Hi Scott,

The lack of Start/End hard buttons is no different than how some other phones (like the iPhone) work. When you are in a call there are soft buttons on the screen for End Call, toggling the speaker phone, bluetooth, etc. So do end a call you just hit “end call”. When you open the dial app to make a call, after you enter the number there is a call button. I don’t see the lack of hard buttons as an issue at all. Plus, droid has a proximity sensor, so when you move the phone away from your head the screen turns on again and you can just hang up.

VA dialing isn’t perfect on Android right now. There is a voice dial app, so you just click it and say “Call home” or whatever. The only problem is it will give you a list of options at this point, it wont just call the number automatically. So you still have to have the phone in hand to do this. Also, I have heard that you can’t do this over a BT headset as yet, but I have not confirmed this. There may be an update to the OS in the future, or a third party app. Its not a big deal for me as my car has bluetooth and voice dial that works without me needed to do anything with the phone. But if you really need a bluetooth solution that can work totally hands free while the phone is in your pocket, might not be the best time for Droid.

I’ll be posting again soon about what I think after having used droid for almost a month now, but in short, Verizon service is far better than ATT or T-Mobile, the phone is very solid, works quite well for email and messaging, but the app store is still not up to Apple, and most likely won’t be for a while.

My recommendation is this.. if you dont care about the higher res screen and dont want/need the physical keyboard, the Droid Eris from HTC is prob a better bet. (Also on Verizon). This has the super slick HTC Sense interface and its quite a nice phone as well.

I REALLLY wan to love this Droid, but I’m concerned about a few things – no start/end call button, and Blue-tooth voice-activated dialing.

I have read on numerous sites that BT voice-activated dialing is not available for the Moto Droid. So, I’m interested in your comment above: “Oh, and you can do voice activated dialing of course.”

Would you please exapnd on your comment? And how – exactly – does the Droid do the V-A dialing (step by step)?

Your answer would be of great help in deciding to purchase it on Black Friday.

Thanks.