Motorola DROID closes in on its one-million-sold target?
It comes as no surprise to us that the Motorola DROID has been seeing some really successful sales numbers since its release. As a matter of fact, it is getting mighty close to its target of finding one million hands by the end of the fourth quarter. Actual sales figures are reported to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 700,000 to 800,000 devices sold, which is nearing Verizon and Motorola’s goal and already well over analyst predictions. If Verizon sees a big holiday push, that number can easily crawl over the one million mark. It doesn’t hurt to have a $100 million ad campaign — it’s definitely paying off, but what we want to know is how many of you contributed to those sales numbers and if you’re happy with your decision so far. Share your experience in the comments!
i’ve owned the iphone, g1, the palm pre and the DROID.. and i must say the droid is the best phone i’ve used thus far!
I had been a very unhappy iPOS user from August 2008 – September 2009, having swapped out the 3G model five times because of poor battery life (they each worked fine for about two months then it fell flat in just a couple hours of use, even though the usage model never really changed), ever slower responsiveness and more dropped calls than I’ve ever experienced with any phone or carrier. I had more dropped calls in the first two days of owning the thing than I probably had in the previous two years with a Treo on T-Mobile’s network. The answers from AT&T & Apple were far from satisfying; ‘We’re still building out our network and you can expect to get dropped calls while that happens?’. ‘Hmmm, how long should I wait, until my contract expires and go somewhere else?’. Another good one was ‘just turn off 3G while we’re building out our network.’ And someone is going to call me and tell me when it’s ’safe’ to turn 3G back on? How many millions in advertising were spent to lure suckers like me into it? Does Apple have any sense for the business customer that actually wants a reliable phone (as I’ve seen some others point out)? It doesn’t seem to, it seems much more content to talk about how great it is to play MP3’s, watch video’s and download some of the ‘100,000+ applications’ that are worthless (how many fart applications does one need?) than it is to talk about it being a reliable phone and business communication tool with calendaring and contacts. In a way I’m happy my iPOS was stolen off me a couple months ago but sad I didn’t have it to sell and have the money to pay off the termination liability to AT&T when I switches to Verizon for the Motorola Droid.
Droid Does? It ‘Does’ most everything for me. Sure, it would be nice to have simultaneous voice and data like I have on the iPOS, but I’m much happier that I’m always in network coverage and have never dropped a call in the 3+ weeks I’ve had it than the number of dropped calls I would have had on the iPOS. The battery life has been good on the Droid. Sure, it’s flat by or before the end of the day but on some of my iPOS’s I had they were draining faster than they were charging (and yes, I did ‘reset to factory defaults’ and reconfigure several times over to remove the problems that just seemed to crop up on the thing). I like the fact that the Android OS will allow me to move to another piece of handset hardware in the future and not have to start all over in setup of it, just point it to my Google contacts. Verizon clearly has a much better understanding of the business consumer. I liked (not) the fact that the iPOS was the only phone AT&T wouldn’t let you buy insurance on. Isn’t that nice of Apple that they then get to sell another phone at the full price! It also never sat well with me that the idiots at the ‘Genius Bar’ would ask you ‘how often do you turn off your phone?’, meaning ‘our OS is nice and buggy with lots of memory leaks that need to be drained by a reboot even though we tell the world how wonderful it is’. The Droid has seemed to have slowed a little over the days between complete battery discharge / recharge cycles, but nowhere near the rate of the iPOS.
All in all, I like the Droid, and for a first release (OK, it’s V2.0 overall) on the Motorola hardware, it’s a long ways ahead of the stability of the iPOS at the year and a half point on the market it was when I was hoodwinked into buying into it.
Dave
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I sold both my IPhone 3G’s (8G) for a total of $640 on ebay. I bought the droids and covered the ATT cancellation fee. Nothing really out of pocket.
Somebody has a little envy they need to get rid of. Dont be mad at someone else because u are less fortunate. U came to this board just to hate on the droid so what does that make u? DROID DOES HATERS!!!
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Sorry if you think I’m, indeed, envious, when, in fact, I am not. Not really. Am I “less fortunate” because of the fact that I cannot afford to “brick” a perfectly good phone just because I *allegedly* hate it — even if it will cost me dearly to do so?
I was simply suggesting that the Droid fanboy/girl I was referencing was being slightly disingenuous about *actually* ditching their iPhone for a Droid. That’s all.
And, if I am right, then I’d be the first to pay a reasonable price for it — if only it were a CDMA phone I could use with my provider (VZW).
And, even if I *did* come to “this board just to hate ” (as *you* say, but I did not; I came to this board looking for hard news regarding the release of a new phone that was touted by some as being a potential iPhone-Killa), and I said, “OK,” then the next question would be, why did *you* come here?
Again, I came to this site because I “Googled” for cold, hard, factual numbers [which have *yet* to be released by VZW/MOTO, btw] regarding the release of a phone highly anticipated at least a few people.
I found *no* news here. Just people whose *apparent* Apple-like devotion to the phone of *their* choice renders them fairly sensitive and uptight.
Why? I don’t know. I refuse to speculate, but I’m sorry if I rubbed anybody (overly-sensitive or not) the wrong way with my opinion. Truth is, there is a *lot* of opinion slinging going on around “this board.”
I can get that on Apple-centric sites, too. I just wanted news and was not impressed, that’s all. Sorry.
Dude, WAY to many **asterisks** . You are abusing your right to properly utilize the key which denotes a footing. Using it twenty times in under twenty *blog* lines is blatantly careless. Plus, I felt the need to post this reply simply because I think you sound like a pretentious retard..
I honestly think it’s too early to get real feedback about the Droid. The device as solid as it may be is still new, let people really get into it. Once you really do work on any phone you really get to know whether or not it’s a solid device. At first use your going to be in love with most devices of this caliber because they are new, and because you are still getting to know/understand them. Once it becomes your everyday device (and you get tired of using 3/4 of the dumb apps that you downloaded), you start to use it more practically. With any phone, yes there is a fun factor, but more than anything practicality is what is by far the most important. We aren’t quite at that stage yet with the Droid, I’m wanting to see what people think at the end of december and into janurary. Once they’ve really started to give the phone a work out.
Very happy with my Droid. I had an iPhone 3G, which I loved as well. They are both good, but in different ways.
On the iPhone, you essentially never get that sense of not knowing what to do next. But the trade is that they heavily limit what can be done.
The Droid is much more capable, and a better communicator/notifier. And I almost never have to connect it physically to my computer. It handles everything wirelessly. However, *in general* the UI isn’t as easy to use as the iPhone’s.
I would agree with you. Me and the wife are coming from 1st gen iphones. We both loved the iphone, but it was quickly becoming an ipod with a phone. I love that the Droid does all wireless with google and it is free when comparing it to mobileme with apple that is 100 bux, which is completely ridiculous. The build quality is also on par with the original iphone, very sleek and has a certain sustainable quality to it, where the newer iphones are plastic pieces of crap. In the end, the Droid does pull iphone users in with its menacing red eye.
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I ordered the droid at midnight on release day. Im am very happy with my purchase. The droid is much more capable than most ppl are capable of using it. Getting used to the UI took a day or so but once you get it its amazing. best cell phone yet
Writing this on my Droid. I absolutely love this phone! Granted I’m coming from using a standard LG flip phone, but I am constantly amazed by the capabilities of this device.
Hardware: Wish they did away with the D-pad and made the keyboard much larger. Other then that, its ace.
Software: Android is getting there. Its great, but still looking forward to getting the most obvious weaknesses fixed (mediaplayer etc).
Thinking about getting a Droid, want input.
Can some of the business pros/attorneys/whatever chime in on how it functions for your purposes?
I absolutely adore my droid. It is faster than any previous smartphone i’ve dealt with, the screen is gorgeous, the notification system is boss, and I have all the apps/widgets I need without paying extra.
i’ve got absolutely no complaints.
his report is very natural.. obviously, Droid OS’s is one of the fastest if not the fastest mobile OS available. This just prove that the Droid Launch last 2 week was really a success despite of the “slow-start” comment by tech-critiques
Collation of info about droid release last week: http://bit.ly/did-droid-conquered-USA-today
Hope Droid will serve as a hand of midas to Verizon Corp. Soweet
tnx diablo for the link
‘Newness’ is wearing off and flakiness of Outlook / Exchange losing its settings every couple of days and having to reenter the setup information is wearing on me. You’re a ’second class citizen’ when it comes to swap out your phone for a replacement if you bought it at a retailer (like I did) vs from Verizon directly so you can only have one sent to you as an advanced exchange. This is still a far better situation than the iPhone model where you only have maybe one store per city to have it exchanged and there’s no advanced exchange without being charged for the replacement and credited back when done.
‘The Network’ is great, WAY better than the crap network of AT&T. I’ve only had one dropped calls in the four weeks I’ve had the Droid where I would have had tens of dropped calls on AT&T in the same period of time.
There seems to be memory leaks in either the core OS or some of the apps (I’m not really using anything outside the bundled apps) as it starts acting more sluggishly over the days between running the battery flat to condition it and gets snappier after the reboot. That’s no worse than the iPOS, which seemed to be swiss cheese for memory leaks.
I have both a Bold and an iPhone on AT&T and service wise I have never had issues with dropped calls on my Bold, ergo it is an issue with the iPhone and Apple. Don’t blame a network for issues that are device based. I look forward to getting my hands on an Android based phone next year with AT&T. Still haven’t played with a droid, but the concept is cool, however I think it looks very clunky, like the sounds of the Eris, HTC definitely makes better phones than Motorola
Thanks for the excellent article and some nice comments from others. It has really helped me get some additional perspective on which phone to get. I am upgrading from a normal phone so have no direct experience with a smartphone thought I’ve played quite a bit with the iPhone.
My concerns are that the iPhone is not enough of a phone … that’s the main reason I’m buying a phone after all!! Currently, here’s my list of choices in descending order:
1. BlackBerry 9700
2. iPhone 3GS
3. Droid [only because I have too many contacts on ATT ... switching networks may not be economical in the long/2yr run; otherwise Droid would be #1]
I find it a bit mind-boggling that it takes a $100 million ad campaign to sell 1 million phones. That’s a frickin’ $100 per phone just in advertising! I know they’ll make it back with their expensive contracts, but still– that’s a lot of money to get people to buy a product that many of us would have bought anyways. (Yes, I haven’t bought it yet– just waiting for my contract to expire in January.)
The droid is OK. Battery life is less than stellar, I’ve had to pull the battery in order to reboot the phone way too many times. It randomly shuts off and restarts itself.
Not all that impressive in my experience.
If you are within your 30 days you should exchange it. I have not had to do a single battery pull on mine. And it has never randomly shut off.
This is the very good post I must say. Motorola DROID is a classic phone with superb functionality . I am very much impress by it.
I played with a friend’s Droid today. It was fast and responsive and had great features but, it is ugly. Don’t like the physical keyboard. Seems dated to me.
The iPhone is sleek and beautiful. The Nexus One looks great, except for that quirky trackball. Makes no sense to me. Lack of multi-touch is a big deal for me. My iPhone is jailbroken so I have always had multitasking, cut-n-paste, tethering, and video, among all the other extra functions Apple originally left out. My battery life is good. I can go about 36+ hours with decent use before it goes flat. My wife has one also. I use it for everything from phone calls, texts, music, videos, movies, games, Internet, and have about 100 apps in regular use. My 3-yr-old knows how to navigate around to the games, pics, music, and videos he wants. AT&T is not the best, but I’ve never had issues with dropped calls or call quality. I love this thing. With that said, the Nexus One seems like a great phone and I am interested, but it would take a whole lot better offer to pry my hands from my iPhone.
Thats why they give you the 30 day trial. And by the way we appreciate your insightful comments!
Enjoy your iPhone on your amazing network…
thats a bunch of horseshit. I don’t like the Droid either
and the iphone still can’t make calls on a consistent basis
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Your Apple ass kisser .I bet you would blow Steve Jobs if he was right in front of you. Bloody homo
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so you call a phone “pretty much perfect” when one of the biggest issues is its lack of consistency when calling? i feel bad for you since you have the I.Q. of a Hook Worm. if the iPHONE sucks as a phone then its a glorified ipod touch that makes crappy calls. and the droid has a bigger more responsive screen, runs multiple apps, has free navigation, a physical keyboard… should i keep going? man you fanboy trolls never stop.
No, it doesn’t suck. Everywhere I go, I have WiFi. If I am in the Car, I use my MiFi. Know what else? I get 3G speeds almost everywhere I go, unlike AT&T who can’t. On AT&T you get spotty 3G coverage, and outside that spotty 3G coverage, you can’t do voice and data at teh same time. So guess what! You STILL Fail!
Know what else my Droid can do that your iPhone can’t? KEEP A DAMN CALL!
Have a nice day!
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so i guess thats the new complaint against the droid? im glad you can watch a commercial and repeat it like a parrot. and you actually cant talk on the phone and surf the web at the same time because you’re probably dropping the call 10 to 1.
No, it doesn’t suck at all.
What would suck is having to close my browser session to text, etc because my phone can’t multitask
honestly..this iphone vs droid has to stop….they are so completely different….those of us on vzw will jump on the iphone if apple moves to vzw….i doubt many att users are leaving for the droid…so to each is own…
I love me some Steve Jobs cock!