More intelligent than dumb phones and not quite up to scratch with full-blown computers, smartphones first targeted businessmen and women alike, but since their inception have expanded to consume massive numbers of casual cell phone users. Everywhere you look, you’re likely to spot an iPhone, a BlackBerry, a Palm… Calling, messaging, and web browsing all at your fingertips or otherwise comfortably napping in your pocket. These devices have been circulating the cellular market for several years now, each’s hardware coupled with its own unique software. For a while Research In Motion and Palm were the go-to companies for reliable smartphone hardware and software, until Apple busted onto the scene with its cellular savior and market dominator – iPhone. More recently, corporate beast Google decided to test the waters of wireless phone communication by debuting its portable operating system dubbed Android. Google’s left-field success with Android eventually led the company to work in cahoots with HTC to create the Nexus One – the official Google phone, but that’s where digression starts. The Droid Eris is an altogether separate device, sporting Google’s Android operating system, and running on Verizon’s CDMA network as opposed to globally supported GSM. This moderately small, sleek, feature-packed device demonstrates how far we’ve come since the original smartphone, and furthermore humbly sets a unique standard for what’s to be expected from these intelligent communicators.

The first thing I noticed when lifting the Eris is its heft. It’s not an overweight device, nor a flighty, weightless object of apparent cheap construction. The Eris isn’t an ounce heavier than it ought to be. It bodes well in the hand, too, with its plastic-rubber fusion coating and slim profile. If you’re familiar with the iPhone, the Eris is less wide and not quite as tall a fellow. It makes up for it with a few added millimeters of depth, however. Even so, I prefer a device with a bit of girth over a smartphone as thin as paper and wider than my driveway. Even aesthetically it’s high marks all around for the Eris; it’s so far from gaudy it’s almost daunting to see such a plain handheld. Its rounded black body is baren, sure, but the absence of buttons gives the Eris a remarkably refined look.

But looks aren’t everything (unless you own a bag phone). The Eris is visually appealling and a pleasure to physically interface with, and that’s important. Once the initial appreciation of the Eris’s physique subsides, one is left to ponder its internals. How’s the famed Android operating system? Will I be satisfied with the device’s battery life? Can I sext on this thing? The answers to these questions are great, maybe, and in 5-megapixel glory, yes you can.

The Droid Eris is equipped with a capacitive touch-screen, similar to the iPhone’s, because reductive touch-screens are so late 90s. Under pressure of constant, rigorous daily use, I’ve only mistyped a handful of words into the on-screen keyboard, and half of them were the fault of auto-correct thinking it knows what I mean to say, but I didn’t “redress” my friend. I “texted” him. There is a difference, HTC! Speaking of which, HTC has done a marvelous job appending their Sense user interface to Google’s Android operating system. I hardly take notice of the Eris’s trackball as finger-swipe navigation is so effortless and responsive, thanks in large part to the Sense UI.

Google’s Android operating system is lightning fast and intuitive. To ice the cake, HTC decided to craft its own interface, creating a trifecta of speed, useability, and beauty. Everyone has seen the iPhone commercials wherein Thing T. Thing swipes through screens of application thumbnails. Well, no more! (And I’m positive Apple is taking note of this, because it’s absolutely brilliant.) Instead of caging consumers into a box of icons, the horizontal seven-screen spread can be completely customized by application widgets. This middle-ground between viewing simple program icons and dealing with entire applications is where the HTC Eris gets fantastic. Merely swiping left or right, or even remaining on the center screen will give real-time updates to condensed versions of your choice applications, otherwise known as widgets. For the most part, these widgets work flawlessly, exemplified by displaying Twitter updates in a convenient little box, offering picture-stamped contact icons for fast calling or messaging, and showing the first several lines of the email you’ve been waiting for, all without the click or touch of a single button. If the Eris is unlocked, just swipe left and right for fast, easy updates from your favorite applicaions. My only complaint about widgets is that there aren’t enough of them.

The Eris is one smooth operator. Day in and day out I’ll find myself listening to streamed tunes on Grooveshark, sending messages to friends, browsing all corners of the wide web, checking email and making phone calls. At the end of every day, I always have a bit of battery life to spare. Granted, I have the screen’s brightness turned down significantly (it’s blindingly bright by default). Still, the Eris hardly gets any rest while in my posession, and the powerhouse of a device is unceasingly functional. The touch-screen has benchmarked amongst the most accurate capacitive devices available to date, topping even its big brother – the Motorola Droid. It’s a shame ongoing calls can’t be held while browsing the web, but that’s the fault of Verizon’s lackluster 3G technology (although in terms of network availability, Verizon 3G takes the cake. And the pie, and the custard, and your lunch.) Verizon may have taken its sweet time to acquire attractive devices that aren’t plastered inside and out with its branding, but finally with the Droid Eris we’re offered a smartphone whose operating system and user interface partnership is heretofore unmatched. I’d even venture so far as to say that Verizon found its answer to AT&T’s Apple iPhone.