Motorola Droid X: Thoroughly Reviewed
by Brian Klug on July 20, 2010 4:27 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Motorola Droid X
- OMAP
- Mobile
Screen
The X, like the original Droid and HTC EVO, uses a traditional LCD TFT display instead of AMOLED like we’ve seen in the Nexus One and HTC Incredible. As noted earlier, the X also keeps the same FWVGA resolution as the original Droid, but increases screen size to 4.3 inches.
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Left: Motorola Droid, Right: Motorola Droid X (Same size)
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The result is that PPI drops from 266 on the Motorola Droid to 228 on the X. The EVO uses a more Android standard 800 x 480 WVGA resolution, but has slightly lower PPI at 217. The end result is that pixels are more visible on the EVO than the X, losing out to the original Droid. For reference the iPhone 4 comes in at 330 PPI.
Left to right: EVO 4G, Droid X, Nexus One, iPhone 4
One of the first things that struck me about the X’s screen was that it appeared undersaturated at first glance. To some extent, this is the result of me being used to looking at oversaturated Android elements on AMOLED devices. I’ve only spent a limited time with the EVO display, but it looks like HTC has increased saturation to make it look comparable to the HTC Incredible.
It’s more than likely that what the display looks like on the X is actually how the Android UI really looks. This could be a problem of perception for people that buy the X; even though the display itself might be more representative of what colors really look like, because it isn’t oversaturated (and thus what people are used to seeing), it might set wrong impressions about color accuracy.
As noted before, the HTC Incredible and Nexus One displays show 0 nits of brightness on our i1D2 colorimeter, so contrast is technically nearly infinite, which is why they’re omitted from the contrast chart.
Outdoors, smartphone displays still photograph poorly and don't look great either. However, I found the X to be no less enjoyable than any other device outside if you were patient and careful to keep it in the shade.
Speakerphone
In keeping with our smartphone reviews, I measured the loudness of the X’s speakerphone using an Extech sound meter 6 inches above the display of the device. I call an automated weather report ASOS number, and wait for the call to complete. The average loudness in dBA is reported below. In all cases, ambient noise floor is a controlled 51.8 dBA.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice I updated the display and speakerphone charts with data from the HTC EVO since Anand sent his my way. Here, we see the EVO 4G taking the loudness crown by a decent margin. The X’s speakerphone is decently loud, but not the absolute loudest in the pack.
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czesiu - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
great review!higher res version for this please:)
http://images.anandtech.com/doci/3826/DROIDX-Anand...
Brian Klug - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
I'm actually going to dump all the screen comparison photos I've got (there are quite a few) into a gallery, then you can peruse at native resolution. Should be up in a little bit ;)-Brian
hatter_india - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Fantastic review but I expect no less from AnandTech. But there are a couple of bloopers:1- OMAP 3630 is third mobile chip to use 45nm process. First is of course A4. But second is Samsung's Hummingbird, a chip that the korean company designed with help of Intrinsity. This chip is found in Galaxy S or its variants. Samsung is the same company that also tweaked A4, which incidentally is fabbed by Samsung. Too many coincidences ;-)
2- A comparison to PowerVR SGX 540 found on Galaxy S would have been interesting as according to Samsung SGX 540 is almost three times more powerful than SGX535.
3- Droid X should have also been compared with Galaxy S or any of its variants like Captivate, Vibrant etc
hatter_india - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
This line: Samsung is the same company that also tweaked A4, which incidentally is fabbed by SamsungShould read: Intrinsity is the same company that also tweaked A4, which incidentally is fabbed by Samsung
Goty - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Does AT have any plans to review any of the Galaxy S phones? I just picked up a Captivate on Sunday and I'd love to see how it stacks up. I just ran the Neocore benchmark and got around 55 FPS, which speaks well of the GPU, but I'd like to see results from the other tests you guys do.Brian Klug - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Hey Goty,We definitely have plans to do reviews of all of the Galaxy S phones we can get our hands on. I'm working on getting them as soon as possible ;)
I'm also pretty excited to explore that SoC and compare.
-Brian
Ram21 - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Really enjoyed this review. Keep up the great work! Being as thorough as you guys are really helps to make good decisions on purchases.SonicIce - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
lol how long before we can attach an external mouse and keyboard to a phone to use it as a pc and play 3d games online with itstrikeback03 - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 - link
How about this?http://www.androidcentral.com/dell-streak-logitech...
ltfields - Tuesday, July 20, 2010 - link
Guys, another gold standard review. I may not be able to pick up an X because I'm still under contract with another carrier, but the reviews are riveting. Keep up the excellent work!