Verizon Droid is Too Expensive to Be an iPhone Killer

I have been patiently waiting for Verizon to introduce the new droid so that I could finally decide on switching her to AT&T or extending her contract. I was hoping that the Verizon Droid would give her a handy tool that would allow us cross coverage between the two largest US cellular carriers. Let's begin our Verizon Droid Review.

Cost

The much anticipated Verizon Droid hit the markets as an anticipated iphone killer and somebody at Verizon thought it would be a good idea to make the Verizon Droid costs be much higher than the iphone. I would have thought that if Verizon wanted to be a serious contender that they would at least make the Droid as affordable as the iphone. Nope, they made it much more expensive. The Motorola Droid will cost users $199 with a 2 year contract. You can buy an iphone for $99. Verizon requires a $30 dollar per month data package with the Droid, as does AT&T. The big difference is that if the "unlimited" data plan from Verizon is capped at 5gb per month, while AT&T is truly unlimited. If you wish to use a Microsoft Exchange email client tack on an additional $15 dollars per month for your data package.

The Verizon Droid does offer something that the AT&T iphone has stayed away from and that is tethering. Soon you will be able to use your Droid and tether it to your home computer or laptop for connecting to the internet. Cost for the additional tethering service is another $30 per month. Sixty bucks per month for an unlimited 10GB data package is a bit ridiculous in my opinion, tack on the Microsoft Exchange client and you are staring at at $90 bucks. Ripoff.

Useability

The Motorola Android is surprisingly easy to use. The functions are quite similar to the iphone. Apple still has the market cornered on App availability but I do expect more to come in the future. I found the keyboard to be useful seeing as how my chubby fingers took a while to figure out the iphone touch screen. Open sourcing could be the one thing that pushes the Droid ahead of the iphone in the ease of use department, but for now we have to wait and see.

Call Reception and Clarity

The Verizon Droid has great call reception and mostly good clarity. I found that around my house the Droid received just as many bars of service as the iphone does. I do much prefer the clarity of the AT&T GSM service.

Final Analysis

The early returns are in on the Verizon Droid and in my honest opinion I feel that the only thing Verizon has done well with the Droid is it's marketing. All of it's features are at least consistent with the iphone but nothing stands out accept how much the thing costs. If the Verizon Droid is going to be successful Verizon must find a way to pry the iphone out of the hands of AT&T users. Verizon would do well to uncap the "unlimited" data package, lower the price of the Droid below that of the iphone, and allow tethering without the additional cost. If Verizon want's to do better with it's Verizon Droid Review then simply lowering the cost to be more affordable would be a good first step.