My Droid arrived on Monday. I had it sent to my office, but I was sick on Monday and Tuesday, so I didn’t get my hands on the device until Wednesday. Cracking open the Amazon box reviled the Droid packaging. Having been an Apple user (iPods mostly) I am used to elegant, well thought out packaging. Motorola did not put too much thought into the packaging. The box is thin and feels like cheap cardboard.

But I didn’t buy the phone for the packaging. The device itself is fantastic. It has a good weight in my hand. It’s a hair taller then the iPhone and the same width and height as the iPhone. Compared to my old phone (Sony Ericsson w350), the phone feels like a brick in my pocket. However, eliminating the iPod, phone, camera, and video camera from my bag is a huge benefit.

The screen on the Droid is bright, crisp and sharp. The audio on the phone is loud. The screen is responsive, but there is a learning curve coming from the iPod/iPhone interface. Software for the phone is fantastic. I have several gmail accounts. I put all of them into my phone and added my Facebook account. The phone pulled all my active contacts from all my gmail accounts and my Facebook account and created contacts for each person. I only had to move one or two phone numbers into the phone. That was a killer time saver and now I have all my contacts backed up in the Google cloud.

Having access to a slide out keyboard is awesome. Using the on-screen keyboard is fine, but I prefer to slide out the keyboard and type away. Also, the camera flash is a nice feature. I look forward to documenting this Christmas with just this one device.

I’ve spent that last two days just getting used to how the phone works and researching some apps. So far, this is one of the best smartphones I have played with. If you are in the market, and have never had a smartphone, I would suggest you start with the Droid or some other Android based phone (myTouch, Droid, etc.). If you have been using an iPhone for the past few years, you might want to stick with it.

I have yet to plug the phone into my computer and get some music on it. I will also be downloading some apps from the Android store. I’ll be posting my experiences with these in the coming days.