There’s a divergence in the smartphone world. Some devices are either maintaining or shrinking overall size in an attempt to become more convenient to carry around. Although it’s not what you’d expect, we have seen a few devices go in the opposite direction. As nice as it is to carry a small phone, it’s far more productive to have a bigger one. They’re easier to type on, better for reading web pages and generally more useful when you’re actually trying to get something done.
HTC was first in our labs with a member of this new breed of larger smartphones with the EVO 4G. While we found the larger screen nice, the lackluster OS performance and poor battery life weren’t exactly great selling points. Now it’s Motorola’s turn.
The Droid X is the spiritual successor to last year’s Droid. While the original only had speed going for it, the X adds size as well. Speed comes in the form of the OMAP 3630, TI’s first 45nm SoC based on the ARM Cortex A8 core. In essence, this is TI’s answer to the Apple A4. And the size is due to the Droid X’s 4.3-inch screen.
But unlike the EVO 4G, you don’t sacrifice performance or battery life. As a matter of fact, you end up with the best battery life of any Android phone we’ve reviewed. And TI has put together an SoC that finally rivals and exceeds Qualcomm’s Snapdragon.
Read on for our full review.
I'm not sure how this keeps happening. The first year I waited at a mall for 5 hours to get the original iPhone. The following year my friend Mark Rein convinced me to see a midnight showing of Hellboy II and then wait outside of an AT&T store all night to get the iPhone 3G. You'd think I'd learn by the third year but once more I was in line at the mall hours before the Apple store opened to get the 3GS. This year I thought it would be different. Apple offered free overnight shipping to anyone who wanted to pre-order the iPhone 4. Figuring everyone would go that route I decided to beat the FedEx trucks and just show up at the mall at 6AM. I'd be in and out in a little over an hour, which would give me a head start on battery life testing on Apple's 4th generation iPhone.
I promise that not all of my decisions play out this poorly. Those who pre-ordered the 4 and requested overnight delivery got their phones early and my one hour wait turned into six hours at the mall, for the fourth year in a row.
It's a self fulfilling prophecy. Steve gets up on stage, proclaims the iPhone 4 to be the biggest introduction since the original iPhone, and the public flocks to Apple stores to fork over 0 on day one and around 00 over the course of two years for the privilege. But this isn't 2007. Apple has real competitors in the smartphone space. Android phones have grown in features, polish and popularity. Even Palm entered the race with a competant offering, and Microsoft isn't far behind. It's easy to start a revolution when everyone else is doing the wrong thing, but what about when more companies actually get it? Was Steve justified in his excitement over the 4? That's what we're here to find out today.
