My Moto Droid & XMas Shopping

I love gadgets and I enjoy playing around with new technology. I'm sort of in the anti-iPhone camp, too, mainly because of the network it runs on. Never really liked AT&T too much and would have at least tried the iPhone if Apple had the foresight to sever its ties with that weak network. I've been with Verizon for five years now and have no intentions of leaving. They're pretty solid as far as coverage. So when Verizon got the Google/Motorola Droid back in early November, I decided to wait a few weeks for the reviews to come in and make a decision. Everyone was pretty much fawning over the device, so I decided it was time to retire my Blackberry Curve and give it a shot.

One of the things I am most intrigued with is the phone's ability to use its built-in camera as a UPC barcode scanner. A simple app like ShopSavvy can be installed while you wait in line at the store and be up and running within 60 seconds - and it's free. What ShopSavvy and other similar apps do is scan the UPC code and then broadcast that code to the ShopSavvy servers. The servers identify the product based on the UPC code and then search both web and local sources for retailers with the same product. The end result is being able to see prices other retailers are offering.

For instance, I was in Best Buy (BB) looking for a micro USB cable. The only cable BB had was priced at $14.99. I thought that was high so I used ShopSavvy to scan the barcode and let it do its thing. Three sources came back, all but one of them were sourced from Internet sites. The best price? $4.99 with $2 express shipping. I ordered the product from my phone and walked out of BB empty-handed. In fact, I walked out of a lot of stores for exactly the same reason while Christmas shopping this season.

The operating system on this phone is developed by Google, so there's pretty tight integration between the device and things like GMail, Google Maps, Google Voice, Google Calendar, Street View, YouTube and so on. The Bluetooth in this device is a little buggy at times, but I cannot find too many faults with the phone. You might want to play around with a Droid the next time you're in a Verizon wireless store.