By The full review will come tomorrow (fingers crossed) but I finally got up my footage from the Motorola Droid X event in NYC last week. I have to say that both Motorola and Verizon Wireless continue coming hard with hot Androids and the Droid X is no different.
With a massive 4.3-inch screen to rival that of the HTC EVO 4G, there will be a LOT of people taking note at the Droid X when it launches July 15th for $199. The first hands-on video is pretty long, so I’ve included a table of contents of sorts just below it.
- Intro & Hardware Overview (0:00)
- 3G Mobile Hotspot (2:00)
- Multimedia Dock Accessory (4:38)
- Blockbuster App and VCAST (5:50)
- Baltimore Ravens shout out (8:05)
- Car Dock and Navigation (9:00)
- Motorola BLUR (10:45)
- Battery Manager (14:24)
And it continues with a little discussion about Enterprise/Corporate, Data Tethering, Need for Speed Shift, and HDMI Video Out.
And last but not least, a quick look at Verizon’s NFL App on the Motorola Droid X. It will be available on all Verizon smartphones starting in late July and will be free through the end of the year. So will they start charging mad ducketts come playoff time? I don’t know but I got a chuckle from the thought.
Patience will be rewarded… I’m working hard on the full review and hope to have it up tomorrow (or ASAP)!
Nice phone. Between Evo and the Galaxy-whatever on Sprint and the Droid X and upcoming Droid 2 on Verizon, there are some really strong options for both touch-only and QWERTY phones on those two carriers. I’m not as familiar with TMO’s offerings so I don’t know if they are getting a high end QWERTY phone and ATT, well…there’s really just one reason to use them and it ain’t Android.
Great article Rob! Thanks!
It would be nice if us end users could uninstall some of the apps that the carriers put on our smartphones. It takes up extra space that could be used for other apps. Several Palm Pre users on the Sprint network encountered this problem before Palm released a patch for WebOS to dramatically increase the amount of room apps were allowed to take up.
Thanks for the hands on Rob!
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I do have a question that is now really really reeeeaaaally bothering me. Can you find out if the bootloader is encrypted? I think a lot of people are super worried about this. We need our custom roms!!!
Just one question in regards to the Moto Blur quandry…will it stop or hold up the phone from receiving the latest update of Android, such as Froyo or Gingerbread(?)…that is my concern. I like this phone and really considering getting it.
Hmm Need for Speed shift sucks actually in my opinion, and it looked laggy on that phone unfortunately. But it’s a nice phone though.
Give me a 4.3inch screen AND a qwerty keyboard. I’m trying to eliminate the need to carry around a laptop/netbook everywhere.
How do we get the huge Verizon logo off of there?
@jerbear So, I can’t wait to get this phone. Made the decision to leave T-Mobile. T-Mobile does not have any quality Android phones to date. Maybe the Samsumg Vibrant will make T-Mobile a contender but they have recently had software update issues which have made me leary about getting that phone. In my opinion Verizon and Sprint have the best Android phones to date. T-Mobile piloted the Android OS but have dropped the ball since then.
i want to know when i can preorder from verizon!! i’ve been reading all these articles and i haven’t seen anything yet. this phone looks sweeeeeeet.
Nice hands on, does the Droid X have Exchange support, the guys you were talking with discussed corporate users rather briefly…. Thanks!!!
Not sure on the Droid X, but on my Droid Incredible, you can delete any program you don’t want. However, with so much GB space in these phones and full control on what’s running in the background it’s not really an issue. At least for the casual user.
@Dirty Mel a sharpie should work. or maybe even some sandpaper. A dremel would word too. maybe even a bandaid or a sticker.
I hope they’ll release an unlocked european version of this awesome device in the UK at least ASAP!1!!
FYI, for those of you who don’t understand what an encrypted bootloader would mean, it means you won’t be able to use any of the custom ROMs. You know all that stuff you see posted about “2.2 leaked, install it now”: you will NEVER be able to do that if the bootloader is encrypted.
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Encrypted bootloader = you only get updates when Motorola releases OTA updates. This means you will not get to take advantage of any of the tweaking, performance optimizing and other cool stuff that is included in most custom ROMs.
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Much more discussion of this is here: http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-x/113171-encrypted-bootloader-flashing-roms-abandon-all-hope.html
@josh no that wont work they have the verizon under the screen so all that will do is ruin the screen
What were they talking abotu the NFL App coming in July? I already have it on my Incredible and it looks the same as on the X… am I missing something? :p
DROID X= Sexxxy.
NFL…now there’s no excuse for missing a game and it will be on a 4.3″ screen that you can take with you. That’s going to be killer.
Anyone on the fence between Evo and sprint or Verizon and Droid x go with Verizon. I have thee Evo, love the phone! Sprint sent out an ota update, ever since my touch screen has been FREAKIN out! And goes Unresponsive reboot after reboot! I call sprint and the customer service tells me that I’m still covered in my 30 day warranty to go get it changed out before its up. She said after 30 days sprint will “give u a big hassle” and u will have to keep the broken handset. This and other incidents have led me to the conclusion EFF SPRINT THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT CUSTOMERS. I’m going to Verizon. I will miss the hell out of my Evo! But I’m sure the X and I will learn to love eachother
“It would be nice if us end users could uninstall some of the apps that the carriers put on our smartphones. It takes up extra space that could be used for other apps.”
Actually they don’t really take up extra space — the pre-installed apps are in a partition for the system, which is read-only (it can only be modified during a system update). That is why they can’t be uninstalled, and even if they were uninstalled you would only gain space there which you can’t use anyway. In fact, all devices ship with some extra space in the system partition to allow for future growth of the system from updates.
If a device comes with pre-installed apps in the data partition (where third party apps and data go), then you can uninstall them just like any other app.
Really wish it had stock Android 2.1 instead of Blur.
Great videos. CAN I SEE MORE OF THE HDMI OUT IN ACTION. DIEING TO SEE WHAT ITS CAPABLE OF DISPLAYING. AND QUALITY ON THE BIG SCREEN.
THANKS
Love the Baltimore shout out, so pissed I won’t be eligible to upgrade to this phone
It does not have Blur. It has a skin with some ‘blur’ properties. And I tried to uninstall City ID on an Incredible and it would not go away. The INC forums said you must go root to uninstall carrier apps.
Is there any technical reason why the HDMI port can’t just output whatever is on the screen like the HDMI port on my laptop? That’s what I thought it did.
Also, I had been holding out hope that the multimedia dock didn’t interface through the mini-HDMI port. I was hoping the Droid 2 would have an HDMI dock without needing an HDMI port on the device itself, but that doesn’t look likely now.
Seeing all this, I’m really hoping that the Droid 2 comes with stock Android. I could live with pseudo-blur, but I’d really rather have a blank slate that I could customize myself using what’s in the market.
I wish the different companies would just stick to their role in delivering devices like this. Google should make the OS, Motorola should make the hardware, Verizon should provide the 3g, and app developers should make the apps. I don’t want Motorola trying to redesign the OS or Verizon trying to make apps.
The most wanted ANDROID phone for this summer!
Love this phone!!!!!
kwest12,
Thanks for taking the time to explain the bootloader and providing the link. Newbies like me appreciate it. I’m still learning what is common for a lot of others.
@Brian I too had the Evo, and absolutely loved it. But Sprint’s voice network blows inside buildings; choppy voice and dropped calls. One of the nicest features was the ability to be able to set up different “scenes”; having the ability to save and use different home pages. I sure hope the X will have this feature. Have not seen anything about this.