Verizon Droid by Motorola

We've talked about Android 2.0 and (virtually) walked through
the new Google Maps. Now, it's for real, and it's here.
Motorola's Droid has landed at PopSci HQ, and it's making
good on its promises.

Though it's touted as the thinnest landscape slider cell
phone (a little more than a half-inch), don't be fooled into
thinking the Droid is light; at nearly 6 ounces it outweighs
most BlackBerries and the iPhone -- but at least it feels
sturdy. Its 3.7-inch display is responsive and beautifully
high-res (480-by-854 pixels), and there's nice haptic
feedback when you press, well, anything (I'm already finding
myself defaulting to the virtual keyboard in landscape mode
over sliding out the physical QWERTY).

So...this whole Android 2.0 thing: it's got some nifty tricks
up its sleeve. The universal search pings everything on the
handset and the Web from anywhere you navigate; if, for
example, I'm listening to The Roots, I can search from their
artist page in the media player and get hit back with
everything local, plus extra goodies like YouTube videos
(which render quickly and smoothly, by the way). As for the
contacts integration, pulling all the myriad ways you have to
ping one person (text, Facebook, e-mail, or gasp phone call)
into one spot saves the trouble of clicking back and forth
between apps and windows.

Speaking of windows, if a new e-mail or text message pops up,
you don't have to abandon your current task (be it Web
browsing or YouTube watching); you can pull up the Droid's
Notification menu, see what's up, and hop back where you
started. The Web browser is similarly smart, keeping tabs on
multiple windows at a time and creating a thumbnail view of
your bookmarks.

And, as we said earlier today, Google Navigation Maps ain't
foolin' around. Though it couldn't do much to follow me
around the corridors at PopSci, I was able to track the route
to the beloved burgers of Shake Shack with turn-by-turn with
street view, satellite view, and a traffic layer on top. I
also to added a layer for gas stations along the route in two
clicks. Oh, and I entered the destination by voice.

The Motorola Droid will be available to Verizon customers on
Friday, November 6 for $200 with a two-year contract.