After patiently waiting for the newest release of the Android OS for my Moto DROID (lets not forget the many rumored and canceled releases for 2.1) I just had to track down the udpate vs. wait for the 47MB OTA update to come at some unknown time starting on or after August 3. A quick Google search brought me to a familiar place, androidforums.com.

I snapped up the download, which is the legitimate release from Google for STOCK, non-rooted devices. Sure I’m antsy, but I didn’t see the need to root my phone and lose some features to gain others, plus, I don’t need the upgrade to the ‘Brick’ feature in case something went south.

The update process is cake, as noted in the link above, I rebooted and after a few minutes the first round it was up and running. I had to do some digging to find the Flash 10.1 app as well since it’s not listed in the Market yet. I found you’ll need to reboot your device after you install Flash to make it play nice with the browser.

Here is what I found after a night of playing.

1. FASTER – Hella faster than 2.1 in terms of app and screen switching, and just overall a much quicker build.
2. The new look to the Launcher is nice, especially the app listings, however I did install Launcher Pro due to some really cool add ons like mini-docks at the bottom for contacts, shortcuts etc.
3. The new clock app is great. Extra features such as also displaying the temp, and news if you wish, along with shortcuts to music, photos etc, and a dimming feature. It’s intent is to be used with the dock, however until I find a dock that fits my case, it just sits on the bedstand.
4. Flash works! – Now I can more easily monitor my weather information at home. This will be a great added bonus to the phone for a number of reasons for me.
5. Did I mention it’s much faster?
6. Camera support – Updated interface for accessing all the features in the camera/video camera, along with LED ON feature for video camera for low light video.
7. Has better support for corporate calendars (since I had the DROID to begin with, it had native support for Exchange calendars.
8. The default Mail app appears to have support for Signatures now. I had been using K9 mail, which was great for the signature support, however it had difficulty parsing a few emails from various web-apps I maintain, which makes mobile upkeep a pita.
9. USB Tethering – I haven’t tried this, and I’m not sure I will. I’ve been using PDA-net, which has worked flawlessly for me.
10. – DOWNSIDE – Still no support that I can find for connecting to an Untangle VPN server.

Overall, I’m quite happy I tracked this down last night and set it up. I’ll probably hook up the GF’s DROID as well later this week if mine is performing well.