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Motorola Droid Verizon Wireless
- Thread in 'General' Thread starter Started by polorsport,
- Start date
frankreynolds420
Banned
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Would never but a motorola again.
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Nice, I need a new phone. This might be the one to put my Moto Q to rest of 2 years
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@Bowzer Blitz I've changed the os at least 20 times. Currently running 5.0.0.238/287 by lyricidal. This phone failed me BIG TIME. I went to take a photo ofAdrianne Curry in her wonder woman outfit and it froze on me. The phone completely froze on me. I was like this doesn't usually happen. I used the Ican't get it up line about a phone. Before I hear ducktales or some bs. Here are some pics of her outfits today. None of which where taken by me. She wasreally gorgeous in person.
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PoloRSport, just lettin u kno new photos laked tonight. one of the keyboard too. I can't post them cuz i'm on my phone (samsung i760) and its on itshalf dead. screen I basically cracked internally so half of my screen is just black. i'll ost the pics tomorrow when i'm on my pc if u don't bythen. do u plan on getting this on the 30th too??
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@neverflopped thanks for the update. I'm about to call it a night but look forward to the update.
I'm about 90% on trying to get it on release date online 30th.
I'm about 90% on trying to get it on release date online 30th.
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sorry don't know how to post pics on yuku so i just posted the links
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-1.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-2.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-3.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-4.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-5.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-6.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-7.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-8.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-9.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-10.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-11.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-12.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-13.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-1.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-2.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-3.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-4.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-5.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-6.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-7.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-8.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...rolaDroid-9.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-10.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-11.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-12.jpg
http://www.boygeniusreport.com/wp-c...olaDroid-13.jpg
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The first time I'm jealous of Verizon being an AT&T customer. This phone looks like a BEAST.
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We absolutely nailed this puppy to the wall over and over and over again, so it's only fitting we'd be doing thefirst actual unveiling, right? We're not going to get too in-depth though, that will come at a later time. Here are some brief thoughts before thephotos:
- It's running Android 2.0. Duh.
- It's thin. Just slightly thicker than an iPhone 3GS and the thinnest QWERTY-slider we've ever seen.
- It is the fastest Android device we've ever used. (It's running a TI OMAP3430 processor)
- The feel of the device is very reminiscent of the OQO 02 model computer. Just smaller. It's metal with a non-spring-assisted slide, very sturdy, and half soft-touch plastic.
- Awesome capacitive display. Plus it's huge. Easily the best screen we've ever seen on an Android handset, and an amazing screen overall.
- The QWERTY keyboard is actually pretty usable and has a soft-touch rubberized finish. We've been told the keyboard design isn't final on this unit, thus the two no-shows.
- Have we mentioned this phone flies? It's the Android device to beat, and easily the most impressive. From what we've been told, Google had a direct hand in the Motorola Droid. Something to the point of almost dictating every move Motorola made when designing and making the phone. Interesting, huh?
- There's a desktop cradle/charger that will ship with the Motorola Droid that we've been playing around with. It turns your Droid into a "multimedia station" and displays local weather, the time, etc.
- No one wants to listen, but it makes the CLIQ looks like a child's toy (partly because it is, and partly because the Droid, even in its non-final form, is the most impressive phone we've used since the iPhone. It's positively amazing).
I'm either getting this or the N900.
iPhone is now irrelevant to me.
1GHz processors and open source Open Source Andriod 2.0...the future is promising.
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I'm so glad I waited on getting the TP2 for this. I've been following this phone since it was rumored, and seems like verizon got this totally right.
This phone will bring back Motorola to the glory days. Crazy how this is their bottom of the ninth, game tied, 2 outs game 7 situation for them.
This phone will bring back Motorola to the glory days. Crazy how this is their bottom of the ninth, game tied, 2 outs game 7 situation for them.
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Got mixed feelings about the appearance of the phone. The UI looks like an iPhone knockoff. BUT, I'm interested in learning more about the OS. Not rillyrockin wit them using iPhone to advertise their product. Kind of a cop out. The Instinct was said to be "The iPhone Killer". Not only did it not liveup to it's name, the phone was downright garbage. Personally, I'm not head-over-heels for it. The screen caps don't do much for me. I been thinkinbout switchin to verizon too. So this will be interesting to choose between this and the Storm 2.
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Not really feeling the sharp edges and all, but the keyboard and the screen look
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If I wouldve seen this post before today I would have asked my Motorola rep about this phone, he came by today.
I wouldve had some insider info, maybe next time.
I wouldve had some insider info, maybe next time.
Would never but a motorola again.
What happend? Motorola phones are really good and durable.
Razr is still working after 5 years.
I'll be selling my storm soon.
How you gonna do someone wrong and sell em that phone?
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The buzz for this phone is growing pretty quickly....
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next G1 imo, wasnt that supposed to b the iphone killer?
iphone>_
iphone>_
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Since i'm with Verizon, I might have to toss the storm to get this. I've always been happy with Motorola product.
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Nice, but I refuse to ever go to a CDMA network.
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looks wack
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phone looks amazing
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too bad verizon plans are as expensive as the iphones
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What's the prices look like? I overlooked that entirely.
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Here is the best review to date in my opinion.
[h2]Motorola DROID review[/h2]
by Boy Genius on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:27pm
Filed under: 1xRTT, Android, CDMA, EV-DO, Featured, Handsets, Motorola, Reviews, Verizon, Wi-Fi 143 Comments
We scooped it, we previewed it, and now we're officially reviewing it. There's a good chance thateven if you're not into tech all that much, you've heard of the Motorola DROID thanks to Verizon's big marketing push, and that's a good andbad thing. As you'll see in our review, the DROID is a fantastic device, but does it have what it takes to compete outside the world of the die-hardAndroid fans and techies in the consumer arena? You'll see soon enough!
Hardware / Design
Design is always going to be subjective, but in a world of curves and tapered edges, it's downright thrilling to see a handset that's angular,retro-looking and extremely masculine. Sorry, ladies. You'll always have Droid Eris… We just love the styling of the DROID. It's minimalistic in a lotof ways, not cluttered with useless buttons and switches, and overall is solid as a rock. The slide mechanism is not spring-assisted, but the click isreassuring enough to warrant a comforting feeling when opening or closing the handset. One thing physically we're not thrilled with is the looseness of thevolume up and down key. It slides up, down, front and back and generally feels like it's just going to fall off over time. Both the unit we received fromVerizon as well as our older unit exhibit the same behaviors.
Contrary to other reports, the Motorola DROID exterior is actually mostly metal. The bezel around the screen is metal as is the mid-plate of the case. Theonly part that's plastic is the rear back-plate and as we understand it, the reason that little chin exists is because that was the only place Motorolacould fit the wireless antennas. They face out towards the plastic back as opposed to being Faraday-caged by the metal front.
Touch-sensitive keys are a, uh, sensitive area but they're honestly fine at the end of the day. We've been banging on a DROID for many weeks andhaven't once had a misfire or accidental key press even though the keys are 100% touch-based. We don't think they're a problem even though somepeople have been concerned. Plus, you can't beat the Haptic feedback. There isn't a single key on the left side of the unit, just a microUSB port, andon the top there's a 3.5mm headset jack followed by the power / lock /unlock button. On the right side, we've got the shady bi-directional volume keyand a two-stage camera shutter key donned in gold. Or as Motorola likes to call it, brown sugar. Mmm, brown sugar.
When you turn the phone over, you get a rather simple but concise "brown sugar" speaker grill, battery cover with Motorola and Verizon logos, andthat 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash. Oh, and the "with Google" logo, too. No, the phone doesn't look like a billboard to us, but hey,you're entitled to your own opinion. Inside it is packing a 550MHz OMAP3 CPU, dedicated graphics processor, 512MB of ROM, 256 of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR, a digital compass, and accelerometer.
Screen
You want one word to describe the screen? Stunning. A 3.7″ WVGA 854×480 capacitive high-quality display? We'll take three. Like we said in our preview,it's the best screen we've ever seen on an Android device and possibly in general. Plus it's responsiveness is second to only Apple'scapacitive displays, so we're talking about a really, really solid screen here, people. The widescreen proportion might take a little getting used to forsome, but all in all, it's roomy and sports a rather nice resolution.
On the screen there is a proximity sensor and also an ambient light sensor. Both work magically to shut off the screen while you're on a call, savingbattery and preventing your face from triggering an on screen button, and also adjusting the brightness of the display to match the lighting in your currentenvironment. Some people asked us if the screen on the DROID was dim as it appeared that way in a couple of our photos, and our quick answer would be:absolutely not. It's viciously bright if you ask it to be, and the backlighting is a very assuring white as opposed to a tinted red, orange, pink or bluehue on some other phones we've used.
As we said, it's second only to the iPhone as far as capacitive screens go, and coupled with the rest of the DROID, it's a real winner.
Keyboard
After using the phone for almost a month, I can confidently say the keyboard is fine for most people. It's not a BlackBerry and the actual spacing ofthe keys isn't great, but it is really livable I think. Each key has a little bubbled-texture which makes it a bit easier to define one key from another,and the tactile feedback, while not perfect, is fine. The spacebar could use a little more tactility though as it's probably the hardest key to press whenyou're trying to type swiftly and accurately. There's two things that bother us about the keyboard and that's the directional pad stage right, andthe fact that two keys haven't quite made it through metamorphosis. Can someone please point out another phone in the entire universe that shipped with twoblank keys? Is this a joke? It's not the end of the world but uh, how about a home key and a back key? How about a bigger spacebar? There's a millionthings that could have been done to improve the keyboard layout even by two keys and it's pretty hilarious that two keys are blank.
Backlighting on the keyboard is a nice white/teal-$$% tint, definitely bright enough, and comes through just the letters and symbols.
The on screen keyboard that Android-lovers are used to for all intents and purposes has not changed. It's the standard Android affair, there aresettings to enable vibration-feedback on key press, an audible sound on key press, and the usual configurational options like auto-capitalization, wordsuggestions, auto-correct and completion. There's virtually no improvement from other Google Experience handsets which is a bit depressing as the keyboardin Android has a bit of a ways to go to compete with that other popular touch-based phone. The landscape on screen keyboard is obviously very, very wide and atad more forgiving with typing since the keys are obviously larger.
OS
Oh, Android 2.0. It feels like such a huge step forward for Android and it is. It really brings the mobile Google OS into 2009 with support for Exchange, aunified inbox (for non-Gmail), more resolution support, 3D graphics, and a whole lot more. Would we classify it as mostly a face lift? Yes. But that's okaybecause at the core Android wasn't too bad and most of the open issues in our mind have been fixed in 2.0. Unfortunately, there's no multi-touchsupport in here which is a major downer. There is multi-touch support in the European version of the DROID, the MILESTONE, though. You might haveread in our preview that we said that in the Maps application you can two-finger tap to zoom in. Well, you can also one-finger tap to zoom in. The software wassensing one input, not both simultaneously. Our bad.
In the new version of Android it seems that we've been given some more fluidity and some nice shortcuts to simplify our lives and not make them morecomplex. You'll notice you can tap on a thumbnail of a contact photo anywhere in the OS and have a quick-launch list of immediate correspondenceoptions.
There is still a lot of things Android 2.0 doesn't fix and it's pretty annoying. For one, there's no way to set a real password on the phone.Seriously, drawing lines, shapes and farm animals with your finger to unlock the phone was cute in Android 1.0, but in 2.0? Get it together. It's alsoinexcusable that there isn't a password timeout interval you can adjust so you're not forced to play tic-tac-toe each time you want to unlock yourphone and read your email. Also, there are still no configurable hardware keyboard settings for repeat delay and repeat speed. Openness is great for mostlyeveryone: consumers, developers, etc. It also, however, brings shoddy code (from some 3rd party developers), fragmentation, and other hurdles. There has beencountless times that programs for whatever reason have froze and the standard Google "Wait or Force close" prompt didn't pop up for sometimesover 15 seconds. We don't have a program waiting, but if it does, give us a way to force close something without having to wait for you to tell us it'sborked.
Maps is greatly improved, not taking into account Google Navigation. Configurable layers are fantastic as you can overlay what you want (Traffic, Latitude,Wikipedia, Local Search, Satellite, Transit Lines, etc.) when you want to access it instead of having specific modes that only allow you to consume one groupof information at a time.
Contacts have now been updated to include sorting and viewing options as you can finally combine multiple contact sources natively (Google, Exchange,Facebook). Visually it looks great and it's functional, too.
Android's biggest issue as a whole is the lack of decent applications in our view. Sure, there are 10,000 but do you really need 25 star gazingapplications? Nothing is functional and nothing can be compared to the other mobile OS' apps in terms of quality. It's not a shot, it's just fact.You can't replicate the desktop-class applications on Android yet for one reason or another, and that is a big issue.
I have a major Exchange issue that basically prevents me from relying on the phone as far as my email is concerned. I get a pretty big number of emails aday (around 500) and it's not that the DROID stutters or can't handle the volume, it's that when I configure the phone to fetch the last day, itfetches the last three days. I've tried to play with settings, delete and re-add the account - nothing.
I used another Exchange account on the same Exchange server and that works fine. But, even though the account works and messages come through on time, itstill went back and synced the last three days of mail instead of one. There are other glitches and bugs with the Exchange implementation on the DROID, butsince it is software and something rather important, we have our hopes that it will be resolved in an OTA update. For now though, mail isn't completelyuseless, it's just not something we can count on. Well okay, maybe it's useless.
Voice:
The built in voice recognition is positively top notch. Since Google's voice search OS-wide queries your speech with an online synthesis system, thismeans that first off, your results should be pretty darn good, and second, that it can always improve and "learn" from more and more users. Thedownside is that if you don't have a data connection, voice searching and voice control won't work at all.
The scope of what's covered by the voice recognition is pretty amazing. We're talking about getting directions, searching for something like aproduct online using Google search, locally searching on Google Maps for a store, restaurant or item, and looking up and calling contacts from your addressbook, all of which are beautifully integrated into the OS.
Music:
Sadly the music side of things in Android 2.0 didn't get much of an update. Or really any update at all. Look, we get it, you can't do everythingand that's fine. Google Navigation as you'll see is fantastic, we've got social networks integrated, a better browser - all that good stuff. Butit's not like much had to be done with the music application. Skin it a little bit and we think people would be happy. That's not to say it doesn'twork, but the layout is a little tired, playlists and navigation is a little cumbersome and we just think music deserves a little bit more attention then it isgetting.
Google Navigation
Uh oh, Google just ate everyone's lunch right? Well, kind of. Google Navigation is amazing at the conceptual level, and even as far as usability goesit's great. It's fast, clean, and hey, it's in beta so don't flip out. We love satellite view for navigating and we love that it's truly aninternet-connected navigation app that never needs updated. It caches your route so it's not totally network-dependent, but there isn't any offlinemaps or anything like that, so some might take issue with that.
We found Google Navigation to be a joy to use and while it lacks some of the features and functionality traditional mobile navigation applications have,we're pretty sure that will come in due time. For a first go, it's very usable and it's probably something we'd buy the damn car mount just touse. Searching for places and locations along the route is great and so is the robotic-sounding lady that will actually read you the entire street name insteadof just giving you basic voice readouts like, "make a left in .8 miles." You can also add layers to the navigation program and overlay traffic,parking locations, gas stations, banks, restaurants and more for viewing on the map while you travel along your route.
Browser
It's amazing how a simple double-tap gesture will dramatically change the usability of a touch-screen-based browser. Literally, it's one thing(besides CPU speed, a great screen obviously, etc.) that makes a big difference. Again, there's no multi-touch and to be honest, a simple pinch-zoomgesture is really missed. With that said, the browser has improved a lot as far as rendering, being HTML5 compliant, sometimes fast, and very, very stable.Visually, as Android 2.0 in general seems to do, there's some spice added. Visual bookmarks are fun, the improved URL bar at the top complete with faviconis also a nice touch. In addition to being HTML5 compliant, there's also support for offline caching for browser-based apps among other improvements. Thewidescreen resolution and pixel density of the screen really make the browser very friendly to use even without having to zoom.
When you look at speed, the browser is pretty good. Running over the same Wi-Fi network, the DROID performed pretty reasonably compared to our iPhone 3GS.The 3GS we'd say has about 20% on the DROID for straight page loading and rendering, though scrolling speeds are noticeably faster on the DROID. Well,loading is pretty fast. It's an interesting thing because the browser will sometimes be incredible speedy, and other times just get bogged down on reallyrudimentary sites. Your mileage may vary, but the speed of the browser can easily go from fast to frustrating and we're not 100% sure why. One thingthat's annoying about the browser is that there's no shortcut to jump back to the top of the page when the keyboard is closed. Big deal? Nope, justlittle things that go a long way that Google continues to miss as far as usability and user experience is concerned. Flash support is not built in to GoogleExperience phones at this time, but is said to be coming in 2010.
Not having a dedicated search box by the URL bar seems to have its advantages as we love performing searches and seeing related results instantly below.It's also great that there are little visual icons like a star, clock, and search icon so you can differentiate between your bookmarks, history and livesearch data.
Phone calling / speaker
It's a little strange when you ask a group of people about Motorola's phones and their experiences with them. The strange part is that theredoesn't seem to be anyone in the middle; it's a love it or hate it affair when it comes to phone performance among other things. Thankfully theMotorola DROID is an amazing performer in the phone calling arena. It's got "the network" sure, but the phone itself also has incredibly accurateaudio reproduction when using either the earspeaker or loudspeaker on the handset. Now, there's one weird thing about making calls on the DROID and if youhold it up to your ear and talk, you can sort of hear yourself a little bit more than you can on another phone. The DROID has noise-cancellation built in sowe're thinking it might have something to do with that and the audio routing, and it's definitely not cause for concern, just something we'venoticed after using it as a phone for a pretty long time.
The speakerphone isn't the loudest speakerphone, but it's delightfully crisp and projects sound very well. When bumpin' some music, wedidn't notice a single distortion, crack - nothing, even at full volume. Speakerphone voice calls also exhibited from the same pleasurable and accurateaudio reproduction. We love making calls on the DROID.
The phone interface has received a little upgrade as far as visuals are concerned, but it's straight forward and damn fast. Dialing has no slow downs orhiccups, calls connect instantly, and there's no fuss. We're also really feeling the upgraded call screen with improved end key, dialpad button,speaker and mute button. These slightly changed icons and new arrangement make accessing the essential calling functions a lot easier and more efficient.
Camera
The camera, a 5 megapixel autofocus dual LED flash, is straight up disappointing. It doesn't seem to be hardware-related as we're almost positiveit's a software issue, but man… did Kodak just say peace out to Moto or? This thing couldn't focus on any sort of scene, portrait, landscape, aclose-up - nothing - to save its life. On top of pictures not coming out focused properly, the camera application is ridiculously slow, sometimes pausing up to7 or 8 seconds after you've taken a picture before it will let you snap again. What's worse is that with geo-tagging enabled, delays get evenlonger.
With Android 2.0 there's a brand new camera interface which is much-needed and actually isn't horrible. It's just not that intuitive andadjusting settings on the fly is damn near impossible. This is a common theme with Android and that's because most coders aren't designers andaren't GUI experts. It's pretty simple. For instance, the camera will display the automatic flash indicator in the lower left of the viewfinder, yetyou can't click on it. Wait, what? Yeah exactly. The logical among us would expect to tap the indicator and be able to cycle through the options quickly.But you have to slide your finder left to right to bring out the settings drawer, flick down to the flash setting option, tap it to bring the flash setting tothe forefront, tap the desired choice and then slide the options drawer back into hiding- all when Megan Fox slipped out from the club while you were fiddlingwith your camera settings.
There's also no review settings, so it's not like you can take a photo and it will show it on screen for a certain amount of time where you can seethat you accidentally sneezed during the photograph and want to delete it quickly. You have to tap the recent photo thumbnail in the upper right of theapplication and only then are presented with the option to delete, share, or set as (wallpaper, contact icon). Like we said, the optics seem to be fine, thedual-LED flash is perfect, but if the camera doesn't focus properly, takes a long time to launch/shoot, and doesn't allow on-the-go adjustmentsquickly, it's a pretty useless camera. And in the end, we'd take our 3.2 megapixel Bold 9700 camera with flash and even iPhone 3GS camera without flashany day of the week, month, or year over the DROID's camera.
Battery:
The Drizzy packs a 1400mAh battery, the same one used in the Motorola CLIQ, and there couldn't be a starker difference between the two. Our MotorolaCLIQ would run out of battery if we looked at it funny. The DROID on the other hand surprisingly has some of the best battery life on a mobile device we'veused in recent memory. It's definitely up there with an iPhone 3GS and BlackBerry 9700 - really remarkable for such a fast-powered handset with hugedisplay, and it's a CDMA phone! Very impressive and like we said before, even though the battery is user-replaceable, we really doubt you'll ever needto with normal daily use.
Conclusion
So, what's the wrap up, you're asking right? We absolutely love the Motorola DROID. It's a perfect storm between awesome hardware, greatsoftware, and a great network. That's not to say it's for everyone. It isn't the most consumer-friendly device off the bat and it's going totake some time and a whole bunch of improvements before we think Android can totally compete in the consumer space like others can, but Android is gettingthere slowly and this device in general couldn't be a better way to show it off. There's obviously some compromises like a pretty flat QWERTY keyboardand a little heft from the inclusion of metal as a design element, but the pros easily outweigh any cons if you're on Verizon. And even if you're not,it's the most compelling alternative to the iPhone we've ever used. What's important is that this phone exists and can easily fill a big void. Itbridges a big gap and will be Verizon's star device for the rest of the fourth quarter. Probably.
The price of $199 is a great price point and we can see VZ moving truckloads of these. International roaming would have been something to put a lot ofpeople over the edge, but besides that, (and the fact they couldn't fit in another thing) luckily most of the shortcomings the DROID has are software-basedand can be easily rectified in the near future. This isn't the only Android phone coming to Verizon, but from what we've seen it's the best so farand something you're really going to want to try out in the store and get a feel for. It's easily one of the fastest and smoothest phones we'veever used, easily the fastest Android device on the market (as of November 6th), and definitely the most impressive. Motorola's CLIQ, as we confidently told you, is a bottom-feeding device. It's cheap, pretty poorly madephysically and software-wise, and the DROID effectively wipes any bad taste out of our mouths. The Motorola DROID is now Motorola's most important devicein recent memory, and they've hit it out of the park with this one. We've been told there won't be a USA 3G DROID (GSM) coming anytime soon (orever), so if you're looking to scoop one up, your best bet is on November 6th from Big Red.
[h2]Motorola DROID review[/h2]
by Boy Genius on November 3rd, 2009 at 1:27pm
Filed under: 1xRTT, Android, CDMA, EV-DO, Featured, Handsets, Motorola, Reviews, Verizon, Wi-Fi 143 Comments
We scooped it, we previewed it, and now we're officially reviewing it. There's a good chance thateven if you're not into tech all that much, you've heard of the Motorola DROID thanks to Verizon's big marketing push, and that's a good andbad thing. As you'll see in our review, the DROID is a fantastic device, but does it have what it takes to compete outside the world of the die-hardAndroid fans and techies in the consumer arena? You'll see soon enough!
Hardware / Design
Design is always going to be subjective, but in a world of curves and tapered edges, it's downright thrilling to see a handset that's angular,retro-looking and extremely masculine. Sorry, ladies. You'll always have Droid Eris… We just love the styling of the DROID. It's minimalistic in a lotof ways, not cluttered with useless buttons and switches, and overall is solid as a rock. The slide mechanism is not spring-assisted, but the click isreassuring enough to warrant a comforting feeling when opening or closing the handset. One thing physically we're not thrilled with is the looseness of thevolume up and down key. It slides up, down, front and back and generally feels like it's just going to fall off over time. Both the unit we received fromVerizon as well as our older unit exhibit the same behaviors.
Contrary to other reports, the Motorola DROID exterior is actually mostly metal. The bezel around the screen is metal as is the mid-plate of the case. Theonly part that's plastic is the rear back-plate and as we understand it, the reason that little chin exists is because that was the only place Motorolacould fit the wireless antennas. They face out towards the plastic back as opposed to being Faraday-caged by the metal front.
Touch-sensitive keys are a, uh, sensitive area but they're honestly fine at the end of the day. We've been banging on a DROID for many weeks andhaven't once had a misfire or accidental key press even though the keys are 100% touch-based. We don't think they're a problem even though somepeople have been concerned. Plus, you can't beat the Haptic feedback. There isn't a single key on the left side of the unit, just a microUSB port, andon the top there's a 3.5mm headset jack followed by the power / lock /unlock button. On the right side, we've got the shady bi-directional volume keyand a two-stage camera shutter key donned in gold. Or as Motorola likes to call it, brown sugar. Mmm, brown sugar.
When you turn the phone over, you get a rather simple but concise "brown sugar" speaker grill, battery cover with Motorola and Verizon logos, andthat 5 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash. Oh, and the "with Google" logo, too. No, the phone doesn't look like a billboard to us, but hey,you're entitled to your own opinion. Inside it is packing a 550MHz OMAP3 CPU, dedicated graphics processor, 512MB of ROM, 256 of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR, a digital compass, and accelerometer.
Screen
You want one word to describe the screen? Stunning. A 3.7″ WVGA 854×480 capacitive high-quality display? We'll take three. Like we said in our preview,it's the best screen we've ever seen on an Android device and possibly in general. Plus it's responsiveness is second to only Apple'scapacitive displays, so we're talking about a really, really solid screen here, people. The widescreen proportion might take a little getting used to forsome, but all in all, it's roomy and sports a rather nice resolution.
On the screen there is a proximity sensor and also an ambient light sensor. Both work magically to shut off the screen while you're on a call, savingbattery and preventing your face from triggering an on screen button, and also adjusting the brightness of the display to match the lighting in your currentenvironment. Some people asked us if the screen on the DROID was dim as it appeared that way in a couple of our photos, and our quick answer would be:absolutely not. It's viciously bright if you ask it to be, and the backlighting is a very assuring white as opposed to a tinted red, orange, pink or bluehue on some other phones we've used.
As we said, it's second only to the iPhone as far as capacitive screens go, and coupled with the rest of the DROID, it's a real winner.
Keyboard
After using the phone for almost a month, I can confidently say the keyboard is fine for most people. It's not a BlackBerry and the actual spacing ofthe keys isn't great, but it is really livable I think. Each key has a little bubbled-texture which makes it a bit easier to define one key from another,and the tactile feedback, while not perfect, is fine. The spacebar could use a little more tactility though as it's probably the hardest key to press whenyou're trying to type swiftly and accurately. There's two things that bother us about the keyboard and that's the directional pad stage right, andthe fact that two keys haven't quite made it through metamorphosis. Can someone please point out another phone in the entire universe that shipped with twoblank keys? Is this a joke? It's not the end of the world but uh, how about a home key and a back key? How about a bigger spacebar? There's a millionthings that could have been done to improve the keyboard layout even by two keys and it's pretty hilarious that two keys are blank.
Backlighting on the keyboard is a nice white/teal-$$% tint, definitely bright enough, and comes through just the letters and symbols.
The on screen keyboard that Android-lovers are used to for all intents and purposes has not changed. It's the standard Android affair, there aresettings to enable vibration-feedback on key press, an audible sound on key press, and the usual configurational options like auto-capitalization, wordsuggestions, auto-correct and completion. There's virtually no improvement from other Google Experience handsets which is a bit depressing as the keyboardin Android has a bit of a ways to go to compete with that other popular touch-based phone. The landscape on screen keyboard is obviously very, very wide and atad more forgiving with typing since the keys are obviously larger.
OS
Oh, Android 2.0. It feels like such a huge step forward for Android and it is. It really brings the mobile Google OS into 2009 with support for Exchange, aunified inbox (for non-Gmail), more resolution support, 3D graphics, and a whole lot more. Would we classify it as mostly a face lift? Yes. But that's okaybecause at the core Android wasn't too bad and most of the open issues in our mind have been fixed in 2.0. Unfortunately, there's no multi-touchsupport in here which is a major downer. There is multi-touch support in the European version of the DROID, the MILESTONE, though. You might haveread in our preview that we said that in the Maps application you can two-finger tap to zoom in. Well, you can also one-finger tap to zoom in. The software wassensing one input, not both simultaneously. Our bad.
In the new version of Android it seems that we've been given some more fluidity and some nice shortcuts to simplify our lives and not make them morecomplex. You'll notice you can tap on a thumbnail of a contact photo anywhere in the OS and have a quick-launch list of immediate correspondenceoptions.
There is still a lot of things Android 2.0 doesn't fix and it's pretty annoying. For one, there's no way to set a real password on the phone.Seriously, drawing lines, shapes and farm animals with your finger to unlock the phone was cute in Android 1.0, but in 2.0? Get it together. It's alsoinexcusable that there isn't a password timeout interval you can adjust so you're not forced to play tic-tac-toe each time you want to unlock yourphone and read your email. Also, there are still no configurable hardware keyboard settings for repeat delay and repeat speed. Openness is great for mostlyeveryone: consumers, developers, etc. It also, however, brings shoddy code (from some 3rd party developers), fragmentation, and other hurdles. There has beencountless times that programs for whatever reason have froze and the standard Google "Wait or Force close" prompt didn't pop up for sometimesover 15 seconds. We don't have a program waiting, but if it does, give us a way to force close something without having to wait for you to tell us it'sborked.
Maps is greatly improved, not taking into account Google Navigation. Configurable layers are fantastic as you can overlay what you want (Traffic, Latitude,Wikipedia, Local Search, Satellite, Transit Lines, etc.) when you want to access it instead of having specific modes that only allow you to consume one groupof information at a time.
Contacts have now been updated to include sorting and viewing options as you can finally combine multiple contact sources natively (Google, Exchange,Facebook). Visually it looks great and it's functional, too.
Android's biggest issue as a whole is the lack of decent applications in our view. Sure, there are 10,000 but do you really need 25 star gazingapplications? Nothing is functional and nothing can be compared to the other mobile OS' apps in terms of quality. It's not a shot, it's just fact.You can't replicate the desktop-class applications on Android yet for one reason or another, and that is a big issue.
I have a major Exchange issue that basically prevents me from relying on the phone as far as my email is concerned. I get a pretty big number of emails aday (around 500) and it's not that the DROID stutters or can't handle the volume, it's that when I configure the phone to fetch the last day, itfetches the last three days. I've tried to play with settings, delete and re-add the account - nothing.
I used another Exchange account on the same Exchange server and that works fine. But, even though the account works and messages come through on time, itstill went back and synced the last three days of mail instead of one. There are other glitches and bugs with the Exchange implementation on the DROID, butsince it is software and something rather important, we have our hopes that it will be resolved in an OTA update. For now though, mail isn't completelyuseless, it's just not something we can count on. Well okay, maybe it's useless.
Voice:
The built in voice recognition is positively top notch. Since Google's voice search OS-wide queries your speech with an online synthesis system, thismeans that first off, your results should be pretty darn good, and second, that it can always improve and "learn" from more and more users. Thedownside is that if you don't have a data connection, voice searching and voice control won't work at all.
The scope of what's covered by the voice recognition is pretty amazing. We're talking about getting directions, searching for something like aproduct online using Google search, locally searching on Google Maps for a store, restaurant or item, and looking up and calling contacts from your addressbook, all of which are beautifully integrated into the OS.
Music:
Sadly the music side of things in Android 2.0 didn't get much of an update. Or really any update at all. Look, we get it, you can't do everythingand that's fine. Google Navigation as you'll see is fantastic, we've got social networks integrated, a better browser - all that good stuff. Butit's not like much had to be done with the music application. Skin it a little bit and we think people would be happy. That's not to say it doesn'twork, but the layout is a little tired, playlists and navigation is a little cumbersome and we just think music deserves a little bit more attention then it isgetting.
Google Navigation
Uh oh, Google just ate everyone's lunch right? Well, kind of. Google Navigation is amazing at the conceptual level, and even as far as usability goesit's great. It's fast, clean, and hey, it's in beta so don't flip out. We love satellite view for navigating and we love that it's truly aninternet-connected navigation app that never needs updated. It caches your route so it's not totally network-dependent, but there isn't any offlinemaps or anything like that, so some might take issue with that.
We found Google Navigation to be a joy to use and while it lacks some of the features and functionality traditional mobile navigation applications have,we're pretty sure that will come in due time. For a first go, it's very usable and it's probably something we'd buy the damn car mount just touse. Searching for places and locations along the route is great and so is the robotic-sounding lady that will actually read you the entire street name insteadof just giving you basic voice readouts like, "make a left in .8 miles." You can also add layers to the navigation program and overlay traffic,parking locations, gas stations, banks, restaurants and more for viewing on the map while you travel along your route.
Browser
It's amazing how a simple double-tap gesture will dramatically change the usability of a touch-screen-based browser. Literally, it's one thing(besides CPU speed, a great screen obviously, etc.) that makes a big difference. Again, there's no multi-touch and to be honest, a simple pinch-zoomgesture is really missed. With that said, the browser has improved a lot as far as rendering, being HTML5 compliant, sometimes fast, and very, very stable.Visually, as Android 2.0 in general seems to do, there's some spice added. Visual bookmarks are fun, the improved URL bar at the top complete with faviconis also a nice touch. In addition to being HTML5 compliant, there's also support for offline caching for browser-based apps among other improvements. Thewidescreen resolution and pixel density of the screen really make the browser very friendly to use even without having to zoom.
When you look at speed, the browser is pretty good. Running over the same Wi-Fi network, the DROID performed pretty reasonably compared to our iPhone 3GS.The 3GS we'd say has about 20% on the DROID for straight page loading and rendering, though scrolling speeds are noticeably faster on the DROID. Well,loading is pretty fast. It's an interesting thing because the browser will sometimes be incredible speedy, and other times just get bogged down on reallyrudimentary sites. Your mileage may vary, but the speed of the browser can easily go from fast to frustrating and we're not 100% sure why. One thingthat's annoying about the browser is that there's no shortcut to jump back to the top of the page when the keyboard is closed. Big deal? Nope, justlittle things that go a long way that Google continues to miss as far as usability and user experience is concerned. Flash support is not built in to GoogleExperience phones at this time, but is said to be coming in 2010.
Not having a dedicated search box by the URL bar seems to have its advantages as we love performing searches and seeing related results instantly below.It's also great that there are little visual icons like a star, clock, and search icon so you can differentiate between your bookmarks, history and livesearch data.
Phone calling / speaker
It's a little strange when you ask a group of people about Motorola's phones and their experiences with them. The strange part is that theredoesn't seem to be anyone in the middle; it's a love it or hate it affair when it comes to phone performance among other things. Thankfully theMotorola DROID is an amazing performer in the phone calling arena. It's got "the network" sure, but the phone itself also has incredibly accurateaudio reproduction when using either the earspeaker or loudspeaker on the handset. Now, there's one weird thing about making calls on the DROID and if youhold it up to your ear and talk, you can sort of hear yourself a little bit more than you can on another phone. The DROID has noise-cancellation built in sowe're thinking it might have something to do with that and the audio routing, and it's definitely not cause for concern, just something we'venoticed after using it as a phone for a pretty long time.
The speakerphone isn't the loudest speakerphone, but it's delightfully crisp and projects sound very well. When bumpin' some music, wedidn't notice a single distortion, crack - nothing, even at full volume. Speakerphone voice calls also exhibited from the same pleasurable and accurateaudio reproduction. We love making calls on the DROID.
The phone interface has received a little upgrade as far as visuals are concerned, but it's straight forward and damn fast. Dialing has no slow downs orhiccups, calls connect instantly, and there's no fuss. We're also really feeling the upgraded call screen with improved end key, dialpad button,speaker and mute button. These slightly changed icons and new arrangement make accessing the essential calling functions a lot easier and more efficient.
Camera
The camera, a 5 megapixel autofocus dual LED flash, is straight up disappointing. It doesn't seem to be hardware-related as we're almost positiveit's a software issue, but man… did Kodak just say peace out to Moto or? This thing couldn't focus on any sort of scene, portrait, landscape, aclose-up - nothing - to save its life. On top of pictures not coming out focused properly, the camera application is ridiculously slow, sometimes pausing up to7 or 8 seconds after you've taken a picture before it will let you snap again. What's worse is that with geo-tagging enabled, delays get evenlonger.
With Android 2.0 there's a brand new camera interface which is much-needed and actually isn't horrible. It's just not that intuitive andadjusting settings on the fly is damn near impossible. This is a common theme with Android and that's because most coders aren't designers andaren't GUI experts. It's pretty simple. For instance, the camera will display the automatic flash indicator in the lower left of the viewfinder, yetyou can't click on it. Wait, what? Yeah exactly. The logical among us would expect to tap the indicator and be able to cycle through the options quickly.But you have to slide your finder left to right to bring out the settings drawer, flick down to the flash setting option, tap it to bring the flash setting tothe forefront, tap the desired choice and then slide the options drawer back into hiding- all when Megan Fox slipped out from the club while you were fiddlingwith your camera settings.
There's also no review settings, so it's not like you can take a photo and it will show it on screen for a certain amount of time where you can seethat you accidentally sneezed during the photograph and want to delete it quickly. You have to tap the recent photo thumbnail in the upper right of theapplication and only then are presented with the option to delete, share, or set as (wallpaper, contact icon). Like we said, the optics seem to be fine, thedual-LED flash is perfect, but if the camera doesn't focus properly, takes a long time to launch/shoot, and doesn't allow on-the-go adjustmentsquickly, it's a pretty useless camera. And in the end, we'd take our 3.2 megapixel Bold 9700 camera with flash and even iPhone 3GS camera without flashany day of the week, month, or year over the DROID's camera.
Battery:
The Drizzy packs a 1400mAh battery, the same one used in the Motorola CLIQ, and there couldn't be a starker difference between the two. Our MotorolaCLIQ would run out of battery if we looked at it funny. The DROID on the other hand surprisingly has some of the best battery life on a mobile device we'veused in recent memory. It's definitely up there with an iPhone 3GS and BlackBerry 9700 - really remarkable for such a fast-powered handset with hugedisplay, and it's a CDMA phone! Very impressive and like we said before, even though the battery is user-replaceable, we really doubt you'll ever needto with normal daily use.
Conclusion
So, what's the wrap up, you're asking right? We absolutely love the Motorola DROID. It's a perfect storm between awesome hardware, greatsoftware, and a great network. That's not to say it's for everyone. It isn't the most consumer-friendly device off the bat and it's going totake some time and a whole bunch of improvements before we think Android can totally compete in the consumer space like others can, but Android is gettingthere slowly and this device in general couldn't be a better way to show it off. There's obviously some compromises like a pretty flat QWERTY keyboardand a little heft from the inclusion of metal as a design element, but the pros easily outweigh any cons if you're on Verizon. And even if you're not,it's the most compelling alternative to the iPhone we've ever used. What's important is that this phone exists and can easily fill a big void. Itbridges a big gap and will be Verizon's star device for the rest of the fourth quarter. Probably.
The price of $199 is a great price point and we can see VZ moving truckloads of these. International roaming would have been something to put a lot ofpeople over the edge, but besides that, (and the fact they couldn't fit in another thing) luckily most of the shortcomings the DROID has are software-basedand can be easily rectified in the near future. This isn't the only Android phone coming to Verizon, but from what we've seen it's the best so farand something you're really going to want to try out in the store and get a feel for. It's easily one of the fastest and smoothest phones we'veever used, easily the fastest Android device on the market (as of November 6th), and definitely the most impressive. Motorola's CLIQ, as we confidently told you, is a bottom-feeding device. It's cheap, pretty poorly madephysically and software-wise, and the DROID effectively wipes any bad taste out of our mouths. The Motorola DROID is now Motorola's most important devicein recent memory, and they've hit it out of the park with this one. We've been told there won't be a USA 3G DROID (GSM) coming anytime soon (orever), so if you're looking to scoop one up, your best bet is on November 6th from Big Red.
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thinner than the iphone. but slightly wider than the iphone.