Now that more and more reviews of the eagerly anticipated Motorola Droid are starting to appear, it’s time to take a look at the findings of some of the reviewers to see if it lives up the hype.
Gizmodo
Check out the full review here.
The folks at Gizmodo seem to have been wowed by the Droid, saying “It’s this simple: If you don’t buy an iPhone, buy a Droid.”. They say it’s the “second best smartphone you can buy”. That’s not exactly what the Android-is-greater-than-iPhone brigade will want to hear, but it’s most definitely glowing praise. They do also go on to say “If Droid is merely the first in a new wave, we have a lot to be excited about”.
Gizmodo rated the Droid’s 854×480 display and Android 2.0 very highly, but it lost marks for poor camera performance (with the reviewer even going so far as to claim that the Sprint Hero has a better camera) and an uninspiring keyboard.
The Good, according to Gizmodo -
“Display, display, display”
“Um, just look at it”
“A smartphone you actually want on Verizon!”
The Bad, according to Gizmodo -
“Keyboard is merely adequate, at best”
“Camera is utter garbage”
PC World
The full review can be found here.
PC World were also impressed with the Droid, but, like Gizmodo, were less impressed with the keyboard which they said was “shallow and flat, which can make typing uncomfortable.”. They didn’t rate the camera as badly as Gizmodo did, finding that outdoor shots looked great, but did concede that indoor shots “suffered from a significant amount of graininess”.
Like Gizmodo, they still see the iPhone as the best of the smartphones, with the Droid not too far behind.
The Good, according to PC World-
The crisp, vibrant 854×480 display
The Droid’s browser is quick to load pages
Hi-def playback of YouTube clips was excellent
Outdoor shots on the camera looked great
The Bad, according to PC World-
The keyboards is shallow and fiddly to use
No physical Talk or End keys
Grainy indoor shots on the camera
Phone Arena
Full review can be found here.
Like the other reviewers, Phone Arena were impressed by the Droid’s display, stating it was “by far the best screen available on any Android handset”. Unlike the others, Phone Arena were impressed with the Droid’s camera, saying “Much to our delight, the 5-megapixel
camera managed to meet our expectations and proves to be decent in preserving memories while on the go”. Overall, they found little to fault with the phone except some choppy and laggy navigation between home pages.
The Good, according to Phone Arena -
“Quality built construction and design”
“Responsive and Brilliant Screen”
“Good call quality and signal reception”
“Decent photo and video capture”
“First with Android 2.0 and Google Maps Navigation”
The Bad, according to Phone Arena -
“A lot of open apps will run down the battery in a day”
“Accidental presses of the four touch sensitive buttons”
“QWERTY keyboard is nice to have, but keys feel cramped”
The reviews are well worth checking out in full if you have any interest in the Droid. The Phone Arena review in particular is very detailed, including a video of the phone in action. I’d also recommend reading the very in depth review done over at
Phandroid.
So, the reviews are unanimous in their praise, finding fault only with the camera and the slightly fiddly keyboard. It sounds as though the Motorola Droid is now the undisputed king of the Android phones for now. It’s not the iPhone killer that we’d hoped it would be, but it’s most definitely a strong competitor, probably it’s strongest. The next few months promise to bring possibly even stronger competition, with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 in particular, having a lot to live up to. Perhaps HTC can reclaim the Android throne with the HTC Dragon when it appears. Time will tell, but this
next year will be interesting for anyone with an interest in Android.
