Utah shoppers check out Droid phone

Tyler Farrell of North Salt Lake is the epitome of cool. He wears a Mohawk-style haircut and always gets the latest and greatest in new technologies — Xboxes, PlayStations and Blu-rays — the first day they are sold in stores.

On Friday, he continued his trend-setter trek by being among the first to buy a Droid, an Android 2.0 cell-phone technology designed to compete with the Apple iPhone.

"It's supposed to be pretty legit," Farrell said outside the Verizon Wireless store at The Gateway. "It's supposed to be the newest, biggest and best thing out."

According to a news release from Verizon and Motorola Inc., the Droid is a smart phone powered by Android, a mobile operating system, that has HTML Web browsing capabilities, a 16GB memory card pre-installed, a 3.7-inch touch screen, Google Maps, the capability to upload videos from YouTube, visual voice mail and Bluetooth stereo support.

The Motorola phone comes in a package with a price tag at The Gateway of $259.96. Verizon sells another Droid phone, the Droid Eris by HTC, which is cheaper at $159.96 but has fewer features.

Justin Clark of Bountiful was looking for a new personal digital assistant, and bought a Droid on Friday.

He said he likes Verizon service. "I've always had Motorola phones," he said. Clark said he didn't want to be "locked in" to Apple hardware and applications, which made the Droid more attractive.

Lucas Bueno of Murray shopped but didn't purchase any phone Friday. He looked at the LG Chocolate Touch, the Droid Eris by HTC and the Motorola Droid. For about 30 minutes, he studied the different phones. He listened to a Sean Paul song on the Chocolate and a Dream Theater song on a Droid. He text-messaged a friend from the HTC Droid. And tried the touch-screen dialing from the Motorola Droid.

"I still haven't decided," Bueno said after leaving the store and deciding firmly against the Chocolate because he was more impressed with the Droid applications. "Either to Motorola or the HTC. Both are Androids. And it has to be an Android."