I’ve been following and coveting the Motorola Tao/Sholes/Droid since the first renders from Russia (spasiba tovarisch) popped up on Boy Genius Report this summer. It’s enormous “HD” screen, speedy processor, physical keyboard, Android OS and the fact that Motorola put most if not all of its eggs in this basket meant that this device was going to be something to reckon with. The release has been solid and the reviews have been pretty glowing.
Alright so what’s with the title of the post. Well there has been a shadow cast on the Droid since mid-October by the HTC Dragon/Passion. Some of the same temptations that first drew me to the Droid are now pulling me to the Passion, the screen is rumored to be anywhere from 3.7-4.3″ and then there is the Snapdragon processor helping things chug along at up to 1 GHz. Who knows what that will translate into as far as real world experience, but those specs are hard to ignore. I’ve used several HTC devices in the past and have always found them solid and reliable, whereas Motorola has been in a tight downward spiral since late 2006. HTC also has the much vaunted Sense UI, but in the end it’s just a skin which means less to me on an Android phone than it did when they were using TouchFlo to cover the hot mess that was Windows Mobile 6.0.
Honestly the most difficult part of all this is that as a Verizon user I have become far too accustomed to having absolutely no worthwhile device choices at all and suddenly here is this embarrassment of riches. So here I sit, waiting for the next flurry of insider information to drop about HTC’s little December surprise and hopefully something about it will inspire me to take action one way or the other. But then again by late December we’ll be closing on Q1 2010 which brings into play the Motorola Sholes Tablet.
Damn you Verizon! You’ve got HTC and Motorola lined up on either side of me like Scylla and Charybdis. Where the hell is Hera when I need her?
Any other current or potential Verizon customers suffering from visions of buyers remorse dancing in their heads?
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9 Responses to HTC Passion
Patrick November 16, 2009
I almost pulled the trigger on the Droid and decided to hold off for the Dragon/Passion. I’m also starting to see complaints trickle in on the Droid about speaker issues and dust under the screen. I’m usually and early adopter but I’m doing my best to be patient for once in my techie life.
smriles November 17, 2009
Patience (which i also never have) is definitely a virtue in these situations and even if I do eventually opt for the Droid I’m sure getting hardware from a second or third will be an improvement from these first run units, even if only an incremental one.
gia November 16, 2009
“So here I sit, waiting for the next flurry of insider information to drop about HTC’s little December surprise and hopefully something about it will inspire me to take action one way or the other.”
This perfectly describes my situation. Of course, I’m sure it’s not a huge problem for Verizon since most people aren’t aware of the Passion (which, I assume, is why we haven’t heard more about it), even most of the Droid reviews I’ve read don’t mention it– and many of the people who DO know are also obsessive early adopters
But I’m thoroughly holding out to see if the Passion to fix some of the issues that the Droid has, or at least to see if its different issues are preferable to me. (It doesn’t *look* like the Passion will have a hardware keyboard, and I’ve never gone without– but if everything else on it is really solid, I’ll probably make the leap.)
smriles November 17, 2009
Absolutely right, it’s not touching Verizon in the least, the less than half a percent that actually pay enough attention to even know of the existence of the Passion subtracting out the compulsive upgraders that have already thrown in with the Droid probably only leaves a few thousand customers that are in a holding pattern because of this. I’m sure we can look forward to finding out more about the Passion once we hit December 7-8 and the Droids’ are out of their 30 day return window.
I was a Storm user for about 8 months and I was surprised how quickly I adjusted to just having the screen keyboard and that was with the Storm which is notoriously difficult to use. About two months ago I sold the Storm and switched to a Blackberry 8830 that I picked up cheap as my placeholder until some of the Android releases and I would actually say that the trackball has been a bigger revelation to me than the keyboard. There are some circumstances where hardware navigation is just better than touch and I think the Passion should have an easy edge there with a trackball that is available at all times versus the Droid’s d-pad that is only usable after sliding the keyboard out.
ostrov December 3, 2009
Thank you,
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