I struggled with this issue, I went to the store and looked at them both heavily. Fortunately my wife was also getting a new phone and she liked the Eris just alittle better because of it's size and look, verse the Droid's block feel.
Anyway now that I've had both they are both FINE phones, with only slight differences that really come down to personal desire.
1. Out of the box User Experience: WINNER ERIS: Hands down. The first thing i will note, is that the Eris's user experience out of the box is by FAR better then the Droid's out of the box experience. The Eris comes pre installed with what i would consider very basic phone applications, but saves the end user from having to do research and figure out the marketspace right away. If your not a power smart phone user, the Eris will win you over, the user experience of the Droid has sent many non-power users friends of mine packing back to Verizon to exchange it for the Eris.
2. Screen Size - Winner Droid, slightly larger but no other differences.
3. Weight Feel - Tie personal preference, I like the heavier 6oz phone, it feels like a phone not a toy. My wife perfers the lighter feel.
4. Camera - Winner Droid: Droid has a flash, Eris does not, Droid has a edicated camera button on top of the phone, Eris uses the trackball. Works OK, problem is many times you'll press the track ball and move the phone making the photo "blur". Eris wins tho on ZOOM rolling the track ball makes it much easier then a tap and +/- key. The Camera applicaiton on the Droid is slightly better and more intuitive then the Eris.
5. Home Screens - Winner Eris: With seven screens for you to layout widgets makes this the "dream layout" additionally the ability to save "layouts" and change them quickly makes the Eris the winner. Yes I know there are apps out there like aHome dxHome etc, but they are addon's that are not the manufactures design and are buggy as well as do lag the phones. Also the Eris' 3 on screen buttons one for all items, phone and add item to this screen make it by far the winner, even though you can do all those things with the Droid, the Eris wins on intuitive UI.
6. Keyboard Use - TIE, personal preference I was one who "had to" have a keyboard, now that i've been using my Droid, I'm finding I use the slide out keyboard less and less. I still use it i still love it, but this is a personal preference thing. After using the on screen keyboard it is not hard to get useto.
7. Directions / Maps: Winner Droid, the voice car home and voice recognition for quickly entering directions the Droid wins only slightly better then the Eris, the Eris always does a google search but you can quickly press one button to launch the Navigation application, the Droid, simply say: Navagate to Wallmart and off you go to the closest Walmart.
8. Data Sync: Winner Eris: Pet peve of mine I'm really irritated that Motorola desided to use a propriatery USB connector, rather then a standard USB, additionally the one they give you is VERY SHORT. Unsure about purchasing a longer one haven't looked yet, but still it's additional cost and a "special" cable I HAVETO remeber to bring with me. Everyone has tons of standard usb connectors, tons of generic interfaces for those, why they went with what FEELS like a fragile slim usb connector to the phone eludes me, and irritates me. That one item has been a make it or break it for many users that i've talked to.
9. Multi-touch: Winner Eris: I know it's comming for the Droid and there are ways to get it before the released upgrade to multi-touch, but Eris has it out of the box and it works REALLY well.
10. Track Ball vrs Mutil-direction pad: Tie really, the track ball is nice though for general use and scrolling, you can achieve the same thing on the Droid, but you MUST slide the keyboard out and then it overrides the orientation (annoying as heck) so you must view it in landscape mode. Not a huge issue, I do like the track ball overall though.
11. Performance: Both perform equally well.
12. Free external memory: Winner Driod with a free 16gig micro mini, verse the 8gig micro mini, very minor point but a 16 gig card at this time is going for about 45.00, only bring this up because of cost comparision, the Eris is cheaper from the pocketbook standpoint, but remember when you're paying 100 for it, if you want 16 gig you're really paying 145...
13. Cost: Winner Eris, not by much though, $100 for the Eris, $200 for the Droid (Got mine for $150 though after doing a search for Verizon Droid Promo codes online). So when you consider 12, the Eris is only $5.00 cheaper then the Droid. I really want to call this one a tie, but can't because the promo may not last forever.
13. Settings / User manipulation of phone behavior: TIE, **bleep** close though again, the Eris has some really nice built in functionality, easy menus, the ability to save your screen layouts and change them on the fly, almost making the Eris a winner, but the Droid comes back strong with built in ability to monitor application power usage, even with the lack of flexablity for the home layouts, it's smaller but less flexable but well designed settings makes this a tie.
14. Out of the box calendar: Winner Droid, the Eris applicaiton lacks the ability to invite others to appointments. (Calendaring is currrently a sore subject with both phones failing in how they handle this, I won't go into a detailed review so OUT OF THE BOX, the Droid wins).
15. Battery Life: Tie, if one is slightly better it's the Droid, the wife and I use our phones about the same amount and it's ussually a pretty close tie, some days she wins, some days I do, the differnece is so minor it's not worth worrying about. I will say this though the Droid recharges faster so far, no clue why but we'll charge them at the same time and be at the same level and mine will fully charge from 15% to full a good 30m faster then my wifes Eris.
16. Marketspace: Winner Eris, oddly enought the marketspace applicaitons are different, the Eris's search works consistently, while i've found searching for applications by the name on the Droid doesn't always pull the same results even when using by exact name. Case in point, my wife grabbed "Light Racer" from the market space, she read a review online and searched, downloaded it. I was like that's cool, did the exact same search and came up with 0 results on the droid. Tried it as one word etc, no luck. Went into games, action and it was the third one on the list.... Just odd things like that the Eris has been 100% accurate everytime the Droid has been "odd". I do like the Droid's ability to filter by "Paid" or "Free" though the Eris does not offer that filter ability.
17. Android 2.0/1.5: Tie really, unless you have something SPECIFIC to the OS this is a dead tie. I will say this though at least for RIGHT NOW until 2.0 source is released, you'll have less issues on the 1.5 version because of versioning issues as well as you'll find more applications that simply work on Android 1.5. This shouldn't be a deal breaker because i'm sure that this will change quickly over time. Power users won't have issues, it's the non-power users that I point this out to, even less then that the users who are not very tech savvy.
Lastly don't let any of the verizon sales reps **bleep** ya, yes you need a data plan, but you can choose the pay per KB, it's a rediculous amount of money, but, just tell them to block all data activity on the phone.... (I say this only for those struggling with $$, the phone will behave oddly without a data plan because well it's designed for the "cloud" mentality. But it's not nessisary, my wife has been without a data plan since day 1.)
