Motorola Droid X: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Brian Klug on July 20, 2010 4:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola Droid X
- OMAP
- Mobile
Video
The X joins a number of smartphones shooting 720P video. It shoots 1280x720 video in MPEG-4 format at a full 30 FPS with AAC audio. This is up from the 24 FPS of the original Motorola Droid as mentioned earlier. Average video bitrate is nearly 1 megabyte/s. As expected, you can force the LED on and shoot video with illumination. 720P video capture is limited to 30 minutes at a time.
The layout of the video interface is virtually identical to the still interface. You can launch camcorder to get directly to shooting video, or just use camera for stills, or either one and switch between.
I found video quality to be almost as good as the iPhone 4’s, which is arguably the current leader. The EVO 4G’s video looks oversaturated and uses a noticeably worse audio codec, AMR narrowband. Though video bitrate is almost the same, I notice more blocking in the EVO 4G’s video than the X’s. I shot the X and EVO videos in the same hand at the exact same time, so feel free to do comparison on your own. Still, it’s hard to deny that the X’s video doesn’t look much more like what you’d expect, and the difference is all software and that SoC difference surprisingly.
Motorola Droid X
HTC EVO 4G
Nexus One
iPhone 4
HTC Droid Incredible
Motorola Droid
Nokia N900
The X also uses that three microphone array to do a lot of special noise canceling. The result is four different audio “scenes” for the user when in video mode. Everyday captures audio from every microphone, outdoors reduces wind noise, concert is for preventing microphone distortion and capturing loud music videos, narrative is for capturing videos while commenting on the scene, and lastly subject is for capturing video with audio from the front of the camera. I tried all of the audio scenes with the exception of subject, and found that they actually do a decently good job.
I’m impressed with how good of a job the narrative mode did - while shooting the video I couldn’t hear myself talk most of the time and didn’t expect much in the way of results. My test videos are the following:
Droid X - Outdoor Setting
Droid X - Narrative Setting
Droid X - Everyday Setting
Droid X - Concert Setting
Unless I’m mistaken, the X has the most microphones of any smartphone on the market, and I think Motorola has put some interesting use scenarios together with their five different sound scenes. It’s interesting that Motorola bills the X as a camcorder, dedicating a special application tile to camcorder over stills.
But that's not all, there's also video shooting modes that are a bit special, same as there were camera modes for stills. The X provides settings for slow motion and fast motion. When I saw the slow motion setting, I immediately suspected that higher framerate would come at the cost of video resolution. Really there are two reasons for that - pixel binning to gather enough light given a faster (shorter) integration time, and to keep the load on the SoC video encoder block the same.
As you'll see shortly, my suspicions were correct. Slow motion video is shot at 320x240 with no audio. Similarly, fast motion mode seems to reduce sampling but keep the encoded rate the same, similarly there is no audio in the file.
Droid X - Slow Motion Setting
Droid X - Fast Motion Setting
I did encounter one rather catastrophic crash while testing. After changing microphone effect modes, the camera preview went portrait, ditched all of the control interface, and refused to quit. After a minute of mashing the home button, I was able to finally get back to the home screen, but launching the camera again yielded the same thing. This all happened live, right where I was shooting test videos on the corner.
See what's wrong?
A reboot solved the whole thing, but perhaps this is something Motorola could take a look at fixing.
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PCR - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
I really enjoyed this review and wanted to let you know what a great job you guys did. It is very through and informative. Keep up the great work :)Pedro80 - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Guys..come on..- visually.. the EVO looks way better
- HW - the Samsung Galaxy S performs better
- HW - the Samsung Galaxy S features a much better display
- and (most importantly IMHO) a device that bricks (shits?) itself when you attempt to install a different version of the (the same! open!) operating system
..isn't worthy this kind of acknowledgement..
Already, devs in the Android community are asking Motorola to leave the OHA (Open Handset Alliance).
[Droid X Brick a Brac]
http://www.wirelessandmobilenews.com/2010/07/droid...
[Motorola responds to Droid X bootloader controversy]
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/motorola-respon...
[Why Motorola should be asked to leave the Open Handset Alliance]
http://www.absolutelyandroid.com/why-motorola-shou...
leexgx - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
at the moment it just prevents you from using your own cooked firmwares (puts the device into recovery mode so it can be re-flashed with factory image)must admit my sisters samsung galaxy s does look nice (compared to the HTC desire or Sony X10 xperan {big one} ) And it comes with an 1500Mha bat so should last more then an day use (the G1 i had was horrid on bat life had to turn it into an brick and fit an 2200Mha bat to it)
Very disappointed with the screen on the HTC desire (one its smaller then my HTC HD1 my bad lol,) the screen is Not made of Strate line of pixels like normal screens are so an Striate line or Single dot text is wiggly
v12v12 - Monday, August 16, 2010 - link
Thank you man... FINALLY some voice of true dissent! While the rest of the zombies on here clap and rave; the REAL issues come out in your post. Course as most zombies behave, they either flat out ignore it (Jobs/Apple/big-corp mantra). It seems like people in today's society are more and more becoming fanboyed about anything "new." Their supposed reasoning and logic (lack thereof) skills are deteriorating generation after generation._The more "entertainment" devices these nefarious companies produce, the more you all open up their mouths and ask for another spoonful. Not ONE mention of how these devices are actively spying and reporting your Internet usage, phone calls/txts/tweets/facebook blah blah. Everyone just happily uses them with out even asking... HRMM this device pretty much is my personal log/journal (txts, calls, tweets, surfing etc.) and the phone corps CAN and DO turn over ALL of your info to the NSA/CIA "secret" rooms (AT&T anyone?)
SURPRISE! http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/06/spy...
Merry Xmas! http://news.cnet.com/AT38T-sued-over-NSA-spy-progr...
Gotta LOVE them spIphones: http://www.squidoo.com/iphonespy
Iphone owns drones! http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/080210-your-...
SpyPhone: http://www.spyphoneguy.com/
*** Do you actually THINK that the NSA/CIA/Govt doesn’t have their OWN in-house versions of this type of spyware that CAN be remotely installed on your phone w/o your consent???*** You’re a complete FOOL if you don’t think they don’t ALREADY have this type of stuff and are using it to track the MAFIA
http://www.zdnet.com/news/fbi-taps-cell-phone-mic-...
http://www.technewsdaily.com/hacked-smartphones-co...
Yet you all happily browse away, not knowing for SURE that "someone" or some group isn't recording your EVERY form of personal/private communication with these uber "smart" devices. Yep, no CCleaner or data-encryption/wipe when BIG-BROTHER is siphoning the data off at the SOURCE. HAHA I love it... everyone is so caught up being "entertained," and 1-up'ing everyone else with their newer toys; all the while someone else IS watching and tracking your most PRIVATE (so you thought) behaviors.... Course no mention from Anand (nothing personal boss) or any of the other review/tech sites about it either. Lol... Jokes on YOU all... Soon some of you will be BUSTED/RATTED out by your PHONE in the near future. All those supposed "private" txts and crap will come out in full public view, when they have your ass in court for some talk about picking up a "sack, dub, nuggets, green, trees" and anything else considered "illegal" at the time or arbitrarily deemed an "act of terrorism," which NOW puts you under the guise of the PATRIOT-ACT, which essentially STRIPS you of nearly all your rights afforded to you by the Bill-of-Rights and that has-been document call the CONSTITUTION of the UNITED STATES.
Yep, this IS going to be yours/mine and everyone else's future if people don't start inquiring about the SECURITY of these devices, aside from whining about being about to NOT crack the eFuse etc.
You've been warned; now back to being "entertained," (aka, distracted/deceived).
puffpio - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
I'm curious (and I hope you and others are too!) about how an overclocked Droid fares against a Droid X?Many rooted/custom ROM Droid people have no problem taking their phones up to 1Ghz
1Ghz OMAP 3630 vs 1GHz OMAP 3430 would be an awesome comparo
Goty - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Good to know. I ran most of the same benchmarks on my own and it seems that the Captivate is actually slower in the Sunspider test than any of the newer TI or Qualcomm SoCs, but faster in everything else. Very curious.Anyhow, looking forward to the review(s)!
metafor - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Sunspider is kinda wonky. It can vary depending on what version of the browser you're using. In either case, unless you know you have the exact same software, it's usually not a good way to test processor speed.cgalyon - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
This was the best review I've seen of the Droid X thus far, by a large margin! Very thorough and pleasantly objective. Keep up the great work!FozzyofAus - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Great to hear.The Galaxy S has been on sale in here in Australia for a while and I'd love to see how it compares to the HTC EVO and Droid X.
Regards,
Michael.
FozzyofAus - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Background reading on performance from another site:http://androidandme.com/2010/07/news/droid-x-vs-ga...
No doubt your review will be even better when it's ready.
Regards,
Michael.