By When the Motorola Droid 4 was announced yesterday at CES, I complimented the ability to pack a 5-Row QWERTY keyboard into a .5-inch thick device, but also commented on my rapidly deteriorating interest in phones with hardware keyboards. After playing with the Droid 4, my interest was regained.
Annnnd go:
As you can see the 5-row QWERTY means a dedicated number row, but my favorite part of the keyboard is the texture. The keys are soft and forgiving, adding a comfortable touch and confirmation when you’ve actually pressed a key. I find most large screen touchscreens to provide perfectly adequate input, but for E-Mails, longer texts, and document composing/editing, being able to see your text and edit and type simultaneously is a big plus. In fact, I’d probably get a lot more work done on the road with the Droid 4… hmmmm.
The Droid 4 is powered by a 1.2GHz processor with 1GB of RAM running Android 2.3.5 and with 4G LTE connectivity. They promise Android 4.0 will be coming soon and we’ve got our fingers crossed.
The D4 comes with a 4-inch qHD screen with scratch resistance, scrape resistance, and water repellant coating. It’ s got an 8MP camera with LED flash and a front-facing camera as well. I took a couple pictures and wasn’t too impressed with the quality, albeit I was in a weirdly lighted area with lots of movement, so the jury is out on the camera. Other multimedia features include HDMI, MotoCast, and 16GB onboard plus MicroSD slot to store all your media.
Stylistically, the Droid 4 shares many of the hard edges of the Droid RAZR, as do much of the “Droid” line in general. So for the Droid fans out there who challenged my recent distaste for hardware keyboards: (1) have your laughs at my expense, and (2) is this the Droid you’re looking for?
Not a Dual Core 1.2 cpu? And I’m assuming gorilla glass?l And no removable battery and the same screen as the Bionic? I’m not sold.
it is a dual-core, it is gg. non-removable battery, but most importantly, not global because it is LTE, so none of that matters.
I would have considered this if it weren’t for the Galaxy Nexus. I loved my Original Droid tons and bunches.
ICS slays me with it’s awesomeness. It is so sleek. I see apps or widgets or just older phones and think, “Man… that looks SOoOoOOoooOOoo 2.2!” Haha! I can’t wait until 4.0 is completely common place. It will make for tons of happy people :)
Same for me, I also had the first Motorola Droid and loved it. Of course, that was also the only Droid they made that was stock Android, didn’t have a locked bootloader, and was easy to root. It was as close as Verizon had to a Nexus, at the time (in terms of pure google).
When it was time to upgrade, I went with the Galaxy Nexus not just because it as ICS but also because its not as locked down as today’s Motorola phones. Going from the Droid to Nexus was also a big step in terms of size and feel of the phone, the bigger screen and the extra processing power.
motorolla = garbage
always locked down 99% of the time (ok im exaggerating a little), the worst UI of all, bunch of liars with there “from now on its unlocked bootloaders”, ugly blocky designs, the “droid” name associated with them (thanks verizon) , overpriced tablets and under spec (have they not learned nothing) i dont even consider them when im buying. maybe this all changes when google takes over but i doubt it
Motoblur > touchwiz
My mom has blur and my gf has touchwiz. Both are gingerbread phones. I definitely prefer touchwiz. Much better. Can’t stand blur
You have a very pretty gf
3.0 maybe but i think they did a really good job on 4.0. the touchwiz browser is good cuz it leaves u with a preview on where u left off unlike the crappy motoblur which is almost like the stock and it just has tabs and no preview. i forgot to mention the ugly top humps their phones have
ps haha i was watching beerfest last night
very niceI liked my orig.droid,but screen was small and it was hard to type with using the physical keyboard.cool to see the droid evolving to compete with other smartphones.
I’m a sys admin so I use my phone(currently a G2) to remotely manage lots and lots of servers. The ability to SSH to a linux box and type out commands(and passwords) that often include pipes and slashes and other special characters(not to mention numbers) make a hardware keyboard with a dedicated number row VERY attractive. On screen keyboards just don’t cut it. At 3am when a server goes AWOL, I do not want to get out of bed to fix it, I’ll just grab my phone and I’m done in 2 mins. Maybe now, I can get this under 1 minute… :) This is my new phone as soon as VZ releases it.
I’m also interested in the desktop dock and laptop dock, but I’d have to really play with that before I bought it. It’s intriguing but I’m not sure how practical it will actually be.
Can you ask the reps why they released a Droid # phone without global GSM? It’s a signature feature of the slider series now.
Also, can you confirm if the keyboard shortcuts still exist since the ALT and menu keys are gone from the keyboard? For example,
Text Field:
cut
copy
paste
undo
go to start/end of line
select all
Browser:
refresh
go back/forward
go to the homepage
go to the top/bottom of a page
find text
new window
close window
show bookmarks
show history
show preferences
There are others I use on my D1 but that’s a good enough list.
unless motorola remapped the shortcut key, it’s very unlikely. However, in case if they DID remap the shortcut keys, that means you’ll also get easy tab switching in the browser since it has a number row. (Menu + Number, similar to the desktop browser shortcut Ctrl + Number).
Though there’s another problem: Where’s the Search key for application shortcuts? Sure we can use the regular touch search button, but that would be horribly awkward and unergonomic, since it’s going to be located FAR from the keyboard..
this device is a beast kudos to moto.
i bought droid 1 (or better milestone 1 in my, german case) and as allways motorola really produces neat hardware and fucks up the software.
I will never again buy a phone with locked bootloader, but since i _must_ have a hardware-kb i run a bit thin on options.
BTW: non-removable battery is another no-go, how could anyone really think this as a good idea?
Furthermore i don’t get this whole ‘it has to be slim’-idea. I mean: it shouldn’t be more thick than its wide, but if its 0.1cm or 1.5cm just makes exactly _no_ difference to me. It will still fit in any pocket.
Question: is the screen pentile or not? Not a single mention about that in any hands-on/preview/whatever in any site for some reason.