Your Motorola Droid questions, answered

I asked in yesterday's hands-on post if you had any Droid questions I hadn't addressed, and you hit me with some good ones. Read on for the answers.

Note: Click here for details on Verizon Wireless's Motorola Droid announcement from yesterday, including info on specs, pricing, and release date; then click here for my initial hands-on impressions of the Droid.

What about movies and music? What format does it play?

As far as music goes, you've got the Amazon MP3 app for purchasing and downloading tunes to the Droid via Wi-Fi or 3G (same goes for other Android handsets). What audio formats does the Droid support? Most of the usual suspects, inlcuding MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, OGG, and even MIDI. Sorry, Windows Media fans—no WMA support. As for movies and videos, neither the Droid nor Android phones in general have a video store yet, although there's always the YouTube app. And as I mentioned in my hands-on post, the Droid doesn't have access to Verizon Wireless' V Cast videos, although support is said to be coming in the near future.

What about Flash support?

The Droid doesn't do Flash—or not yet, anyway. The new version of Adobe's Flash Player—version 10.1, to be precise—is coming soon, and support for Android phones like the Droid is slated for 2010. That means that come next year, the Droid should be able to run Flash-powered apps and widgets, as well as display Flash content and videos embedded in Web pages.

What are the screen lock-out features? My HTC Touch Pro smart phone has the ability to lock the screen, but that is over-ridden each time you slide out your QWERTY keyboard. This causes infamous "butt-calls" to be made, as well as wasting away my battery life from apps opening up as I'm moving around with the phone in my pocket.

Good news: Once you lock the Droid's screen (by pressing the power button on the top left of the phone), the Droid stays locked even when you slide open the keypad; unlocking the display is a simple matter of swiping a green "lock" icon on the screen from left to right. Feeling paranoid? You can also enable a feature that requires users to connect nine on-screen dots in the correct pattern.

Is there a physical switch for setting the Droid to vibrate mode?*

No, unfortunately. Instead, you have two options: either press and hold the power button and tap "Silent Mode" on the screen, or swipe the gray speaker icon on the locked Droid display (it sits to the right of the "lock" icon) from right to left. Not a terrible solution, just not that convenient if you want to unobtrusively switch the Droid to "silent" mode while it's still in your pocket.

Can the Droid view Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files?

Yep, you can preview all those file formats directly from within an e-mail message. There are also third-party apps that let you edit Office document; my favorite happens to be DataViz's Documents to Go 2.0 ($30 for the full version, available from the Android Marketplace).

What about cut and paste?

No problem; just tap "Select Text" from the browser menu, then swipe your finger across the text you want copied to the clipboard; then, when you're ready to paste, tap and hold until the "Edit text" menu pops up.

Can you pinch and "zoom" with two fingers on the browser?*

Nope; Android still doesn't support "multi-touch" gestures, sadly. Instead, you double-tap to zoom in or out of a Web page, or you can tap and hold until a pair of "plus" and "minus" magnifying glass icons pop up in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Again, it's not a huge deal, but pinching and zooming is more fun.

Does the Droid log text messages in conversation format like the iPhone? Or does it do the standard Verizon thing?

I take it you mean "threaded" messaging, in which text message conversations between yourself and another contact appear threaded together, like in an IM window. The short answer? Yes. The long answer? Yes., although you can't forward or delete specific SMSs within a thread as you can with ... that other phone. (Actually, as a reader noted below, you can delete or forward individual text messages within a thread; just tap and hold. My mistake.)

How about picture messages?*

Can do, both pictures and video.

Do you need a data plan with this phone?

You sure do, and it'll run you about $30 a month on top of your Verizon voice plan. Just so you know, $30 is pretty much the going rate for 3G smartphone data plans, the iPhone included.

I've never had a phone without a dedicated hard key to send and end calls. How is the functionality onscreen with send and end?

Pretty good for a touchscreen phone. When a call comes in, the Droid's screen snaps on with caller ID info, a contact picture (if you have one in your address book), and a pair of touch icons on either side of the display: a green "answer" button" on the left, or "ignore" on the right. To answer, you touch the "answer" button and swipe it to the right; to ignore, tap and hold "ignore" and swipe to the left. When you're in a call, there's a prominent "End" button in the center of the screen.

So how much will this thing cost ... WITHOUT a contract ... just straight retail. I'm hoping in the $480 range.

Verizon hasn't released a no-contract price for the Droid yet, but since it does offer no-contract prices for all its phones, we should know soon. The no-contract price tags for three of Verizon's $200 with-contract smartphones—the HTC Touch Diamond, the HTC Touch Pro2, and the HTC Imagio—range from $470 to $580, so the no-contract Droid will likely be in that ballpark.

I read in a report that the Droid came w/a 16GB [microSD] memory card. True, or is that something you will have to purchase after the fact?

True—the 16GB microSD memory expansion card comes with the phone. FYI, the Droid supports microSD cards up to 32GB.

I would like to know if the Droid's Wi-Fi features will allow Wi-Fi calls.

They do, in theory ... but for whatever reason, there's still no true VoIP (voice-over-Wi-Fi) app on the Android Marketplace. Yes, there's Skype Lite for Android, but doesn't use Wi-Fi; instead, the app makes Skype calls by dialing a local phone number. More details here.

How do i get my Facebook and Twitter updates on the Droid's home screen?

Easy, actually. While the Droid isn't a MotoBlur phone like the Motorola Cliq (which receives a steady stream of social-networking updates via built-in MotoBlur widgets on the home page), you can still download and install live Facebook and Twitter-compatible widgets for the Droid (or any other Android phone, for that matter). I installed the official Facebook widget and an app called Twidgit Lite, which both let you see and reply to recent status updates.

Does the Droid really say "Droid!" in a strange, Cylon-like voice whenever it receives an e-mail or text message?*

It sure does, and it's pretty weird. Don't worry though, you can always change the "message received" alert sound in the Droid's settings menu.

*OK, so I cheated and added a few of my own questions. Don't hate me.

Got more questions? Fire away.