Motorola Droid Review Roundup

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desiibond

Bond, Desi Bond!
Cnet's live review:

*www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-10385261-251.html?tag=smallCarouselArea.0

Music quality was quite good. Thanks to the 3.5mm headphone jack, we plugged in our Bose On-ear Headphones and enjoyed rich-sounding songs. We listened to a variety of music, from punk rock to pop to classical, and found a nice balance between treble and bass. Songs even sounded decent coming from the phone's speakers. There was plenty of volume and while slightly harsh, the audio wasn't as tinny as some other smartphones we've tested.



the browser feels faster. With a cortex A8 processor and support of Verizon's EV-DO Rev. A network, CNET's full site loaded in 14 seconds while CNN's and ESPN's mobile sites came up in 8 seconds and 5 seconds, respectively. For comparison, we checked out the same sites on the Samsung Moment for Sprint and the Moment's browser results were 40 seconds, 9 seconds, and 8 seconds in the order listed above. We'll continue to test the browser over the next few days, but the difference in speed doesn't go unnoticed.
Finally, while the Droid's browser doesn't have Flash Lite support, it does have a plug-in that will support Adobe's Flash 10 player when it's available.



The Droid now offers native Microsoft Exchange synchronization out of the box for e-mail, calendar, and contacts, in addition to support for Gmail and POP3 and IMAP accounts. Note that only Exchange and Gmail offer push delivery, while POP3 and IMAP messages are retrieved at user-specified time intervals, starting at every 5 minutes up to every hour. With Android 2.0, you can have messages from various accounts displayed in one unified in-box; messages are color-coded by account so you can visually differentiate them at a glance. Of course, you can also choose to separate them if you like to keep your personal and work lives separate.



As we mentioned earlier, the home screen and main menu on Motorola Droid doesn't look terribly different from, say, the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G at a glance. However, as you use the device, you'll notice subtle changes and enhancements that make the UI a bit more refined and streamlined; the gorgeous display doesn't hurt, either.


PCWorld's take on Droid:


*www.pcworld.com/reviews/product/324707/review/droid.html


The Motorola Droid certainly stands out among the growing Android army due to its superior hardware and enhanced 2.0 software. But will the Android Marketplace catch up to the iPhone's App Store? Therein lies the key to success for the Droid. The Droid certainly lives up to its promises and does a lot of things the iPhone doesn't. The iPhone will probably keep its smartphone throne for now, but it will have to deal with a powerful new competitor.


The phone provided excellent call quality, even in a New York hotel lobby full of noisy Phillies fans headed to Yankee Stadium for the World Series. Parties on the other end of my calls reported no problems.


The first time you pick up the Motorola Droid ($200 with a two-year contract from Verizon; price as of 10/28/09), you'll notice its solid feel and heft--there's a lot going on behind the crisp, 3.7-inch touchscreen. Making good use of Android 2.0's new features, the Droid is a powerful Web surfing and communications tool that has a chance of living up to its hype. The Droid's biggest flaw, however, is in its hardware design: The keyboard is shallow and flat, which can make typing uncomfortable.


Engadget's take on Droid:


*www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/motorola-droid-first-hands-on/


Some quick observations on the phone:


  • That big screen is killer. Bright, crisp, and tons of room for your icons and widgets.
  • Speed is noticeably improved -- particularly when moving from app to app. We did notice that some of the home screen scrolling looked laggy.
  • Android 2.0 is definitely cleaned up -- but it's most definitely still Android
  • The browser seems significantly improved -- pages now load up in a fully zoomed-out mode, and the load times and scrolling are way snappier.
  • The keyboard takes some getting used to, and it suffers from a similar hand-position issue as the G1, but it's fairly usable. We think it'll be second nature once we spend some time with it.
  • Facebook is integrated into accounts, which means some of that BLUR functionality is here (though now it's part of Android 2.0 natively). The good news is that when you add a Facebook account you can choose to pull all Facebook info and contacts, or just info related to your existing contacts -- a real clutter buster.
We've got the DROID in our hands... and it is sweet. Moto claims that this is the thinnest full QWERTY slider on the market, and we're apt to believe it. The phone is incredibly slick and solid, and we're definitely looking forward to putting it through its paces. We'll have more photos, video, and a full review coming, so stay tuned!

YahooTech's Take on Droid:

*tech.yahoo.com/blogs/patterson/58767

But a few immediate comparisons are obvious: the iPhone is slimmer and lighter, while the Droid crams in a full, slide-out QWERTY keypad. The Droid's camera is clearly superior to the iPhone's, but if you ask me, the iPhone's interface is still smoother, peppier, and more elegant. The iPhone has more apps—way more apps—but the Droid has Google's new, free GPS app, not to mention (as Verizon loves to tell us) a more open development community. The Droid has a user-replaceable battery and a microSD slot, but the iPhone has way more media at its disposal, including wireless movie rentals from the iTunes video store. (The Droid doesn't even have access to Verizon's V Cast media network, or at least not for now.) And while the iPhone's multitouch-enabled browser is still superior to the Droid's, I'm in love with the Droid's killer ability to seamlessly integrate Facebook contacts into your address book.

Tarafx's take on Droid:

*www.taranfx.com/blog/motorola-droid

Google Nagivation is an incredible addition to the Android family and looks great.
The hardware is quite nice. The keyboard is spacious and easy to use.
There are none of the widgets that MotoBlur featured prominently including the Twitter widget that threatened to crash the phone.
The phone is very polished but the base of installed applications seems very sparse. After working with the Hero and the Cliq, you sort of expect all sorts of silly clocks and social networking apps. This has none of that.
It has the best start-up sound in the whole world.


Mobiblu's take on Droid:

*mobibu.com/Motorola/motorola-droid-review/

Motorola Droid sets a new standard for the smart phone. The power of Web search takes on a whole new meaning, going deep into your phone and all of your applications. Motorola Droid takes the search that Google is known for to the entire phone. Type or speak your search with voice command, and not only will you get results from the web, but also anything you have on your phone contacts, music, photos, applications and more. Not more digging into menus and contacts to find what you need, it's all available from the home screen. Let work and life co-exist in harmony with work and personal email pushed diretly to you.
 

gdatuk

Ambassador of Buzz
thats an awesome collection... the news about Droid is churning out at such high speed, even my news aggregator cant keep up with it
 
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