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.

Motorola Droid 3 July 18, 2011

Reviewer:  A Consumer  (Indiana) -

I bought the Droid 3 thinking I had to have the keypad. The keypad is very nice. Funny thing, I've hardly been using it today! The virtual keypad here is easier to use with the larger screens size so I've been using both since I bought the phone.

What has almost a dealbreaker for me has been the display. I have been struggling with the MotoBlur & being able to read the smaller fonts. I am not a fan of this display & I do not like the icons at all! Maybe I was looking for an Apple screen with Android phone but good processor, etc? So hard to find everything in one phone!

I downloaded a black background then resized the fonts & adjusted the brightness, all the things I could do to help see the small icons & tiny text msgs. I've been reading lots online about those who can't read the text. Well I have some GREAT news!

I was ready to consider trading for a Samsung Charge until I read here about Go Launcher EX. What could it hurt to try? Thank you, thank you, thank you for that advice!!!! It made all the difference for me. I'm so thrilled with the appearance now!

If you don't like the MotoBlur, consider trying the GO Launcher EX. I absolutely recommend it :)

Sincerely,

A Fan

P.S. I really do like the docks for the Droid 3 too! 4G would've been nice but it's not available in my area anyway. I could wish for a longer lasting battery but realistically, the short life is to be expected & no worse than any other right now.

Downgrade from Original Droid October 16, 2011

Reviewer:  Chuck  (Upstate NY) -

Comparing the Droid to Droid 3

Pro :
1. The cpu speed has increased. No delays
2. The key board is awesome

Cons:
1. Battery life has gone down. may not get to end of day on full charge. In fact now I am getting about 2 to 3 hours on full charge. Phone has become useless.
2. Texting features are not as good as past.
2. Photo gallery isnt very good actually aweful
3. Casing went to plastic
4. Camera software is the worst feature on the Droid3. Completely useless camera software.
You cannot shoot in the dark. The picture is shows when you snap is not the one that is stored. Getting the camera to trigger is a chore. It is by far the worst camera I have used.
5. The google android 2.3 UI is sad, as big as google is, I am surprised they let this software get to this point.
6. There is a lot of bloat ware on the phone and it always trying to launch software on my computer when I plug it in, annoying !

WORST PHONE I HAVE EVER OWNED! November 21, 2011

Reviewer:  Roman Pennington 

Seriously, I thought I had experienced the worst phone ever with some of the later Palm offerings but I was wrong. I'm a huge fan of Android and the original Droid was a good phone. The Droid 3 however, HAS SERIOUS PROBLEMS. First off, the camera is one of the worst ever put in a phone. It may look good on paper with a nice resolution, but it takes horrible pictures and can take up to a half-minute or longer to focus. The flash turns everything blue, the camera's low-light sensitivity is *nonexistent*. You'd capture better imagines with a pencil and a piece of paper. The camera app constantly crashes and will sometimes cause the entire phone to reboot. I've updated everything over and over, wiped the phone multiple times, done factory resets and everything and come to the conclusion, this phone has serious, SERIOUS problems. There's a reason why this Droid 3 showed up when the next phone in the pipeline was supposed to be the highly-touted Bionic, this phone is a dog and probably is being prematurely dumped on the market because it has serious flaws.

Virtually everything on this phone is bad. It's slow and laggy, even without any extra apps installed. The crapware that Verizon dumps on the phone just adds insult to injury. Their nav system is a joke that is inferior to Google's app AND wants you to pay money for its use. Insulting.

The GPS on this phone also appears to have SERIOUS, SERIOUS issues. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Randomly and unexpectedly your phone will suddenly be unable to "find GPS signal", but if you power off the phone and power it back on, 50% of the time it will work again. I've never seen GPS so flaky.

I wish I could return this phone and get anything else. It's a real dog. Please heed my advice and try any other phone, but not the Droid 3. And after this, I'm afraid I can never trust Motorola again. This phone is a nuisance and is not good at anything.

Lag time is horrendous October 12, 2011

Reviewer:  P. Freed  (New York, NY USA) -

I rarely review products but to save people trouble: something is wrong with the interface between the hardware specs on this phone and Android. The lag between "requesting" to use the phone app and actually being able to dial something is often ~10-15s. The lag to using the camera is often 10. The lag between requesting to look up someone in the address book and being able to see their information is often 30-50s.

For those who remember dial-up, the droid 3 feels like dial-up. Pay no attention to the supposed processor speed. Pay no attention to the RAM. In terms of actual use, this phone is prone to unspeakable delays.

That said, I love the keyboard, and the screen resolution doesn't bother me; it feels nice in the hands and is well constructed.

But in terms of use - it is unreliable and frequently unusable.

Coolest phone i've ever owned, but not without its on set of problems. November 3, 2011

Reviewer:  Larissa Rutherford  (MEMPHIS, TN, US) -

I have owned the following smart phones: Blackberry Storm, Samsung Continuum, Droid Incredible, and now the Droid 3 global.
Out of those phones, I would say the this is the most advanced but I probably like the continuum more. Here is why..

Pros:
-Surprisingly good battery life.. much better than the incredible.. I can confidently say even with some heavy use it will last from 10 am till midnight couple hours of internet surfing over wifi , 30 minutes of GPS, texting on and off all day, 1 hr worth of phone calls). Light to moderate (only answering text on and off all day quick phone calls, 30 minutes of GPS) use it will be at 50% by the time I go to bed.
-Super fast.. opens things as fast as I can touch them.. multi-tasks like a dream
-Keyboard is fantastic, I can text all day.. voice dictation is great and fast IT HAS A NUMBER ROW! You have no idea how helpful that is
-Has android 2.3.. it has some options that are good for the battery life
-Nice video camera!
-Nice pretty screen without being too beastly like other phones
-Great build quality.. Nicely constructed of metal, scratch resistant gorilla glass.. does not feel like a plastic toy like other phones

Cons:
-THE CAMERAS are sooo slow compared to the continuum and incredible! Moment will be over by the time it loads
-Motoblur (motorola's overlay of the phone's software) is awful, HTC (incredible) and samsung's are 10x better. Motoblur is confusing, non intuitive and has stupid animations.. photo gallery is awful.. won't even put the pictures I add to my phone in different albums! Good news is that you can download a launcher (go launcher ex), a new gallery, even a new contacts/phone dailer application from the market to hide most of the awful motoblur.
-Random restarts..every once in a while, not often I will look down and hear DROOOOOID and its my phone restarting! I finally caught it before it did that and it had a little blackscreen that said something about debugging.. oddly after restarting that time radio would not connect until I pulled the battery.. rarely happens though..
-Battery sensor is strange.. once my phone was be at 40%.. I turned it off and plug it in the charger and suddenly it starts charging from 5%?!
-Although its not huge.. compared to other phones it is pretty heavy.. could use it as a weapon to knock someone out incase someone tried to rob me and steal it
-Battery cover not that easy to remove UNLESS you use a credit card .. but pops off like a charm when u realize that..

Overall... I would recommend owning this phone.. for the nice screen size, speediness and the keyboard. The other phones with keyboards for verizon are junk.. like the stratosphere, LG enlighten etc. Motoblur is awful and a I blame them for the software bugs.. that is the only things that really annoys me about this phone. Other than that, it is pretty great! I am not looking to trade it in anytime soon.

Thiis the Droid I seek!(5 months later) August 24, 2011

Reviewer:  Vampyre "Vampyre"  (S.E. GA) -

My first day with my new Droid 3 was not a good one. Starting with the packaging. I picked up the Amazon box, it was beat up a bit, and box with my phone in it slid out. It opened in mid air. My new Droid did a face plant right on the hard floor. No visible damage.

After installing my 32GB micro SD card and the battery and hooking it up to the charger, it's activation time!

"I'm sorry, we were unable to program your phone please call..."

After a wonderful 20 min on the phone,(thank goodness I was at work, no land line at home) the service rep got me up and running. She was very helpful and patient with me. Even so I hoped I'd never have to call her again.

I'd heard that the camera and camcorder weren't that great. My first order of business was to take a few test shots and make a test movie. That didn't work. I got a message saying my SD card was bad and both functions refused to work.

After taking the SD card out, they still refused to work. I put it back in and the device didn't even see it. At this point I was very frustrated. I thought it was possible the card was bad so I set the camera functions on the back burner for now.

By this time, I notice my battery is not charging. I had it plugged in to an outlet. I tried charging off my work computers USB port. It said "NO" Stupid security programs.

Next was apps. One of the most talked about apps I've heard about(after Angry Birds) is GoLauncher Ex. After I installed it, many of my issues vanished. The camera/camcorder started working, with the SD card installed, and the charger started working!

That was Saturday. this is Wednesday and everything is working great now. I use Wi-Fi at home with no problems, The photos and videos look sharp, clear and color correct. There is no blue tinting.

[....]

The next big complaint about the Droid and most smart phones in general is battery life. I have found that on a full charge, my phone will last over 5 hours of constant use. This is with GPS and Wi-fi on while playing games(including Angry Birds) streaming Netflix(works great!) and snapping some pics of my pets or making some videos. Oh I even made a few calls. With all that and more going on, 5 hours seems reasonable.

With it functioning just as a phone with GPS and Wi-Fi off and left in sleep mode, the battery should last much longer.

Last night while talking to my sister, I tried an experiment. I wondered if it was possible to send data and talk at the same time. While we talked, I was able to email and text a picture to her. I was thrilled. I don't know if it worked because of the Wi-Fi being on or the #G connection but it was cool.

The slide out Keyboard is very nice. I'm not much of a texter so I use it and the virtual key board at about a 50:50 ratio.

In conclusion, even with my rocky start, I am very happy with my new Droid 3. If I lived in a 4G area, I may have waited for the Bionic, but I don't. This is my first smart phone, I love it and recommend it. In six months,(Feb 2012) I'll update this review.

V^^^^V

Okay then. It's 5 months later and not much has changed. There's been one update that I'm aware of. It improve the camera some but it's still slow. The pictures and video look a lot better.

My first accessories were a charger for the car and one to carry to work, I also have the HDMI cable and a rubberized protector. The protector makes my phone really heavy.

Still, even with the minor glitches, I love my phone. I watch movies, play games, surf the web, and even make a few calls with it. Knowing what I know now, I would have still bought this phone.

Very nice phone, downsides minor compared to upsides September 22, 2011

Reviewer:  Robert 

Pro:
-Blazing fast. Apps open quickly, web pages load quickly, interface runs smoothly, videos and games run well.
-Large 5-row keyboard is perfect for typing. No tiny hard-to-hit buttons.
-4" screen is large and clear.
-16G of onboard storage is top-notch compared to almost any other phone.
-Strong 3G signal everywhere I go.

Con:
-Bloatware. Comes with several useless apps that cannot be uninstalled.
-Battery life. I expected it to be low, but not this much. 2-3 hours constant use, although on standby its a reasonable 1-1.5 days.
-Verizon contracts are pricey, particularly the data plans. $30 for a miniscule 2G.

The Best Phone I Have Ever Used August 28, 2011

Reviewer:  St. Louis Country 10000  (St. Louis, MO) -

My review will be short and sweet.

This is a great product. I am a CPA and owner of my own accounting and consulting firm in the Midwest. I upgraded from a Blackberry Tour. I wanted a phone that would look professional in front of a client and something that would be fun and interesting to use in my personal time. This phone, I have to say is it.

The Pros include a five row QWERTY keyboard, spacious onscreen virtual keys, 16 GB of internal storage (can expand via SDHC card), blazing fast dual core processor, durable build, 1080p HDMI, and excellent call quality.

The Cons include battery life and the relatively small amount of RAM (only 512 KB).

I am very happy with my purchase. We have 4G LTE here in St. Louis, however I will wait until my next upgrade. I am not sold on the LTE service as it stands. The technology is still new, and while it can be very fast, I have seen instances in which it slows to about the speed of DSL line. It will improve in time.

Get the Droid 3. You cannot go wrong.

The absolute worst phone ever February 19, 2013

Reviewer:  Justn Westerfield  (Virginia Beach, VA USA) -

Firstly, let me say that I am a loyal android customer and have been since the droid first "landed." I owned the original Motorola Droid and loved it. After 2 years, however, It was time for an upgrade. I figured the best can only get better, right? WRONG

The upgrade from the droid to the droid 3 was the equivalent of buying a junk car and putting shiny rims on it. It boasts an 8 megapixel camera, but the preinstalled camera app developed by motorola freezes and has since I got the phone almost 2 years ago. no update. no fix. I have had 2 replacement phones due to manufacturers defects and all of them have had the same camera issue.

This phone is like the phone that motorola wanted to forget about (and for all intents and purposes did), and not update, fix bugs, or anything. Not to mention Verizon is now locking customers into a 2 year contract with no chance of early upgrade, so by the time my two years is up, it will be about a year and 3/4 since this phone has been updated.

also the bloatware apps like Blockbuster (seriously? who uses blockbuster? is this 1990?) are annoyingly taking up valuable space.

Not that one could use the space anyway, because if you get halfway full on memory some entity from within the phone just decides to start force closing everything. seriously everything.

if you are texting on the phone and hit the home key, you will often get the message "application "homescreen" is not responding. force close" and then the phone sends you BACK to the text messaging app.

Thought I loved physical keyboards. this phone has made me find a way to hate them. o's double-type on one keypress, and u's and y's don't type at all unless pressed twice.

after seeing the horrible quality product that Motorola is capable of producing, I will never buy another Motorola phone again.

for the love of god don't ever buy this phone. It would make a great paperweight if i didn't have to look at it on my desk.

literally useless.

seriously don't buy it.

Great Phone Especially If Cheap April 12, 2012

Reviewer:  TheGreatGatsby77 

I got this phone free off of an upgrade deal. I am on my second one. The first had two keys on the keyboard and the volume buttons stop working. Really bummed me because it worked perfectly for 20 days before that. Was within 30 day satisfaction period so I easily got a new unit. After that, I got a full warranty for the phone. Definitely recommended knowing cell phones these days. Anyways, I've had my second one for almost a month and a half now and it works great! Had a crash and a freeze once or twice, nothing major. Everything works. It's super fast because of the dual core processor and does everything I need it to from email to music to news to social networking. I've only had that problem with the first phone and it still was not a major problem like people seem to be having with this phone. Even if so, that's what you have the warranty for. Now the screen is definitely not the best out there. Samsung definitely takes the cake in that department (I'm not too fond of the Retina display either, colors are terrible IMO). But it is of higher resolution, so text looks pretty crisp. Don't even try to look at pictures seriously on this, though. Colors are far off, pixellation, as well as other things make all pics look bad for the most part. But I don't use this for visuals. It's a smart phone. I use it for business, email, and social networking. That's what it's for and does that job really well. I wanna say that most of the problems people complained about were contributed to by the user, not the phone itself. So in conclusion, this is a great phone for a use as a smartphone device, not a media center due to the diaplay. Although music sounds really good on it and equalization is great for a phone. This review is far outdated, but hopefully helpful nonetheless.

Owned for several months April 11, 2012

Reviewer:  C. M. Brown "C.M. Brown"  (mason ohio) -

I have had this phone for about 6 months and it has performed well overall. At the time of my purchase it was one of the few phones (possibly only by Verizon) that had a physical keyboard and a dual core processor- those were my two wanted features. The Droid 3 has very solid feel and firm sliding action. Some have commented that the sliding action is too stiff or difficult. However I would prefer it be hard to slide at first- it has given the sliding action longevity (sliding action hasn't loosened any). The keyboard on this phone is one of the best I've used, the keys have a solid feel and click when you press them (unlike a nokia n810 which is similar by design).

As for the rest of the phones hardware/features they are about average. Screen size is slightly smaller and less vibrant than newer phones. The cameras are decent enough, given that the main camera is 1080p. However pictures lack color vibrance, video recording is much better. The camera apps do suffer occasionally from a lag when opening, this sometimes can cause a freeze resulting in the phone rebooting. This being one of the first phones to offer a dual core processor some things are too be expected. Most notably the heat produced, playing any cpu intensive game/etc will make the phone warm to the touch after approx 20mins. Although it does perform well, almost no delay when opening most apps and web browsing is smooth.

Other things worth mentioning may be the battery life, which is minimal with the shipped battery. I upgraded to an extended battery when I first purchased the phone, it was a motorola branded battery that came with a deeper back cover plate (unfortunately hard cases will no longer fit). I usually get about 2 days on a single charge with average use. Also I have rooted this phone, though only to removed the annoying apps that come pre-installed which can't be removed otherwise.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!! April 9, 2012

Reviewer:  Clyde 

Physical keyboard is regularly unresponsive or sticks. Especially annoying when the space or backspace "takes off". Pop-up menu offers foreign characters for most vowels and several consonants. Far and away the worst piece of technology it has ever been my misfortune to work with.

Droid 3 Rocks! March 7, 2012

Reviewer:  Brittney Spurlock 

I upgraded to the Droid 3 from a Motorola Citrus about 3 months ago. I can't believe the difference! I was looking for a phone that was not entirely touch screen. I did not necessarily "trust" the flat screen, I missed the real buttons from the Qwerty keyboard. When I started doing research and I saw the Droid 3 I was psyched about the keyboard! I was also pleased with the weight and strength of the keyboards slideout hinge. I had been cautious about a slide phones because I thought they felt flimsy.

Of course the 16G are handy and plenty for me. I don't have a crazy app collection but I have my fair share photos and video. I am super impressed with the video quality as well! I get awesome audio with my concert videos! I am having difficulty finding a zoom feature wich would be awesome!?

Most of the applications and settings are easy enough to find. I get email and text easily. The pre-installed Maps Navigation App has proven very helpful and has saved me from buying an alternate navigation system. Battery life is great, I text all day long! I usually charge it up every other night and it works great! Overall I love the Droid 3!

Love it, with a couple of minor caveats October 5, 2011

Reviewer:  Mark Baker  (Phoenix, AZ USA) -

If I could I would rate this phone 4.5 stars because it's not perfect, but I think 5 stars is closer to the truth than 4. Since I'm reviewing the phone I'll try to stick to the physical product and Verizon's customization of it, rather than go into issues that have nothing to do with the phone itself.

Obviously, it's an Android phone; if you don't like Android look elsewhere. If you're unsure whether Android or iOS is best for you, go to a Verizon store and spend some time with them. Personally, I like the customization options that I get from Android that are impossible with the iPhone, and I like the tight integration with Gmail, since I was a long-time Gmail user before buying an Android phone. No need to worry about VZ Backup - this phone loaded all my Gmail contacts, calendar, and tasks in no time when I started it up.

The D3 does everything I need and then some, and does it all well. I've had no speed problems to speak of and the display is excellent; watching Netflix movies is like watching a smaller version of my TV. With 16 gb of internal storage and a 32 gb micro SD card (which I bought separately), storage is excellent. I don't use the slide-out keyboard all that much, but it's solidly built and works great.

I have no serious complaints, but there is room for improvement. 512 mb of RAM is too little by today's standards; a newly-released phone should really include 1 gb. This is the cause of occasional minor performance issues - it's sometimes necessary to kill programs to free up RAM. The camera is good as phone cameras go, but not great; it does fine in full daylight, but flash photos tend to be grainy. Finally, there's Verizon's foot-shooting. The Blur launcher is rather poor, in my opinion, although it's easy enough to install a replacement. The bloatware is inexcusable, but isn't specific to the D3; I'm sure companies like Blockbuster are paying Verizon to keep their apps in our faces (they can't be easily uninstalled), but twenty or more apps I don't want and can't get rid of is ridiculous.

The bottom line is, after using the D3 for a month, I'd buy it again. It's an excellent phone, in my opinion.

BLOATED JUNK! September 29, 2011

Reviewer:  Nathan Hobbs  (New Mexico) -

Eh its a phone.
The yellow on my screen looks horrible. Especially compared to other 'fruit' devices out there. It is a very sharp display though.

Batterly life is horrible, restarts at random sometimes during the middle of a call

Will not sleep or enter airplane mode properly.

Verizon is rolling out a update today to improve power management issues. Will see if that helps.

The 8 megapixel camera is worthless, the front facing camera is sharper at 640x480 than the 8mp rear cam will ever be.

The one thing that kills this phone the most is the INCREDIBLE amount of BLOATWARE we are talking 5 pages of APPS from the very first day of garbage that can not be deleted unless you hack root etc it makes keeping your phone organized a pain. Plus in addition many of the apps load themselves and drag down on the OS. This is especially a concern with only 512 of ram.

If i had to do it again I would of not purchased this phone, it has great potential but combined with the dismal display with pukish colors, fuzzy camera, and the epic fail of verizon force feeding piles of undeletable apps to its customers its just a lackluster device.