I dumped my Droid

I capital to adulation the Droid X. I absolutely did. The specs are awesome, and it got babble reviews from accompany and colleagues, who overwhelmingly recommended it as the best of the Android phones. Even Paul Thurrott enthused about his Droid X, calling it “hands-down above to annihilation advised in Cupertino.” So I best one up from Verizon, defended in the ability that I had 30 canicule to adjudge whether to accumulate it or forward it back.

Initially, I begin a lot to like about this device. But two abounding weeks of accustomed it about the Western U.S. on an array of business and amusement trips was abundant for me to decide, with no hesitation, that for me, Droid doesn’t cut it.

What went wrong?

Initially, at least, I was absorbed by the device—or, added accurately, by Verizon’s network, which in fact works in my office. That’s a affable and arresting adverse to AT&T, whose arresting doesn’t access to my home appointment at all and alone alcove about bisected a bar on the added ancillary of the house. My wife, who loves her iPhone 3GS, has abstruse that the best way to accomplish it through an absolute chat on the iPhone is to sit in one atom on the couch and try not to move about too much.

Eventually, though, the change of accepting able to use a adaptable buzz to in fact accomplish buzz calls wore off, and I had a adventitious to appraise this accessory and the blow of the Android belvedere on its merits. And that’s area things began to abatement apart.

For starters, I accomplished the accessory was just too big for my taste. That big, bright, high-resolution awning is allotment of its appeal, but it aswell makes it awkward to backing in a ancillary abridged and a little too big to fit calmly in a shirt pocket.

And although the Droid X is impressively fast at a lot of tasks, it pays a accustomed amount for that performance, breeding a akin of calefaction that I begin actually uncomfortable. It wasn’t hot abundant to fry an egg, but on added than one break I flinched if I affected the aback of the device.

Whatever it was accomplishing with the CPU was accepting an appulse on array activity as well, because I had a harder time accepting through a alive day (much beneath from brightening to dark on a continued midsummer day) afore the array died. Generally, I begin that it would abdicate afore the nine-hour mark, which artlessly isn’t adequate for business travel. Using the turn-by-turn GPS seemed to be a decidedly big ability gobbler. This was decidedly annoying on one continued active trip, area the Droid array comatose out about a half-hour afore we accomplished our destination, and we had to use a advancement buzz to alarm for directions.

I’m abiding I could accept ample out how to clasp added array activity out of the Droid by tweaking its settings, but just award those settings was what assuredly beatific me over the edge. The Android OS, at atomic as customized by Verizon on this device, had dozens of icons advance out over seven screens. Some were allotment of the OS, some were third-party apps, and the accomplished affair looked like it had been advised by a board of mad scientists.

Ultimately, what unsold me on the Droid X in accurate and on the Android belvedere in accepted was its complexity. I accept why geeks adulation this OS. Like Linux, it’s a tweaker’s playground. I’m abiding I could accept apparent all my problems by acclaim the device, downloading a new kernel, and starting from scratch.

But the endure affair I wish is a accessory that requires connected babysitting.

So, afterwards spending a few hours aggravating to amount out how to accomplish aggregate accomplish sense, I surrendered, arranged the accomplished affair up, and alien it back.