Motorola Droid 2 Review: Rebooting the Droid
by Brian Klug on September 19, 2010 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Droid
- Motorola Droid 2
- Android
- Mobile
More BLUR additions
We’ve already discussed the majority of Motorola’s BLUR-lite skin for Android in the context of the Droid X review. I thought that I wouldn’t see any more from BLUR, but I was wrong. Cleary not contented with how things turned out with the Droid X, Motorola has added a few extraneous things that for me push the Droid 2 a bit over the scale in my opinion.
First off, the default widget layout remains the same.
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Home Screens—Default Configuration and Layout
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There’s stuff on every page, but thankfully you can remove them pretty easily. I still like that the Motorola widgets can be resized dynamically, however there’s just too many of them strewn about by default. It’s a matter of personal taste I guess, but don’t people like things to be clean and empty when they get them instead of already full of stuff?
Anyhow, what really gets me is what’s been added. Tapping on the up arrow to launch the applications list no longer results in an instantaneous presentation of applications. Instead, there’s a sporadically low FPS, choppy 1 second fade animation. Hit home to go back to the home screen, and there’s another 1 second fade animation. Go to settings -> display and set animations to “no window animations are shown,” and the second long blur animation will still happen every single time.
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Left—Lock Screen, Right—Applications Menu
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It sounds stupid, but it’s really these little extra things that are frustrating. Further, because they’re part of the BLUR UI, they don’t hook into the standard Android settings menus, which is why disabling all animations doesn’t do anything. It’s stuff like this that makes rooting not just a matter of choice, but rather a necessity for getting all this extra stuff out of the way.
Virtually everything else about the BLUR skin that I saw on the Droid X I see on the Droid 2. Probably the only notable change is that random extra animation, and landscape support for when you have the keyboard out.
Landscape Homescreen
Thankfully, you really can use the device with the keyboard out basically everywhere in Android, as everything first party has portrait and landscape support. Applications have to build their own landscape support in, but that’s how it is on all the major platforms.
Browser
The Droid 2 is the first Motorola Droid shipping with Flash preinstalled. It comes with 10.1.72.10 installed by default, which is the last beta build out on the market before 10.1 officially was finalized. Interestingly enough, there’s Adobe Flash branding right on the Droid 2 box.
You can update the device to the latest version of Adobe Flash, 10.1.92.10, by grabbing it from the market directly. Be warned though it doesn’t show up in the normal list of applications waiting to be updated from the downloads window, you have to seek it out yourself. Sam and I have been doing lots of flash testing and have an interesting story coming up—there’s no major difference between the Beta 3 build and this final version that we’ve encountered yet.
What’s different about the browser on the Droid 2 is in bookmarks. I noticed that you can’t delete either the Verizon or Google bookmark, which occupy the first and second spot in the bookmark menu. Try to delete them by long pressing, and you’ll get a dialog where deletion is suspiciously absent. You can't scroll up or down, it's just not there.
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Left—Bookmarks, Right—No delete link for VZW
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This isn’t just slightly annoying so much as it is unnerving. Do we really need a permanent bookmark to Verizon’s portal page, or Google? Moreover, what's open about forcing you to live with a useless Verizon bookmark you can't delete—without rooting? I’ll let you be the judge.
The rest of the browser is thankfully unchanged and just as great as it is on stock Froyo.
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Brian Klug - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
Thanks for calling me out on that, I totally suspected I had forgotten something important. Can't believe I did that. /facepalm-Brian
stlc8tr - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
"The Droid 2 has pulled a complete 180 from the original Droid’s travesty of a keyboard. I’d say the device has gone from having one of the industry’s worst smartphone keyboards to arguably one of the best, if not the best. "Really? Have you tried the Touch Pro2 keyboard? Good travel. Nice offset. Numbers row. Good spacing between keys. It's nearly perfect. That is by far the best keyboard that I've ever used.
http://www.mobileguerilla.com/images/htc-touch-pro...
Brian Klug - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
I had a Touch Pro and Touch Pro 2 for a long time. I have to agree - HTC has dominated the landscape keyboard landscape for a while, but on Android platform it's hard to beat the Droid 2 right now.Until we get the landscape HTC device that we've seen spy shots of. I don't think it has a codename yet, but it has that Touch Pro 2 keyboard.
I think we definitely agree.
-Brian
wyvernknight - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
I think the blur animation that you're talking about when you open and close the app drawer is simply a stock Android 2.2 animation and not a Motoblur add-on.hansel2099 - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
muy buen celularlunarx3dfx - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
This is very disappointing. Your reviews are always very informative and for the most part all inclusive, but I've noticed in the last few reviews the Palm Pre has been absent. Now, I know that most would say, well it's Palm, and they are pretty much dead. However, unlike the Nexus One, which is included in all these reviews, I'm sure there were more Pre's sold than the Nexus One meaning that there are probably a few consumers out there that would like to see how it stacks compared to a new phone that they might be considering. It's just a suggestion.Also, for those who might be wondering, my overclocked to 1 GHz Palm Pre scored as follows:
Browsermark: 24492
Sunspider: 11228
I'd like to point out that those scores are still pretty high up on the list.
Brian Klug - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
Hey lunarx3dfx, I've got a Palm Pre Plus here that we got in for review, so I haven't really been able to include benchmarks from those suites until now. It'll show up in the new benchmarks though. On stock clocks I get 22298 ms on sunspider and 12936 on browsermark. Those 1 GHz speeds are actually pretty impressive.-Brian
ol1bit - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
I think it's awesome that you are reviewing Smart Phones now. After all, they are truning more and more into computers.I've been into computers since the TSR-80 Color computer, and can't believe how far things have advances. http://oldcomputers.net/coco.html
Anyway Thank You!
AnnonymousCoward - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
Brian, I commend you for this engineering review and attention to detail. You made some great observations, like the ridiculous waste of space when text messaging.The inability to delete the stupid verizon and google bookmarks is inexcusable. Not mentioned is also the inability to delete or even just hide the garbage apps that come by default, including Blockbuster and Amazon MP3. So much for "Droid Does". Droid Doesn't let you delete the preinstalled crap. Besides rooting of course.
I noticed in a Verizon store using the X with the 2 side-by-side that the 2 has noticeably worse scrolling performance in the app list.
As for that 1cm of empty space to the right of the keyboard, they should have used that to make the keyboard even bigger! It was wasted, in order to have the phone dip down 2mm near the edge, which really doesn't accomplish anything.
A huge gripe I have is how syncing with facebook causes your entire contact list to be overtaken. The only remedy seems to be not not add facebook as an account, and give yourself a link to facebook.com on your desktop.
I am disappointed with the ever-present touch screen lag. Clicking and scrolling anything has a lagged effect from your input. Unfortunately, many people lack lag sensitivity, so we end up with displays and phones that exhibit an acceptable amount of lag to a few designers or testers, which is unacceptable to guys like me.
evilspoons - Sunday, September 19, 2010 - link
I find it amusing how you're talking about the Droid 1 as if it's a dinosaur from the land of ancient, forgotten technology... yet it's still a year newer than the Blackberry I use all the time (Nov 2009 vs Aug 2008). Hmmm. Maybe it's time to upgrade.Only one of the local wireless carriers has the Droid 1 (sold as the Milestone because Droid is licensed to Verizon from Lucasfilm) and we just got it recently. The only recent-ish Android phone my current provider (Rogers) has is the Xperia X10. Ugh.
It's really just an iPhone 4 or a 6-12 month out-of-date handset for us up in the Great White North.