Motorola Droid
Phone Scoop Review
Nov 2, 2009 by Eric M. Zeman
Here is Phone Scoop's full-length, in-depth report on the new Motorola Droid. It easily bests most other Android phones out there, but still has a few major drawbacks. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
This is NOT the iPhone... it's something MUCH BETTER.
This is an amazing device. The internet is super fast. I am typing up this review on my droid. I absolutely love this device!
GREAT JOB MOTOROLA! You have really done a great turn around.
WHAT A PHONE!!!!!!
I HAVE VERY FEW COMPLAINTS WITH THIS PHONE. GRANTED ITS THE VERY FIRST SMART PHONE I HAVE EVER HAD. SOME DONT LIKE THE WEIGHT OF THE PHONE BUT I DO, IT FEELS STURDY, NOT EASILY BREAKABLE. AND THE SCREEN I NICE AND BIG AND ITS VERY EASY TO VIEW ANY AND EVERYTHING ON IT. VERY USER FRIENDLY. I HAVE ONLY HAD THIS PHONE FOR ABOUT 2 MONTHS BUT AFTER JUST A FEW WEEKS I COULD HAVE EASILY BEEN A SPOKESPERSON FOR THIS PHONE. VERY EASY TO LEARN AND NAVIGATE THROUGH. VERIZON/GOOGLE DID A DARN GOOD JOB WITH THIS PHONE. I WOULD HIGHLY RECOMMEND. MY BIGGEST DISLIKE ABOUT THE PHONE IS THE TIMEOUT SCREEN COMES ON NO LONGER THAN 3 SECONDS ON LOCK SCREEN. BUT OTHER THAN THAT THIS PHONE IS GREAT!!!!!!!
Apples and Oranges
Right off the bat, I wanna say that let's not try to compare this to the iPhone. Android is still early stages and the number of apps are still growing. Both offer great functionality and have the same premise (apps and productivity) but with vastly different approaches where one might suit the user better than the other and vice versa. So if you're going to make a decision between the two, do your homework. Do you travel a lot? If you do, the Droid might be a good choice for Verizon's coverage. If you don't, does AT&T offer decent coverage (voice and 3G) where you are? If so, no reason to sway from the iPhone. Are you Apple biased (i.e. are you going to make your decision solely in comparison to the iPhone)? If so, just go with the iPhone and save yourself the trouble. If you Verizon loyal, be patient. People had more complaints with the iPhone 3G when it first came out. Updates will come.
With that being said:
Pros:
*Very responsive and accurate touch screen
*Beautiful hi-res display
*Decent number of useful apps for a start
*Fast internet browsing
*Multitasking
*Solid construction
*Great call clarity
*Good speaker
Cons:
*Slide out keyboard - Pretty useless. The top keys are too close to the screen and the "chin" offsets the keypad too much. I never use it and it just adds weight to the device.
*Capacitive navigation buttons - A few times has my palmed grazed one of these buttons and inadvertently opened a search and go back.
*Battery life - Sucks the life out of the battery if you are a heavy user, but still pretty impressive considering the number of resources it uses.
*Camera quality - Quite disappointing, but there are apps to improve quality, and I'd rather use a real digital camera anyways.
*Shape - The dimensions on paper are actually comparable to the iPhone, but fewer curves adds volume and is a little uncomfortable in the hand.
Despite the cons, I am a Verizon loyal and am in love with this phone. I can adapt with no problem personally.
Great phone for personal, NOT for business, Blackberry and WinMo are safe, for now.
The DROID is an awesome phone, for personal use.
It's not yet ready for enterprise use.
And I mean this if you are used to Blackberry or Windows Mobile Pro using ActiveSync.
PRO's
Internet Browsing - very fast, renders quickly
OS speed - very responsive, even background apps running.
WiFi - great addition.
Screen size - nice and big, super sharp.
memory - 16gb memory card included, always nice.
GPS - Google Navigation is great.
Multimedia playback - plays all my videos ripped with Handbrake using the iPhone/Touch profile.
CONS.
-lacking enterprise level email support.
-unable to browse company address book natively. Moto Support just posted an app that now allows for this
-No dedicated SEND and END keys , WTF were they thinking.
-Unable to initiate a voice command dialed call over bluetooth using only the button on your headset.
(your able to answer/end, double tap redial over bluetooth)
-known bug if you lock your phone and too many attempts are made to unlock it with the wrong password.
the only thing left to do is factory wipe/reset the phone. Even though the phone will tell you to login
with your gmail credentials.
In summary, this phone hardware wise is great, the software is still in the growing stage
but since this in an open source phone, fixes and workarounds are coming out fast and often.
Its only been out for a little more than 2 months on Verizon and already they had 1 major firmware
update for it already. So the DROID you have now will be quite different in a few more firmware updates.
Its a refreshing thing to see since most of these phone are "accept it as is" the DROID and its twin
the MILESTONE will soon be a HUGE threat to Windows Mobile and Blackberry. Once they get their
enterprise level features going for this phone.
Excellent
This is absolutely a great device that is in par with but no iPhone. At least it's on a good network. I've had this device for going on 2 months. Touch is great but once again, no iPhone and the apps like call screening are great. Here's the fact sheet:
Pros:
- Excellent GUI
- Most useful apps are free (can play classic console games)
- Blazing 3g speeds
- Feels very stable
- Excellent browser
Cons:
- No multi-touch
- Algorithm on music player can improve
- Battery life can improve but is better than the iPhone's
- QWERTY board keys aren't embedded and is hard to feel different keys
WOW !?
This Phone Is Really Cool Nice Features...Owned It For About 2 Months Absolutely Astounding!...
Pros-
Great Camera
Great Web Browsing
Very Responsive Touch Screen
Voice Recognization could be better but still works
Cons-
Says Battery Is Great But Sucks!
Too Big
Good Feeling on Qwerty Key Pad But A Lil Too Small!
Best Verizonwireless Phone
I have had this phone for about one week .I replaced the Blackberry Tour with the Droid. The only reason 4.5 was because of the keyboard
Pros:
Great screen.
On screen keyboard and predictive text works well.
Great Web experience.
Plenty of Apps.
Open platform.
Quality build.
Battery life good.
Saved $15 a Month Enterprise fee for Blackberry
Cons:
Would of liked the active wallpaper as the Nexus One .
Keyboard not very good feel. Could have left it out.
Wanted to be impressed...
I have spent several days exploring he in and outs of this smartphone. The phone is no different than any other android-based phone. It does have a nice display, but the sluggish home pages do not take advantage of it with it's cheesy low res icons. And why only 3 hone screens? The sprint hero has more than that. The free navigation is nice, but it has not been accurate 50% of the time. So which would you rather have: an accurate app that you pay for or a free one that is accurate some of the time? And the keyboard...it's about as useful as the Blackberry Storm typing system. Not user friendly and slow. I and many other reviews have complained about the keyboard.
Droid does:
-eat up battery with multitasking, which no one ever talks about (hello Windows mobile and the annoying task killer app)
-miss out on multi-touch on such a nice screen
-lack plentiful apps to choose from (sorry but Apple wins here hands down). It's like the mac vs pc argument. PC have wayyyy more software availabe and thus are found in more peoples homes. Macs are good as well, but lack software support that pc has.
-nickel and dome you for visual voicemail and certain calendar functions
-have good call quality and coverage thanks to Verizon
I will admit that this is the best phone availabe fir Verizon. If I were to stick with Verizon this would be my phone of choice. Sadly it is not the best phone out there. We all know what the number one phone is. I won't say what it is. All those hating on that number one phone are hating on the At&t's (oops slip) service and not the phone itself. Great effort Verizon and Motorola!
NOT an iPhone killer
Had the Droid for four days and it is not an iPhone killer.
PROS: Great phone reception and on Verizon it worked great. Good voice recognition.
CONS: apps lack a lot of things that are on the iPhone. Difficult to navigate in comparison.
The Droid was OK. Phone was great, apps and net surfing were a pain.
The Droid lack things like pinch and zoom. The apps lack a lot of things that the iPhone has.
Besides the phone part the only other thing that worked great was voice activation.
The calendar app was just what was downloaded from Google. The iPhone has other options that make it much more usable.
The Droid is nice but it is not revolutionary. It doesn't even stack up against some of the other smartphones out there let alone the iPhone.
Great Phone but in way shape or form an Iphone Killer
I have owned every smart phone worth having. Every black Berry, My Touch, Windows based smart-phone and I have found the droid is nice. Looks goods. Keyboard is not that great but OK. NO Iphone killer though. People want to use this phrase to convince themselves they have something better an iphone. I'm here to tell ya nope. No phone on the planet yet can touch the iphone but Droid is doing good job with making the experience a good one for consumers. In my experience droid is an open source operating system, therefore anyone anywhere can develop for droid OS. That's cool. Its the same OS as the My touch and the Google G1. Exactly the same but in a different case. Droid is the verizon wireless reason to purchase. This a good buy and smart one. You should be satisfied until the 3rd quarter next when Iphone comes to Verizon. Until then stick with Droid Verizon customers until that time
