Dear Ladies, Gentlemen, and Androids;
Greetings. I am one of the first Droid X owners. I didn't stand in line at 7am for mine, however, I was one of the ones that were planted in front of the computer at 11:59pm Wednesday evening, hitting the refresh button on the Verizon Wireless webpage. My quest for the 4.3" screen, 1Ghz, 8MP, 720p monster had begun.
You have to applaud VZW for having a near-flawless website that handled the orders at launch, unlike the *ahem* "fruit" company, Lol. But I digress.
12:01am. Go Time. The DROID X was here. My heart was racing, I clicked the "Buy Now" on the launch page of the spec page, as I watched the status bar fill for the next page where I would begin the process.. I chose the plan, I chose the options.. Be still, beating heart! My nervous hands shook as I typed my credit card information, and hit 'Submit Order'.. Then, nothing.
I began to freak out. No email confirmation. No order status. Nothing in the cart. But then, like manna from the heavens, the "Live Chat" window popped up, and I clicked "Yes" to speak to a rep.
She was super nice, and was eager to listen to my problem. I told her that I had gotten all the way to the end, and no confirmation. She said no problem, (and here's where it gets REALLY good), asked me to resubmit, and said that she would give me $30 off for my troubles. You can bet your ass I was excited.
VZW definitely gets kudos, I wasn't expecting that at all, especially not for a phone that hadn't even been on the market for more that 5 minutes. She stayed on until I had confirmation, and made sure I was a happy camper.
I ended up getting the phone for $169.99, along with a car dock and car charger for $44.99. It came with Free Shipping & Free Activation too. My total with NC tax was $231.62. Not shabby at all.
Anyway, on to the review!
THE START-UP.
This is one powerful phone. From the minute it booted up, I knew it would be. It took a little bit to load, but this is expected from any smartphone with any decent amount of features/programming on it. Once loaded, I hit the unlock button. The unlock button seemed to be laggy at first, but then was smoother once the phone was on for a while. The non-BLUR MOTOBLUR loaded all on the screen, and it was actually laid out nicely. However, if you don't use a lot of social networking (who doesn't these days though? Noobs. Jk. lol) you might find it to be a bit overwhelming. But never fear. It's easy to remove and size it up to fit you.
THE SET-UP.
With any Android phone, there's going to be a learning curve. A big one. But honestly, when you think of what you get, and what you can do, you'll learn quickly. Prime Example: My parents. They are both 50, and have Droid phones. They learned, and navigate their phone with ease, and are even downloading and using apps like Skype Mobile, TiKL (push-to-talk) and the like. With the Droid X, you have way more versatility. You can actually resize the Motorola widgets, move around ALL the widgets and fit them like i did here..
Ok enough of the intro, Let's get to the meat and potatoes. The real-world review. You guys can read all about what the phone can do on sites like www.droid-life.com, www.phonescoop.com and www.engadget.com. This is about how it REALLY performs out here in the concrete jungle.
THE REAL WORLD REVIEW.
Before I start, I have to say that my review of this phone is based on me PUNISHING it for this past week. You can ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you, I push my phones hard. Every feature a phone might have, I'm messing with and testing 'til it doesn't perform. I've had it for a week, and I can say this phone is very capable. Like any 1st generation phone, it's got kinks, but VERY few and far between.
-LET'S GET THIS APP PARTY STARTED.
I went on an app market rampage to see how well the phone handled the app drawer loading and if it slowed the phone's performance at all. I ended up installing about 30+ apps, not including the "bloatware" that comes on the phone standard. The first 10 times I opened and closed the app drawer to see how it would react to that many apps being installed at once, and it did exactly what i thought it would. It freaked out.
The opening was laggy, and some apps were even out of order! But never fear, the phone also did what I hoped it would do. It would adapt, adjust and make it happen. Now, when I open the app drawer, it is definitely all in order, and doesn't lag. Much. It still does, but definitely not like it did. It's tolerable. It performs very well, but has a bit much lag for me to give it an A or better. I'm sure the 2.2 OS update will address this properly. I have no doubts about that. Overall, the app drawer and performance get a final score of B+.
-JUICE ME.
Hmm, what's this? Battery Management? Hmmm... *clicks* ... The phone has a Battery Management mode that you can find in the settings, Performance Mode, Smart Mode, and Battery Saver Mode. This is good for people that may require less processing power and more battery life. Or inversely, for those like me, that always want the fastest speeds and efficiency possible and that have little regard for battery life. Although you have a menu that says "Battery Profile Options", you can only tweak the Smart mode. The settings you want to look out for is the "Data Timeout" and "Off-Peak hours". These, when not set accordingly to how YOU use your phone, could cause you to have a problem like no Data (1X/3G) possibly when you use it the most. It happened to me. I didn't get my twitter feeds after 11pm, which for me, is my primetime! I didn't understand why I wouldn't get my tweets and mentions until morning, until I really started playing around with the settings. I run mine on performance mode ALL THE TIME, unless I have a situation where I won't be near a charger for a good while. I also noticed that it performs significantly better with the Battery setting at "Performance Mode" as opposed to "Smart" or "Battery Saver", for reasons which should be obvious.
-PICTURE ME ROLLIN'...
Now, on to the picture and video taking. The 8MP camera with mechanical shutter and 720p film
recording is as good as they say it is. One of the first things I did (after calling out and sending a few "sucks to be you, I have the Droid X" texts and tweets, naturally. lol) was to snap some pics. The first few I shot were of people, and for reasons of anonymity, we'll leave those out. However, here's a pretty snazzy shot of my friend's car, and my retro project car in the background. This pic was snapped at 6MP, but only because I wanted it to be a widescreen shot. The 8MP is AMAZING too. Hitting the cam button, load up times were GREATLY improved from the Stock MotoDroid's times. Night shots and quick snaps still need improvement, but still come out pretty decent for a camera that happens to be on a phone. But even still, I don't necessarily feel like I need to carry a Point-and-Shoot now. The camera gets a Final Score of A-, along with a Most Improved award for Motorola. Lol.
-TEXT AWAY!
The SMS/MMS interface on this phone is highly improved, now with a more conversational "speech bubble" format. I feel like I don't have a need for an extra SMS app like Handcent, now that it's been redesigned for this phone. The only thing I think I would like would be the ability to change the LED colors (without downloading an app for it lol) within the phone, because I tend to get all excited about a potential lover texting me when that green LED blinks, but then I am deeply saddened when it turns out to be an email from the pizza place telling me about their new specials. :( lol.. Honestly I have no gripes about the SMS/MMS on this phone. It's damn-near perfect to me. It's fast, simple, and clean. The Text interface gets a Final Score of A+.
-STROKE IT, BABY.
First off, get your mind out of the gutter. I was talking about the keyboard. You know that the new keyboard that is stock on the X is, indeed, multi-touch. It's nice. Ok, moving on to the real star of the show.. Swype. Swype, honestly, is great. It makes for spelling things quick and easy. It isn't perfect, it lags behind sometimes when you're "swyping" really fast, but it eventually catches up and spells what you want it to. The other thing you should know is that it's not multi-touch like the stock Droid X keyboard, so if you use both thumbs to either type or swype on this keyboard, you might not spell the right thing, or anything at all. Just a friendly warning. Final Score: A-.
-BUT.. IT'S SO BIG!
And surprisingly enough, that *is* what she (and he) said. That's probably what most of you are thinking when you see it too. That's a topic for a more personal blog, unless we're talking about the *phone's* size. And we are. The phone is no tiny tot, I guarantee you that, but in actuality, it's narrower than the EVO 4G, one of which is owned by a good friend of mine, who happens to be a girl, she doesn't mind the so-called "bulk" of it. These phones are wide and tall, but you really don't know what you're talking about until you actually get your hands on one. I had my worries that it would look like I was happy to see someone when I'd put the phone in my pocket, or that it would be uncomfortable. It's neither. And the handheld comfort is definitely there. The phone practically lives in my hand, and no, I don't have carpal tunnel from it. It really is comfortable. Seriously. Go to a VZW store and try it for yourself.
-..AND I DROPPED IT.
Not intentionally, did I manage to drop my precious X, mind you. I had gone all week, putting it through hell, draining the battery, powering it on and off, using every last Microhertz of power it had, but keeping it pristine.. until today. My niece simply smacked it out of my hand (she's only 8 months, and I love her, so she's still OK if you were wondering. If she were my age, and a guy, it would be UFC up in here. lol) and down it went, onto the asphalt parking lot we were on. But surprisingly enough, the phone held together, the battery cover popped off and it only got a couple scratches on one corner of it. Impressive. I was expecting the worse, something along the lines of when my iPhone suffered its glass-shattering demise (albeit, quite timely and fortunate, because that event was the final straw of my unsatisfactory iPhone/AT&T experience, and it lead me to choose Android as my OS), but nope. The screen was fine. Survival skills Final Score: A+. Anything that survives my baby niece gets an A+. She's rougher on electronics than I am.
-IT WAS FINE, UNTIL...
A problem I had was the signal/3G dropping off of the phone, and it not being able to make calls. The .604 (the latest) software update and a battery pull solved this problem quickly. I had a couple instances where the phone didn't want to come back from its sleep state, so again, a battery pull solved that. It is annoying to have to reboot and all that, but there's no such thing as a perfect phone.
And last but not least.. *drum roll*
-THE FINAL VERDICT
Honestly, the phone so far has proven to be really good. Really great. Motorola has really done it this time, even with the improvements it needs. Unfortunately for people who like to root, the DROID X is locked down by the E-Fuse (Google it for info), at least for now. That's definitely one of the major detractors within the Android community about this phone. But other than that, it's a fast phone with tons of flexibility and features, a great camera, and even the size is manageable. The screen looks great, the apps work wonderfully. All in all, I recommend the Droid X to anyone who wants it or is considering it, *even* with the known bugs and glitches it has got. This is only a week of usage, but I can see that for me and my X, it's the start of a beautiful relationship. No relationship is perfect, and honestly, there's no such thing as a perfect phone either.
While I understand the basic premise or 'good intentions' behind the credit check for employment, which by way of theory would indicate trustworthiness, stability, and good work ethic in a potential candidate; I would like to make you aware that it seems to create a catch-22-type situation.
