The Droid X, Motorola’s latest smartphone, is scheduled for release this Thursday, July 15
th on Verizon Wireless’ 3G Network. Verizon Wireless sent me a Droid X that I tested from Wednesday, July 7
th through Tuesday, July 13
th. Here are some of my observations:
Android 2.1
The Droid X runs Android 2.1— keep in mind that an Android 2.2 update that supports Adobe Flash Player 10.1 is coming later this summer. There has been a lot of conflicting information on whether or not the Droid X runs Motoblur. The Droid X DOES NOT run Motoblur, nor does it run Ninjablur. Instead, the Droid X has a customized UI from Motorola with Motoblur-like widgets. With the Droid X, you are no longer required to have a blur account at all. You are never forced to sign up, and there is no prompt that requires you to do so. You just sign in with Twitter, Facebook, etc. and the smartphone keeps track. If you choose not to use the built-in option for your social networking, you can download Twitter, Facebook, photo, etc. apps without blocking any functionality. Basically, you’ll end up with two options when it comes to setting up accounts— and you’re never forced to choose either. Don’t let this all worry you if you’re not the most tech savvy person, it’s simple to use. I am a total social media enthusiast, and I had a great experience using the Droid X on that front.
Size
As I took the Droid X out of the box, the first thing I noticed was just how large the screen is— it’s a 4.3” display (more on this later). Because of its size, I expected it to be a heavy. This smartphone is pretty light— only 155 grams. The Droid X is 5.02” tall, 2.57” wide, and .39” thick. It’s similar to the HTC EVO (the Droid X is .22" taller, but it's .03' narrower and .11' thinner). It is a little tough to fit the Droid X in your pocket. If you're a Droid user, you probably wouldn't find this to be an issue. The Droid X lacks the slide-out, physical keyboard, so it doesn't feel as bulky.
If the size still worries you and you’re afraid you might drop it, no worries, the Droid X is covered with a soft-touch rubberized coating. The phone wasn’t slipping and sliding out of my hand, and I was really impressed with the feel of it. Because I have small hands, I was afraid I’d drop it— but I didn’t, not even once. Of course, I would suggest you purchase a screen protector and case so you don’t crack the screen- but when it comes to smartphones, that’s a no brainer.
Basically, it was a little awkward to hold the Droid X when making calls and performing one-handed operations because of the size of the phone compared to the size of my hands.
Display
The screen is easily the device’s most dominate feature—a 4.3” WVGA multitouch with a 480 x 854 resolution. After a week of this, I was spoiled. Because of the shear size of the display, the multimedia experience is outstanding. Text was easy to read and colors appeared vibrant. It was great to use gaming apps and I couldn’t stop playing Need For Speed Shift. The size of the screen makes the whole gaming experience awesome. I read a lot of bloggers complaining that they couldn’t see the screen in sunlight. I disagree; I thought it had sufficient brightness for outdoor use.
Hardware
The Droid X comes with a microUSB cable and a charger. There are no headphones, but it’s usually better just to buy a pair anyway. A 16GB microSD card is already pre-installed, with 8GB internal on board. The Droid X supports a
32 GB microSD, giving you a potential total of 40 GB.
The Droid X has 4 physical buttons— Menu, Home, Back, and Search. The hardware buttons felt a little cheap and nosiy, but they work just fine.
On the bottom right is a red button for the camera. Above that is a volume/zoom rocker. On the left side, you have a microUSB port to charge or connect to a PC. Below that you have an HDMI port (pretty cool feature, but you’ll need to purchase the cable). I had no problem with these buttons, they didn’t get in the way while using the phone.
On the top of the phone is a power/lock key as well as a 3.5mm headset jack. I used headphones and listened to Pandora; it sounded great.
The Droid X has three microphones. This allows you to have the best quality sound when recording video. It also has a noise reduction features that helps get rid of the extra background noise.
Battery
The Droid X has a removable 1540 mAh Li Ion battery that allows for 480 minutes of continuous usage. I went into the second day of using the Droid X with a full battery charge. I killed the battery in about 6 hours, but I literally did not put it down for two seconds. I also didn’t bring the charger with me, bad idea. The rest of the week, I eased up a little bit on use and charged it once at the end of the day. The battery lasted about a day. I would recommend having a charger around at first because you literally won’t put the Droid X down.
I suggest you download the Advanced Task Killer app. I did on the third day and I got a lot more battery time. It kills apps (that you choose) that are running in the background, thus saving your battery.
The battery is hard to remove from the Droid X. The smartphone comes with a pull tab to help get the battery out. Trust me, don’t remove the pull tab— if you do, you’ll have a very hard time getting the battery out.
Camera
There is a slight bump on the back of the device where the camera (video and still images) is located. The camera does not protrude from the device like on the Droid Incredible. The bump didn’t get in the way when I was holding the phone or calling. It makes the Droid X a little top heavy, but not much.
The camera is an 8 MP Digital Zoom Dual LED Flash. Image editing tools include cropping, rotating, and geo tagging. Droid X can also record 720p video, which looks great. The three microphones allow you to record good sound quality.
One of my favorite features of the Droid X is the camera’s panoramic mode. The panoramic mode walks you through taking a series of up to six photos (horizontally or vertically), and puts them together as one photo. I took this photo in the rain, so it's not the best quality, but I think it's pretty cool. Take a look:
I shot this video outdoors using the Droid X and I think it looks pretty good:
I shot a lot of photos with the Droid X. I didn't take these in the best light, and I also had to resize them drastically to fit on here. Some showed up a little blurry, but all-in-all I thought the Droid X took pretty good photos:
Keyboard
Like I said earlier, the Droid X does not have a slide-out keyboard like the Droid. Instead, the Droid X has a virtual keyboard. If you have trouble with touchscreen keyboards, you might like this. Because the screen is bigger, the keys are easier to hit. Download Swype. It's the perfect app for one-handed typing.
Texting from the Droid X was great. It also keeps sent and received texts in a bubble stream, so it’s easy to follow a conversation.
Web
Web browsing on the Droid X was smooth and fast. Webpages loaded quickly, most within a few seconds. There was a few times where I ran into some trouble, and it took a little longer. This just happened when I had spotty 3G coverage, so it wasn't a major problem. Because of the large display, it’s pretty easy to read text. You can also pinch and zoom.
Calling
I was very impressed with the call quality of the Droid X. Calls were clear on both ends, even on speaker. Like I said earlier, it was a little awkward at first because of the size of the phone. After a few days, I got used to it and I think you would too.
Oh, and a huge plus, it’s on Verizon’s network. That speaks for itself.
Price
$199 (after a $100 mail-in rebate) with a 2-year contract and a monthly $29.99 data plan. Not a bad price at all. Plus, don’t forget that the data plan is unlimited.
Final Thoughts
I give the Droid X 4/5 stars. It is a great device and an amazing multimedia experience. Upon the arrival of Flash 10.1, this phone is going to be tough competition. The Droid X is by far the thinnest, fastest, slickest Android phone I’ve ever used. It’s affordable and on a great network. Although I loved the size of the display, it makes the phone a little big. It was a little awkward for me to make calls and do some one-handed operations. Overall, I would recommend the Droid X to fanboys/fangirls and those new to the platform.
