Unlike other devices that turn off the device microphone if headsets are plugged in, the Droid leaves its microphone on. This in effect allows you to answer calls for you through your car's speaker system.

That being said, let's begin at the top. Today I purchased a smartphone that has:
- A Full QWERTY Keyboard
- 16GB Expandable/Removable Memory
- 5MP Camera with Flash and autofocus
- 3.7" 480 x 854pixel Capacitive Multi-touch Display
- 1400 mAh User Replaceable Lithium Ion Battery
- CDMA/EVDO/WIFI/Bluetooth/GPS radios
- Magenetic Compass, Accelerometer, Ambient Light Sensor
- 116 x 60 x 14 mm
- 170 grams

And by in line, I mean in my warm car. It's 38 degrees this chilly morning and my local verizon wireless store was kind enough to hand out tickets to people as they came so that they could wait in their cars.

While I'm kind of disappointed there isnt a line of 200 here yet, It's also nice knowing I only had to get here about 45 minutes early and I'm 7th in line.

People are slowly trickling in and it looks liek there are about 15 people in line with 15 minutes to go.

So after a love/hate relationship with windows mobile since 2005. This is it.

I'll try to post my thoughts later.

However, we have a pretty strict corporate policy on our Exchange server at work. Our devices are supposed to support Remote Wipe and a pin password requirement, etc. I haven't seen any reviews online that have covered this scenario yet. So I had the idea today to download the Android 2.0 SDK Emulator.

After downloading and installing, I set up my exchange account settings. This seems to work very well. I can view all my outlook folders, my contacts are synced, and I'm allowed to sync up to a month of old email

Differences from Windows mobile I can tell so far:
- I can't search the company contacts directory
- I can't verify signed emails
- I can't send signed emails
- I can't read encrypted emails
- It doesn't seem to require me to put on a password policy on my phone

The default sdk image doesn't include the corporate calendar, so I haven't been able to test that out yet.

Overall, It seems as though I will be able to get 90% of the functionality, and 100% of the functionality I use on a day to day basis.

Again, I tested this so I could anticipate how my DROID will act, but I did not test this on any actual hardware and/or deployed software so actual mileage may vary.

However, this morning, after I landed in Chicago from Washington DC, first I received voicemail notification and then I had an incoming call. I was completely perplexed as I saw my signal strength indicator had an X through it. I thought maybe even if I answered the call, it would not go through, but the phone call went on as normal.

The way I believe cell towers works is that in order to have received that phone call today, my phone had to have registered on the cell tower first with an outgoing ping in order to receive the phone call. In this case, the "flight mode" on the phone might not be cutting off the radio but maybe just reducing the transmitting power? Either that or flight mode is a complete farce to keep stewardesses happy.

However, there are a few drawbacks to my in-vehicle unit. The first and major issue is that the device is permanently installed in my car. Therefore, when I am on vacation or in someone elses car or even walking I am without navigation. Next, the system is CD based, this means that data is spread out across several discs split by region and the data gets old.

Now that I have a smartphone with a fairly strong processor, a good amount of storage and bluetooth, I've decided to try and find a replacement.

In comparison, the Palm Treo 700w was at first $499 and then reduced to $399. However, I was quite startled to read that the cost estimate of the components for the Q is at about $158.

This makes me wonder how much is Verizon actually "subsidizing" with your two year contract and how much is Microsoft taking in for licensing?

Another question is that the memory only cost $25, does this mean that by adding 25 dollars to the price of the phone, they cuold have effectively doubled the memory in the Q?

Component/Subsystem
TFT-LCD display module $25
Memory (Intel and M Systems MCPs) $22
Applications processor (Intel Xscale) $19
Digital Baseband (Qualcomm MSM6500) $14
Camera module $7
Subtotal of main cost drivers $87
Total Materials Costs $150
Total Materials with Manufacturing $158

However after snooping around the web for a while, I was able to find a way to get a version of Skype, originally made for PocketPC able to run on the Q. As usual, do the following at your own risk.

Original Link : Skype on Motorola Q Uploaded by: bryantchoung

First you will need to get the CAB Version of the Skype Software:

The executable version of the installer will not let you install Skype to your smartphone. We will get around this by extracting the files you need from the CAB file and manually installing them on your phone.

Once you download the cab file, use a program like winrar or winzip to open up the cab file. Copy the following files to a temporary folder: 000Boing.002 000Skype.001 SKYPED~1.003.

Then rename the files:
• 000Boing.002 -> Boing.wav
• 000Skype.001 -> Skype.exe
• SKYPED~1.003 -> SkypeDialer.dll
Then copy these file to your smartphone. I decided to copy the files to my storage card in a folder called skype.

Then, using file manager on your phone, you can locate and start Skype manually.

Before you try and run skype on your phone, you’re going to need some help from your PC. Part of the login process in Skype requires you to click on a login button. While this is no problem for pocketpc users, Q users have no touchscreen. Therefore use a mouse emulation program like Pocket Controller. The Free trial version will do everything you need.

After the program starts, enter in your login information and remember to leave the box checked for Skype to remember you and to automatically log you on.

Next, I have not figured out how to dial phone numbers in Skype on the Q. I’m pretty sure I’m missing some buttons. Additionally, the “softkeys” at the bottom of the screen are useless in this program.

The only way I have found to dial calls is to log into Skype using your PC and then adding contacts. Once you have added contacts, you can then select them on the Pocket version of Skype and dial.

You can view the video to see the entire process of signing on and making a call. You can also get an idea of the phone quality. So far, I’m just impressed that I have skype running on my Q. The call quality seems to be a bit spotty, but when the audio does go through, the sound seems clear. There also seems to be a bit of an annoying lag. Hopefully either Skype or some other adventurous user will be able to make some progress in making this better. Other factors might include programs installed on my Q, network use, and my EVDO reception.

Link to Video

One great app that was originally designed for Pocket PC was PocketNester. This has been skillfully ported to Windows Mobile for Smartphone, and you should be able to get it to run on your Q.

An emulator is a piece of software which lets your Q emulate another device. PocketNesterPlus is an NES emulator for your Smartphone. By downloading "Rom Files", which are essentially the files right off of NES cartridges, you will be able to play almost any game made for NES on your Q.

So I'm please to announce my first PHP WML page:
smartphonesmarts.com/dial.wml

Let me know what you think!

Virtual Earth Mobile is a program for Windows Mobile that grabs Maps, Directions, and Satellite imagery from Microsoft's Virtual Earth Website. This will let you Zoom to any part of America, update using a GPS receiver, Find businesses and addresses, and get driving directions.