DailyTech - Report: Motorola Sold 100K Droids During Its First Weekend

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Gadgets Report: Motorola Sold 100K Droids During Its First Weekend
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - November 10, 2009 1:17 PM

26 comment(s) - last by sigmatau.. on Nov 10 at 11:07 PM

Official numbers are not being offered by Verizon or Motorola

Android is coming on strong as the OS of choice for many device makers in the smartphone world. Many consumers are also flocking to carriers that offer Android devices. The Motorola Droid launched officially on Verizon recently and the first weekend sales estimates are in.

Bloomberg reports that Motorola moved about 100,000 Droid phones the first weekend it was available. Verizon Wireless reportedly had about 200,000 Droids on hand and stores sold about half their stock on opening weekend. Analysts predict that Motorola will sell a million phones that run Android, counting the Droid and others, in Q4 2009.

Predictions have Motorola selling about 10 million Android phones in 2010. The Droid is competing against the iPhone for market dominance and is hailed by many as one of the fittest challengers to the Apple device yet. Still, the launch of the Droid was nothing compared to the massive launch of the iPhone.

Analyst Jim Suva from Citigroup said, "It wasn’t as good as the iPhone, but anybody that was expecting that had their expectations too high." Suva recommends buying Motorola shares.

The Droid sells for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate making it more expensive than the 16GB iPhone 3GS which can be had for $199 with no rebate required. However, the iPhone is hamstrung by a notoriously shoddy AT&T 3G network that results in significant amounts of dropped calls and patchy 3G connectivity in even the largest cities.

Analyst Mark McKechnie said, "I see the first few days as encouraging. There seems to be pretty good demand -- they’ve taken the right steps and picked a good partner with Google on the Android side."

Not all analysts are convinced that the Droid or Android-powered devices in general will resonate with shoppers. Tero Kuittinen told Bloomberg, "I have this nagging suspicion that Android is being overestimated by technology enthusiasts." He is advising investors to sell Motorola shares.

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The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By Bateluer on 11/10/2009 3:10:37 PM , Rating: 2

I picked up mine last friday, launch day, to replace my LG Env2. Very happy with my purchase, though I have some minor complaints about the keyboard and the battery life. Battery life is crappy on all smart phones though.

RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By heulenwolf on 11/10/2009 4:40:57 PM , Rating: 2

I'd be happy to upgrade if the continuing fees weren't so high. $75 is the monthly fee (before taxes) for two Verizon phones on a 700-minute share plan with 250 SMSes/month on one of them. $75 is also the minimum plan fee for one Droid with no text plan: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10390059-1.htm...
Is a Droid (or any smartphone plan) really worth two monthly phone plans?

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By mcnabney on 11/10/2009 6:02:23 PM , Rating: 2

With a Droid you can safely kill the text and just use your email instead. With a 250 text package I imagine you will do just fine. Remember, Droid gets Gmail pushed for free!

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By Gio6518 on 11/10/2009 4:47:58 PM , Rating: 3

quote:
Battery life is crappy on all smart phones though.

blackberries seem to last forever i get 24 to 36hrs depending on usage and that also goes for the storm 2.

granted im a blackberry fan, i have to admit a friend of mine got the droid and it is a frakin cool phone, i like the google sky app too.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By BSMonitor on 11/10/2009 5:39:13 PM , Rating: 2

Ummm, the blackberry screen is the size of 2 postage stamps side-by-side...

iPhone and Droid have much large screens...

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By mcnabney on 11/10/2009 6:07:12 PM , Rating: 2

Droid has a slightly larger screen than iPhone.

Also has way more pixels -
Droid 480x854 = 409,920 pixels
iPhone 320x480 = 153,600 pixels

not even remotely close. And did I mention that the Droid's video camera shoots at 480p (16:9 DVD)

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By mcnabney on 11/10/2009 6:18:40 PM , Rating: 2

The difference is kind of like moving from a 15" 1024x768 monitor to a 17" 1920x1200 widescreen display. A completely different experience. You don't need to zoom much because you can actually read it.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By sigmatau on 11/10/2009 6:10:33 PM , Rating: 2

Blackberries like the ones with half a screen? Or the Blackberries with old slow hardware that can barely run anything?

I own one and hate it to death. I can't find any themes for it, the apps are horrible, and the games are a joke. The best I can do with it is use it as an mp3 player.

I mean really. Why do you think the battery lasts more than a day? The screen being so small and the processor being so weak doesn't give you a clue?

Don't compare a Blackberry to a real multimedia smart phone. Big difference.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By Gio6518 on 11/10/2009 6:23:34 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Don't compare a Blackberry to a real multimedia smart phone. Big difference

theres not a single thing that droid does that brackberry cant except maybe google sky, and 5mp camera. and it syncs with itunes and uses Video format support: MPEG4 H.263, MPEG4 Part 2 Simple Profile, H.264, WMV Audio format support: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, WMA ProPlus, so im confused by your lack of knowledge.

quote:
I own one and hate it to death. I can't find any themes for it

wow for a guy that posts on a tech site that cant easily create their own theme by using their own theme builder
(plazmic or the new Theme Studio v5.0) or even have the saavy to search for the 10's of thousands of free ones.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By sigmatau on 11/10/2009 6:42:23 PM , Rating: 2

LOL! See if you can find a theme for a 8350 or 8520. They are out there but they all suck. The ones with animations slow the phone down or bug out where you have to restart the phone which takes over 5 minutes to restart. I'm not going to spend a hours learning plazmic (which I did download btw) to make a theme. Most of the themes that I see people posting using plazmic are very simple, and this is after hours are spent figuring how to use the program. 10's of thousands of themes? LOL!!! You mean more like 10 different ones that don't simply have different icons/wallpapers? Most of the themes just replace the wallpapers which is completly useless. I can make a webpage faster than I can make a theme for those crappy phones.

Blackberries are the dumbest smart phones available. Very small screens, horrible web browser, not the best keyboards, horrible apps, the worst games ever, and crappy hardware. Why in the world does it take over 5m to restart the phone after a battery pull? I think most that like them are new to smart phones. I liked mine for no more than 2 months and then I saw how crappy they are compared to other full screen smart phones.

You mentioned all the video formats, but who cares on such a small screen?

I cannot wait to get rid of mine. And this is coming from a 4 year old motorola flip phone.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By Gio6518 on 11/10/2009 7:08:14 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
LOL! See if you can find a theme for a 8350 or 8520. They are out there but they all suck. The ones with animations slow the phone down or bug out where you have to restart the phone which takes over 5 minutes to restart. I'm not going to spend a hours learning plazmic (which I did download btw) to make a theme. Most of the themes that I see people posting using plazmic are very simple, and this is after hours are spent figuring how to use the program. 10's of thousands of themes? LOL!!! You mean more like 10 different ones that don't simply have different icons/wallpapers? Most of the themes just replace the wallpapers which is completly useless. I can make a webpage faster than I can make a theme for those crappy phones

wow thats a shame you lack the talent, your right if you can't do it so the phone sucks.

quote:
Blackberries are the dumbest smart phones available. Very small screens, horrible web browser, not the best keyboards, horrible apps, the worst games ever, and crappy hardware. Why in the world does it take over 5m to restart the phone after a battery pull? I think most that like them are new to smart phones. I liked mine for no more than 2 months and then I saw how crappy they are compared to other full screen smart phones.

HMMMMMMM thought the storms screen was bigger but may be wrong, and with OS 5.0 has all the same features and capabilities..i'll agree it does take a while to boot after a battery pull but never had a reason to turn it off, and if it is so dumb why is the iphone constantly being cracked and hacked, and you do have a choice of browsers I.E. opera

LOL Kind of funny your comments make me think of a MAC person going my OS X is much better than my 486dx running windows 95

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By sigmatau on 11/10/2009 7:58:55 PM , Rating: 1

Wow, so the only way to get a decent theme on a Blackberry is to download a somewhat complex piece of software and take several hours learning how to use it to create one? LOL! You are horrible at making an argument. Like I said, it is quicker to desing a webpage than make a theme for that crap. I can't believe anyone would defend a Blackberry compared to some of the new full screen smart phones that have been out for more than a couple of years.

The storm is ok, but again, the hardware is weak, the software is buggy. Motorola has done a much better job on their Druid vs the Storm.

Hey I own a Blackberry, so I can comment how I want. I think they are the dumbest smart phones available. Small screens/weak hardware equal better battery life. I guess you can't take it when someone shoots your argument down about great battery life on a Blackberry. Try that on a Storm btw.

Droid > Any Blackberry. Nice work Motorola!

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By Gio6518 on 11/10/2009 8:22:19 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Wow, so the only way to get a decent theme on a Blackberry is to download a somewhat complex piece of software and take several hours learning how to use it to create one?

my 13 year old can whip out incredible themes in 30 min or less, and with custom icon packs its not that hard. he's constantly getting requests and gets paid for them, just because you dont have the skills to do so doesnt mean it's difficult for others.

quote:
I guess you can't take it when someone shoots your argument down

sure i can you just havent done so yet, your arguments lack any merit or validation, just your personal viewpoint.

droid is the first phone to use android 2.0 which is step by step comperable to blackberry os 5.0, guess your just not up to par on your tech.

games though i like to play real games not crappy phone games well their coming to blackberry too

http://crackberry.com/clarification-blackberry-sto...

though your bringing a smile to my face and a hearty much needed laugh your ignorance is starting to get boring, but rest assured i will look for other comments you make whenever i need a good laugh.............

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By sigmatau on 11/10/2009 8:57:05 PM , Rating: 2

Wow you are really bad at making an argument. Not only did you ignore 90% of what I said, you are still making a sad argument.

I can take several hours to learn plazmic and then it would probably take me 30m to make a theme too. Most people that I saw posting make very simple ones. I was looking for a very different one compared to only different icons/wallpapers. I'm sure your 13 year old relative has way more time to spend on that than I do. Again, I can make a webpage faster than a theme which I think is stupid. Anyways, if that's the only way to get a decent theme, pass.

So, back to your initial point about battery life that I shot down... still no comment? Half a screen/old hardware does make for good battery life, no?

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By Alexstarfire on 11/10/2009 10:42:48 PM , Rating: 2

We get it, you care about looks more than anything else.

Also, while I haven't used the programs mentioned I can only assume that you are basically building a theme from scratch. You say it would take a long time to learn how to do that, but they you talk about how easy it is to make a web page. Have you ever made a web page from scratch, like HTML, Java(Script), etc. I'm quite sure it takes a lot longer to learn how to do that, unless you want a basic webpage with minimal features, than it does to learn that program. I'm not saying that you should be forced to learn it, but a theme really isn't a big deal to most people, save yourself apparently. I'm just saying that you need to make a fair comparison.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By sigmatau on 11/10/2009 11:07:08 PM , Rating: 2

The theme has much to do with functionality. If you can't customize the home screen of your phone with the icons/widgets you want, how many of them that you want, and make your theme to do that without using a complex program that has a 200+ page manual, then that phone is not that smart at all. That was just one point, but someone said to use a program called plazmic which was really dumb. This program not only doesn't have a simple way to do this, you actualy have to take hours to learn the program if you want to do something other than change the icons/wallpaper.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By sigmatau on 11/10/2009 9:00:37 PM , Rating: 2

Oh and I'm not sure if you missed it, but the Storm gets horrible battery life too. You know, the one with a real screen?

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By Drag0nFire on 11/10/2009 5:34:01 PM , Rating: 2

I'm thinking of getting the Droid, so I have to ask:

How bad is the battery life?

I'm assuming big screen + small battery = 1 day or so?

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By anotherdude on 11/10/2009 6:12:19 PM , Rating: 2

So far the one day sounds about right IF you are not doing a lot of heavy 3g or WiFi activities, in which case my early experience would indicate you'll get probably 5 -7 hours or so. I went down to 60% after about 2 1/2 hours of streaming Pandora to my bluetooth headphones. I really don't expect any standard battery to do a lot better than that though. I'll do what I did with my Winmo phone; carry a spare battery. Thanks for making that possible Moto! The lack of that and the crapiness of ATT are main reasons I held off getting an iPhone and now I'm so gald I waited.

All over town even in the basement of a hospitol I was getting between 1 and 2k per second. The 3g speed and coverage is awesome.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By anotherdude on 11/10/2009 6:16:22 PM , Rating: 2

uh, the above should read 'between 1 and 2 M per second'.

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By anotherdude on 11/10/2009 6:17:15 PM , Rating: 1

m he he

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RE: The Moto Droid is an awesome phone

By mcnabney on 11/10/2009 6:12:41 PM , Rating: 2

Independent web sites have torture tested it and will drain a battery in 7 hours. But that is running the CPU at 100%, all radios active (Wifi, Bluetooth, EVDO, CDMA), GPS on, and screen at full brightness.
I have been putting mine in the craddle (a must have!) every night and I have not been down more than 2 bars. That is with lots of online use and maybe 45 minutes of talk time per day, Bluetooth on, GPS on, WiFi generally off, and the screen at a fairly bright setting. Car mount seems pretty cool. If I give my Garmin to my dad I will have to pick one up.

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