Sale Motorola DROID 3 Global Android Phone (Verizon Wireless) - Smartphone Test

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Michael J. Literman (Buffalo, NY) –

  

I upgraded yesterday from the original Droid after having that tank of a phone for two years. With the exception of it filling up with apps, texts, and general data the last two months, it was without hesitation the best phone I have ever had. My plan was up and I was eligible for a new phone, just in time for the Droid 3.

I scoped that phone out long and hard and yes, I did have reservations. I would have liked to see it have 1Gb of RAM like every other phone out now, but you know what? I can deal with it. I only had a slight issue with speed on the original Droid.

Before I move on, I should let you know that I am a power user. I use the physical keyboard more than I use the virtual keyboard. I update servers, manage six different email accounts, deal with clients, and so on. I use the phone to its fullest extent and she was good to me. I love Android and would never think of going the way of Apple, Blackberry, or Windows, regardless of what the masses think I should do.

So I’ve got the phone and one thing that I loved is that it has more memory for apps. The original Droid had something like 256mb allocated for apps and I was constantly moving things to the SD card or just deleting them to make room for more essential apps. It got to the point where I deleted Flash because it wasn’t as important as the other apps. So now I’ve got something like over a gigabyte of memory for apps and that should last me a while.

Now I’ll get into the good, bad, and whatever of this phone:

GOOD:
This keyboard rules. It clicks and I don’t think that it’s going to soften up at all for the next few years of heavy use. A few things that you would never think of is that the keyboard doesn’t have a menu/list button which I miss and it also doesn’t have a designated “question mark” key. It’s just one ALT away, but I miss it. I will not have a problem getting used to it, though.

Screen:
Great. I don’t have a problem with the diagonal lines that people show through magnifying glasses, like that’s how we all use our phones. The screen is only a quarter inch taller than the original Droid so it’s not like you’ve got a lot to get re-situated with. The colors are great and the graphics are very crisp. Also, I read that it’s got Corning’s Gorilla Glass on it so it should be able to withstand some pocket related abuse.

Speed:
Good. I have only noticed a little bit of lag when I’m pulling open peoples contact info by clicking on their icons. It’s light years faster than the original Droid so that’s good enough for me. It’s probably comparable to most current phones.

Case:
I couldn’t find anywhere about the specs of the case. The original Droid was all metal and that ruled. The Droid 3 has a metal screen bezel and the bottom half, where the keyboard is, is a hard, rubberized plastic. I think that it will be fine. It is dense and feels sturdy. Nothing moves and everything is very mechanical, like the original. I wouldn’t mind finding an aftermarket metal back to replace the plastic one, but I’m nitpicky. You’ll be fine.

LED Flash:
Brightest LED ever. I tested it out at night and it’s so bright that you could easily light up a small room. Impressed.

Hard Drive Storage:
16Gb onboard. That is great. You don’t even need an SD card if you don’t want, but why the heck not? Use the SD card for music, videos, and pictures and leave everything else to the onboard memory.

BAD:
Blur, obviously. I think Motorola knows that it’s garbage. It’s better than it used to be and is still usable. Maybe I’ll go back to it but I’m currently using Go Launcher EX which is just what I had on my old phone. It’s like Blur isn’t there. No need to root.

Pre-Installed Apps:
Oh man, the bloatware. It’s absurd. Easily twenty applications that you can’t remove. Half of the reason that I installed a custom launcher so that I could hide all that junk. I’m not an idiot and don’t need all these dumb apps. Sports, six Verizon apps, music apps, games, etc. Ugh. Did not like seeing all those. They also locked a half dozen bookmarks into the browser like Verizon stuff so people who don’t know how to create bookmarks have then, but, once again, I’m no idiot and want them gone. Too bad. Who cares. Just install another browser if you’ve got a problem with it.

Updated Apps:
I dislike the new text messaging app layout. It’s bubbles like you see in the iPhone. I liked it the old way. An app could fix it if you’ve got a problem with it, though. New gallery? Garbage. Pretty unusable. It defaults to some dumb friend thread where it shows you pictures that your friends updated with Facebook. I want mine first and if I want to see other people’s stuff, I’ll do it on my own accord, thank you very much. I replaced it with someone’s copy of the gallery from 2.2 which I loved…

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David Jeske “tech savvy” (San Francisco, CA United States) –

  

I just picked up my droid-3 this morning, and so far it seems like a worthwhile update for droid-keyboard-phone users. I’m a long term original droid-1 user myself. The droid-2 didn’t appeal to me, both because of it’s shape, and some misfeatures in motoblur (double-home-tap-voice-command, which is thankfully no longer there).

Slim, Sleek, and Angular – The droid-3 is more slim than the droid-1 or droid-2. It also has the same angular shape that attracted me to the droid-1. I wasn’t a fan of the droid-2′s strange curves.

Keyboard is a dream – That’s why we want the droid-1/2/3 right? They delivered. The droid-3 keyboard is an incredibly improvement over the previous generations. I prefer droid-1 keyboard to droid-2, but droid-3 is undeniably better than both… much better, incomparably better.

Speedy and Snappy – The droid-3 is rippin fast. In fact, it surprises me that the droid-3 is notably faster than my Xoom, which is allegedly using the same dual core processor. Perhaps they did some nice software updates in between, or perhaps it’s something else, but the droid-3 is REALLY snappy both in apps and the Browser. In fact, it’s the first android phone I’ve used that feels like it has a ‘snappy’ browser, even for typing into web fields.

Screen is workable – I like the droid-3 4″ screen size over the 3.7″ droid-1 screen, but the visual quality on the droid-1 screen is obviously higher. That’s partly because the droid-1 screen was a smaller version of the same resolution, which made it look a little crisper, and partly because the droid-3 uses a new PenTile screen technology that basically has fewer little-tiny dots (subpixels) at the same resolution. With normal size fonts, the droid-3 screen is gorgeous, but when text is at the edge of readable, it doesn’t look so great. Put differently, if you size a webpage to be just barely readable on the droid-1′s 3.7″ screen, and then put that same set of pixels onto the droid-3, it’s less readable on d3 despite being larger. The forums are filled with controversy about the moto PenTile (RGBW). My bottom line is that I wish they used a higher-dpi display, but it won’t stop me from enjoying the droid-3 over the droid-1. In exchange for the slight loss of visual quality and crispness, we get a larger display which makes occasionally using the virtual keyboard much easier. Also note that most of these 4.2″ displays are not any higher resolution, though AFAIK the Thunderbolt and Galaxy S II both use crisper RGB-RGB panels.

Phone call quality is excellent – From the few calls I made today, it didn’t seem any different than my droid-1 in call quality, which has been excellent. I haven’t tested the speakerphone yet.

Skip the Dock – I’ve been using the droid-1 dock every night to charge my phone and never had any issue with it. The droid-3 dock seems badly designed and not worth using in my opinion. Because it has both USB and HDMI connectors, the droid-3 doesn’t smoothly slide on and off the dock. It has to be pushed on and pryed off. I have to actually hold the dock when I pull the two apart. This sort of defeats the purpose for me, wheras with the droid-1 I just dropped the phone onto the dock and snatched it off. It doesn’t help that the droid-1 dock was weighted and the droid-3 dock is featherweight plastic, but the hdmi connector is the real issue. If there was a heavyweight USB-only droid-3 dock that worked more like the droid-1 dock, I’d buy that.

A little harder to one-hand than droid-1 – The combination of the larger size, the power button placement, and the power button firmness makes it harder to ‘one hand’ activate and use the phone. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but it’s nowhere near as perfect as my droid-1 was. I also don’t like motoblur forcing us to double-swipe unlock – once for the standard swipe unlock, once for my swipe password. Stock android allows you to use only the swipe unlock… which I much prefer. Hopefully Motorola will eventually unlock the bootloader for those of us that prefer stock android.

Jury is still out on battery life. If my first day and the forum posts are any indication, the stock battery will probably be slightly shorter than the droid-1/2. I have heard some say that the speedy CPU and bigger screen can really chew through battery if you play games. It’s nice that there is also an available extended battery for those that need more juice — and it still keeps the phone pretty slim.

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 Comments (2)

I bought the Droid 3 thinking I had to have the keypad. The keypad is very nice. Funny thing, I’ve hardly been using it today! The virtual keypad here is easier to use with the larger screens size so I’ve been using both since I bought the phone.

What has almost a dealbreaker for me has been the display. I have been struggling with the MotoBlur & being able to read the smaller fonts. I am not a fan of this display & I do not like the icons at all! Maybe I was looking for an Apple screen with Android phone but good processor, etc? So hard to find everything in one phone!

I downloaded a black background then resized the fonts & adjusted the brightness, all the things I could do to help see the small icons & tiny text msgs. I’ve been reading lots online about those who can’t read the text. Well I have some GREAT news!

I was ready to consider trading for a Samsung Charge until I read here about Go Launcher EX. What could it hurt to try? Thank you, thank you, thank you for that advice!!!! It made all the difference for me. I’m so thrilled with the appearance now!

If you don’t like the MotoBlur, consider trying the GO Launcher EX. I absolutely recommend it

Sincerely,

A Fan

P.S. I really do like the docks for the Droid 3 too! 4G would’ve been nice but it’s not available in my area anyway. I could wish for a longer lasting battery but realistically, the short life is to be expected & no worse than any other right now.

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