The Droid takes the already strong Android platform and matches it with hardware worthy of the system. Android has been around over a year now. There are some very nice Android phones - the G1 & the Hero by HTC most notably. Droid blows them all away.
First and foremost, Droid has a beautiful screen. Its large (3.7"), high resolution (854x480, true 16:9 widescreen). The capacitive touch is very responsive. When you pick up the phone, you'll immediately notice two things - 1) the build quality is fantastic 2) the phone is rather heavy. The extra weight is likely caused by the higher quality materials used to construct the phone, and considering how remarkably thin it is for a qwerty-slider, that's really not a bid deal, in my opinion. The sliding mechanism is simple and feels solid, with no side-to-side play. The keyboard itself is not the best - other HTC phones like the G1 and Touch Pro 2 have superior keyboards. The keys are flat, which is necessary to make the phone so thin, but the layout is not ideal - they are aligned in a perfect grid, not offset like a standard keyboard. However, it is still far superior to a touch screen keyboard. Droid is also powered by a beefy Cortex A8 processor - the same architecture that runs the iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre. It is considerably faster than the older ARM11 processor in other Android/HTC/Motorola phones. Don't be fooled - the ARM11 528MHz processor is not even in the same realm is the A8 550MHz processor. MHz numbers don't tell the whole story.
The software in the Droid is also very strong. It is the first Android 2.0 device on the market. Android is really an underrated platform - it is very powerful, very easy to use, and has a huge number of apps on the Android Market. No, the total does not come close to the Apple app store - but how many variations of the fart app do you really need? When it comes down to it, with somewhere around 10-20k apps on the Market, there really is an app for just about everything you'd want to do. Also worth noting, most of those apps are from the pre-Droid era - now that we've got a mass-marketed Android device on the largest network, the Market will likely see an explosion of even more. The apps really are useful too, not just gimmicky - a brief list of useful apps is listed before. I've seen complaints over apps being stored in-memory and not on the memory card - this is less of an issue than you think. The core executable is stored in the 200MB or so of onboard storage - images, media, and other, bigger parts of an app are downloaded directly to the 16GB SD card. I have dozens of apps on my Droid and I still have 175MB free.
Call quality on the Droid is very good. I used the Touch Pro 2 on Verizon for about a month prior to the Droid, and reception was considerably better. In areas where I'd only get 1 bar of service, the Touch Pro 2 would cut out and drop calls, whereas the Droid is strong and clear pretty much everywhere. Also worth noting, I have never had a phone that obtained a GPS fix faster than Droid - fire up Google Maps and almost immediately your location is pinpointed. Data service over the Verizon EV-DO network is snappy, and I get 3G coverage everywhere I go.
On the subject of Google Maps - along with Android 2.0, Droid is also the first phone to have Google's free turn-by-turn navigation system. This is a great addition, although it should filter its way to other systems with time - in fact, Google has already released this update for Android 1.6 devices. The voice-guided navigation is not perfect, and does not rival a dedicated system, but for the price, it really is a great product, and it will only improve with time.
The included camera is not perfect. I have not had the autofocus issues others have complained about, but picture quality is definitely a little washed out - I was spoiled by the great Carl Zeiss 5MP camera on the N95, I haven't had a cell phone rival it yet. Video recording, on the other hand, is very good. Sharp, smooth video with rich color reproduction. Its amazing that they were taken by the same lens.
Battery life is actually decent with Droid. One thing you must realize, if you haven't used a smartphone before, is that ALL data-enabled smartphones have poor battery life. That said, Droid is slightly above average here. I almost always can go the entire day without charging, which is pretty good considering I run gmail, exchange, facebook, twitter, weather, sports, stocks, and more in the background all day. Android includes a useful tool that shows you what is using the battery (by %). So far, it seems that the 3G radio is actually very battery-efficient. I can run Pandora for hours and hardly dent my battery. However, wifi drains it pretty hard, and the big screen is a HUGE battery guzzler, even with the brightness turned down.
There are also some cool accessories for Droid. The car dock holds the phone (very securely I might add) onto your dashboard, and brings you into "car home" mode, with easy access to voice search (which works great), maps, navigation, contacts, etc. Combine the car dock with the standard headphone jack in your car to Navigate while streaming Pandora to your car's stereo system simultaneously. Get a call? Pandora cuts out, your car speakers become a speakerphone. Works great. There's also the multimedia dock, which turns Droid into an alarm clock/multimedia/weather station. Both are nice.
In summary, the Droid is a great smartphone on a great network. It is not perfect - the keyboard and camera could both be a little better, battery life is good but not great, but you won't find a better smartphone on Verizon - and depending on what you look for in a phone, you may not find a better phone on any network.
Pros:
-Big, sharp screen
-Blazingly fast processor
-Android 2.0
-Good browsing experience
-Free turn-by-turn voice navigation
-Huge number of apps on the Android Market
-Decent battery life
-Very solidly built
-Physical keyboard
-Very thin for a phone with slide out keyboard
Cons:
-Keyboard could be improved
-Camera shots are somewhat washed out
-No multitouch in native apps (although apps downloaded from the Market do have Multitouch - its a software thing, not a Droid thing)
-A bit heavy
Some of my favorite apps:
-Better Keyboard, a replacement for the on screen keyboard. WAY better than the stock Android keyboard
-AppSwipe, Slightly more powerful task manager than included
-Dolphin Browser, Adds multitouch, gestures, and some nice interface touches to the default browser
-Twidroid, by far the best Twitter app on Android
-Key Ring Rewards, stores all of your store cards (Safeway, QFC, Petco, Blockbuster, etc). Don't carry around a dozen cards, just pop open Key Ring Rewards and it displays the scannable UPC
-Listen, made by Google, downloads/finds/plays podcasts
-My Tracks, also made by Google, works with Google Maps & GPS, tracks information about runs/walks/drives with speed, distance, etc
-MotoTorch LED, uses the camera's LED flash as a flashlight
-Quote Pro, the best stock app on Android
-Pandora, free streaming music
-Pure Grid Calendar, a nice home screen widgit for your calendar
-Shazam, listens to music playing and tells you what song it is
-SportsTap, the best sports scores/stats app on Android
-TasKiller, kills all running apps to free up memory
-Weather Widgits, gives you an HTC Sense-style weather flip clock widgit
