Motorola DROID X2 Android Phone (Verizon Wireless)

Droid X2 Does Fast May 25, 2011

Reviewer:  David L. Zech "zecpull"  (Wooster,Ohio) -

I got my Droid x2 on May 20th. I came from a Droid X, and previously a Droid 1. Even though this phone is not running Gingerbread yet, the Menus, and interface are much improved over the original Droid X. The Screen can be described as richer. It has more contrast, and the colors are better. The Camera is Much faster, and I feel takes much nicer pictures than the X. One major advantage for me is that it fits in my Car Dock, and my cases. How many times have you changed phones only to have to buy all new accessories. If you are just moving to a Droid phone, this is the fastest phone on the market now. I see people crying that it is not 4g.. I have never felt there was anything I could not download fast enough. My 3G Streams video,loads games, you name it. If I have something big to download, the phone is great on WiFi.. and the DX2 is even faster there. The Battery seems to be about the same even with the much faster Processor.
Like the Ad says the Droid does.. and the Droid X2 does twice as fast.

Awesome phone, could be perfect if updates software May 31, 2011

Reviewer:  Dan "dnolan52" 

I'm coming from an iPhone 3G, for what that is worth to you. The first thing that I notice operating the phone is the unfathomable ease with which it was set up. I have everything done through Google, my contacts, calendars, mail, everything. After telling the phone my email and password, everything was instantly integrated. As I use my phone on a professional basis, I have many contacts. I remember in the past taking forever to finally getting everything into new phones, this took seconds. It is a feature I'm not soon to forget.

Briefly, very nice 4.3 inch screen. Impressive camera, although the coloring in videos can be a bit shaky, shifting in hues. It is fast, due to it's dual core processor, which can only get better when Gingerbread is unleashed which is more geared towards using the additional processing power. It has 8GB internal memory, and a very easily accessible micro SD. It comes with an 8GB card, but I have 10GB of music, so I purchased a 16GB. Coming from iTunes, I simply highlighted my playlist and dragged it into the folder. iTunes did not like doing large amounts of songs, so I had to break it up into blocks of a few hundred songs at a time. Then I used an app simply called "Cover Art downloader", which was free, and it automatically downloaded all the cover art. So setting up my phone was nice and easy.

As far as customizing goes, widgets are incredible. Once I turn on my phone, I have numerous pieces of data right on the home screen. I get my schedule, the weather, and if you want social networking up dates streaming here too, and news feeds. I don't have to go into any piece of software, they are all just here. this is an awesome feature of Android, I love it. You also have choice as to how you use the phone, you can use the stock email client, or download gmail's own app. You can use their music app, which is basic and fine for me, or get something that is more suited to your tastes. Instead of going on about the pros of Android, I'll keep the rest of the review to the hardware itself.

The battery is weak, only 1500 mAh is silly. I plan on purchasing the OEM 1880 shortly. It barely makes it through the day.

One thing I was very impressed with is the accessory bundle I got from Verizon. I got a dock, a car adapter, and various cables. The part that I very much am impressed by is that when it plugs into the dock or the car adapter, it behaves differently. When in the car, it "knows" you want it to behave like a GPS, so the interface alters. I must say that it works better than my stand alone Garmin Nuvi when using the FREE google navigation. The X2 has upgraded components, something about a digital compass. When in the dock, it allows you to make it act like an alarm clock (which is what I need it for) or a digital photo frame. These are nice little things that not all droid phones come with, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Not all is perfect, as my wife says, the phone does too much. Some aspects will feel like an incredible freedom in being albe to do whatever you want, other aspects simply feel unrefined. For example, the volume rocker does nothing without the screen being unlocked. That part is annoying. Things like that and controls from the microphone button on headphones needs further refinements. I got used to it quick.

I know this phone gets criticized for not having a front facing camera and no 4G. Personally, these do not matter to me. I barely ever use skype on my computer, why do I need it on my phone? And it is likely that no phone coming out in 2011 will be 4G SOC (system on a chip). 4G is being achieved with an additional chip. To save the technical jargin for someone who understands it better, it will not be energy efficient and smoothly operating until the 2nd gen 4G phones come out. So neither of the big criticisms I've seen about this phone amount to much to me.

Now for the really bad part updated after a month of use and TWO REPLACEMENT PHONES. The software is buggy. It is very buggy. Poor screen zeroing (makes for jerky use, locked screen, etc), random reboots (very annoying), and incompatibility with common apps. From what I can tell in the forums, those who root their phones and update themselves to 2.3 have eliminated these problems (for the most part). Essentially, Motorolla let this out with an immature batch of software/firmware. Wait until this receives an update, because otherwise it is a great phone.

Update #2. Things went from bad to worse with this phone as it was updated to Gingerbread. It is especially problematic when working with Motorola docks. The rate of reboots has increased, not decreased. The docks no longer work propperly, which is terrible when using the car dock as it likes to reboot while giving you directions. the last thing I want to do at 65 MPH is adjust my phone. There is something massively wrong here, and as much as I like so much about the phone, I can not reccomend anyone purchasing this.

Update #3. Another software update. Another set of problems, but there were improvements. I have noticed better battery life, still at 40-50% at the end of the day. It is no longer hot enough to fry an egg on after using it in the car dock with the navigation system. They have definitely added some stability to the docking situation, but I still have near daily reboots. What I have come to realize is that part of the problem with the phone is that it uses 80-90% of it's RAM just by being on. I honestly do not think that this phone will ever live up to it's potential. When it works, it's great, but the screen locking up as a blank screen and reboots have truly hobbled it. I had a computer running windows XP with 256GB of RAM, why is Android taking 400? There is no reason why 512 is insufficient, but that seems to be the case. Unless you get the phone for free, there are numerous better options.

DROID X2= Why change a great thing! May 28, 2011

Reviewer:  Closeyou "Joe"  (boston,ma) -

I recently got a droid X1 after having it a week I found out the X2 was coming out, so i quickly returned my X and a few days later got the droid X2. Having both phones, there is not a difference hardly in the looks, your accesories from X and any cases will fit the X2. The main difference in appearance is the X2 on back and they removed the red camera button(now you only can use the touch screen, no biggie.). The changes were mainly in the power and picture. X2 is now running a dual core processor the first for verizon phones instead of single core. The scrren is a qhd with higher resolution for better pics and videos. My favorite is the mirror mode, so while your on amazon you might as well buy the motorola hdmi cord and playback 1080p videos on your flat screen or play games like your phone is the controller. SWEET! All in all, if you own the droid X already you may not justify the upgrade, however if you loved your X1, you will also love the droid x2. If you are like me and like to protect your phone I might add that the X2 did away with the car dock manual option, so if you use a case it will probally not fit in the motorola car dock unless you remove it each time to put the phone in car dock mode, contacted motorola about this and they said only way is dont use a case so it fits in dock to trigger mode, other than that the phone is excellent for surfing and pic clarity. NO front facing camera or 4G, but really who wants the front camera, so everyone wont bother me with skyping, and until 2012 or 2013 the 4g wont be everywhere unless you are in a big city. Hope this helps and happy phone hunting!

Don't let 4G influence you; it's the best Motorola phone yet! August 14, 2011

Reviewer:  Kim  (Willoughby, OH USA) -

If you are torn between wanting a new phone that is 4G compatible and one that is a 3G only phone, don't jump at the latest and greatest (4G)...yet. I am of the opinion that 4G will one day be a great data highway, but for now it is not available in enough areas to impress me to want to look at 4G phones. Many 4G phone owners have complained about how the search for available 4G networks has become a great drain on battery life. This is Motorola's first dual-processor phone, and I can tell you it is responsive enough to put a smile on your face.

I've owned and used a lot of Motorola phones and have found them all to be credible performers, but none have been as impressive as the new Droid X2. I recently upgraded from the original Droid with the slide-out keyboard and am a former BlackBerry user. The Droid was a solid and reliable phone, but can't even come close to the performance of the X2. When it came time for me to upgrade to a new phone I considered the Samsung Charge, the HTC Incredible 2 and the Droid X2. All three are great phones, but for me, the overall performance and features of the X2 were enough to make me select it as the winner. I don't need a phone with dual-facing cameras (like the Incredible 2) and I am not concerned with 4G connectivity that the Charge offers.

Physically, it's a large phone, but not what I consider bulky. It's actually thinner and lighter than my old Droid. What you get with a phone of this size is a lot of screen area and on this phone the display is sharper and brighter than anything I had seen previously. I went to a party last night and kept it in the front pocket of a pair of dress pants and it didn't feel uncomfortable or distracting. Without a protective cover it is a surprisingly light phone with a low profile.

As a media professional, the last couple of years has forced me to rely on my smartphones as a multimedia tool, mainly for the ability to take pictures and video. My old Droid made beautiful pictures in bright sun and moderate daylight, but was horrible at night and with flash. At last night's party I asked someone to use my X2 to snap a group picture of me with my high school pals in dim lighting. From about 12 feet away, the flash produced enough light to make an acceptable picture and no blur. The new software allows you to select your focus zones and the 8MP camera will give you the ability to make larger prints, or to zoom in with better picture quality. It's not the number of pixels that make a good picture, but the imaging chip and I have to say this chip is an improvement over previous models. By the way, I share content with a newspaper and they were very pleased with the quality my old Droid gave them at 3MP. They will be totally impressed with what the X2 will give them at 8MP.

When I first got the phone, it took some getting used to. Icons were slightly different and kind of small. I continually got odd messages that the Verizon software was not responding and needed to be force closed. This glitch went away the very next day with a complete over-the-air (OTA) firmware update, version 1.3.232. This might mean virtually nothing to most people, but it did solve a number of minor glitches and it also gave the icons a makeover that made them easier to read.

Another really great improvement for me was the on-screen keyboard. Huge improvement. With the Droid, I was constantly making typographical errors because I kept hitting keys I didn't want. My fingers are an average size (I wear a size 11 ring), but it was the keyboard on the old Droid; the keys were cramped. With the X2 you get a much roomier keyboard and better haptic (vibration) feedback with keystrokes. Another significant improvement is correcting typos. When you are typing in windows, you will see a little blue circle around where your cursor is. Pressing down on that area opens up a magnified window off to the side that will allow you to move the cursor to a more precise position. This was a problematic issue with the smaller Droid, where I always had trouble getting the cursor to where I really wanted it.

Two other areas people seem to be concerned about are call quality and battery life. I have been able to hear pretty well without having to strain as I have in past phones. My daughter told me she thought she could hear my voice clearly on her Samsung Haven. As far as battery life goes, it's like any other smartphone; you have to manage it. I do not keep all of the communication services running. Bluetooth, WiFi, and GPS remain off until I need them. With regular use I've been able to use the phone all day without having to charge it. The charging port is the same as my old Droid, so I now have an extra wall charger for traveling.

I was, at first, disappointed that the X2 came with an 8GB microSD card, compared to the 16GB card that came with the original Droid, but then I remembered that there are 8GB of internal storage and whatever you place in to the memory slot in the battery compartment. I placed my 16GB card from my Droid in to the new X2 for a whopping 24GB of total memory.

So here is a comprehensive assessment of the new Droid X2:

PROS:
* Thin and lightweight
* Much improved display
* Seamless integration with Google's cloud network
* Fast and responsive-performs well doing most tasks
* Improved "Gingerbread" Android operating system (OS)
* Larger, more responsive keyboard with improved text editing features
* The incorporation of Swype text input, as opposed to traditional "tapping"
* Better management of social media services
* Excellent picture quality, acceptable flash pictures
* Ability to choose focus zones allows for more creative composition
* Ability to create metadata within photo app, including face tagging
* FM radio app (must use cabled headphones)
* 8GB of internal memory; external memory slot can take up to 32GB microSD storage
* Shoots 720p HD video
* Micro HDMI port allows for connection to HD TV sets
* Can be used as a true 3G wireless hotspot
* Connects to Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n networks for faster wireless connections
* Comes with Skype Mobile
* Standard installation includes many useful apps
* Extended battery available

CONS:
* Larger size may prove to be bulky for *some* people
* Add a protective cover (recommended) and it will become slightly more bulky
* Phone can get warm near the battery compartment under normal use
* Does not come with micro HDMI cable or adaptor
* Standard installation also includes a couple game demos and other software others may not want
* Battery life may be a concern when full services are utilized, especially GPS and WiFi
* Large ringtone selection still yields annoying sounds

This phone receives five stars based on all of its great features, impressive performance, and the fact that it stacks up favorably with the iPhone 4. At this time I am not concerned about 4G connectivity.

Great phone! Not perfect, but pretty close June 6, 2011

Reviewer:  D. Kaniss 

The good:
This phone is simply amazing when it comes to games, music, and applications. Everything runs smoothly without any crashes, and I've found a total of 1 program that runs slowly (which says that the program wasn't coded correctly). The screen is simply phenomenal, and movies look great on it. HDMI mirroring works very well, and can actually "mirror" everything shown on the phone screen (as the name says)... instead of simply displaying media on a tv. The form factor is nice; it's a huge phone, but very thin... which surprisingly enough adds up to being very comfortable to slip into a pocket. This phone has Gorilla Glass: this is impressive stuff, which will REALLY help protect your phone. HOWEVER... you should still get a screen protector. Gorilla glass is strong, but not unbreakable or unscratchable...just break and scratch resistant (ie... water resistant on a watch is not water proof, as I found out...)

The simply-informational:
This phone is VERY similar to the Droid X, with a few updates. From my perspective, you don't need to fix things that aren't broken... so I'm not saying that it's a bad thing. Anyways, the differences are slight but important: 26% more pixels in the X2, dual cores, updated interface, and the lack of a physical camera button. The form factor is exactly the same, as is the battery, the camera, the keys, etc. What you should take away from this is that it's not a significant jump from the X to the X2, so it's not really worth it to upgrade if you want to see a huge difference in your new phone. However, if you're coming from a "feature phone" or something like that, the Droid X2 will blow your mind. Some possible deal-breakers for some people are the lack of 4G, and the lack of a front facing camera... but I wouldn't be using either of those features anyway, so they're not important for me. If you need them, you might want to wait for the Droid Bionic, which is coming out fairly soon.

The bad:
The only real drawback I've found with this phone is how hungry it is for batteries. I had wifi, gps, and background data off; screen brightness as far down as possible; and not vibrating (for anything, including games or notifications). With all of these things, I was expecting a whole day of use, or at least 12 hours or so... but I'm getting 6-7 hours of continuous use on games and applications (8 if the cpu isn't working hard). I ordered several replacement batteries because I was charging my phone from 5% about 2 times/ day and again at night. For typical usage, 3 batteries total are a safe bet and you'll probably finish the day with close to 50% charge on the third battery. Fortunately, the battery isn't hard to replace, so you can up and running again within ~3 minutes of the phone dying (including the startup).
One note about the extended battery: if you get it, you can't use the car dock OR the standard cases OR the media dock. Plus, it only adds about 20% power.

The annoying (this is going to sound a bit whiny... you have been warned):
First, the phone is quiet in general, including playing media, talking (both your voice and the other person's voice). The vibrator function feels "gentle", especially for text messages, and it doesn't repeat the notification in a few minutes. It's easy to miss texts if you're sitting just right... but if you're thinking about it, you feel it buzz just fine. EDIT: A brilliant commenter (JonnyK) suggested using a progam called SMS Popup. This app works very well, and completely gets rid of this problem.

Second, the speaker for media playback is on the back. This means if I want to see the screen and listen to music I can either blast music so I can hear it (which I don't want to do), or I can...hmmm... put in headphones (which aren't as comfortable)

Third, Verizon sells the phone with an 8 GB card. Realistically, if you plan to put music or movies on the phone, you're going to want at least a 16 GB card... but it's easy enough to upgrade. I ended up getting a 32 gb card so I could put most of my media collection on it... and so I don't have the hassle of upgrading when it's full.

Fourth, I can't take my SD card out without removing the battery. Every other phone I've had, I could simply pull open a cover, remove the card, and stick it back when I had put stuff on it. This is the least annoying in day to day life, but it does get annoying really quickly when you have take the card back and forth between your pc and your phone multiple times.

Fifth, when you put the phone into a dock, it automatically puts it into car dock mode, which is a pain to use. It's not user-friendly, and applications don't play as well together inside the dock program (ie... you're using google maps, you launch a song, and you can't get back to the maps program without undocking it)

The overall:
Get the phone. It's not perfect, but it's still pretty amazing.