Hacker News Reader

Comment by chaostheory | Hacker News Reader

Since this is on Verizon, the big question for me is "Will Droid have built-in wifi?"

All Verizon smartphones will now have wifi. This is because all Verizon smartphones now also require you to get a data plan anyway. Kind of meh, but it's not going to discourage me from getting this phone. Having a data plan is still fairly useful, and since I'm on a family plan I only would have to pay for the data plan anyway.

"All Verizon smartphones will now have wifi. This is because all Verizon smartphones now also require you to get a data plan anyway."

WiFi does not refer to Verizon's wireless data offering, but to 802.11b/g, etc. Most Verizon phones do not offer WiFi. The iPhone offers both EDGE and WiFi connections.

I believe what he's trying to say is that Verizon used to disable WiFi to force people to get data plans, but now that data plans will be required, Verizon will include WiFi.

I know the Cliq will (T-mobile's Droid). So I'm guessing that the Droid will get it too.

Err, I think the Cliq is actually a totally different phone for T-mobile but with a similar form factor. The hardware on the Droid is much better, eg. 848x480 screen instead of 480x320 screen. I don't think the Cliq has an OMAP SoC either, probably ARM11. And the Droid uses stock Android 2.0, whereas the Cliq has Android 1.6 or 1.5 with Motorola's MOTOBLUR on top. But the Droid will have wifi, since it's a higher end model, and Verizon has changed its policy of removing wifi now that they require data plans on smartphones anyway.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com