• Phones
• Phone Finder
• News
• Carriers
• Android
• iOS
• How To
• Glossary

• Advertising
• About
• Contact
• Privacy
• Terms of Use

The Motorola Droid is one of the longer-running series of phones in recent cell phone history. We should probably expect that from the company that brought us so many RAZR and StarTAC variants. With the Droid 4, Motorola updates the Droid with LTE, a new keyboard, and Motorola's new design language with the gently beveled corners.

Droid 4  

Photo by Russ Hickman

Although it may look like a Droid RAZR from the front, hold it in your hand for an instant and you'll know that it's not. Motorola proudly claims that this is the thinnest 4G LTE QWERTY smartphone in the world. Sounds impressive, right? Well, the only other such in the world at the moment is the Samsung Stratosphere. So, sure, it's a tad thinner than that Stratosphere. It's still a damn thick phone.

The look and feel is quite nice. Aside from the glass front, it's all plastic, but it feels like a high-grade plastic, and has a nice fine texture to it. Its feels solid and is comfortable to hold. The build quality is excellent, with the two halves fitting very tightly. Too tightly perhaps, as the slide mechanism is difficult to slide open (there's no spring assist) and even more difficult to close.

The keyboard has been revamped. It keeps the wonderful five-row layout, but the keys have more separation and more shape to them, improving the feel quite a bit. The key backlighting is also redesigned, with light coming from the edge of each key. It's both attractive and practical. My only two niggles are that the keyboard (like the phone itself, held sideways) is very wide, so if you have small hands, your thumbs may feel like they're doing yoga. The second is that the plastic below the keyboard sticks up quite a bit, getting the in the way of hitting the bottom row of keys. It's not something that makes it difficult to type, it's just annoying.

The side keys could be better. The lock key is almost impossible to find by feel, but it's situated such that if you mash the center of the top of the phone, you'll hit it. The volume keys on the side are easy to find. The action is a little stiff, but they work well enough. Except that they're a strange shape with a knife edge that's simply uncomfortable to press. There's no camera key.

These aren't deal-breakers, though. The Droid 3 was a good phone, and the Droid 4 builds on that with LTE, a faster processor, and a better keyboard on the hardware side. On the software side, it brings over all of the neat Android tweaks and added feature found on the Droid RAZR, like Smart Actions.

Droid 4 interface  

Photo by Russ Hickman

What it lacks compared to the Droid 3 is global roaming. BUT asked about that, a Motorola rep smiled and told us to "stay tuned. Software updates are a wonderful thing."

Here's a quick video tour:

Editor in Chief Rich became fascinated with cell phones in 1999, creating mobile web sites for phones with tiny black-and-white displays and obsessing over new phone models. Realizing a need for better info about phones, he started Phone Scoop in 2001, and has been helming the site ever since. Rich has spent two decades researching and covering every detail of the phone industry, traveling the world to tour factories, interview CEOs, and get every last spec and photo Phone Scoop readers have come to expect. As an industry veteran, Rich is a respected voice on phone technology of the past, present, and future.

This forum is closed.

This forum is closed.

Log In  or  Register

Forgot password

By registering, you agree to our Terms of Use.
We value your privacy and will never share your email address. (full privacy policy)