Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageously bad AT&T reception on my iPhone?…
It’s no secret that I have a love/hate relationship with my iPhone 3G: I love the device, I hate the poor service with AT&T in NYC.  I still have my gripes with the iPhone, too (the lag in responsiveness in between screens, poor battery life), but overall the good outweighs the bad:

• seamless synchronization with my MobileMe account
• music, calendar, email and contacts all in one device
• great apps, and lots of them!
• easy UI, sleek & solid design

Lately, the AT&T coverage in NYC seems to be getting worse and worse.  Last night, I had 3 dropped calls within the span of 2 minutes.  No bueno.
Verizon launched the Motorola Droid on Friday, November 6th.  It’s rumored to be the 1st of many Droid devices coming out on Verizon.  The Gadget Girl in me is very tempted to add this new shiny toy to my phone arsenal.  I’ve been frequenting the local Verizon Wireless store to play with the Droid for the past week (so much so, all the employees know I’m there just to play with it).

No doubt, it’s positioned as a sexy device.  Just reading about the features makes me drool:

• Android 2.0 software
• RELIABLE Verizon coverage
• VERY responsive to touch
• big, bright & beautiful screen
• Notifications drop-down keeps all your alerts conveniently in one place
• Great apps (not as many options as iPhone, but they are not far behind)
• slide out full QWERTY keyboard with D-Pad
• 2 touchscreen QWERTY keyboards: vertical & horizontal
• 5 MP camera
• Verizon’s über reliable, fast network

But I admit I’m hesitant.  The same features that make the Droid attractive are also its greatest vices.  Here are my personal reasons, based on my limited playtime:

• Dual-band, CDMA: CDMA gives great Verizon coverage in the States, but the Droid is a dual-band phone.  Unfortunately, this is crippling to any international jet-setter or traveler (I am neither).  The rest of the world typically runs on a GSM/SIM-card system.  You’ll be virtually unable to use the Droid in Europe and Asia.
• Clunky design: Yes, the Droid has a very “solid” feel to it.  No one wants to feel like their phone is made of plastic (even if it really is).  But for a newly launched phone, the design of the Motorola Droid seems square & clunky. No rounded edges.
• Slide out keyboard: The full QWERTY keyboard — while it’s definitely handy — seems to be more of a handicap than a help.  The keys lay directly adjacent to each other, with no topography — I really like raised keys so you get a sense of differentiation between the letters.  It’s easy to make typos and difficult to discern between keys.  Also, I don’t have gigantic thumbs, but this keyboard feels very Lilliputian…
• D-Pad: This is a great little tactile cursor-navigator, but compared to the size of the mini-keyboard, it’s HUMONGOUS.  I would trade a smaller D-Pad for a better QWERTY keyboard.
• Touch-screen keyboard: In addition to the slider keyboard, the Droid offers 2 touch-screen QWERTY keyboard options: vertical & horizontal.  Both are very sensitive, which is good & bad (I wish there was some way to adjust the touch-sensitivity).  The horizontal is decent, but the vertical one is more difficult to use.  Even though the width of the Droid screen size is comparable to the iPhone, the vertical touch-screen keyboard on the iPhone seems easier to use.
• 5 MP Camera:   5MP is pretty great for a camera phone.  Yet, somehow the auto-focus on the Droid seems to botch this up.  It’s hard to time perfectly and seems to take an eternity to snap an in-focus shot.
• It’s gotten slower: In the week that I’ve gone to the store and played with the device, its responsiveness has gotten significantly slower.  Granted, it’s probably been man-handled by hundreds of people, but it doesn’t bode well to say it’s slowed so much over the course of one week.

CONCLUSION:
SO…Despite my inner gadget fiend, I’ve suppressed my Droid desire, and resisted buying it because of the above.  Also Verizon’s newly-implemented $350 ETF is not attractive.  For a gal who hates commitment, that’s a hefty fee to break up with Verizon.
(I’m also trying to be a sensible adult, and not buy every new gadget that pops up on the market).
I think I’m going to wait and see what the next Droid device will be.  Hopefully they’ll update it accordingly with some of the consumer feedback — particularly with the keyboards.
Do you have a Droid?  If so, do you love it?