*UPDATED* Google Drive: Just Like Dropbox, but...Better? Different? Hm..

EDIT: I made a comment that you could edit Word, Excel and Pages on Google Drive Browser, whoops. Sorry! You can view them on Google Drive's browser, but if you want to edit it Word and Excel (no pages), just like in the original Google Docs, you have to convert it a google doc first, make your edits, and if you like, u have to option to save it as a word or excel, pdf etc document again. On your desktop Google Drive folder, you can do whatever the heck you want, open any file so long as your computer supports the file...Google Drive on your desktop is just a folder, nothing more.

Got an email today from Google that my Google Drive was ready so I did a quick install to see what was different from Dropbox.

The core function is pretty much like Dropbox, there's a folder on your mac, u put stuff in it, it synces to your Google Drive.

I did note that since it now replaces Google Docs, your docs are now on the Drive in the cloud, BUT are now on your computer's Google Drive folder.

Documents that are shared are not on your desktop computer, they are left in the cloud.

To add shared documents from the cloud to your computer's folder, you got to go to the browser page, select the file, or just select all the documents, and click the option (add to my drive) which will appear when you check a box.

There seems to be two drawbacks compared to Dropbox:

1. I can't tell which folder/file is shared and which isn't on my computer, shared folders and your folders look the same
2. On Dropbox, right from the desktop folder, you can right click a file or folder and there's an additional option under "Dropbox" that will allow you to do "Browse on DB website", "Get Link", or "Share folder"(You can't share a file, only folder)...None of that added feature is on Google Drive's desktop app. You have to go to the browser site to share a folder or file...hopefully Google will add that in the future
3. Dropbox notifies me when a file has been added, removed, changed via a "growl" notification at the top right of my desktop, none of that on Google Drive, or from at least what I can see

To give you a visual disadvantage number #2, the documents being smudged out above are shared documents, you can't tell that their shared from the desktop app, only via the browser, which you can see on the image below, separates "My Drive" and "Shared with me"

I did a same test folder on dropbox, then once synced, went to the online browser to see how they differ.

Google Drive opened all the folders above except:

• VCF file
• NUMBERS file
• PSD file

The photoshop file is an odd one, it doesn't say it cannot open, it just says it can't generate at this time, meaning it'll probably be available soon since Google said it's one of the file you can view online.

Note I said "view", only stuff you can edit are Word documents, Excel, and Pages, plus of course pure GDocs. It can open zipped folders too, revealing the files in your zipped folder.

Dropbox could only open:

• JPG file
• PNG file
• PSD file

So there, more options on Google Drive

Quick first impression is that Google Drive's great for those that use Google Docs a lot, people who use cloud storage will also enjoy BUT the sharing function (rather, identifying a shared item on your desktop) isn't as good as Dropbox, plus I do appreciate the "Growl" notifications feature. Google needs to sort that out.