What's There to Love?

So, I have written all about the bad and ugly of the Droid, but what about the good? Here are some of the biggest highlights for me! The first few are about the Google Integration as I use Google email, contacts and calendar for my personal and work life and keep it all pretty well separated. Android v2.0 lets me pull all the information from where I want, how I want.

Google Integration - Contacts
I keep separate Contact lists for work and personal accounts in GMail which has always been a pain. Now, I can sync the contacts from both accounts with my phone and it handles add/update/deletes for me without any trouble.

Google Integration - Calendar
I only use one account for my calendar, but with tons of sub calendars to organize things. Not only do they all get synced, but I can easily show/hide calendars to see only what is important (maybe an afternoon agenda without the Liverpool, Georgia Tech Football and Braves games).

Google Integration - Mail
Holy crap, the mail app is fantastic. You can see everything in conversation view, all of your labels, search, etc... Pretty much as close to everything you can do via the website. Amazing. Also, my biggest pet peeve on the BlackBerry was that if I read a message on my computer (which I do 99% of the time) it did not get marked as read on my device. All of that is seamless now (with Google accounts, not sure about the Exchange stuff).

The Browser
A great, great, great browser experience. The screen makes it visually amazing. The bookmarks are great (although you really need to be able to selectively sync them with XMarks or something like that). You can open multiple "windows" like tabs to easily swap back and forth (can you say between gamecast and fantasy stats?). Inputting info to a form is really slick and it remembers passwords for you. And finally, you can create shortcuts to bookmarks right on your home screen.

Home Screen Widgets
Somewhat limited right now, but very powerful and cool. Have your calendar, weather, scoreboard, FaceBook or whatever on your Home Screen for quick access. I only use the Music Player widget right now, but 3rd party apps can create these widgets, so there is definitely more awesome to come!

Market
The Market is awesome. Just as good as the Apple AppStore in my opinion. Application management is fast an easy too.

Gallery
This is where you see pictures and such. The setup is pretty great in that you can very, very easily "Share" a picture or whatever via gmail, FaceBook, Picasa, etc... Very nicely done (even though I cannot get Picasa to work right now).

FaceBook
It is a good version of the mobile app, but has its quirks. I don't really use it except to sync up profile pics with my address book. I have uploaded a picture to my Profile and that was easy and super fast. Overall, very good.

Contact Favorites
This was missing on the BlackBerry big time. Speed dial sucks, but clicking contacts to see your quick list with all of the info you need to call, email, text, etc... that is fantastic.

Maps
This probably goes without saying, but the maps are ridiculously good.

Notifications
This is just done so well. All of your apps seems to use this space at the top of the screen to show you when you have a new SMS, email, what music is playing, background apps are running, etc... Just pull the menu in this area down and you can see it all. Really well done.