As the market becomes larger and there are more phones available, it becomes harder to decide which phone to purchase. Recently, my friend Jeff asked me to look into which phone he should get. It is a tough decision that many people who walk into the Verizon store face.
The chart below is an internal Verizon document released by Droid Life prior to the release of the Droid 2.
Verizon Android Comparison Chart (click to enlarge)
By viewing the chart above, the first thing we see is that the LG Ally is completely under powered compared to the other Verizon phones. The LG Ally has become a free with contract phone, but if you plan to do more than make phone calls and text messages, I’d recommend against this phone.
The Motorola Droid was the first major Android smartphone out of the gate from Verizon and soon enough was trumped by the Droid Incredible. While the Incredible had a better processor and camera, almost everything else was comparable between the two phones. The Incredible had slightly more RAM but the Droid had the slide out keyboard. Unless you prefer the hard keyboard, the phone of choice would be the Incredible between these two, but neither really stand up to the newer “super phones.”
The Droid X was released earlier this summer, with the Droid 2 released on its heels. The Droid X has a larger 4.3″ screen, 8 megapixel camera, 720p video capture and an HDMI out port compared to the Droid 2’s 3.7″ screen, 5 megapixel camera and DVD quality video capture, sans HDMI port. To the Droid 2’s advantage, it has an improved hard keyboard over the Droid with raised keys that replaced the directional switch with arrow buttons and slightly more memory than the Droid X. Both phones do have portrait and landscape virtual keyboards with Swype preinstalled.
So throwing all these details brings us down to the big question: Which phone should you buy? To me, it comes down to three key features: phone size, screen size and keyboard. If you must have the slide-out keyboard, the Droid 2 is the phone for you. The Droid X is a larger phone with a larger screen, which does lead to a larger virtual keyboard, but also does not fit into a pocket as easily. Personally, the Droid X suits my needs if I were to upgrade now, but each person is different and needs to find the phone that fits their requirements and their needs, since it becomes a daily companion that will be carried day in and day out.
