Motorola Droid Review – A Powerful Android Phone
The Motorola Droid is the most Powerful Android phone to date and you could say a real challenger to the iPhone.
Many people will say, if you’re looking to buy a smartphone you have two choices. The iPhone or the Motorola Droid.
But if you go with that philosophy you might not be buying the right phone for you because Android now has some good phones that are designed for users who want different things.
The Droid is on Verizon and at the moment you can get the phone on a 2 year contract for $199.99.
Design
There’s something practical and functional about the Droid. You get the feeling when you hold it that it’s an Android phone that’s powerful.
With a pretty phone you can admire how nice it looks but you sometimes wonder if you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover. Pretty phones often look good but don’t back that up with substance.
The Motorola Droid doesn’t go for pretty, but it does look good. It’s got an angular look with sharp edges which make it look solid. It’s following an unusual path compared to other smartphones which are often more rounded and sleek.
It has a 3.7 inch screen and a resolution of 440×854 pixels which is very good. The colors are rich and this is one of the best parts of the phone, the screen and display are top quality.
The Keypad
Keypads are always tricky on smartphones and the Droid’s isn’t an exception.
The keys are squashed together and that makes it difficult to type quickly. You don’t get a good feel for the keys either, so instead of getting quicker with your typing as you get used to the phone you actually don’t seem to speed up at all because you’re constantly wondering where your fingers are on the keypad.
Display
As on other Android phones the Droid has four buttons, back, menu, home and search. These aren’t actually physical buttons but they are vital to the use of the phone and you’ll always be using them. Pehaps they should be more prominant as physical buttons as they’re such an important part of Android.
Apart from the keypad it’s a very responsive phone to use and the screen as we’ve said is large with a very good, rich resolution. With Android 2.1 on the phone it’s a lot quicker than previous versions too.
The Camera
One of the great things about cameras on phones is that you can whip it out and quickly take a picture on the move.
You’re not going to be able to do that with the Droid at all. It’s annoyingly slow to start up and then to get it in focus and actually take a picture is slow as well.
It’s a 5 megapixel camera which is great to have but I’d rather have a camera that loaded faster and had less pixels, if there’s any correlation there, which I expect there actually isn’t.
Video
Video can work at a 720×480 resolution and performs well. It’s better to use than the camera, so if you get a Droid, just use the video rather than taking pictures, it’s quicker and pretty good quality.
Software
The Droid started on Android version 2.0 but has now moved to 2.1 which makes it faster. It performs much better than 2.0 overall and is a definite improvement.
Summary
The Droid is a very good Android phone. It’s the most powerful Android phone yet and is the biggest contender to the iPhone.
Despite problems with the camera being slow and the keyboard not being as good as it could have been it’s an excellent choice if you’re going to buy an Android powered device.
If you’re looking to fully embrace Android and use all of it’s functions, then buying a Motorola Droid would be your best bet. With it’s update to Android 2.1 it’s speeded up from the original 2.0 it was running on, so now you really can use Android to the best of it’s ability.
What Others are Saying
Engadget “It’s easily the best Android phone to date.”
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
PC World “The first Android 2.0 phone impresses with a strong suite of Web features and a stunning 3.7-inch display, but some users might have trouble with the shallow keyboard.”
Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Gizmodo “It’s this simple: If you don’t buy an iPhone, buy a Droid.”
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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