Miguel Lombana

I have been promising a review of the Motorola DROID, not that I really need to since the phone is just plain awesome and there are literally thousands of reviews online now from industry sources, but this one is my opinion not one done in a lab by a reviewer that most likely has had an iPhone stuck to his/her hip for the last year and is a little jaded (PCMAG and CNET).

We’ll start with the Un-boxing and first impressions.
The phone itself is heavy, after using my Motorola Q for the last 2 years with the extended battery, it pales in contrast to the Droid, we’re only talking ounces but it’s got some bulk none the less and is noticeable. Now the reality is that it only takes about 2 minutes to get used to it so this isn’t really a major issue. iPhone converts will have no issue with this as it’s been said to be only a fraction heavier than the iPhone and it’s mostly due to the slider keyboard.

About the slider, it’s awkward, since there is a navigation button on the right, it offsets the keys to the left, which means that unless the fingers on your right hand are longer than the fingers on your left, it’s an odd feel to use. I’ve never been much of a fan of the touch-typing screen but have suddenly grown to love it, especially since the Droid prompts you with several anticipated words that it thinks you might be typing so you only have to type a few letters and pick the word you want, speeds things up quite a bit.

The Phone
Pro: Let’s face it, in the end it’s still a phone and this one excels! The audio is superb, loud and crystal clear, on a scale of 1 to 10 it’s an 11, and the speaker phone is phenomenal as well!

Con:
The Bluetooth implementation seems to lack a way to get contacts into another device, my head unit in my truck requires that each contact be moved one by one, this phone has no way to do this so I’m unable to click the dial button on my steering wheel and say ‘Call So and So’, it’s an annoyance that they need to fix and fast!

Connect the Dots!
This admittedly is the coolest security feature I’ve seen on a phone, ever. You actually draw a pattern on the phone keypad to un-lock it, this isn’t an app either, it’s included on the standard security settings, you just need to enable it.

Navigation with Google Maps
This is one of the key features that makes this phone amazing, it’s already replaced by TomTom 730 as my new GPS but it has some cons that I’ll go over after the pros.

Pros: Once in the car dock the phone automatically reverts to the Car Screen Mode, press the Voice Navigation button and say where you want to go to. I’ve tried this with a myriad of addresses ranging from Navigate to Safeway and Navigate to a numerical address, it picked them up perfectly each time! Another really cool thing is that it picks up from my contacts, I have the address for a customer listed in his contact information, I simply said “Navigate to: Customer Name” and the Droid found his name, picked his address and planned the route, then changed to 3D Nav, added Google Live Traffic for the entire route and got me to the door! The map will overlay Google Traffic and just like on the TV Commercial, once you get close to the destination, if Google Maps has a picture of it, the map changes to that picture to show you where you should be, this is super cool!

Cons: My TomTom shows me speed and plainly shows current time, estimated time of arrival and actual minutes to arrival, I’ve grown so used to looking at the TomTom for my speed that I now have to remember to look at my cars speedometer which thanks to the TomTom I know is 4 miles per hour high, it’s an annoyance that you can’t customize the GPS Nav screen. Another issue is that you can’t store, or I haven’t figured out a way to store waypoints like on most GPS units, so I guess that I have to add contacts with addresses.

When you’re in NAV mode the phone will remain online, if you exit the phone will time out and go into sleep mode so if you just want to look at the moving map while you drive, you have to change the power settings on your phone or it will sleep and the only way to wake it up is to press the top button (now on it’s side in the car kit) which is awkward and re-enter your security buttons, annoying and cumbersome at highway speeds.

Otherwise this is like having Google Maps with you at all times and running in real time with GPS accuracy. I love this feature in the phone and best again, it’s not an APP it comes with the standard install.

5mp Camera
This is one area that I’m not going to go too deep into, phone cameras in general suck and 5mp is cool but I’ve tried over and over to get an AMAZING picture that would compel me to not travel with my Nikon and honestly, hasn’t happened so all I will say is, don’t give away your real camera just yet.

Web Browsing
Something really cool about this, when I setup the phone I noticed that I was using 3G in the house and sites were coming up pretty fast which was nice, I then setup the phone to use my home network WiFi and saw where the 3G indicator went away and was replaced by the WiFi indicator! Suddenly the sites were really popping so I ran a SpeedTest and was getting 2M down and 800K up, this is just like being on my laptop, the WiFi card in this phone is solid and includes all the security I have on my network so I was very impressed.

Sites look incredible in both wide and vertical modes and some of the included or down loadable apps for things like Facebook, Flixster (Movie Site), Google Finance, Bank of America and a host of others, really work solid on this web interface.

Everyone raves about the display on this phone and it truly is amazing, very high quality, more pixels than anything on the market today and just eclipses the iPhone so major kudos on this one!

Get in Sync
This phone doesn’t have an iTunes style app, yet and unless you’re experienced with directory trees and drag drop from your PC to a device, you might find it odd on how to get music or movies on to this device. Yes you can download from Amazon (again built in app) but what if you have some music that you want to transfer and fill up the generous 16GB included memory card, you have to know how to get into the phone from your PC via USB and then create the correct directories. Was no issue to me but to some it may prove frustrating.

The phone will play anything without DRM so any MP3’s or MP4 movies that don’t have DRM will play. One odd and missing item that is supposed to be fixed in the December 11th software push is that the music player has no STOP button, it can FF and REW as well as PAUSE but no stop or skip to the next song, odd!

That’s all I can really say about this device based on person experience, it’s truly awesome, very fast and responsive and a stunning quality screen, the learning curve is about 1 hour for a techie, maybe a day for someone that’s not a geek like me. For the price and the functionality, get this phone, if you’re a die-hard iPhone fan who sold their soul to Apple, not sure how it’s going to fit your needs but who knows, that part is totally up to you.

Here are some pics including a pic taken with the 5mp camera.

This was the weekend, the annual Ringling Brothers Tour was in Phoenix and as always I had tickets, I  just didn’t get the Circus Celebrity front row, this time I opted for 2nd row, saved 200 bucks and got to see the entire show unlike when you’re the Celeb and are in the Big Top (cool) missing the action (not cool).

I have to start by saying it sucked not being there with Michelle but she was literally right next door working an event at the baseball stadium so she was there in spirit.

Anyway, Ringling runs 3 tours simultaneously (Red, White & Blue Tour) and this year was a rehab year so the tours have blended. For instance the lion act in Zing Zang Zoom (the show we saw today) is the same as the one from the last tour that was here last summer.

The show was overall good, not great, there were some really cool elements but for the most part I found this tour to be a little disoriented and not as tight as previous shows.It is billed as a ‘New Tour’ on their website but it bordered on bush league at times.

Right from the start the show opened with a a mis-queue, the Chinese acrobat troupe (Qi Qi Har Acrobats) started their aerial show for about 2 minutes, it  was cut off mid stream for the elephant show, then the aerial show came back on right after. It was as if someone forgot when they were supposed to go on. I’m sure that most of the audience didn’t know there was a mistake but being from show production background with all the stage shows that I did in all the clubs I worked, it was obvious to me. I just didn’t expect this from this caliber show.

The dog show seemed competitive, there are actually 2 different shows both going on at the same time. The Hans Klose dog show and the Olate Family shows are very similar and very distracting since they both go on at the exact same time and within 20 feet of each other. I was expecting dogs from one side to go to the other but when that didn’t happen I realized they are actually 2 different acts and neither wants to give the other courtesy to let the other showcase.

The highwire act (the Lopez Family) was a little dry, nothing major that you haven’t seen a million times before. With the extreme ways people push these shows today, this was a very 1970’s act, more filler than anything.

The human cannons were again, very 70’s but cool, Hagan just about jumped from the chair and thought it was cool. If we would have been circus celebs we would have missed most of the warm up because the airbags would have been in our way.

The closer in the show was the Wheel of Death and the Fernandez Brothers. This was the only time in the show that I actually thought there would be blood! These guys were totally out of control and messed up more than once, in fact several times, they don’t work with a net and don’t have an airbag under their wheels so any mistake could be costly if it happened at the right part of the wheel spin and I’m happy to report it almost happened 2 different times. I’m more happy to report that nobody fell.

Overall Zing Zang Zoom is an ok show, a throwback to the Ringling Bros Circus of the past, not a lot of glitz and extreme elements but entertaining none the less.

Now and then when I’m on the bike I’ll take a call with my Scala Rider Bluetooth Helmet System and everyone that I talk to is usually amazed when I tell them that I’m on the bike riding down the road at highway speed. I’ve heard comments that it sounds like I”m in the next room, that it’s better than the integrated system in peoples cars and that  it sounds amazing!

When I was looking for my Scala, I had to purchase sight and sound unseen, so I decided to create this post for anyone that is looking for an honest review and some audio samples of an actual call.

First, I chose the Scala Q2, I wasn’t so interested in the FM radio capability but it’s there, to date I have never used it, besides in my truck I have satellite radio for a huge reason, terrestrial radio sucks, I digressed again, one feature I  did want was the stereo speakers and MP3 interface, the Bluetooth was really the plus since I now have a helmet system that I can listen to my iPod when I’m riding and take phone calls when necessary.

The setup is super easy, clip the bracket to the left side of your helmet, adjust the position so the boom mic sits in front of your mouth and screw it down so it won’t move. Next, take the Velcro pads supplied in the kit and attach them to the inside of your helmet where your ears come to rest when the helmet is on and press them in place. Finally place the speaker cables in the shell and install the speakers on the Velcro, charge the base unit for the recommended time and when it’s ready follow the instructions in the manual to pair the unit to your phone and you’re set.

For MP3, the unit comes with a supplied cable the plugs right in to the 1/8″ stereo jack on your player, the plug that fits the Scala is slightly smaller so there is only one way to connect the unit, pay attention to this or you will be scratching your head wondering what is going on.

Now I have a full face Shoei helmet, but from my testing, since the microphone has an opening on the other side (not the mouth side) it’s capable of superb wind noise cancellation, so even someone with an open helmet will greatly benefit from this unit, again you can play your iPod!

Taking calls is easy, when the phone rings just say anything into the microphone like “Answer” and the Scala will tell your phone to go off hook. To hangup just let the caller hangup and the Scala will disconnect your phone or you can use your left hand and touch the large button (see pics it’s the one with the light) and the system will disconnect. To make calls just reach up and touch the large side button and your phone will go into voice command mode and you can dial the person you desire.

When listening to MP3 or FM, the phone has priority on the system, the only thing that I find annoying is that since my phone is also my email device, when a message comes in and the phone beeps, I get that beep in my ear and the MP3 or FM drops for a second. It’s not bad but it is annoying especially when you’re running some great twisties with something like Kid Rock blaring in your ears and you suddenly hear beeps and not music, but again, I’m sure there is a way to turn the notification off in my phone but why bother.

Another great feature about the Q2 is the ability to pair it to 3 other Scala units, so if I’m riding with friends and they have Scala systems, we can all intercom each other for up to 1000′. I also seem to think that you can share your music with a passenger if they are paired to your unit, but I’m not 100% on that one.

So here are some pics and audio files in case your thinking about making the purchase of a bluetooth helmet audio system, I highly recommend the Scala and I got mine from Revzilla.com they are a great online store with just about anything for a rider at great prices.

Scala Company Site: http://www.cardowireless.com/home

Having grown up watching the original series (before it went into re-runs, yea showing my age again) there was no way that I was going to miss this movie on opening weekend and it didn’t disappoint!

JJ Abrams having not been a fan of the original series or movies was the perfect choice for the directors chair since he had no previous bias, the script and special effects, along with all the right catch phrases at all the right times made this 2:06 movie worth every popcorn kernel that I have to spend 2 hours in the gym working off.

To top the weekend, the surprise appearance by Chris Pine (Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock) and Leonard Nimoy on SNL last night really hit it. This movie is totally worth seeing, even for non-fans and a sequel is a must!

Speaking of sequels, SNLs Andy Samberg & Justin Timberlake finally did a sequel to “Dick in a Box” and it’s posted here, they did it again! I was pulling the video from NBC.com but the site is ragged, thank god for Hulu!

Mothers Day will never be the same again!