Motorola Droid X: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Brian Klug on July 20, 2010 4:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola Droid X
- OMAP
- Mobile
Conclusions
It’s hard to argue that the new Motorola Droid X hasn’t captured the Android performance and flagship crown once again. Eight months after the original Motorola Droid, Motorola has launched a worthy successor. Further into the summer, we'll see a true followuup to the original Droid - the Droid 2. It will pack an improved hardware keyboard, the same size and form factor as the first Droid, and probably the same SoC as the X.
Motorola Droid X. Image Courtesy of Sarah Trainor.
The X brings a lot more than just a bigger screen and the Blur interface - after the iPhone 4, it's the second phone on the market with a 45nm SoC. TI's OMAP 3630 is the new Snapdragon. You get the same real world performance as a 1GHz Snapdragon, but with much better GPU performance. Unfortunately for TI the latter only really matters in 3D games, which are still at their infancy on smartphones.There's still some occasional choppiness scrolling through menus, but that seems to be an Android thing
The battery life offered by Motorola's design (both hardware and software) and the OMAP 3630 is just great. Despite its size the Droid X lastest the longest on a single charge of any Android phone we've tested thus far. While the iPhone 4 lasts longer for browsing, the X is our new champion for talk time weighing in at just under 9 hours. We're only a generation or two away from all smartphones having better-than-notebook battery life for all of our major tasks.
If you're on Verizon and prefer the larger screen, the Droid X takes our pick for the best Android phone on the market today. All we really need is a good Nexus One successor for those users who want something a bit smaller, and maybe an entirely new form factor for the ultimate smallest in devices.
From a higher vantagepoint, the Droid X isn't going to change your opinion on Android. If you love the OS then you'll be very happy with the device. While we would definitely appreciate Froyo on the X today, we're starting to get really excited about Android 3.0 (Gingerbread) due out by the end of the year.
There are also OMAP 4 and Tegra 2 to keep in mind. While the 3630 is the cream of the crop today, in less than 12 months it'll move down to mainstream and we'll be pining for the next wave of dual-core Cortex A9 smartphones. We wouldn't recommend waiting another year if you need a new phone, but just plan on wanting to upgrade really bad next year.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
89 Comments
View All Comments
TareX - Thursday, July 22, 2010 - link
Why are all the Samsung Galaxy S phones missing from your charts and comparisons? I wanted to see how Hummingbird compared and how the Super AMOLED fared against their Droid X counterparts...strikeback03 - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - link
Maybe because the first US version launched a day before the review went up, and they weren't sent a review sample.enealDC - Thursday, July 22, 2010 - link
Great job!Juniper Research - Friday, July 23, 2010 - link
Very interesting article... we have this week published a new report on smartphones and a free whitepaper is available to download here... http://www.juniperresearch.com/reports/next_genera...John Levett
Marketing Executive at Juniper Research
Homefries - Saturday, July 24, 2010 - link
First off, great review Brian.However, while you did a very thorough comparison of the Droid X to other Android devices, you barely mentioned the real competitor the Droid X has to stand up against: the iPhone 4.
Readers want to know if the Droid X is the best phone on the market - the whole market - not just the market subset dedicated to Android devices.
Like the majority of the tech media, your review furthers the notion readers belong exclusively to either the iOS camp or the Andriod camp. This is simply not true. Informed readers, like the ones that peruse Anandtech, want to buy one smartphone, regardless of any marketing slants, that is the best.
Your review of the Droid X should have helped us answer the question, "Should I buy the Droid X or the iPhone 4?" But, it did not.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - link
Well, I think the conclusion in the iPhone article and some earlier Android articles applies, there is no "best" for everyone. Some people love Apple and the Apple way of life, some people won't touch it. As the iPhone is currently limited to AT&T, that is going to deter a lot of people. How large a pocket/bag you plan on carrying the phone in might make size differences more important to some than others. So while I am not one of the readers calling for no subjective opinions (it is interesting that FroYo feels significantly faster/different) I think it is still up to each buyer to decide what is most important to them.Electrofreak - Saturday, July 24, 2010 - link
Brian and Anand, are you sure you're using the correct information regarding the SoC in the Droid X? I believe it is a OMAP 3640, not a 3630, as the maximum recommended clock speed of the 3630 is described in numerous places across the net as being 720 MHz, while the max clock speed of the 3640 is described as 1 GHz. In addition, the max recommended clock speed of the 3430 in the Droid was 600 MHz, not 800.The information I cite above is widely available across the web... if you've got inside information the rest of us don't have, by all means let us know. But as someone who has written articles of my own on ARM SoCs and follows ARM industry news closely, I suspect that your data may not be 100% correct.
Regardless, I do have to thank you for writing some of the most informative hardware articles on the net. I appreciate it!
Electrofreak - Saturday, July 24, 2010 - link
...and I just found this: http://e2e.ti.com/blogs_/b/mobile_momentum/archive...So, per TI's blog it is the 3630... now we just need an explanation of the other info on the web that describes the 3630 as maxing out at 720 MHz.
Brian Klug - Monday, July 26, 2010 - link
Yeah, TI's documentation is a bit outdated. Anand tackled the SoC part, but the 3630 is indeed a 1 GHz part, it isn't the 3640 guaranteed. There was a lot of confusion online about it, but Anand got the official word. ;)I agree, back when I did my other OMAP 3 piece it was 720 MHz.
-Brian
Electrofreak - Saturday, July 24, 2010 - link
Looking forward to that Hummingbird review Brian. I hope you're able to dig up some info that I wasn't able to when I wrote my article (http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=17125) back in April.