Droid vs. Droid Eris - Which and why?

My experience with the Droid

That is a good question. I am not sure I can be of much definitive help but I can share my experience with the Motorola Droid and why I am considering moving to the HTC Eris.

I got the Droid on launch day from Best Buy. Overall I think the phone is very solid and well built. The speakerphone volume is excellent and the speed/memory are very nice. I am coming from a G1 where memory was an issue ... not so with the Droid.

However I do find the Droid lacking in some areas. Android 2.0 (eclair) seems a little buggy to me. I have had frequent issues where phone calls do not go through some incoming calls are rejected. My wife also has a Droid and she has experienced the same things. I do have some complaints that others may consider "small" but for me, they are still issues.

1. LED notification - I cannot seem to define how I want to LED to function for notifications. For email the LED color is green. Also, I cannot get the LED to work for missed calls. I had to use a third party program called "missed call" and I am not sure how well it functions with Android v2.0.

2. Compatibility - So many of the programs I liked on my G1 do not work or are not stable on the Droid. I much preferred the "Touchdown" Exchange client over the built in Exchange support on the Droid. However, "Touchdown" seems to have some issues with Android 2.0. Other things I have noticed are that Google Voice sometimes works and sometimes it doesn't. No more "vibrate on connect" in Google Voice. I really miss this feature. I am wondering at the point if Android 2.0 just has a lot of compatibility issues.

3. No dedicated Phone buttons - May seem like a small thing but the other day I was on a call and went to hang up. I took the droid away from my face and the screen remained blank. I had no way to end the call. I much prefer a dedicated key to answering and ending a call.

4. No Bluetooth initiated voice dialing - I cannot for the life of me figure out why this was missed. My v710 from 5 years ago did this and just about every one since.

I myself would love to see a comparison of the two devices (Eris vs. Droid). Does the Eris have the same amount of memory as the Droid? With the 1.6 version of Android can one expect better compatibility with existing programs?

 

I'm guessing that with the popularity of the Droid, there'll be a push to make things compatible with 2.0 that aren't already. I've downloaded a bunch of apps from the market, and so far, I haven't had any major glitches that weren't part of the app itself (i.e. I avoid apps with a bunch of comments complaining about it being buggy).

I haven't had any call issues, though I route through Google Voice for the most part, and my usage is roughly 95% data/5% voice.