Motorola Droid's strange camera bug

I have been seeing a lot of blog posts, discussions, and tweets about a bug in the Motorola Droid phone that causes autofocus to fail on certain dates and work on others.

I decided to talk to Mike Gikas, a Senior Electronics editor here at Consumer Reports to see if he could replicate the problem. I brought along my pocket video camera to record the action.

Mike's findings confirm that the autofocus bug is somehow date related. Images taken with the camera set to November 11th, were very blurry. Images taken with the camera set to November 17th were much more in focus. (Click on the images to see examples.)

Many blogs are reporting that the bug cycles every 24.5 days. Since the camera currently appears to be working correctly, users may be able to coast until December 11, when a patch for the Droid is expected to fix this problem.

We'll check back with Mike and other Consumer Reports experts after December 11th to see if a permanent fix has been released. —Dirk Klingner

Share your experiences with TV, Internet, and phone bundles

We’d like your help as we prepare our annual report, on bundled telecom services—those packages of television, Internet and telephone service sold by cable, phone, and satellite-TV companies.

Specifically, we’d like to know your experiences with, and some details about, your home telecom service. We’ve prepared a questionnaire that asks about how you get these services, whether they're bundled, and how easy or hard it was to sign up for them. The 20 questions—any or all of which you can answer—include queries about how you selected providers and whether you negotiated with them over prices.

Begin the quiz by clicking here. After you’re done, you’ll be taken to the results page, where you’ll get an early look at what other readers have reported.

A holiday gift to all: Recycle your old electronics (and get cash back)

With early Black-Friday deals abounding, maybe you're planning on getting some sleek, new electronic item to replace an old clunker. And you’re probably planning on heaving that old computer, TV, printer, or whatever to the curb, right? Do us all a favor and recycle it.

"Cell phones can be loaded with toxic metals, such as arsenic, cadmium, and mercury," says Urvashi Rangan, the director of technical policy at Consumers Union. "Old televisions and computer monitors can contain up to eight pounds of lead. When they break in a landfill, then can pose an environmental and a neurological hazard."

Unfortunately, our recent survey of green behavior found that only 12 percent of consumers are recycling large electronics and 17 percent recycle small electronics.

You don’t even have to be a complete altruist. Sears is offering cash (in the form of a Sears gift card, of course) for your old electronics. Value is based on the quality of the trade-in.

So, please, keep us neurologically sound. GreenerChoices.org offers help in finding places to recycle computers, cell phones, TVs, and more. A number of manufacturers and retailers (like Best Buy, Staples, and Office Depot) also offer recycling services. For more, check out our video: “Getting Rid of Old Electronics." —Nick K. Mandle

What's new in iPhone navigation apps

Two items of note from our friends at the Consumer Reports Cars Blog:

• TomTom to update, improve iPhone navigation app

TomTom has just announced improvements to their iPhone navigation app, some of which address shortcomings we have criticized in the past. The upgrade adds three key features routinely found on TomTom stand-alone navigation devices. More...

• Test Drive: Live traffic data on Navigon Mobile Navigator iPhone app

Navigon was the first major GPS maker to offer a downloadable iPhone navigation app, porting over its graphic interface and features to the popular cell phone. Today, the Navigon Mobile Navigator stands as the top-grossing application in the Apple iTunes store, though until this week it has lacked one key feature: traffic information. More...

Verizon's sky-high ETF: Do the math

Bloggers have speculated that Verizon's fat new $350 fee for breaking its smart phone contracts is intended to thwart phone flipping, a scheme in which you take the two-for-one deal, quit the contract on the second phone, then sell the handset on eBay at a profit, even after you pay the old $175 early termination fee (or "ETF").

Verizon didn't directly answer when we put that theory for the $350 ETF to them. "Our general reasoning is that it reflects the higher cost associated with the phone," said Tom Pica, a Verizon spokesman.

That suggests Verizon is giving customers bigger savings in the form of a bigger subsidy for those devices out of its own pocket, right?

Wrong.

Droid vs. iPhone: Them's fightin' words

A fight has broken out over last Friday's boxing-themed preliminary head-to-head comparison of the brand-new Motorola Droid and Apple's iPhone. The post has drawn scores of comments, and more readers continue to weigh in. The overwhelming majority of commenters feel our review gave short shrift to the Droid, though one reader, Robinson, noted, "this is a blog comparison not a formal CR review. So, don't trash what CR still does so well." Our testers continue to evaluate the Droid and our in-depth review will be posted in the coming days. In the meantime, some  thoughts on the issues raised by commenters:

Critics: The Droid's display is clearly better. Commenters are puzzled by why I called the display comparison a tossup even though I acknowledged that the Droid's display is bigger, boasts higher pixel density, and appears sharp and bright. (When comparing two identical Web pages side-by-side, text on the Droid's screen was noticeably sharper.) A key reason for my judgment: I wasn't able to test the Droid's display in the myriad of different lighting conditions, modes, and apps that our testers used to arrive at their scoring of the iPhone 3G S display (available to subscribers), the highest they've awarded to a phone screen. We'll see what our testers have to say about the Droid's display.

Critics: The Droid's camera is the better-equipped. I called this feature for the iPhone 3G S, in large part due to the camera's appealing interface and rich features. In addition to describing the Droid's camera as "well-equipped," I should have also have cited its flash and 16x9 (widescreen) video recording, both missing from the iPhone. Critics:

The iPhone's GPS isn't demonstrably better and costs more. On the first point, our Cars colleagues, who test GPS on all its platforms, demurred in their first impressions of the Google Maps Navigation found on the Droid, as I wrote. Since my post, there's now a full review on the Cars blog, which calls GMN only "adequate," and says the app should not be "the leading reason to purchase" an Android 2.0 phone, such as the Droid. But the review also acknowledges that the free software does "eliminate the need to pay for GPS and traffic services," including the cost of buying the pricey iPhone navigation apps and services. A couple of parting observations about the passion of the comments about this phone:

• They suggest the Droid has quickly emerged as the phone around which iPhone critics have coalesced. It's emerging as the preeminent un-iPhone or even anti-iPhone.
• The comments are further evidence that no community of observers takes a closer and more critical interest in how we test and assess than smart-phone fans. We've experienced that in the past, when we updated the methodology and presentation of our smart-phone Ratings (available to subscribers) in response to the changing nature of these devices.

Even though it sometimes hurts to be hit with repeated jabs, we love to hear about your hands-on experiences with and technological insights on smart phones.—Mike Gikas

Buying the Verizon Droid: My pre-dawn odyssey

A line outside the Verizon Wireless store Friday morning, shortly before opening.

It’s not easy to find a decent cup of coffee—or any kind of coffee, for that matter—before the sun rises in the suburbs of New York City. If it hadn’t been for Verizon’s new Droid phone, I might never have known that (which would have been fine). However, in the interest of seeing the Droid for myself, and gaining some insight into the bizarre, early-morning rituals of the mad-for-mobile crowd, I decided to meet a Consumer Reports secret shopper at 5 a.m. in a dark, empty parking lot outside a dimly lit Verizon Wireless store.

The Droid has sparked all manner of hype in the weeks leading up to its release today, which prompted our secret shopper to get in line early to ensure he’d get a phone for our testers. (Last year, when he went to buy the similarly hyped Blackberry Storm, the line stretched around the side of the building.) A day ahead of he launch he tried to find out how many Droids the store would get, but the most he could squeeze from this store’s salesperson was “we’ll have more than five.”

Fear, hype, and (for me) a small sense of adventure had us racing alongside airport limo drivers and insomniacs to a Droid stakeout. In the end, there was little to fear. We were among only a handful of very early risers, as Engadget can confirm. Others showed up just before opening, but no one was denied a phone for lack of stock. Here’s a rundown of the morning:

5:10 a.m.: Met our shopper at the Verizon Wireless store. We sip burned, acrid coffee. There are four other cars in the lot with passengers, waiting like us. We have an unspoken agreement to stay in our cars for the time being. No reason to line up in the cold just yet.

TwitterPeek: “Epic fail of the week"?

TwitterPeek

For Twitter addicts who relish the thought of having another expensive mobile device clunking around in their pocket or bag, TwitterPeek is for you. Released yesterday by Peek Inc., TwitterPeek looks like a smart phone with a full QWERTY keyboard but connects only to Twitter. No phone. No emails. Just Twitter. Price: $100 for the device including 6 months of wireless service. After that, service runs $8 a month. (For $200 you can get the TwitterPeek plus a lifetime service plan.)

Peek seems to be building a name for itself as a maker of single-function mobile gadgets. The company’s Peek Classic ($20 plus a $15/month service plan) just sends and receives email. The Peek Pronto ($60 plus service plan) emails and also allows unlimited texting.

You could make a case for the efficacy of the Peek Classic and Pronto, given the high cost of many data plans for smart phones. The idea behind TwitterPeek, on the other hand, is one even some of the Twitterati have trouble understanding. From the Wall Street Journal:

“On Twitter, it’s attracting its fair share of skeptics. “TwitterPeek is my vote for epic fail of the week,” Josho2001 tweeted. “I don’t see this having much demand. Two words: Smart. Phone,” wrote Marie Goltara. A third Twitter user, Nelanka, added, “TwitterPeek is the final sign that the end is near. I figured this would have come out around 2012.”

If you’re savvy enough to be a dedicated Twitterer, isn’t it also likely you’d be capable of tweeting (for free) from your cell or smart phone? —Nick K. Mandle

In China, an iPhone will run you $730 (Wi-Fi not included)

And you thought your cell plan was expensive. The iPhone, released last week in China, will cost upwards of $730 per unit, reports the Wall Street Journal. Oh, and that doesn’t include Wi-Fi. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese aren't exactly fighting tooth and nail to get their hands on one.

From the WSJ:

“Hundreds of people braved cold and rain to attend a Friday night party thrown by China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd., the state-owned carrier selling the iPhone, at a Beijing shopping center. Still, the crowd seemed subdued compared with the thousands who turned up at stores when the iPhone was introduced in markets such as the U.S. and Japan, where it quickly sold out in many locations. As of Sunday night, stores around Beijing still had the iPhone in stock.

“Apple and Unicom charge $730 to $1,020 for the iPhone, not including discounts on service, making it more expensive than gray-market iPhones in China and legitimate iPhones in many other markets. And an important feature, Wi-Fi Internet service, has been disabled on Unicom's iPhones to comply with Chinese government rules."

Verizon has a star smart phone: Our first impressions of the Motorola Droid

The Motorola Droid, the spunky phone Verizon recently introduced as the anti-iPhone in a barrage of clever commercials, is now in our hands as a press sample. My initial impression? The Droid lives up to its promise as one of the more capable and interesting phones of a busy fall season.

Available from Verizon on November 6 for $199, the Droid has attracted attention initially for being the first phone to offer the “free” beta version of Google Maps Navigation, which provides spoken turn-by-turn directions and other features previously available on phone only at extra cost.

Our Cars blog will be taking a closer look at Google Maps Navigation on the Droid later this week. Meantime, here are other highlights of the phone:

“Raw” implementation of the Android operating system. The Droid employs the latest, 2.0 version of Google’s Android operating system in a different manner than many other Android phones we’ve seen. Phones such as the Motorola Cliq have fine interfaces that sit over Android, and enhance its features and functionality. Droid does Android “raw,” without such customization. It doesn’t suffer for it, however. Instead, the Droid brings out the OS’s capability for personalization via the addition of widgets and other tools.