Motorola Droid X: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Brian Klug on July 20, 2010 4:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola Droid X
- OMAP
- Mobile
FM Radio
The X, like the EVO and a number of other smartphones also doubles as an extremely expensive FM radio.
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FM Radio
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The application is a bit different and has the same masculine red-robot theme to it that the whole Droid brand does. It works well and even tunes the radio data broadcast names and info. There was also a scan and auto create presets feature. It didn’t find one or two stations that I could tune manually, but that’s forgivable.
Skype Mobile
The X bundles Skype Mobile, a Verizon exclusive for BlackBerry and Android smartphones. The situation is relatively interesting. While skype to skype calls are free, and skype always is ready to receive calls, the implementation seems to be little more than a skype number and dialer - calls actually go over Verizon’s 1xRTT network same as any other voice call. Turn the cellular radio off, and you’ll find pretty quickly that you can’t place calls over WiFi data. As a result, call quality over Skype is exactly the same as a normal cellular call on CDMA.
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Skype Mobile - Works only over Verizon Wireless
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It works, but what everyone is really waiting for is bonafide Skype (with real VoIP) on Android. Complete with video calling support.
Keyboards on the X
While we’re on the subject of what software comes preinstalled on the X, we might as well talk about the keyboard. The X comes with two keyboards, Swype, and the Blur customized multitouch keyboard. In effect, I’d argue that the X comes with the best keyboards I’ve seen preloaded on an Android device yet.
Multitouch Keyboard
Before I dive into Swype, let’s talk about the default selected Blur multitouch keyboard. In a word, it’s awesome.
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Default Multitouch Keyboard - Characters, Symbols
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The combination of being relatively clean, basic, visual, and the larger screen size makes the multitouch keyboard excellent. I found myself typing on the X just as fast as I could on other devices right out of the box, despite not having a hardware keyboard. To some extent, the Blur keyboard is seems to derive key placement inspiration from iOS, but has slightly taller keys.
I’ve talked with a lot of people who love the HTC Sense keyboard - I found that although it was better than the default Android keyboard, it still was far too visually busy and distracting. This is one place where I think Motorola has actually added something valuable to Android on the X - a multitouch keyboard without more extras that just make it visually confusing.
There’s a few other things that the Blur interface adds to text input. Start typing, and for the first couple of keystrokes, you’ll see a red circle with others around it - it’s a symbol that begs you to tap and hold.
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Magnification, Press Gesture - iOS inspired much?
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Do just that, and you’ll get the eyeglass-like cursor place tool exactly like what iOS has. If you long press without the red circle being present, you’ll get the normal pop up to edit text and change the input method.
Honestly, I think this is perfect. It’s a ripoff of iOS, but even Jobs acknowledges the value of copying from great artists. In this regard, I think the Motorola customization offers something valuable.
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homebredcorgi - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Who do we have to blame for the “Droid” moniker? Verizon or Motorola?I have a Nexus One and continually get asked, “Is that a Droid?” or “Does that run Droid?” to which I usually reply yes and let sleeping dogs lie…but seriously, why name it so similar to the operating system? And then why make “Droid” a series of phones if your first phone is just known simply as “Droid”?! At least call it the "Droid One" or something to differentiate from the series of phones....
So now we have the Droid, Droid Eris, Droid X, and will soon have the Droid 2 which are all phones in the Droid series, all running on various builds of Android. Yeesh. Could they have made that any more confusing?
All in all, the Droid X looks very nice. I personally think the original Droid had all the flair of a TI-82 calculator (ugly as sin in a blocky retro way), but the Droid X seems to have modernized its looks. Still not sure if I would want a phone that large though….
metafor - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Verizon owns the rights to the "Droid" trademark from Star Wars. So they decided to capitalize on that and name their whole line of Android phones "Droids".I think it's kinda cheezy but hey, it's selling and is something that people can focus on. With the army of phones coming out every week, it's difficult for the average person to keep up. It helps if they can just go to a store and ask for a Droid.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - link
Actually they have only been using Droid on the high-end phones, the Devour and Ally were not Droids.There is also rumor of a special edition Droid 2 coming with R2-D2 on the battery cover...
lewchenko74 - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
The best, most comprehensive review of the Droid X Ive read so far. Thank you.Just got to wait until it arrives in the UK unlocked now, but personally I think Im going to get the Droid 2 instead with the keyboard.
I am amazed at the pace the smartphone market is moving at. Im 1yr into a 2yr contract with a HTC Hero. It feels like an antique! These 2yr contracts really are a ball and chain.
It also seems like HTC is starting to lag behind Samsung and Moto now in terms of processor and features. Sense also seems a little 'old' compared to other UI layers (or maybe thats just me).
Disappointed that it only runs Android 2.1 when 2.2 is now out though.... That would be like Apple releasing iPhone4 running OS3.2 whilst saying OS4 is out there too but not quite available yet! (I guess Apple actually did that though with the iPad ;-) )
mvmorr01 - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
What app are you using for those CPU utilization graphs? I did a quick search and couldn't find it in the market.Brian Klug - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
It's an application called "SystemPanel" which I found a while back. If you turn logging on, it'll give you some very cool graphs of battery use over time and CPU utilization over days even. Produces some very cool results when I do battery life testing.-Brian
529th - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
First of all I want to say I love mine! :) Bought it the day it came out.Wow what a great review!!!
I didn't know you could run benchmarks on a phone! Linpack!?? WOW awesome!
I can't wait till Froyo! :)
Thanks again chief!
<3 Anandtech reviews!
WaltFrench - Saturday, July 24, 2010 - link
Linpack is a 90s-era benchmark that performs a specific matrix solution. As much as possible, all floating point adds and muls.I've tried in other forums to find an app, prior to 6/1/2010, that actually uses Gaussian elimination with partial pivoting. The particular method works best to find complex patterns within large data sets; that's great for my statistical investment models and for a lot of other stuff. It's strongly suggestive of performance on weather simulations, quantum chemistry, etc., stuff that no sane person would attempt (today) on a smartphone.
Others claim Linpack scores around 40 on overclocked ARM chips with Froyo (the JITting being fabulously helpful for highly repetitive benchmark code). I got ~35 on my iPhone. These scores are ~ 13X–16X what the Linpack author quoted long ago for his 486 (/487, I presume).
I don't know a lot about graphics but presume 3D work that calls for lots of floating point Add/Mul work would get routed to the GPU, so I think these scores are of extremely limited relevance to any smartphone app I can envision.
vshin - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Where are the antenna attenuation tests? No weak spots?Brian Klug - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
There's definitely attenuation tests in there, and weak spots. The bottom of the phone as expected causes a 15 dB drop. It's on page 14: http://www.anandtech.com/show/3826/motorola-droid-...-Brian