Motorola Droid: Times Gadget of the Year

Forget Person of the Year. Think Gadget of the Year. Time Magazine has ranked the top 10 gadgets of 2009, and the top spot goes to … the Motorola Droid.

The reason for the kudos is simple. Despite all the buzz around Google’s mobile OS over the past months, Droid is “Android’s first credible challenge to the iPhone.”

And everyone loves a credible challenge to the iPhone. There haven’t been that many.

Time opines: Everybody likes Android, Google’s open-source smartphone operating system. But a smartphone operating system isn’t all that satisfying without an actual kick-ass smartphone wrapped around it. Now Android has one: The Droid is a hefty beast, a metal behemoth without the gloss and finish of the iPhone, but you don’t miss it.”

The assessment echoes the branding that carrier Verizon Wireless is striving for: It wants people to see the Droid as a can-do, masculine, workaholic gadget that has it where it counts, instead of spending a lot of time on vanity touches.

Personally, we just like how the commercials say “Droid” in that cool Terminator voice.

It’s been a year of interesting wireless launches, from the highly anticipated Palm Pre to various BlackBerrys to the Amazon Kindle. But the Droid has emerged as a real winner for Verizon and Motorola. A recent YouGov Brand Index report found Motorola loyalty spiking among men ages 18 and up in mid-November, in the wake of the Droid launch. And financial brokers Avian Securities predict that one million of Verizon’s new smartphone, the Droid, could ship in the fourth quarter.