Motorola Droid Review

The Motorola Droid, sold as the Motorola Milestone outside the US, is the device that is seemingly getting Motorola back on its feet, after staggering around in the smartphone market for a while. This review should give you a fairly decent idea about the advantages and shortcomings of this Android based phone.

The specifications of the Motorola Droid had everyone sitting up and taking notice, and after seeing its performance and reception, many are wondering why Motorola took so long wandering in the wilderness. The sales for this smartphone (released by Motorola in November 2009) are doing reasonably well, but one somehow gets the feeling that Motorola have a lot running on the success of this model. Till recently, they have lacked the expertise and the resources to regularly churn out successors to their Motorola phones quickly, so this is really a make or break gamble for them.

A Review on the Motorola Droid

The Droid does not pale in comparison with its direct rivals, the Apple iPhone 3GS and the Google Nexus One, but the reputation of Motorola has definitely pulled back the sales of this model by a considerable bit. This has still not deterred the overall sales of the model though, as most countries have received the phone with a relative amount of enthusiasm.

Display Screen
The 3.7 inches touchscreen makes this a pretty big phone to look at, and the impressive pixel ratio of 854 x 480 pixels resolution (which was the best in the market until the official launch of the Apple iPhone 4) ensures great clarity. Fielding the latest capacitive touchscreen technology, the screen is quite simple and pleasurable to use. The usual features of an accelerometer, proximity sensor and a multi-touch input method are not ignored either. Sunlight legibility is excellent thanks to the 16 million color support, but the downside is that the screen is too sensitive to touch sometimes. This is the price to be paid for capacitive touchscreens though, and it cannot be avoided.

Hardware and Looks
Weighing in at 165 grams, this is not a light phone by any means. Though it looks light and sleek, the bulk will certainly be felt when the phone is in your pocket. The sliding QWERTY keyboard means that this is a stumbling block that could not be avoided. Nevertheless, the phone has a distinctively business-like feel to it due to its black finish and pointed edges.

The phone has a standard microUSB port and refreshingly, a 3.5 mm audio jack. The sliding out QWERTY keyboard is not the best around by any means, and requires a laborious effort to get it out and slide it into place. The keyboard is not exactly comfortable to type on either, thanks to the useless D-pad on the right side of the keyboard, so it would be better to use the onscreen keyboard instead.

The battery supports a 6.5 hour time period of talk time, which is quite satisfactory. Note that the microSD card slot is not hot-swappable, which means that you will have to open the back of the phone and remove the battery each time you want to remove or replace the memory card. On a brighter note, a memory card of 16 GB can be easily supported by the processor in the device. All in all, it is a durable phone that looks like it can take a beating.

There are various Motorola Droid accessories like a stylus, skins, screen protectors, car windshield holders, car chargers, stereo headsets etc. that you can make use of as well.

Processor and User Interface
The Droid runs Google Android 2.1 OS, and has an ARM Cortex A8 600 MHz processor. The Android is an open-source OS, but Motorola have stuck to pretty much the original design by Google. This is a fairly new version of the Android OS though, so there are plenty of new features and Motorola Droid apps, to keep you interested.

Running Google features like Gtalk, Google Maps, Push Gmail etc is very simple and fast on this phone, and the speed of the phone is satisfactory, considering that the rivals of this mobile phone have much faster and stronger CPUs. Browsing the web is also quite smooth, and there are many features of the device that makes browsing a lot of fun. Sadly, there is no flash support in the device.

Camera and Multimedia
A 5 MP camera for a resolution of 2592 x 1936 pixels and a dual-LED flash means that the camera on this device is out to play with the big boys. The Android OS has also provided some excellent new features for the camera, which sits very well with the high-quality images you can click with this.

The audio and video players are not up to scratch though, and there are many areas where Motorola can improve their product. Most of these deficiencies stem from the shortcomings of the Android OS though, so there is hope that these will be improved soon. Sadly, there is no DivX or XviD support, so this leaves one partially handicapped. The audio and video quality are nothing to write home about either.

Conclusion
All in all, this review shows us that even though the phone is the best on offer by Motorola, it is still far from being the best phone around. There are faster and stronger Android based phones around, and even though there are no major flaws in this device, there is nothing particularly appealing about it either.

The Google Nexus One and the Apple iPhone 3GS sell for approximately the same price, and are far more reliable smartphones. The only thing that works in favor of the Droid is the innovativeness and the user-friendliness of the Android OS.