Motorola Droid as a CarPC ?

**Blues** · 11-05-2009, 07:12 PM

Droid™ will be renamed Milestone™ for the GSM market. Milestone has been officially announced for Germany, Italy, Argentina and Brazil. In Germany it's said to arrive already monday November 9th, and the carrier will be O2: http://o2online.de

Google Maps™, Google Maps™ Navigation (BETA), Google Latitude™, Google Maps Street View and eCompass are all listed under the specifications for Droid, but unfortunately not listed for Milestone.

The reason is Google Maps™ Navigation is only supported in America so far. So Milestone will use Motorola's own navigation system MOTONAV instead. (At least until Google Maps™ Navigation will be avaiable in more countries anyway).

However Milestone supports multi-touch pinch zoom, and I have read that Droid doesn't support this feature althought the hardware is still multi-touch.

Droid is delivered with a 16MB microSD card while Milestone is only delivered with a 8MB microSD card.

Milestone has up to 350 hrs. standby time while Droid only has up to 270 hrs. standby time (due to the different networks they operate on "GSM vs. CDMA").

Supported networks by Motorola Milestone:
3G
WCDMA/900/2100, GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSPA, GPRS Class 12, WiFi.

http://motorola.com/milestone

http://motorola.com/droid

**Blues** · 11-05-2009, 08:03 PM

Android 2.1 spotted in the wild

http://androidandme.com/2009/11/news/android-2-1-spotted-in-the-wild

http://android-developers.blogspot.c...rt-in-sdk.html

We are also planning a minor version update of Android 2.0 towards the end of the year, and that will be the last update for 2009.

**jcam** · 11-06-2009, 10:07 AM

Has anyone heard if the GSM droid is coming to the US?

**Blues** · 11-10-2009, 08:26 PM

TELUS bringing Motorola MILESTONE to Canada in “early 2010″
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009/...-in-early-2010
http://themobileninjas.com/2009/11/0...a-droidsholes/

**tripzero** · 11-10-2009, 08:48 PM

Originally Posted by Magnezium

Check out the N95,96 and maybe 97. My N95 hooks up to a TV and displays exactly what's on the phone. Very cool stuff.

one word: n900. the most amazing device ever!

**justchat_1** · 11-15-2009, 01:29 AM

Well i got an HTC Droid today (the regular droid was the ugliest phone I have ever seen)

This post is via its tethered connection.... 350KB/s down and 150KB/s up - thats not bad at all considering i pay 30/month for service.

One things I have noticed though is theres not a chance in hell this would make a good carPC FE...for at least half a dozen reasons.

**cyan** · 01-07-2010, 07:54 PM

I'd be interested to hear why anyone thinks the Droid won't work as a CarPC? All the things I am interested in doing with a carpc (music, bluetooth, OBD2, GPS navigation, email, websurfing) I can do now (or will be able to shortly in the case of OBD2) with the Droid. Even satellite radio (given the example of the iPhone which can do it now) is probably in the works. The only thing that's missing is an integrated front end, big icons for use while driving and some kind of dock. Yes, it would be nice to be able to connect a separate monitor and use that for i/o. But with a decent interface, the droid, as/is, would probably do the trick.

Besides extra computing power, tell me why your CarPc is a better choice than the Droid for CarPC? Not being combative, I really am interested in hearing why people think it won't replace other integrated carpc solutions.

EDIT: Should have pointed out this was in reference to the Motorola Droid (not HTC Eris, MyTouch, Nexus One (*droool*) or other Android phone.

**justchat_1** · 01-07-2010, 11:43 PM

This is going to be short since these reasons have been stated 100 times already but the android user interface requires your attention to be used (which can be dangerous when driving). Each application runs separately and as such has is not an integrated solution by any means. Just because a lot of carPC software at the moment doesn't show off the capabilities of a carPC doesn't mean its not just around the corner.

**Deric** · 01-07-2010, 11:59 PM

I was just telling a friend who got the droid if someone makes a double-din enclosure that would interface with todays phones I could really see it as the way of the future. A lot of phones already have audio and video out now if we could just get a touchscreen to interface via bluetooth or some other means I think we would have a winner.

**cyan** · 01-08-2010, 12:53 PM

justchat1,

I realize that the Droid does not have any kind of frontend software yet. But are you saying that there's something inherent about the Droid that makes frontend software impossible to code?

Isn't your argument kind of like saying "The Windows OS user interface requires your constant attention, it wouldn't work for a carpc environment." The OS interface is not what we use as a frontend.

I can currently play Pandora radio while I am doing turn-by-turn navigation. Are you saying that someone else couldn't put together an app that would integrate those in such a way that I could toggle over to my OBD2 data for a second and then back to music and navigation? That's what I do on centrafuse now.

I guess I'm asking if something like Centrafuse (or RR or LinuxIce or anything else) can be built for the Droid.

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