Motorola DROID X2

Following the great released DROID X from Motorola last year, now a new and upgraded version and it’s called the Motorola DROID X. Doubles the processor speed plus brighter display compared to its predecessor and competing with latest high-end Android phones in the current market.

Design
From the first sight you would know that this phone is look almost like the Motorola DROID X phone with the same phone built except they have now excluded a dedicated camera shutter button for the phone. Somewhat heavy for this device but still decent at 155g, dimension of the phone is 127.5 x 65.5 x 9.9 mm with 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen display. The coating for the metal exterior has a matt finish to repel dust or debris much like the Motorola DROID X. There is no front facing camera and four solid (Menu, Home, Return, Search) at the bottom of the screen. A volume rocker placed at right side of the phone while there is a microUSB charger port and a HDMI port at left side of the phone. There is a hump at the back with the 8 MP autofocus camera with two LED flash on the hump. The microSD memory card can only be accessed when the battery is being taken out only. On the top there is a power/lock button and also the 3.5 mm audio jack.

Features
Much better than the previous version, Motorola now have upgraded their hardware from the previous Motorola DROID X. The new Motorola DROID X2 now comes with dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor which is faster than DROID X. ULP GeForce GPU, Tegra 2 chipset built in for more graphic rendering so gaming with this device is a good experience as well. This phone is equipped with Android v2.2 (Froyo) OS but can be upgraded to Android v2.3 in the future.

The Motorola DROID X2 is equipped with MOTOBLUR. Customizing 7 available home pages, viewing social network updates, synchronizing contacts, messaging, and calendar has been upgraded as well to improve further the experience while use this phone. Doing backup of phone is available too in case your phone is lost or any accidents. The standard widgets from MOTOBLUR can be customized by the size. For example, if you want the calendar widget to be bigger then you could do so by resizing it.

The 4.3 inch capacitive touchscreen is now been upgraded to qHD (540 X 960) resolution which is much more clarity compared to previous Motorola Droid X but it still loses to Samsungs’ Super AMOLED Plus and iPhone’s Retina Display.

For camera performance, the Motorola DROID X2 has the same 8 MP camera with the previous DROID X. The difference is that the new DROID X2 does not have a camera shutter button. Picture quality is good however there is some shutter lag noticed when taking pictures in well-lit rooms or outdoors. There is some delay also when taking pictures at night time. Video capture is disappointing as it would appear to be muddy or choppy. Although videos can be captured at 30 frames per second but it does not support 1080p recording. Browsing through the gallery is separated into groups like camera roll, friends’ album or general album. Tilting the phone to landscape mode then the gallery would appear like a 3D carousel and can be scrolled to browse.

Internet connection is definitely a weak point from the Motorola DROID X2 because this phone only supports up to 3G but not 4G. Overall download speed is around 2 Mbps and download speed is about 1 Mbps. The pinch to zoom feature seems to have some lag or delay when zooming but still with the powerful processor supporting plus the great Tegra 2 chipset it can render Flash with the latest version 10.2.

Using the Motorola DROID X2 for messaging is no problem. Speedy typing on the virtual keyboard is great and response from the phone is fast. Calling quality using the Motorola DROID X2 is excellent with dedicated noise cancellation mic installed. Clean sound with no background noises and very less distortion makes phone calls a great experience. Battery life is almost the same as DROID X. Continuous talk time can be up to 9 plus hours. Standby time can be up to 220 hours. Same like the DROID X it uses Li-Ion 1540 mAh battery also.

Pros and Cons
Motorola has bumped up the resolution for the screen for this new phone and also a significant upgrade at the hardware category. Using dual-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor really speeds up the phone. Calling quality is impressive as well with natural, distinctive and clear tone from both ends of the line.

Design is still the same like the DROID X except the camera shutter button. The phone only supports 3G only so it’s a big disappointment because almost all high-end phones nowadays are already running on 4G. Capturing pictures is good from the phone but video camera is completely devastating.

Conclusion
There are definitely some better upgrades and improvements but comparing to latest phones from Samsung or HTC, the Motorola DROID X2 can be said the most speedy high-end phone currently but not on 4G so you should consider those if you prefer excellent connectivity plus pricing is about the same as well for the rest of high-end phones.