Pretty legit review of Droid 3

[saintlikesniper]

Well some may know and may not but anybody seen a nexus S well screen is great but its a pentile screen so what's the differnce between the droid 3 and the nexus S and why don't people hate on it? And I can't wait to get a D3 og is running on sticks.... yeah it no longer has legs to run on

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[sarreq]

buttons: i love how stiff the hard buttons are, makes it almost impossible to press accidentally, or for them to press in your pocket. i do miss the camera button though, don't know why that got taken away. i do like the new position for the power button, as it contributes to it's immunity to mis-presses.

swype: the included version is VERY twitchy compared to the beta for the D1, especially when trying to edit text. the automatic movement of the cursor gets VERY annoying sometimes.

blur: i can't get behind it at all, too jarringly un-android in function. it's nice and zippy enough, but it's just plain wrong on usage. I'll just stick with ADW-ex.

the system clipboard: what the hell is going on with this? most of the time you copy something in, and you can't paste it back out. other times, you copy one thing in just fine, paste it out, copy something else in, then when you go to paste the second thing, the first item pastes out again. mermermermermermermer
worst clipboard EVAR!

 

[Insidious]

Nice review, the only annoyance with the PenTiles is the ghosting when scrolling. Other than that it doesn't bother me and renders my D2G far inferior to its nice colors.

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[rushmore]

I find the display to be fine at 4" for pentile tech and the call quality ia fantastic. Not to mention the tech affords better battery life.

Hate too see what they will say about the Bionic display, since probably same as DX2...

 

[aramos87]

At first I was upset about getting the Droid 3 with the Bionic supposedly around the corner, but alot of good points were hit here. Battery life is very important to me while I am at work becuase I cant be stuck the wall charging it all the time, and the size of the D3 is perfect not to big and bulky or too wide and tall. I had a Droid X before this one and I like it all except the size was sometimes annoying. The life of the battery on this phone is much improved from other Droid devices. I am happy with my purchase over all now, the phone is a good solid device and im sure updates will come soon enough to fix some of the bugs mentioned.


And if anyone else is considering the Droid 3 or the Bionic, just think of how many bugs the Bionic will have as well with it being the same SW and the same screen as the X2 more than likely. I paid $150 for a great phone that will last, got all accessories needed for less then $200. im satisfied!!

 

[endobrian]

I like the screen. Very bright.

 

[Fr33dom]

I've had mine for a couple weeks now.

The Good:

Hardware & Feel: I agree with the sentament of the original review if not the words used to describe things--such as "spicy keyboard". The slider seems easier to slip open slightly but needs to move about a quarter inch or more before the keyboard lights up and the screen comes on so it seems a bit of an improvement though it feels slightly less solid than the OG. Once it gets past that point it is solid though. The battery cover seems a little cheap to my liking, though I've opened it quite a bit and think it will stand up fine.

Android 2.3.4: I expect a new phone to have the latest OS version. If it didn't I'd return it. I don't consider this a good, as much as a "met expectations".

Physical keyboard: Agree here. There are better keyboards but this one tons better than prior Moto Droids.

Front camera: I haven't managed to try this but it was on my "would like" list so having one is a bit of a plus

New Blur: I didn't have much of a problem with Blur and may go back to it from Launcher Pro. We'll see.

Video recording (1080p): I don't tend to use my phone for video. I've tried this and the quality is acceptable. It is nicer than any phone I've tried so far.

HDMI-out port: This wasn't on my list of needs or wants. I can't imagine it being all that useful and unless I discover a need, I won't be spending the money on the cable. Still, having it is a plus.

Screen: I disagree with everything the original reviewer wrote here except the last sentence about battery power. The screen looks awesome and it is great to see the screen in full sunlight without even adjusting brightness off of Automatic. I've looked for the supposed pixelization and other problems that others have complained about--even taking a magnifying glass to it. There may be slightly more color banding in gradients than the OG, but thats a small price to pay for a fantastic looking screen that can actually be seen in sunlight.

The Not-so-Good:

Battery: Battery life for me has to this point not been phenomenal. I'd call it barely acceptable. I have the extended battery and have to limit my use to get through the day without a recharge. YMMV, but I am not a prolific user I keep my WIFI, Bluetooth and GPS off during the day. I didn't have to do that on my OG until I started playing with the ROMS. I've also tried most of the things suggested elsewhere. I did just pull my SIM card and will give it a week to see if it helps, but I did manually turn off those radios and found the difference marginal.

Not 4G LTE: I saw this as a big problem initially. But my area doesn't have 4G so it would likely be a waste to buy the service. I doubt we get it anytime soon either.

Camera: I use the phone camera for light work and a digital SLR for serious work. I don't doubt the LED is going to add some blue color cast to the image and found it rather harsh on the OG. I don't know if they made any changes here but it seems better. It is a phone camera and I expect little of it anyway. Still the OG took the best pictures of any phone I'd had, and this one may be slightly better. I would have liked a guard to protect the lens from finger prints. The removal of the hardware camera button is a very minor mark against this phone for me.

Software bugs (New Blur): Blur does several animations on screen changes and that makes it seem sluggish to some. I'm not sure what may be responsible for the original reviewers lag coming out of the camera app, but in Launcher Pro it seems quick enough. It does have some slight lag, but is livable.

Lock button: I disagree with the original here also. Although I like the OG's button location here better, I don't find this one to be difficult at all. It does take some getting use to. One quibble is that it can be hard to feel the button.

Call quality: I have never used the Thunderbolt or Galaxy S II so I cannot opine about them. I always felt the OG failed miserably here--lots of digital clipping in the audio. The d3 seems to have improved here as well. I'd call it somewhat acceptable.

The down-right bad:

Bloatware & locked boot loader: Agree here, though it was listed under "The Not-so-Good" which I find a bit misleading and no mention was made about the boot loader. Of particular pain is the social networking and gallery apps. I tried to use them instead of the facebook app from the market but found them both rather hard to get use to. Having to go from social networking to gallery is a real pain point for me and I certainly need a gallery to manage photos on the phone, not to see pictures on facebook. These apps may make more sense to the more socially connected, but to me they are just another bad idea by a developer that had misconceptions about how people use social networking. Again YMMV. Bloat and locked boot loaders have become the norm in this market, I think it is criminal, but it is what it is. Without the bloat I would not root the phone until support dropped off. With bloat, and given that some smart folks find a way to root, I will jump on board with relish. I didn't intend to by a phone that hadn't been rooted, but the quality of phones on Verizon's market (that meets my needs and wants) is just terrible right now.

The Verdict:

I agree with most of the original verdict. Much of the griping out in the ether about the screen and lack of 4g and so on has fallen flat with me. I'm not having any of the reported 3G drops or connectivity issues. I work in IT and am around a good mix of different phone technology used by technicians. There is a mix of OG and newer phones, as well as IPhones and BlackBerry users in the mix, some of them are strong advocates for their phone, some not so much. To a person, none of them has played with my phone and not been a little envious. I think that says a bunch. Still none of them have rushed out to get one of their own.

 

[deBBlr]

i would much rather have this screen and have a portable phone. than have some of the other screens, and 4g for that matter and be stuck to a charger.

i am sure in 18 months or so when i can upgrade again 4g will be closer to my area, phone screens will be orgasmic and all will be right with the world when it comes to battery life. i got two D3's for $150.00 total and i am a happier camper at this point.

Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using DroidForums

im looking at purchasing 3 droid3's. how did u get that deal?

 

[MrJoe]

i would much rather have this screen and have a portable phone. than have some of the other screens, and 4g for that matter and be stuck to a charger.

i am sure in 18 months or so when i can upgrade again 4g will be closer to my area, phone screens will be orgasmic and all will be right with the world when it comes to battery life. i got two D3's for $150.00 total and i am a happier camper at this point.

Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using DroidForums

im looking at purchasing 3 droid3's. how did u get that deal?

verizon is offering a 2 for 1 deal right now, i just bought 2 droid 3s for $208.49. idk where he got the extra $50 off

 

[nednarb]

Not sure how but my online price was always 150 for the droid 3.

 

[deBBlr]

i would much rather have this screen and have a portable phone. than have some of the other screens, and 4g for that matter and be stuck to a charger.

i am sure in 18 months or so when i can upgrade again 4g will be closer to my area, phone screens will be orgasmic and all will be right with the world when it comes to battery life. i got two D3's for $150.00 total and i am a happier camper at this point.

Sent from my LogicPD Zoom2 using DroidForums

im looking at purchasing 3 droid3's. how did u get that deal?

verizon is offering a 2 for 1 deal right now, i just bought 2 droid 3s for $208.49. idk where he got the extra $50 off

looks like u got the better deal. 2 vs 1 phone. hmmm I may get the 3's and not wait for the bionic.


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[guidot]

With the 2 for 1 deal, you have to have another line or open another too.

 

[hitdog042]

I essentially agree with everything said. The screen is average I would say, and is certianly not bad at all. The biggest benefit to the supposed questionable screen is that the battery life has been tremendous; I have routinely gotten to the 24 hour mark with the extended battery, and the display comes nowhere near over 12%. That is a huge improvement considering the problems that battery life had with the OG and other phones in general due to the display. The phone itself is quite fast, although I must admit that I changed out of Blur simply because of the redraw issues which weren't worth the hassle when you could use something like Go Launcher or Launcher Pro and have a phone twice as fast (and probably conserving battery life in the process). The keyboard is absolutely fantastic; I'm already starting to get used to it again. The additional number row on top is very worthwhile and couldn't be expressed how useful it is when entering passwords and the such. By the way, the HD camcorder quality is exceptional as I taped some videos of 311 songs at a concert last night and were able to relive them later on that night in full HD glory. All phones should come standard with this, its that great.

All in all, this phone is fantastic. Coming from a Thunderbolt, the amount of issues that that phone had in comparison...its just a wide leap to something much better. I don't mind the downgrade to 3G at all; 3G is still pretty fast, and I can always switch off to Wifi if need be. 4G is great, but it helped contribute to absolutely awful battery life. The Droid 3 has some of the best battery life I have seen on a smartphone in quite some time. The phone has a great feel to it and is a nice weight; it feels like a solid piece of technology. I think Motorola really got it right with the D3, and it was well worth the retail price value.

I took mine back because the camera was terrible. All pics were blue and blurry.

Other than that I had no issue with the screen. Keyboard was nice but I tyoe faster on the screen anyway.

 

[DroidXDoes4G]

Has anyone used the HDMI Mirroring?
Its awesome.

 

[HokieDroid]

Has anyone used the HDMI Mirroring?
Its awesome.

Yes, yes it is! Got the Motorola cable and was amazed I could play Netflix and ripped DVDs.

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