simply pulls that data in real time (or damn near) and updates your phone seamlessly without ever having to hit "sync" or connect it to any computer. So in that sense, completely using Gmail for your basic Outlook needs is actually a much cooler solution; it's completely wireless, real time and accessible from any device that has access to the Internet! Alas though, people do use Outlook and my user here needs to use it--therefore having to manually update both Outlook and Gmail of contact changes is pretty freakin' stupid. Even if you're using the Google Calender sync which I mentioned earlier, it still leaves out the Contacts and other Notes that you may want synced. So if  you don't want to make around 40$ for a third party application, you are currently stuck import/exporting contacts between Outlook and Gmail if you need to update them. Fortunately, 40$ isn't a lot of money in my opinion and I am currently evaluating a solution for this problem, if it works out I'll purchase it for this particular user.

Basically all the program does (and by extension Droid too) is the data is "synced" between Outlook and Gmail through the Internet, but all that Droid is doing is actively pulling data from the Gmail account that is setup and configured on the phone already. On the surface it looks like magic, but underneath it is doing nothing more than pulling data. Simple yes, but I don't know anyone else doing this. If you really want it broken down, all the Droid is doing is in theory, accessing the Google website and viewing the data through your phone. That's why it's "real time" and "wireless" but it is all routed to the appropriate applications: contacts, gmail, docs, calender.

Here is the application for syncing both Contacts and Calender: Outlook to Gmail to Droid. CompanionLink

So far that is the only real downside to the Droid, anything else was implemented well, of course this is only a few days into its usage and I will definitely post any further annoyances regarding Google's new Droid.

UPDATE: I eventually configured it to work with out new Exchange Server. That works great. Management features are a little on the low side though.

Real Reasons the iPhone Sucks. . .

Just like my older posts, I often have access to many phones and I've often reviewed them on a personal level. Well the iPhone too I have evaluated. Mind you this pertains mainly to the iPhone 3G 8GB. I know the new 3Gs is out--which I think still sucks.

Reason # (Aside from the obvious: it is ridiculously priced, ATT restricted, it's from Apple etc.)

1) It has no keypad or not even a hidden one. Most people have realized that "touch screen" isn't that cool in the long run. It is cumbersome, smudges, needs protection, slower (the processing power to register every touch slows it down), feeling a keypad button is much more efficient, especially whilst driving or doing covert texts!

2) The 4 buttons are useless. They are nice looking (chrome) but they are pretty useless--except the power button. Okay maybe the "vibrate on/off" switch is handy, but it is not really a "feature," because you need that button to quickly put it on vibrate without having to screw with the Settings menu just to accomplish this simple task. The home key is also pretty useless, it would be nice if it could be used for more things than just taking you "Home." The poor attempt to making useful by allowing you to hit it twice to access a shortcut isn't enough. That little circle button would have been a lot nicer if it would work like the circular jogging wheel on iPods. At least then I could use it to navigate and slide through media.

3) The speakers aren't that great. In fact this one, only one of them is working which is even worse. What is even more worse (worstststs?), is that if I am listening to a song or watching a video through these speakers, my hand often covers the speakers and completely muffling the sound accidentally. It happens more often than not.

4) It has no detachable battery. Seriously, it looks nice that the back of the iPhone is "smooth" and "sleek" and all that jazz, but what does it matter when that "sleek" look has to be covered up with some ugly cases to protect this overly expensive piece of garbage? Without a detachable battery, you are pretty limited to the amount of time it takes for this power hungry bells and whistles phone to drain all your battery life. It doesn't take long, especially if you use "all the apps."

5) Fails for business applications. Seriously, the commercials emphasize that they "have an app for dat," as if it is a good thing. Have you opened up a brand new iPhone? Their commercials have to say they "have an app for dat." Why? Because it comes with nothing useful. Especially when you compare it to other business phones that come with a ton of apps already installed and ready to go for business. "Let's say, you have a few apps that were opened but your memory is all hogged up and you cannot clear the memory because the iPhone doesn't give you that ability, well there's an app for dat. "Free Memory."" Really, most Smart phones have a 'task manager' that takes care of this. This is just one example.

6) Poor password handling. Apparently the iPhone gets easily confused with some of the passwords I've tried to "save" in it. For example, I created a VPN profile to my network and to eliminate a step while testing, I entered and saved my password. Even though it was entered correctly and saved, it still asks me for the password. How do I know it cannot handle the password? Well because if I do the same with a much more simple password, like "password" or "iphone" it saves it and gives me no problems. Yes it will accept the password if I manually enter it every time I access resources that require credentials, but it just seems funny it won't save it--it becomes confused.

7) No directory access. Come on, really? If you wish to browse through your directory to perhaps, oh I don't know, delete some files? You can't. (Unless perhaps if you JailBreak it.) For example, say I have an mp3 and I notice the song isn't as great as I originally thought when I synced it with iTunes, oh but wait, I can't delete it, I have to wait until I get home and turn on my computer and plug my iPhone in and delete it through iTunes.

8) No command prompt. Do they have an app for dat? Not from what I saw. . .not even an 'emulated' one. Again you have to JailBreak it. Update: (Apparently there is now, it wasn't always free though.)

9) The limited camera. While I'll admit, it has a pretty decent camera that takes pretty good pictures for what it is, it has no flash! What if it's dark? Too bad. You cannot record video either. I don't care that the "new" iPhone 3GS does, it doesn't fix the problem that the other previous iPhones do not! How can you make a modern phone that cannot do this simple task? Even crappy phones have this ability. There exists no digital zoom. Yes there's an app for dat, that can haphhazardly do that but it is something the phone should be able to do on its own.

10) Most good apps aren't free. The commercials should go like this instead, "say you such and such, and you need an app that can do this and this, well you gotta pay for dat." It's great an all that there are tons of apps, but most of the free ones are pretty limited, or are free but chock full of ads. I have 3 good applications that I find very useful, I had to pay for each of them, some aren't only a few bucks either. This only adds to the TCO of this already limited phone. Might as well pay less and get a more scalable phone.

11) No additional storage. Sure you can get a nice chunk of storage built-in your iPhone, but what if you run out from the "ton of apps" and mp3s you can't immediately delete? At least other smart phones you can practically have infinite storage using multiple storage cards.

12) Safari stays open. You can have multiple open browser windows which you can conveniently "flick" through and even close them on the fly. This of course can help with memory consumption. It's always nice to see a friendly "X" button that lets you close programs. Unfortunately this is the only place I see them, too bad you cannot close other programs this way also. When you hit the Home button of course like all other programs it doesn't close Safari--except with a "hard close" by apparently holding the home button for 6 seconds. If you don't do this and don't take the time to close every single open browser window, you will have them running in the background for the next time you open up Safari.

13) No MMS (Multi-media-Message). Since the day iPhone came out even up to the slim 3G, MMS isn't available. Why the long wait? Every other crappy phone has the feature but not the ultimate iPhone? There isn't even an "app for dat!" There were many pseudo-MMS apps that weren't really MMS, but just easier ways of having to enter a user name and password on some stupid link hosted by ATT. Even now after the v3.0.1 update, that was supposed to give the feature for MMS still hasn't for most 3G users. Unless you upgrade to the new 3Gs, it isn't available to you "yet." As if it is some new technology to revolutionize phones. It isn't, the technology has been around for a long time now and the iPhone is barely catching up on its latest release. (UPDATE: Read about it here. We will see how this turns out though of course. [see below])

14) Cumbersome to make custom ring-tones. It is much easier on other phones, even non-Smartphones.

15) Non Customizable. There isn't much to say, you just can't customize your iPhone's look, unless you (yes you guessed it) JailBreak it.

16) Expensive insurance. Other phones--for example through Verizon, you can at least get your phone covered by Asurion which only costs an extra 4.99 a month. Even ATT offers insurance for their other phones for about the same price. Not the iPhone.

17) The Novelty wears out. Fast.

18) Recent update broke Exchange. Read about it here. "According to the Apple KB on this issue, the iPhone 3GS supports device encryption, while the earlier iPhone models do not, and their recommendation is to have the Exchange administrator change the mailbox security policy to stop requiring device encryption."


There are probably a ton of more things that could be pointed out about the iPhone, aside from common freeze ups due to application hogging resources and buggy applications but we'll leave them for another time. If there are any mistakes point them out. But I don't think there are, I have been using one for 4 months now. In my opinion, I would not included it as part of our company's business model. We need to use business tools not toys. The iPhone has excellent potential to be fun,  but in most cases, it seldom can really be called a 'business phone.' However on an individual basis, there may be exceptions.

Of course there are some nice features and applications that are worth mentioning, but the "bad" out weighs the good and--who cares? But I'll mention one.

The WinAdmin application is useful. It doesn't have many options, but for remote desktop use, it works great, sure there are applications like this one on other phones--I agree, I've used them. The thing that makes it different on the iPhone and the only reason I am not taking it apart to see its guts is the Pinch and Zoom features. When you remote via RDP to a remote machine you can navigate it very quickly and zooming helps see things you cannot normally see as easy on any other phone. Simply flicking the window very quickly takes you to the other side of the window and so forth. It's not like the MotoQ you use buttons to navigate, it's not like the AudioVox you use a stylus etc, it's like an iPhone, you use the dexterity of your hand. Other than that, save your money, it's basically a Mac with dialing capabilities. Sure it can be JailBroken but why go through the trouble? There really isn't any big "I gotta have this!" app out there that really impels me to JailBreak it other than a few tools and customization options that I can get on another phone without circumventing Apple's and ATT's ToS.