droid and google

I've been using a 'droid phone (htc wildfire) for work and to be honest, I'm nonplussed.

I use an N900 on a daily basis and there are still two S60 and one S40 Nokias in the house. I've used S90, S80 and S60 over a period of years.

Things that *really* bug me about the htc:
- I expect a phone to act as one when it's connected to a PC, not just mass storage. DUN as a minimum.
- Keyboards that are that hard to use for people with "sausage fingers" are not funny. My little monster found it great - I hated it. As did the other half.
- When the keyboard covers half of the field you're supposed to be entering, that's plain silly.
- the battery life is a joke (2 days max, without using it)
- why can't I take screenshots?
- why can't I close an application?
- Why on earth do I NEED a google account to install even an app? I can't even download one from the googlemarket without a google account - and this one won't work, because there's no SIM in the phone, so therefore I can't have the account confirmed.

If you think that last point through, that's pretty damned close to the glass citizen. Google would then know:
- what phone I have
- what apps are theoretically on it
- where I am
- my opinions via blog and / or plus
- my acquaintances across the planet via plus
- which blogs I read

add into that a significant proportion of my search history and away we go....

My next phone will not be droid. Probably an N9 or a Lumia.

- Bret