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.
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bigi - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - link
Your pics in the sun are crap because left/middle phones have photographer shadow on them therefore showing more contrast/details in shaded area.The phone on the right looks worst because the "photographer" made this look worst.
awaken688 - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - link
Brian. Good review. Can you comment on how the Droid 2 works as a phone? You know the earpiece volume and clarity? Ability to get rid of background noise of the receiving speaker. I know these are smartphones, but they still are phones so I would love to have some clear thoughts on that part of the device.LoneWolf15 - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - link
In a week and a half, I can only comment on my own experience --but the D2 has the best reception and call clarity of the smartphones I've had (Kyocera 7135, three Treos, and a Blackberry Tour prior to this). I've gotten calls (and held them) in areas I thought previously impossible, and calls everywhere for me have been clear.Brian Klug - Tuesday, September 21, 2010 - link
I generally don't comment too much on handset performance unless there's something extraordinarily bad about performance, purely because it's very subjective right now. In this case, Droid 2 handset quality/volume are almost identical to the original Droid. Both have noise cancellation, though I'm betting the Droid 2 is slightly less effective at cancelling noise due to that (as I mentioned) somewhat strange rear microphone placement.Otherwise I've been working on a very quantitative way to judge handset voice quality and performance, which will eventually appear in reviews. Subjectively, the Droid 2 is the same as any CDMA phone in terms of voice quality.
-Brian
DJMiggy - Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - link
Good review! Lots of good information on the Droid 2. I look forward to the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore. March 2011 is when my new every two is up with Verizon and I can get a new phone without getting bunged 600 dollars. lolawaken688 - Wednesday, September 22, 2010 - link
Thanks LoneWolf and Brian. I just know that from my experience with the LG VX8300 that not all CDMA/GSM phones are created equal. We have an original Droid and it is by far the best phone we have used. It's clarity, volume, and reception is just hands down better than my VX8300 and it easily bests the iPhone we have too, although it is by a less noticeable amount.I'll take subjective =)
Shinobi123 - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
Why is the XT720 never in these comparisons?I've had this phone for soon two months, and it's easily the best phone I ever had.
Not biggest screen or highest clocked cpu, but it's a good phone and excellent camera.
soccerharms - Friday, October 1, 2010 - link
Hey Brian,Is there future plans to compare the droid x with froyo with the droid 2? I would be very interested in how these stack up because people are posting significant performance increases with the update.
Thanks for the review
jeans_xp - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - link
The mobile world's yesterday king is backing.HAHA, first smart phone is iPhone 3GS. I find a good website for smart phone news and latest technology: www.mobilegoing.com