Review: Droid X
One of the flagship phones for both Verizon Wireless and Motorola is the Droid X, a phone that you will not regret purchasing. The price tag is not the cheapest for an Android-based phone coming in at $199 on a two-year contract with Verizon, but you get quite a bit of bang for your buck. The Droid X has a 1 GHz Texas Instruments OMAP processor which handles Android 2.2 with the MotoBlur skin very well and it runs very snappy. There are some cons about the size of the device due to its massive 4.3″ (480 x 854) LCD screen, but that might be a blow you will gladly take to use this device.
I am going to start off with the cons of the Droid X, and there are a few cons with the hardware I have experienced. On my device, a pressure crack or soft spot has formed in the enter of my screen. It is not too noticeable and varies in size at times. It doesnt hinder the performance of the phone, but it is worth pointing out that this happened. I am relatively careful with my devices so just be aware of said problems. I have also had a problem with the phone not recognizing the charger a couple times, but all i did was reboot and it worked fine. Also, I had another problem with my calls being muted completely, so I was not able to hear a dial tone or any voices, but again a reboot did the trick. Those are some minor problems that did not really take away from the experience of the phone completely, but were definitely annoying when experienced.
In terms of the pros, as I already mentioned the Droid X has a 4.3″ display, an OMAP processor. The phone also comes with 8GB of storage which is expandable if needed by MicroSD. It weighs in roughly at 5.47 ounces which feels really solid in the hand, and the battery included is a 1540 mAh which usually lasts a complete day with data sync turned on but WiFi and Bluetooth usually turned off. Motorola says you can get 8 hours of talk and 220 hours of stand by. The hardware feels absolutely solid with its matte rubbery finish and aluminum parts. The hardware buttons, which replace capacitive buttons found on most Android phones, feel great and don’t feel cheap or like they will fall off.
While the screen is glass it does have a slight plastic feel to it. The phone is also very thin for the screen size, with the exception of the little hump towards the top where the 8 megapixel camera with 720p HD video capabilities and dual-LED flash is located. Another huge feature of this phone is its HDMI out capabilities. The feature is only accessible when viewing media, so unfortunately you will not be able to use your TV as a projector while playing games or browsing the Internet like you can with the Nokia N8.
The Droid X sports a number of ports and hardware buttons on the phone including the HDMI out, the micro USB port used for charge and sync on the left side, the standard Android buttons (Menu, Home, Back, Search in that order) on the front, a volume rocker on the right side, a sleep wake button and 3.5mm headphone jack on top.
Call quality on this phone is very impressive. I have had no bad experiences with phone calls and I like the MotoBlur dialer. Sound was clear on both ends, the speaker phone is actually fairly loud and does not sound muffled like most. MotoBlur has also been a joy to use. Motorola’s second-generation of their Android skin adds some very useful widgets and a subtle emphasis on social, unlike the in the first version of MotoBlur.
Overall, this phone is very well worth the $199 price tag. The phone is very fast and feels extremely solid. The large screen is wonderful to use and looks great. My final scoring on this phone is a 46.5/50: 10/10 on the call quality, 9/10 on the hardware, 9/10 on performance, 9/10 on design, and 9.5/10 on features.