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
Cellular and WiFi Performance
There’s been a bit of discussion about whether the Droid 2 has signal and antenna issues a la iPhone 4. I was excited to get testing, and ran the Droid 2 through our now-regular tests to measure attenuation from holding the phone in different positions.
| Signal Attenuation Comparison in dB—Lower is Better | |||||||
| Cupping Tightly | Holding Naturally | On an Open Palm | |||||
| Droid 2 | 11.5 | 5.1 | 4.5 | ||||
| BlackBerry Torch | 15.9 | 7.1 | 3.7 | ||||
| Dell Streak | 14.0 | 8.7 | 4.0 | ||||
| Droid X | 15.0 | 5.1 | 4.5 | ||||
| iPhone 4 | 24.6 | 19.8 | 9.2 | ||||
| iPhone 3GS | 14.3 | 1.9 | 0.2 | ||||
| HTC Nexus One | 17.7 | 10.7 | 6.7 | ||||
The Droid 2 has just lower than average worst case signal attenuation when cupped deliberately near the antenna in the bottom of the device. Remember, less attenuation is better here. The Droid 2 therefore doesn’t have any problems that stem from the antenna itself, what then of the entire stack?
Remember that on CDMA cellular systems like Sprint and Verizon, voice and data are separate. Voice always operates over 1xRTT (which can also carry data, but at a slower rate with a maximum of 153 kilobits/s) and requires its own slice of spectrum. For faster “3G” data on a CDMA system, EV-DO is used, which likewise also requires its own slice of spectrum. This combination of two technologies from the same family makes most modern CDMA-based cellular systems hybrid in nature, and almost all CDMA handsets can only tune one (1xRTT or EV-DO) at a time. This generally isn’t a problem—most of the time, your CDMA handset polls a 1xRTT paging channel to check for an incoming call, notification, or SMS periodically. How often that happens is defined by the Slot Cycle Index (SCI) which can be anywhere from 1.28 seconds to much higher. Sometimes you can set this parameter yourself in engineering menus (the number corresponds to x^2 seconds), but you can’t exceed a number defined by the cellular system.
There’s a trade-off of course. Longer indexes will earn you a measurable battery life savings, but you’ll get less time to respond to an incoming call—the call will ring until your phone polls and picks it up. Shorter indexes will notify you of calls much more quickly, but drain battery faster.
Android does a good job hiding this all away from the user. In fact, there’s no way to change the SCI on the Droid 2—whether you have access to an engineering menu where you can tweak those things is entirely up to the manufacturer. The Droid Eris, HTC EVO, and Galaxy S phones, for example, have a suite of engineering menus.
I rarely see the 1x symbol pop up even when texts are coming in (despite the fact that it actually is on 1x to receive SMS), and most applications gracefully wait and resume. However, it sometimes still does happen that things don’t work perfectly, and you’ll transact data during this period and get stuck on 1x for a while. That’s actually pretty normal, and I see it all the time on a variety of CDMA devices. On the whole, this data handover has gotten much faster, but there’s still a period where the phone will wait before starting a data call on EVDO after initiating one on 1x. Generally the longest this takes is 3 seconds. But after you’re on 1x, if you keep transferring data, you won’t hop back to EVDO—on every CDMA device I’ve ever used, that only happens when data is idle.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
39 Comments
View All Comments
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.