using this phone 10 years later is a lot
like using no phone at all
we are coming up on the tenth
anniversary of the original Motorola
Droid which was a very iconic phone it
launched Android into relevancy I'm
gonna use the Droid for one week to see
if it's even usable ten years later so
my dad used to work for Motorola for
almost 20 years I was director of
product strategy and operations for the
mobile devices business he has this
bananas collection it was like hundreds
of old phones he calls it his Museum
it's just no boxes in his basement but
that is where I got this droid from
that's fine
first off cobwebs on a lot of this stuff
I mean this has been a long time ago you
know 10 years exactly the Droid was a
born at a time because Verizon didn't
have the iPhone and it was the first of
many droid variants that were launched
at Verizon through subsequent years the
original Droid had 512 mega storage 256
Meg of RAM a 5 megapixel camera it was
the first Android device to support the
clear operating system and the first
Android device to support Verizon's
network technology it's just like got
old keyboard smell you know I got my two
phones I'm going to swap my SIM card out
into the Droid we will see if it
functions now the original original
Droid was Verizon exclusive so this is
technically a different version but it
it looks exactly the same the other ones
that I have do not even have the SIM
card slot my current phone has a nano SD
card I hunted down this bad boy so that
I could fit it into the Droid again
we're going to trade the Nano for the
chunky we're going to turn it on
I don't know what the power button is oh
it's the one with the iconic power
symbol on it oh please insert a SIM card
okay so we're gonna need a plan B I
think mobile right nothing target
nothing even Verizon said the phone just
isn't supported on their network anymore
[Music]
so what we're gonna do is I am going to
go data only sort of my current phone
will be my Wi-Fi hotspot and this phone
will talk to it cuz I don't really call
or text anybody anyways here's what I'm
gonna look out for I'm gonna track how
long the battery lasts I'm gonna see how
terrible the camera is I'm gonna see how
long I can operate with the current
operating system before I update and
then after I do that I'm going to see if
I can download and use any of my apps I
gotta watch Instagram stories
so how's my week been using this phone
ten years later is a lot like using no
phone at all
I cannot update the OS there is no App
Store the App Store is the Android
Marketplace which became defunct in 2012
when they replaced it with the Google
Play Store the Google Play Store can
only be used on jelly bean or higher
which is 4.1 I believe so basically I
can't do anything but take pictures and
listen to music the camera is not bad
there's only one it's only 5 megapixels
so all the photos look like something my
mom would take but there they're not bad
I was able to take a photo on the droid
and upload it straight to Facebook onto
my newsfeed which I was honestly super
impressed by I wasn't able to tag
anybody or add a caption so there's just
a random photo of my co-workers on my
feed with no context but it did work it
is updating the newsfeed in somewhat
real-time but you can only get two posts
at a time only text posts profile
pictures and usernames do not show up
and if you try and click older posts to
update the newsfeed then the whole app
shuts down I looked into routing the
phone which is basically jailbreaking
for Android basically routing would
allow me to force an OS update on the
phone but I wasn't able to accomplish
that so we're still stuck at 2.1 the
process of physically plugging your
phone into the computer and dragging and
dropping songs into a folder was so
nostalgic I haven't downloaded a song in
years I only stream on Spotify I don't
have music stored locally on my actual
phone I thought I was really going to
like the physical keyboard but my
thumb's are to Peggy and it's hard I
like to click a clip I like the
physicality of it but the actual
functionality of it is more difficult
than it needs to be the Droid is
definitely not going to let you do
everything that a modern phone will let
you do now that's like an understatement
I mostly miss my apps I want Instagram
and this dumb solitaire game that I've
been playing as we finished this up I'm
going to really try to actually use it
instead of ignoring it so the camera is
crappier than I thought I was I tried
taking a video of my cat in my kitchen
his night time but the light was on and
I sitting on the floor and with a camera
if you if you point it up towards stuff
near the top of the room it's bright but
if you point it down to the cat there is
nothing it is complete darkness the
camera just shuts down basically and
pretends that it doesn't have to do its
job it's so like foggy no matter how
much I clean the camera everything it
just looks like I'm in a room filled
with smoke I only had to charge the
battery twice over the entire week if I
was connected to a network or constantly
using the phone or constantly connected
to Wi-Fi the battery would have been
eaten up but just the fact that it is
that old
and lasted that long anyways I still
think is impressive if you have an old
droid laying around it would be really
useful as like an mp3 player for a child
who only needs 60 songs and doesn't want
to access any other features a phone
should offer phones are updated so
quickly these days that like one year to
the next they're obsolete when you buy a
fridge you want that fridge to last
forever when you buy a TV you want that
TV to last forever with a phone you buy
the phone and you want it to last until
the next year when the new version of
that phone comes out so it's not that
surprising that after 10 years this
phone does not work I haven't tried the
speaker quality let's do that this movie
movie is the best Disney movie don't at
me