Yep I am now an official blogger. Just last week I was personally contacted by Verizon. And no, I did not owe them money. AT&T runs the extortion racket in these parts anyway. I was hoping for a big fat Android development contract, if you must know.

Well it wasn't that but what she called about was very cool. She said, and I quote with unusual uncertainty, "She liked my witty prose." Unlike my ex who could only find some subliminal, altered reality, bizarro meaning that was insulting her when I said something as simple and witty as, "This vanilla ice cream really hits the spot." And then the fight started...

But no, this woman wanted me to review a DroidX.. bitchez! Oh yea. Bring on the payola baby. Do let me review DroidX. I may be part of the grey league but I still am a kid when it comes to shiny, new gadgets.

Of course I said I would review it. After all, cough, cough, I do this regularly for other companies. Well we exchanged pleasantries and contact info and boom, FedEx had a note on my mailbox. Took the note excitedly to the UPS station.

"Uh buddy, that is for FedEx."

"Riggght.. I knew that. Just testing ya, have a great day!"

Well no matter, I had the good vibes going and as I was driving back little should I see but a FedEx truck that was pretty darn close to my apartment. I quickly got out of my car and politely asked the FedEx gal is she had my package.

She did.

I quickly hustled home, opened up the FedEx popper bag and there was a little box.

Before I get into the review some more, I have to tell you I am a big time iPhone user/fan/developer so this review will be through the filter of my soul.

There is no denying it. Apple has its presentation down. There just is no comparison. When you open an Apple product you even want to save The Box. Mr. Droid, on the other hand, has your typical box. Utilitarian, boring, serviceable and, dare I say, cheaper. It also has a lot of sponsors on it.

I started to get the sickly feeling that I was experiencing a Windows PC with all its freeware, spyware, reminderware, bannerware and more cluttering up the screen along with about six dozen metallic badges, stickers, and logos covering every conceivable place on the computer. I don't care about Intel inside.

Score big for Apple here. But it is an insignificant victory as after the first hour of your device, do you really intend to use that box?

Let's move over to look and feel of the device.

It has a nice feel. Strong and surprisingly well balanced. I certainly am glad they dropped the slide out physical keyboard because that made the Droid original feel cheap after a bit of use.

The buttons.

The DroidX uses buttons. And, quite frankly, I don't like most of the buttons. The ones I do like work and work well. But I am an Apple purist and I demand the minimal. And one simple navigation button is far superior than four hard buttons.

All navigation on an iPhone is done on the screen while the DroidX makes use of the physical buttons. This is annoying to me and makes the interface confusing, variable, and not very touch like.

I do like the camera button. That is a nice and obvious touch.

For the geeks out there, I am sure you know already, but it does have a fair share of ports, cards, and connectivity. You can even drive a HDMI TV.

Turing on the DroidX was easy and quick. I set up the WiFi and started various updates to get the phone up to par and off I went.

Right away the obvious struck me. The DroidX comes across more as a computer with a phone and some touch interfaces vs. a phone with another universe underneath it. This is a big deal to me.

First off, I get confronted with more logos on the phone, in the phone, on the screen, out of the speaker, etc., Very, very typical of ugly PC land. Then there are the apps. Who picked these apps? Why are they here? How can I get rid of them?

Again this smacks of PC marketing genius. Get some screen real estate licenses and damn the user torpedoes. As if the extortion racket wasn't profitable enough they also have to blackmail you into accepting ugly.

It is fast.

Yes the DroidX is fast. While inconsistent and with frivolous software additions, it does bring up apps and games quick. The battery, when the phone is on idle, lasts a long time and held up well with use too.

Camera: I was hoping for some great camera. Here was my biggest disappointment. With the hot marketing literature of a godzillion pixels and lighting and video I was looking for some good quality. And the nice button in horizontal mode made it a snap to snap. Though the snaps turned out to disappoint in quality.

Just saying.

And there you have it my "initial" review. More to follow if you are nice.

So to wrap up:

Apple - Definitely slicker presentation and much easier to master.

DroidX - Fast, useful, expandable, feature laden, pc type experience.