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A new contender has emerged in the smartphone wars: The Motorola Droid. Does it threaten the iPhone's supremacy?

The buzzword in the cell phone industry since 2007 has been “iPhone Killer.” Since mere days after the release of the iPhone the other players in the industry were talking about how they were going to compete with the amazing piece of technology. Many have been up to bat since then: LG Prada, T-Mobile G1, Palm Pre,  Nokia N90, the list seems to go on and on. The one thing they all have in common? They failed miserably at replicating the great experience that Apple offers with the iPhone. They just weren’t the same.

Enter the holy trifecta of Motorola, Google, and Verizon Wireless. Motorola is looking for a bump in business after they have failed to see success with any device since their RAZR, Google is looking for a way to push their Android OS to new levels of popularity, and Verizon Wireless is just looking to carry a smartphone that people actually want to buy. The three have teamed up to create the Droid, the kickoff phone for version 2.0 of Android as well as a new Verizon campaign to bring Android devices to the carrier. Is this the perfect storm needed to knock the iPhone off its pedestal? We’re going to compare the Droid and the iPhone in a category-by-category, side-by-side battle to the…death? Let’s begin after the jump.

Category 1: Hardware

The Droid hardware is the antithesis of the iPhone hardware. The iPhone is full of curves, soft lines and shine, while the Droid embraces a more utilitarian look. The edges are sharper and the phone is almost entirely black. The Droid feels heftier than any phone I’ve ever held, which is very reassuring. Holding phones that feel like they’re going to break in your hands is never a good thing. Both phones are very sexy pieces of hardware, and the only thing the Droid is lacking when compared to the iPhone is a hardware button. It’s nice to have that one button that will work whenever you want it to. The Droid’s hardware buttons are still touch based. Another plus for the Droid is the hardware keyboard, which slides out satisfyingly and provides a way to type is touch keyboards aren’t your thing. It gets the job done, but it’s definitely not the best phone keyboard around–the keys are all flat, so it’s sometimes hard to tell what you’re typing without looking. WINNER: Tie.

Category 2: Display

This is probably the easiest category. The iPhone 3GS sports a 480×320 display, pretty standard for phones these days. The Droid takes it a step further and ups the resolution to 854×480, and the difference is stunning. Text looks amazingly crisp, is less of a strain on the eyes, and colors pop like never before. Seeing an iPhone screen after getting used to the Droid was surprising: even though the iPhone’s is viewed as a pretty nice display for a phone, the Droid’s just blows it out of the water. Gadget blog Gizmodo even said that looking at the iPhone display after the Droid is like seeing Nintendo 64 games after getting used to the graphics on PS3 games. It’s that different. WINNER: Droid.

Category 3: Android 2.0 vs. iPhone OS

A screenshot of version 2.0 of Google's Android OS

Google has really raised the bar with Android 2.0. The OS has gotten more consumer friendly, easier to use, and sports better built-in apps. The built in apps for the Google services like GMail, Google Calendar and Maps are all perfect distillations of their larger-display counterparts, and the whole experience is easy to use. It’s nice being able to have apps easily accessible but not cluttering up the home screen (all apps are stored in a drawer that you flick up, you can drag the ones you want to your home screen), and official support of widgets on the home screen is also nice. The whole experience is full of little touches that make the experience better, such as automatic Facebook syncing of contact photos. I added a new contact and within a minute the phone had automatically downloaded his picture from Facebook and set it as his contact image. The real killer part of Android 2.0 is built in free Google Maps turn-by-turn navigation. It’s like having a free GPS unit built into your phone.

iPhone OS is also great. The media applications built in to iPhones and iPod Touches are much better than the ones built into Android, and that’s where iPhone OS really shines. It’s also easier to use for people who aren’t as adept with computer interfaces as your techie blogger here. Everything is easy to find, and generally things take less taps to do. Multi-touch support in Safari and in Maps is also helpful, but not necessary in any respect. The double-tap to zoom in Adroid works fine and is more accurate overall. The other thing that iPhone OS has going for it is interface consistency. Every app behaves nearly the same, and it’s not hard to use an app if you’ve used another one before. Android apps, both user and Google made, can sometimes have weird quirks in their interfaces and they’re not as consistent as iPhone apps. WINNER: Android 2.0 (by a hair).

Category 4: App Stores

The iPhone has an easier-to-use app store than the Droid.

Both iPhone OS and Android have places to download additional software for your device, dubbed the “App Store” on the iPhone and “Android Market” on the Droid. The one clear thing that the App Store has over the Market is volume of apps. There are over 100,000 apps on the App Store, and only around 10,000 on Android Market. But what does that mean, really? In my time using the Droid there has only been one time when I haven’t had “an app for that” and there was one on the iPhone app store. Android Market still has Twitter apps, Facebook apps, and games a plenty, and overall there are more free choices than on the iPhone. It’s also open, meaning that Google isn’t approving every app like Apple is doing. That means that there are apps springing up that duplicate the built-in features of the device and improve on them (Google Voice, alternative media players, etc.), something that’s nowhere to be found on the iPhone. Overall, however, the experience on the iPhone is better, with more quality apps and more competition to make those apps better. Android also lacks really in-depth games such as Rolando and Monkey Ball. The App Store should watch out though, because as more and more people buy Android devices it will draw more developers. WINNER: iPhone.

Category 5: Camera

Both phones have a camera capable of both stills and video. The iPhone 3GS boasts a 3 megapixel sensor and the Droid has 5 megapixels. The Droid’s camera, despite boasting a larger sensor, is definitely not as good. The iPhone’s camera produces more vibrant colors and has the ability to tap to focus on whatever part of the picture you want. The Droid’s camera only has autofocus. While the Droid’s pictures generally have more detail than the iPhone’s due to the larger sensor, that statistic is largely worthless when the pictures come out grainier and with less color than the iPhone’s. The Droid camera app is also sluggish and clumsy to use, so overall the iPhone offers the better experience here. Pictures talk louder than words in this respect, so if you’re interested check out Andy Ihnatko from the Chicago Sun-Time’s shot-for-shot comparison. WINNER: iPhone.

Category 6: It’s the network

The most important part of a cellular device is the network that it’s tied to. The Droid has Verizon and the iPhone has AT&T. Every day I hear iPhone users complaining about dropped calls, low bars, and slow surfing speeds. None of these problems exist on the Droid. Verizon’s 3G network blankets almost the entire country, and the Droid has full bars almost everywhere in Seattle. 3G surfing speeds are fast enough, and Verizon has offered plenty of support for new Android users. When I went in to buy the phone they had staff dedicated to answering people’s questions about the software, and I was even told about a class being offered to show new Android users the ropes. While Apple might have offered similar things at their retail outlets (which are few and far between), AT&T was doing nothing of the sort. Verizon’s network and customer service are just better than AT&T, hands down. WINNER: Verizon.

Let’s tally up the scores:
Hardware: Tie
Display: Droid
OS: Droid
App Store: iPhone
Camera: iPhone
Network: Droid

There you have it, folks. 3 points for the Droid and 2 for the iPhone make this a pretty tough call, especially considering that the OS experience is entirely subjective. Other, less tech-savy people may favor the iPhone OS. The real point of all of this comes down to one thing: finally, we have a smartphone that can hold its own in a head-to-head with the almighty iPhone. This reviewer thinks the experience is better overall, but your milage may vary. If you have Verizon, now there is no need to switch to AT&T in order to get a smartphone actually worth using. And with all of the devices running Android coming out and scheduled to come out, expect this battle to get a lot more heated in the coming months. This can only be good for consumers.

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