Motorola Droid X: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Brian Klug on July 20, 2010 4:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola Droid X
- OMAP
- Mobile
Micro HDMI Out
So what about that micro HDMI port on the device? The X joins a small number of smartphones packing an HDMI port of the micro variety. I’m going to start by just noting that it’s very difficult to find one of these cables except at a carrier store. Ironically, I got Anand’s HTC EVO 4G the same day I was planning on doing media center testing with the X and proceeded to spend the next few hours searching for a cable - neither the X nor the EVO bundle even an adapter. I ended up having luck at a Sprint store - point is that these cables aren’t very popular yet.
So how does HDMI out work? Its functionality is very basic right now and is limited largely to playing back a slideshow of photos from the gallery application, or video playback. I found that although the pictures slideshow worked fine, the transitions were slightly low framerate, the photos never filled up my display entirely (not even aspect ratio correct stretched, just centered and small), and generally it left me wondering why anyone wouldn’t just use DLNA to view them over something else. Maybe throw in some Ken Burns effect eyecandy, Motorola?
Playing back a video captured on the X - the phone turns into a control interface
Videos captured on the phone itself played like I expected them to and sounded excellent as well.
Motorola will have a media dock available which promises a few more things, specifically audio playback, but without rooting and modding the device HDMI out is a bit limited. You can’t make the entire Android interface appear on your TV, for example.
There’s an HDMI settings menu in the settings menu. Inside, you can set the video output format to a maximum of 720P. I left it on automatic. There’s no other configuration here - nothing for whether you want HDMI to be the device’s sound out method, video out method, or anything else. It’s just this.
While the EVO supports YouTube over HDMI, the X does not. Videos that you can browse to and open with a file browser play over HDMI whenever the cable is connected. I had the most success with MP4 videos using the H.264 codec at 1500 kbps. I tried every type of audio profile but couldn’t get surround working on the X - for whatever reason I could only get stereo.
The music player also for whatever reason doesn’t play over HDMI when the cable is connected. However, with a bit of trickery I could get pandora or whatever audio I wanted playing over the HDMI out. Just fire up the music, then fire up gallery. Boom, all your audio will go over HDMI. It’s handy I guess if you’ve got an A/V receiver but don’t have a headphone 1/8” audio cable laying around.
When you’re doing anything that has HDMI output enabled (the photo gallery or video playback), the device turns into a basic control interface like I showed before. There are some monstrous buttons and one at the top left to exit out of HDMI playback.
Remember HTC’s excuse that the reason for the 30 FPS framerate cap was HDMI video playback? I was curious and used the Droid2Dtest application others have used on the EVO which showed the 30 FPS cap on the X.
The X is capped to 60 FPS, unlike the EVO’s 30, as shown in the overlaid screenshots above which I've annotated. Yep.
Perhaps the discrepancy is that HTC needed the 30 FPS cap for YouTube playback (which the X lacks). Either way, it’s clear that the reason HTC was capping the EVO is a bit more complicated than just for HDMI out. It’s also possible that the SoC difference is the case - remember that the Snapdragon SoC has the Adreno 200 GPU whereas the OMAP 3630 in the X has PowerVR SGX 530. It’s entirely possible HTC’s cap was there for hardware limitation reasons.
Motorola's Gallery
I mentioned the gallery while talking about HDMI out - it isn’t the Android gallery experienced on stock devices. Motorola has clearly rolled something of its own, and though it isn’t as flashy, it does get the job done.
I also noticed that it seemed a bit faster at loading previews than the stock android gallery, though at times I was still left staring at a ton of blank thumbnails.
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Jonathan Dum - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Thanks for the comprehensive and all around excellent review, but I have one caveat.As far as Android phones go, their multitouch screen controllers have tended to be sub par (try any multitouch on a nexus one, for example). I would like to know if there's any noticeable difference between these newest phones and older Android phones with capacitive screens.
As always, keep rocking these reviews, Anand. ;)
Frangible - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
I've not used another Android device, but it's hypersensitive compared to my iPad/iPod Touch. Portrait keyboard mode drives me nuts. If the touchscreen were alive, I'd say it would have a degenerarive demyelinating disease. Unfortunately putting prednsone tablets on my Droid X does nothing.It's so twitchy I can blow away the Blur, Swype, and even a modded HTC keyboard with Graffiti (free from Android Market btw). And that's Graffiti with my *thumb*, in portrait or landscape. If I started using my Pogo stylus... oh, it would be*on*.
Clearly, others don't share my opinion, but the touchscreen on the Droid X is incredibly fruuuuustrating at times.
Frangible - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
As a new Droid X owner, let me first say thanks for another great in-depth review, especially regarding the screeen details-- I just have to know these things, dammit.Anyway, just wanted to make two screen-related comments:
1. The outdoor screen comparison pics don't show any obvious transreflective displays. This either means none of them were, or they weren't angled in a way where a transreflective display would be obviously better.
FWIW, my iPod Touch Gen 1 has a TRD, and even my iPad's display is somewhat TRD (though with poorer contrast than the iPod or even a Tungsten TX in direct sunlight; a consequence of a lesser area of reflectivity, or the IPS display?) I don't know which of the iPhones have TRDs, but it would seem likely the iPhone 4G would be on par with the iPad.
Anyway, a TRD adds a LOT to outdoor viewing if you angle it correctly. You can even turn down, or off, the backlight.
The Droid X is certainly not TR, and was worse than my much dimmer Moto Q9C outdoors (due to the touch layer). And yeah sadly, the Tungsten Tx on min bright was better. So that's why I bring this up-- TRDs are the daywalkers of the LCD underworld, so imo this should be accounted for in outdoor comparisons.
2. I looked at the pixel structures of a variety of displays under a 100x light microscope. The Droid X's sub-pixels are divided into two sections, each with a black "hole". It looked quite similar to the PSP Go's subpixels, though with a standard RGB pattern and lack of the chevron textures on the PSP Go's. I assume this is some TN variant? Does anyone which kind?
The iPad's subpixels were divided into to halves of a series of stacked chevron color bars. Only the green subpixel had the "hole" (transistor?) which looked an awful lot like a mandlebrot fractal to me. FWIW.
ImSpartacus - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
I always love reading ATech's reviews, but this one was especially wonderful.I laughed out loud at the following sentence:
"Everything about the X seems like it can be followed up with a 'that’s what she said.'"
Simply hilarious.
The0ne - Wednesday, July 21, 2010 - link
Yes, I especially love some of the very technical tests as well. For example...1. I let my wife use it for a day and she likes it...
2. I work in milliseconds so having a webpage load 1s makes any other phone besides iphone a no go
3. I have no fcking clue about real multi-tasking, although I know it's been around for decades, but I'll just demand for it and do a bat-shit review of it.
4. My wife and kids love it so it's an editor's choice! Go buy it.
5. It only has a few thousand apps, not the millions and millions of apps like iphone so it's crap, regardless if many of those millions of shtty apps and dictated.
Obviously, I'm exaggerating the comments to the extreme but the basis is there. While at it the review might as well include the orgasmic scene from the movie "When Harry met Sally."
honkj - Tuesday, August 17, 2010 - link
for anyone wondering why that survey showed iPhone owners get more sex...this "theone" guy pretty much shows how clueless and geeky and "lady" hating, some Android fanboys come off to the opposite sex.....
actually they just come off as hating anything that moves.
jasperjones - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
a dozen comments already that point out the high quality of the review. it's getting boring. anyway, +1, excellent review. i've made critical comments on your smartphone reviews earlier this year. but the last couple of reviews were just awesome, and my confidence in AT is fully restored :)Hazdaz - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
It is so nice to read a review that is more than just a corporate press release. Actually taking the time to really review a device and give us honest and very thorough information is what I love about this site.I just ordered my X and won't get it for a few days, but I tested all the usual suspects and felt that it was the right phone for me... assuming I can get used to the size.
I know there are a few people that mentioned the GalaxyS family of phones and I have to say that I really wanted to get one... they are slightly smaller in size than the X, but because of their curved shape, they felt even smaller - while still offering a 4" screen. And about that screen, well it did look great, but from all the hype, I was really expecting for it to be even better. Anyways, I really wanted to like the phone - and I was ready to settle on it actually, until I tested the call quality. HUGE let down there... I could barely hear the person on the other end of the phone call, and the speakerphone volume was terrible. Tried this test on more than one version of the GalaxyS and was quite let down.
The Incredible actually had the best sounding speakerphone that I have heard, it was quite loud - but alas I was looking for something a little bigger in size. The X had good volume - much louder than the GalaxyS - so that's the one I picked.
ImmortalZ - Wednesday, July 21, 2010 - link
The gold contacts on the battery door are a staple of Motorola designs since a long time. My old E6 and it's cousin the Z6 both have gold contacts to the battery doors. So does the RAZR line. In fact, I'll go as far as to say that nearly every one of their phones with a metal battery door has multiple contacts from the door to the phone.MacTheSpoon - Wednesday, July 21, 2010 - link
The review was spectacular in many ways, but I couldn't find anything about call quality. Does this thing actually perform well as a phone? Did people you talk to think you sounded good, and did they sound loud and clear to you as well? How did it compare to other phones?Was this info in there somewhere, and I just missed it?