Keeping up with the Joneses seems to the prevailing mantra in the smartphone segment. Just as the early lines started forming in front of Apple stores in the US for the iPhone 4, Motorola hit back for Android with their latest phone with the ‘X’ factor – the Droid X. Designed in the same mould as the rather popular Droid (the MileStone in India) that came before it, the Droid X rocks a brilliant 4.3-inch 854 x 480 pixel touch screen, which while it is bright and sharp, doesn’t seem to pack the same punch as say the Galaxy S, leave alone the iPhone 4. A screen this size can only mean one thing – this thing is big! A svelte profile it may have, but this is not one for small hands, we can assure you. To put it in perspective, it’s taller than the HTC Evo 4G, but thinner and lighter. Under the hood, it runs a speedy 1 Ghz TI OMAP 3630 processor with 512 megs of ROM (for Android), 8GB storage onboard (plus 16GB via microSD, goes upto 32) and features a dual-flash 8-megapixel camera, a HD (720p) camcorder, as well as DLNA and HDMI connectivity to download and stream your content.
On the platform front, the Droid X runs Android 2.1 with the latest version of Motorola’s oh-so-social MotoBlur extensions, which apart from integrating your various webmail and Exchange mail accounts and calendars also integrates your contacts with your Facebook, Twitter and MySpace friends. At the launch Motorola and Adobe announced that an Android 2.2 update that supports Adobe Flash 10.1 will be headed the Droid X’s way later this summer. And then there’s been a lot of talk about the alternative virtual keyboard Motorola has launched on the X. If you’ve seen the ShapeWriter app on the iPhone, you already know how the Swype text entry mechanism works. Put simply, you drag your finger from key to key in one continuous fluid motion to spell out the word you need. From what we’ve seen so far, the combination of the Droid X’s large display and Swype seems to be going down well with folks who’ve used the device extensively.
And if you’re looking to actually make a phone call with this baby, Motorola has actually kept you in mind and packed in three microphones, one of which (the mic on top) is used for noise cancellation during calls / videos and another one on the back does double duty supplementing the main mic while recording video (like the Narrative mode uses the front mic to focus on your voice and mutes the back one and outdoor uses both the mics)! All in all, the Droid X looks to be the slimmer touchscreen-only sibling of the Droid/MileStone, which can only mean good things in terms of usability and build quality, but will its size be too tough to stomach? We personally prefer the form factor-performance equation that the Nexus One (hopefully with FroYo sooner rather than later) will present.
There’s nothing misleading about the journalism here: “The Droid will cost $199 after a $100 rebate”.
I agree that I hate rebates, especially issued by the same company you are buying from. Verizon seems to be hooked on them, although they do drop them when you order online.