HTC DROID ERIS Review

Introduction:

Not only did Verizon introduce the Motorola DROID earlier this month, but also the HTC DROID ERIS, as both are the first two Android-based devices for the wireless provider. While the Motorola DROID is getting most of the attention right now, and has a higher price, the HTC DROID ERIS is not to be dismissed, as it offers a lot, including HTC’s Sense UI, which adds a user-friendly layer above the stock Android 1.5 interface, similar to TouchFLO 3D on their Windows Mobile phones. In many respects, the HTC DROID ERIS is a close cousin to the HTC Hero on Sprint, as both have similar hardware specifications, including a 3.2” capacitive touchscreen and 5MP autofocus camera. In a world of smartphones, and as competition grows, it all comes down to personal choice and price.

Included in the retail box is the HTC DROID ERIS phone with a preinstalled 8GB microSDHC memory card, 1300 mAh battery, wall charger with detachable miniUSB cable, and user guide.

Design:

Unlike the original GSM variant of the HTC Hero, which had a protruding “chin” at the bottom, both the CDMA Hero and DROID ERIS lack this, which makes it sleeker and more attractive. The DROID ERIS has plenty of soft curves and is covered head to toe with a black soft-touch coating over plastic construction, in contrast to the defined corners and metal construction used by the Motorola DROID. Because of these differences, the HTC DROID ERIS feels less “square” when holding it and not as heavy as the Motorola DROID. As they say “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, but we believe the DROID ERIS to be the more eye-appealing device between the two, based on appearance. Though we also believe that the metal construction and added weight of the Motorola DROID make it feel like a higher-end device.



You can compare the HTC DROID ERIS with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The HTC DROID ERIS retains the same 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen with 320x480 resolution that is found on Sprint’s HTC Hero, but color support has been increased from 65K to 262K. The sensors above it will also automatically adjust the backlight based on the surrounding light level, and turn the display off when it’s next to your face during a call. When comparing the display found on the HTC DROID ERIS next to the Motorola DROID, the difference is significant. Not only is the display on the Motorola DROID larger (3.7”) and higher resolution (480x854), but it also supports 16M colors. Because of this, you can clearly see the differences between them, as images on the Motorola DROID look truer to life and are clearer without any pixelation. We also noticed that when using the devices outside during the day that the screen on the Motorola DROID was brighter and easier to view, while the HTC DROID ERIS wasn’t as bright. We tried both the automatic and manual brightness settings, but it didn’t make a noticeable difference.



On the lower portion under the display are capacitive touch-sensitive buttons for Home, Menu, Back, and Search. We’re not sure why the DROID ERIS has them as touch-sensitive, where on the Hero they are mechanical, except to be more similar to the Motorola DROID. Under those are the standard physical buttons for Send and End/Lock/Power, and with a small trackball in the center. The only buttons on the side are to control the volume. On the top there is a 3.5mm headset jack, with the 5MP camera on the back, and miniUSB port on the bottom. You have to remove the battery cover to access the microSDHC card slot, which comes with an 8GB card preinstalled, but supports cards up to 16GB in size. Naturally, the sliding QWERTY keyboard is one significant difference between the Motorola DROID and HTC DROID ERIS, so you should take that into account when demoing the phones.




Even though the HTC DROID ERIS and Hero are similar in most respects, we like the overall look of the Sprint Hero more, due to the silver/gray color, larger trackball, and physical buttons for home, menu, back, and search.

User Interface:

The DROID ERIS features the same Sense UI interface that we’ve seen on other Android phones from HTC. This extra functionality makes the stock Android 1.5 operating system more functional, as it allows up to 7 home screens, with each being fully customizable with widgets, shortcuts, and folders. The HTC Widgets are quite impressive as they are available for web bookmarks, clocks, weather, calendars, mail, messages, music, photos, stocks, and Twitter.




If that wasn’t enough, there are also 6 Scenes to choose from, for work, play, travel, etc. Each scene is customizable and can be saved for later use after being personalized. This truly makes the possibilities endless. Having the Sense UI clearly sets the HTC DROID ERIS apart from the stock Android 2.0 interface used by the Motorola DROID. It makes using the device easier and overall more fun, though Motorola does have their own “layered interface” know as MOTOBLUR, which can be found on the CLIQ.

There was some noticeable lag in opening programs (3-4 seconds) while using the HTC DROID ERIS that was not present when using the Motorola DROID (almost instant). We’re not sure if this is because the Motorola DROID is running Android 2.0 and has a faster processor, or if Sense UI is slowing down the HTC DROID ERIS a bit.

Pressing on the dedicated search key will bring up the Google Search bar, and will list suggestions while you type. You can also perform a Voice Search, which works rather well, and it bases the results on your current GPS location. So for instance, if you search for “Pizza!”, it will lists pizza restaurants closets to you with their phone number, address, and web site. One noticeable difference between Android 1.5 and 2.0 is that you can’t search through your contacts on the DROID ERIS with the search bar from the home screen, but you can on the Motorola DROID.



Phonebook and Organizer:

There isn’t anything new here in the way that the HTC DROID ERIS stores and accesses contact information, though it does it quite well and imports them from your Google account. You can also add new contacts directly to the DROID ERIS, which will automatically be updated on-line. Furthermore, contacts can also be synched with your company’s Exchange server.

Each contact has six tabs. The first contains their information, the second has your text history with them, the third your email history and the sixth your call history. The fourth tab is Updates and Events, which shows their Facebook status and any upcoming events, such as a birthday, and the fifth tab is their albums from Facebook and Flickr. Anyone coming from a TouchFLO 3D device will be used to this type of contact view, as it is nice to have everything about a contact self-contained.



The calendar has everything you’d want and expect. When adding an event you can choose what calendar you want it to be stored to (GMail, Outlook or Exchange). One minor quirk that annoyed us is that all day events show up a day early on the calendar widget. For instance, if someone in your contact list has a birthday two days from now, the widget will say that it is an all day event tomorrow, and then tomorrow it will say that it is occurring that day but when you open the calendar it is indeed listed as an all day event on the proper day.



There are no tasks or notes apps installed, but the Android Market has several to choose from. The included clock app gives you an alarm clock, world clock, stopwatch, and countdown timer. The basic calculator has an advanced panel, but disappointingly does not switch to scientific mode when the phone is turned on its side.



There is also a voice command app (separate from the Google voice search) which is accurate as well, however you have to confirm your selection by pressing a button on the screen, which means the device must be with you. We tried it with a few Bluetooth headsets, but unfortunately you cannot activate the voice command feature via the headset, as it must be initiated from the phone itself. This is a limitation of the Android operating system that’s inevitably found on the HTC DROID ERIS, Hero and Motorola DROID; however it doesn’t make sense to us and defeats the main purposes of having both Bluetooth and a voice command program.

Messaging:

The HTC DROID ERIS has many messaging options. SMS and MMS are encompassed within the messaging app, and conversations are threaded. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come with an included IM client for AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo Messenger, but several can be downloaded via the Android Market, and Google Talk has its own standalone app.

GMail is of course the preferred email solution, but the DROID ERIS will support nearly all IMAP and POP clients, as well as Exchange servers. Like Google Talk, GMail has its own standalone app, but all other emails, including additional GMail accounts, are checked via the Mail app. The GMail app is very nice, and replicates the web experience well, but does not support syncing to more than 1 GMail account. For that, you have to use the standard Mail App.


We found the same three virtual keyboards on the HTC DROID ERIS as on the Hero, which originated from the HTC Diamond. The QWERTY keyboard is, as you would expect, a full QWERTY. The compact QWERTY is similar to BlackBerry’s SureType keyboard, and the Phone Keypad is a T9 keypad. No matter which keyboard you choose while in portrait mode, rotating the DROID ERIS to landscape mode brings up a full QWERTY. As we mentioned earlier there is a bit of lag for this transition however. We didn’t have any problems using them for typing, but were most comfortable using the landscape QWERTY, as it has the largest keys. We also like that it has word prediction, so as you are typing, it predicts what the word will be, allowing you to select it from a list, instead of typing out the entire word. There is a bit of a size difference, as you would expect, between the on-screen landscape QWERTY used by the HTC DROID ERIS and Motorola DROID. Not only that, but the DROID also sports a sliding physical keyboard; something not found on the DROID ERIS, which is a clear advantage when typing longer messages and email.



Connectivity:

The HTC DROID ERIS is a dual-band CDMA (800/1900 MHz) handset with high speed data connectivity available through 3G EVDO Rev. A or Wi-Fi 802.11b/g. It would have been nice if it were a world phone, working on GSM networks alongside CDMA, but this was not expected. Bluetooth 2.0+EDR is supported with profiles for headset, hands-free, stereo audio, and phonebook access.

The browser is WebKit based and displays web sites in similar form and fashion as the Motorola DROID, except for a few differences. First off, the web browser on the HTC DROID ERIS supports pinch-and-zoom and double-tap zoom, where as the Motorola DROID only supports zooming by double-tap, or by using the on-screen zoom icons. Second, the DROID ERIS comes with Flash Lite 3.7.1, which allows some limited Flash support, while the Motorola DROID currently does not (though an update is expected in H1 2010). We tested this with the www.HTC.com/US site and it worked fine with the DROID ERIS, though several other sites with Flash-based video would not load or was choppy. Furthermore, embedded YouTube videos in web pages will not play, but instead are loaded in a separate HTC media player. Our only complaint about using the browser on the DROID ERIS isn’t really about the browser, but has to do with the screen’s resolution. Since it has a lower resolution than the Motorola DROID, you are constantly having to zoom-in so that text can be legible. This may not be a concern for some, but people who will be using the browser a lot will be more pleased with the higher resolution display on the Motorola DROID.



Content syncing can be achieved in one of three ways. The easiest solution is to simply use your GMail account, which will back up and sync your contacts and calendar. Users can also opt for Outlook sync via the HTC Sync software (similar to ActiveSync) or by connecting to an Exchange server.

Camera:

The camera interface is similar to what we’ve seen from HTC in the past, and is identical to both the GSM and CDMA Hero, but has a few differences from Windows Mobile devices. It supports resolutions up to 5 megapixels with auto-focus and comes with a neat feature where you can tap anywhere on the screen to set the focal point. Image controls are fairly standard: contrast, saturation, sharpness, ISO adjustment (100-800 and Auto), metering and flicker, but nothing out of the ordinary. There is no LED flash, but the DROID ERIS supports geotagging of photos and integrates them with the Footprints feature.


We were surprised to see that on average, pictures taken by the HTC DROID ERIS fared better than ones taken by the Sprint Hero and the GSM Hero. Images taken outside had slightly over-saturated colors, but we’d prefer this to the dull and lifeless colors produced by the Hero. Fine details were only marginally better however. Pictures taken inside and under low-light conditions were still problematic, as a lot of grain would be shown, plus the lack of a flash didn’t help matters. As of now, we believe the Motorola DROID to take better images, despite the current autofocus bug (to be fixed in December), since color saturation is more neutral looking (not artificially inflated), and there is more fine detail to images. The dual-LED flash also helps out a lot in low-light.


Videos can be recorded by the DROID ERIS in three resolutions: large (352x288), medium (320x240), and small (176x144). However, their quality is lacking and pales in comparison to the 720x480 resolution videos that are possible by the Motorola DROID.



Multimedia:

The music player supports most popular formats (MP3, WMA, ACC, ACC+, eACC) and the video player supports MP4 H.263/264 and WMV files. It handled all the MP3 files we threw at it like a champ and all the album art and ID3 tag information was properly displayed. We enjoyed the music interface, as it is laid out well and easy to navigate, and there are two HTC widgets that place music controls on the home screen.


The video player is very straightforward, and is accessible by loading videos through the Album app. Tapping the screen brings up playback controls and you can fast-forward, play, pause, and rewind. Image quality not only depends on the resolution of the video, but also on the resolution of the display. Watching a 10-15 minute video on the HTC DROID ERIS is OK, but for anything longer we’d prefer using the higher resolution screen on the Motorola DROID.



Software:

There are several preinstalled apps on the HTC DROID ERIS, but Android Market has close to 10,000 apps to expand your catalog. Since this is a Verizon device, the only Verizon app that comes with it is Visual Voice Mail, leaving all other VCast programs behind. Of course, several Google apps are installed, including GMail and Google Talk. You can use Google Maps to find your current GPS location and see it as a street view and satellite view map, as well as view driving directions, but it does not come with the turn-by-turn Google Navigation program, which is found only on the Motorola DROID. We hope that once the Navigation app is out of Beta, other Android devices will be able to use it as well.


Other notable programs include HTC Footprints, Peep (HTC’s Twitter client), Stocks, Weather, YouTube, PDF Viewer and Quickoffice. Most importantly, the game Teeter is included!

The HTC DROID ERIS comes with a Qualcomm MSM7600 processor operating at 528MHz and with 512MB ROM / 288MB RAM. The device is by no means slow, but when using it next to the Motorola DROID with ARM A8 550MHz processor, it is clear that the Motorola is faster in nearly every aspect.

Performance:

Call quality was quite good on the HTC DROID ERIS, as voices sounded clear and natural on our end, but there was a slight “hissss” that could be heard in the background at all times during calls. When using the Motorola DROID, we did not experience this background noise. People that we called, that were using a land-line, said we sounded good on both devices, through we did sound more natural when using the Motorola, as the HTC was more “hollow” sounding. However, the speakerphone on the HTC DROID ERIS is a pleasant surprise, as it didn’t exhibit the crackling distortion at high volumes that we heard while using the Motorola DROID. Signal reception was nearly identical on both, as we had 2-3 bars of 1x and 3-4 bars of 3G showing in high-coverage areas and didn’t drop any calls while in use around south Florida.

For some reason the HTC DROID ERIS only comes with a 1300 mAh battery, while the HTC Hero comes with a 1500 mAh battery and the Motorola DROID is 1400 mAh. Because of this, the HTC DROID ERIS is rated to get up to 3.5 hours of talk time, but we were able to get 4 hours of continual talk time in our tests. Still, this is significantly less than the 6 hours and 45 minutes of talk time that we achieved with the Motorola DROID. When using the HTC DROID ERIS under normal mixed conditions (talk, web, emails, apps) we got roughly a day on a full charge, slightly less than the Motorola DROID. So be sure to plug it in to charge whenever you get a chance.

Conclusion:

When everything is said and done, the HTC DROID ERIS is a worthy smartphone, as it has a lot of features packed into a slim and attractive device. The Sense UI makes it unique from the Motorola DROID, as it allows for more customizations, but the lower resolution display and lack of a physical keyboard may keep some from going to it. We feel that the HTC DROID ERIS is good for consumers who are new to the world of smartphones and want a more personalized and user-friendly experience. However, if you’re feeling a bit more adventurous, and have some extra cash to spend, then it might be worth giving the Motorola DROID a try.

HTC DROID ERIS Video Review: