This is the DROID I’m looking for

*sigh* I was just browsing the Android market. I am so over Blackberry. Storm 2 = dead. I was browsing the "top free" category and literally every single page had an app I've just gotta have.

Just to be fair, I also browsed the “free” section of the BB appworld. Not impressed. About half the apps are trial versions of apps that are, at best, neat-o. The rest are nothing that interests me.

I'm going DROID. Here's the deal. The Storm had such competition from the beginning. If Apple releases an iThing, people buy it. It doesn't matter if it's junk. RIM and Verizon were not pro-active enough in their advertising of an inarguably superior device, and it has cost them the market (from RIM’s point of view, it doesn’t matter much, because they’re not in the yuppy toy business. They’re in the business tool business). Everything the iPhone thinks it can do, the Storm can do, but do right. But public opinion is "the iPhone is a device for the modern on-the-goer" and "the Storm is a touchscreen blackberry." Most people who need a blackberry don't need a Storm, and think it’s a toy. Most people who would love the Storm don't need a blackberry. So they get an iPhone.

Here comes the Motorola DROID. Android is an already-established (albeit youthful) OS. It's SDK is open, so there's an app for everything. Now they're releasing a product specifically tailored, not to compete with the iPhone, but to bury it. RIM never had such a goal. They didn’t even really want to compete.

After owning a Storm for six months, playing with an iPhone for five minutes, and never having seen a DROID or Storm 2, I will say without any doubt that DROID is the best of the four. Assuming it works. If it breaks easily or has sub-par hardware, then obviously I shall eat my words.

[rant]If the camera is as worthless as the one on every smartphone I’ve ever handled, I will line up forty-two orphan babies and punt every single one. Perhaps into one another. The details are unimportant at this point. This is both a threat and an illustration of how angry I will be. My RAZR V3 had an awesome camera. If Motorola can do it on a crappy little throwaway, they better be able to do it on Dr. Theopolis.[/rant]

And I must recant my opine that “apps” is not a valid category for comparison. While they do both have open SDK, Blackberry is an old news business tool. Yeah, they've got some wicked tech, but if RIM wants the Storm 2 to compete with other devices, they need to either make it Android-capable or re-brand it. And if they re-brand it, it will be a year before it will be a serious competitor.

DROID, on the other hand, is just kilt-wearin’ ball-swingin' cool breeze. Android = Luke Skywalker to Apple's Death Star. Motorola = just a phone-maker, no boon or stigma attached. Flip-out keyboard = tactile feedback, as well as fullscreen view while typing.

So, taken as devices alone, it's a close race. If we were talking about two Android devices, this would be a much tougher call. But I think Android beats Blackberry without even breaking a sweat. I will be sad not to have a piezo-electric touchscreen, but I will be happy to beta test augmented reality apps and finally be able to run flashplayer on my mobile device.

Also, I just noticed that Android has an NDK. I don’t know what that stands for, but I read the blurb on the website and all I can say is “giggity! Aaaaaaaaaaall-right.”