missed karting & got the Droid

I was excited for my first kart race since I broke my collar bone. It was a NASA enduro kart race at Summit Point. Unfortunately the cops and DMV had other ideas. I got pulled over on the way by a cop on the side of the road with a license plate scanner. She proceeded to inform me that according to the DMV my license has been suspended since February of 2008. This was interesting information being that the DMV issued me a license in February of 2009. The cop had to take my license anyway. She told me to go straight to the gas station at the next exit and park my car. I got off at the next exit, which happened to be Falls Church, and drove straight home. I’ll be calling the DMV on Monday.

Since I wasn’t racing karts I decided to look in to my next phone. I got the HTC Imagio when I came out on October 6th. It is a nice phone. As mentioned I have always liked my XV6800 I got almost 2 years ago. It was a slick piece of hardware for its time. My biggest complaint was it being thick and heavy with a full keyboard. The HTC Imagio is thin and light with a huge screen. It was even the first phone with Windows Mobile 6.5. The problem was that it had Windows Mobile 6.5. Microsoft hasn’t updated their phone operating system in many many years and in this technology world that means it is obsolete. I knew a Verizon Android phone was coming and I decided to get the HTC Imagio anyway with the ability to return it within 30 days. Sure enough the day after I get the Imagio it is leaked that Verizon will soon have a sweet new phone with Google’s Android operating system. So I sent my phone back on day 28. Their warehouse had received it but not processed it by Friday when the Verizon Droid went on sale.

I went to the crappy private Verizon store in my neighborhood to see if they could do anything for me. My info had not yet been updated which meant I couldn’t get the 2 yr contract upgrade deal. As luck would have it on the second call the Verizon people were able to find the warehouse supervisor and confirm everything was there. I was able to walk out with my Droid.

It’s a slick phone. It has a full keyboard but it is super slim. The best thing may be the email. Being a gmail user Google’s Android email interface is ideal. I don’t drive much but the free new Google Navigation capability is cool. The contacts and calendar apps are 100x better than Windows Mobile. And I can access Google’s chat client GTalk. The home screens can be customized with shortcuts and widgets. I still need to figure out how to import my bookmarks from Opera. It appears you get a lot of the missing functionality from their app store being that it is an open source operating system. So far I’m enjoying the phone with the largest resolution, fastest processor, thinnest keyboard, and most advanced version of Android. I assume things will only get better.