[gcianc]

interestingly i was in verizon yesterday with an older friend (a judge) who wants to go from palm pilot to smartphone as his contract is up. he wanted to see/touch a few devices (whch required stopping at ATT to see the TP2)... he'll go with the TP2 for it's full sized keyboard based on my recommendation. He has few other options as a touch-only device won't work for him nor would an ozone/blackberry small key device.

His first thought was Driod Eris. the guy is an anti-tekkie and he knew droid eris from somewhere. amazing marketing there!

So we were looking at them in the store and a 20-something girl was holding the new samsung wm65 phone overheard us talking. she didn't know much but had 2-3 days to return the droid eris and find another smartphone. She spent 20+ min with the samsung and was a bit lost. Obviously a real keyboard is not a feature in hot demand nowadays. In her words the htc eris "seemed unfinished" and had some text messaging issues. she said we seemed to know more about the phones then the verizon employees at the store. LOL. She didn't mind returning even though she bough a few APPS.

but it's interesting a casual - who droid appeals to - felt it was messy & lacking.

i told her to go look at the imagio & showed her mine briefly as it has a similar UI as the htc/droid but is more finished with better screen, etc. the imagio was on the other side of the store with only 1 device on display vs 2 of each droids on both sides of the store (major market, major store).

i have no doubt motorola & co has paid $$$ for prominent displays on android devices. that is simple business 101.

the droid devices however will sell to people just for it's turn-by-turn google maps feature imho ($9.99 charge from other carriers... with no easy for the masses "windows app" downloadable for turn-by-turn).