Motorola DROID 3 (Verizon Wireless)

Better than a lateral move from the original Droid July 16, 2011

Reviewer:  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.

MEDIOCRE/BONUS:
Battery:
I've been riding it pretty hard for this past day and I don't blame the battery for getting a little tired on me. I anticipate a good days use with normal use.

No Camera Button:
You can easily map a double clicked home button using the phone's built in software. No need to cry and no need for apps. I was concerned about it but I'm already over it.

Weight:
It weighs a little bit more. You can dig up the stats for yourself but it's bigger, what do you expect? You won't be able to tell in three days. It's a nice heavy phone. Jeff Goldblum said that if it's heavy, it's probably expensive. He's a smart man.

Speaker:
The original Droid owners were spoiled with the best speaker known to man. This isn't as good, but it's still good. Like I said, Droid 1's was exceptional and this one does just fine.

In conclusion:
If you own any of the Droids with keyboards, this is a little bit better than the same thing. It's better, don't get me wrong, but it's not so much like a new phone as it is a faster version of the one that you know and love.

Sorry this is so long. I review drinks for thirstydudes.com and tend to get carried away. I would have loved to have this review when I was curious if I should get this phone.

worthwhile upgrade for existing droid-1/2 users... July 14, 2011

Reviewer:  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.

Words do it no justice.. July 19, 2011

Reviewer:  Brandon Williams "~B*DUB~" 

..It's just something you'll have to experience.
I've had the first droid since november 09 and im a keyboard fanatic. I need the option of touch screen and a physical keyboard, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. This phone crushes the competition. The screen resolution (960*540), 4 inch screen, and 5th row of keys are the obvious upgrades from the disappointing droid 2. Internally they gave us 8 gb of internal memory, 2 cameras, and only 512 on the RAM (which is still an upgrade from the last droids). Also dual core 1 GZ processor!..nuff said

Pros:
Its much faster! I've crammed it with all the apps from my Droid 1 already and it hasn't slowed down much at all! I HAVENT EVEN MOVED ANY TO THE SD CARD YET! So it handles them well.

Front camera and keyboard. Very few phones in the market have both. This phone is the only one on Verizon to do so

The buttons are much better than the last two Droids. You don't have to press nearly as hard.

DLNA - really moving into the future with this. Makes sharing so much easier

Comes with apps that help you better manage your phone such as task manager, messaging (manages alerts from your texting app to emails, to Facebook and so on) social networks (which helps you import everything by each social network you're a part of). It makes you feel loved when it comes with GOOD apps to help you better use your phone

Nice screen! Bigger and better by resolution. You just have to see it for yourself. When you go to the verizon store, just look at it

Battery life - for a 4 inch screen, my battery life is pretty good. I do alot of surfing and texting as well and it still holds up. Compared to other 4 inch screen phones and dual core phones..it has to be one of the best. HTC phones cant hold a charge to save their company and Samsung screens are the best with their AMOLED..but users pay for it with their batteries!

Records in 1080! This is the first and only phone as of right now that does that. Simply the best.

HDMI OUTPUT! just icing on the cake! watch HD content on any hdtv. Watch what you just recorded in true HD!!

It just set standards once again and does things that other manufacturers have yet to do

Cons:
No SD card included. Oh well i'll just use my sd card from my original droid :-/ guess they knew that we want 32 and they wanted to keep the price low..

Harder to slide up the keyboard. Makes me wonder wtf Motorola was thinking

RAM - i want a GIG damnit! These phones are like computers and a gig is necessary. Only in phones do we have dual core processors and still not a gig of ram. All the manufacturers need to get it together on this

No physical camera button anymore. I have no idea why they abandoned this. I just put one in my menu shortcut

No 4G..oh well its not in my city anyway. but this could have made the phone so much better

Harder to take off the back cover. I felt like I was gonna break it. You'd think fort knox is under the cover >=(

Speaker doesnt seem as loud :/

Last but not least the damn bloatware. Motorola must be going bankrupt cuz they sure as hell put at least 15 apps on the phone that aren't necessary..IE blockbuster, citrix, 4 verizon apps, AND THEN VZ navigator..give it a rest its all about google maps

All in all, the pros outweigh the cons and once again shows how the droid line from verizon (1,2,3) are always in a class of their own and destroy their competition..well except the Droid2 that was just sorry. But all of these words typed do it no justice. Go to store or ask one of your friends who has it and experience it. Personally, I put it above the thunderbolt, ESPECIALLY, for the money.

Best. Droid. Ever. July 26, 2011

Reviewer:  RJAK "Rick"  (McChord AFB, WA) -

As other "professional" reviews say, the real only downfall is the sliding of the keyboard... it's kind of stiff. Other then that though, the phone is amazing. The keyboard is the best QWERTY keyboard I've ever seen and/or used on any cell phone. (Major improvement over my last phone... original Droid.) The Droid 3 doesn't come standard with a removable mini SD card but it does already have 16GB internal storage so if you don't have a mini SD card it's not an emergency to go out and get one.

There are 2 cameras, one rear-facing and one front-facing, supposedly the front-facing (on the main screen) is worse but they look pretty similar to me after taking pictures with both front and rear cameras. The video is brilliant, full HD 1080 resolution that rivals costly camcorders. So, really, you can leave the digital camera and the camcorder at home as long as your Droid 3 is in your pocket.

The overall interface is much better too, there's one more screen to scroll through on the left and right of the home screen. They kept the same logic to the apps menu, sliding side to side instead of scrolling vertically like on my original Droid. (It actually makes sense so that the apps icons have an easier time loading, they had a bit of a lag when scrolling on my original Droid.)

The text messaging is so smooth that you'd expect the "Typing..." or some other text to appear like a regular messenger app when texting. The connection also seems to be stronger then the original Droid, might have some random coincidence with the global capabilities of it, who knows but it's a good thing so no complaining here.

In conclusion... DROID 3 IS FREAKIN' AMAZING... ...and now you know the rest of the story, good day.

Lots of Problems October 12, 2011

Reviewer:  ShainaEG "Shaina"  (New Haven, CT) -

I had the original Droid for over a year and a half and it was getting sluggish so I decided to spring for the Droid 3. I've had it for a few months now and sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it.

I love the screen and the slide out keyboard. It also has great performance some of the time.

I would really like an external photo button like the original Droid had, but this I can live without.

The real problems are in the software. Some games will freeze in the middle and require a full reboot if you want your phone working properly again. Twice in the past week, the alarm hasn't gone off when set and when I open up the phone I get a message that the program isn't responding and do I want to force close it. I would not trust this phone as my only alarm for this reason (which I know a lot of people do with their phones). Sometimes when I receive phone calls, I get the incoming call screen but can't answer the call; the phone doesn't respond to me trying to slide the answer button. I have tried opening the keyboard to get it to flip sideways, turning the screen off and back on with the top button, and everything else I can think of to fix this problem with no luck.

Most of these problems have been getting worse over time and didn't become very problematic until after the 30 day return window.