The "Got my D3"/ first impressions thread

[bw13]

Great Phone

I was going to wait and look at the Bionic because I like the size of my wife's X2 screen but the second I used this keyboard I bought the Droid 3. Not only is it better than the Droid 1's keyboard, it's just a perfect keyboard on its own. I use shapewriter (like swype) 80% of the time but when I want to type something longer for work I much, much prefer a physical keyboard.

The phone is fast and Blur isn't bad, but I like launcher pro since I can change the names under the icons and crate a scrollable dock on the bottom.

OK, the Pentile Screen. When I first saw the screen on the Samsung Droid Charge I thought, wow, I can't ever get a motorola screen after seeing this. But while the Samsung screen looks amazing on the home screen, it doesn't look very good when using the browser. The motorola screen is brighter, sharper and the colors are more accurate. After spending time comparing them, I prefer the moto screen and the Droid 3's looks even better than the X2's. (plus the screen is more usable outside)

The only thing it seems to not do as well as my Droid 1 is that it takes longer to charge the battery.

 

[Cdjones187]

Hey people

I haven't been around much in a long while, my D1 got tired of all the rooting, surfing, calling, picture/video taking and the "new toyness" wore off. Work got busy, life went on. My D1 continues to hang in there like a hair in a biscuit, BUT my daughter picked up her D3 yesterday and now she's asleep and I can't get it from her to play with it.

This has been asked 1,203,014 times already, but HOW IS IT?

I'm holding out for the Bionic, at 50 my eyes will welcome the BIGGEST screen possible!! What is the D3's possible pixellization I've been reading about?? Just curious, no biggie.

Other than screen size and 4G the D3 might have snagged me except for my up isn't until 9/14.

Later ya'll

That keyboard looks fantastic.

It is AMAZING! By far the best physical keyboard out to date.

I may eat my words eventually, but I actually like the new blur...I think it might be moving in the right direction. Several of the games that came pre-loaded it's letting me uninstall, which a appreciate.

+1 to that. I actaully liked some blur features on my DX, and they seem to have kept those and made them even better. Usually the first thing i do is replace the launcher but I havent even thought about it yet. VERY fast and responsive, smooth scrolling, videos and web pages load faster, FLASH runs like its intended to without lag/fps drops.

The screen is pretty amazing also. My d1 screen was better than my DX (which i thought was terrible) and this "pentile" screen blows both away, even better than the D/Inc's AMOLED screen. Very little pixelation present, images are sharp and text is very easy to read. And in sunlight, WOW, I have never had a screen be so readable and detailed while under direct sunlight.

The front facing camera was actually a lot better than I expected and the 8mp rear camera takes better photos than my 12mp dedicated camera. The 1080p HD video capture is also a lot more impressive than I though it would be. Frame rates are pretty good for a PHONE and the image quality is well, 1080p!

Ram is NOT an issue, the android task manager does its job. usually around 50-80 mb free ram. And as far as android is concerned, the less free ram the better.

16gb internal high speed storage is also nice (2gb for apps, but you think you even really need that much? That's like 500+ apps!) I dont use the 16gb card I put in the D3, but the SD card IS hot swap-able, so no more taking the battery out to get to the SD card!



OVERALL: A very well built and well thought out device with superb hardware and packed with features, very fast, blur is actually "nice".

I didnt mention the "bloat-ware" that VZW has put on the phone. Yes, you can uninstall some of it just not the vcast apps. Which when running only use 1-2mb of ram. So thats a whole whopping 10-15mb used for only a minute or 2. ( YOU CANT EVEN TELL THE SERVICES ARE RUNNING.....) Something I never got about people complaining about the bloat, it actually doesnt take any cpu if it wasnt started by you, just 1 out 512mb of ram per app.. And storage shouldnt be an issue either, the droid 1 was the only phone I had to move apps to sd (100+apps on 256mb storage), otherwise its pointless and makes your phone slower.







If or when the bootloader is unlocked, this phone will SCREAM. As of right now, I wouldn't be to sad that it never gets unlocked, or even if it gets root. I had the D1 for a year and LOVED the roms/themes/tweaks that could be done to the D1, but it somewhat needed it. D3 on the other hand, WORKS like its supposed to out of the box reguardless of the bloat.


This phone is great. Went from D1 to DX now D3 (got it on monday) and now I dont want anything less. From my understanding the bionic will have the Tegra2 chipset, which is actually slower than the ti omap4 set in the d3. The QHD screen in the DX2 (which is most likely going into the bionic) looks terrible, think thats another reason people thought the D3 screen would be the same. When actually since its a smaller screen at the same resolution the D3 screen quality AND colors are more sharp and vivid.


If you must have 4G I would make sure you are in a service area. 4G battery life is terrible even with good signal, let a lone being in a area that wont have 4g service for quite some time(mid-end 2013 for me. Didn't have 3g in my area until about 8 months ago!)

Plus all the hype on the bionic started 7 months ago. So many phones have been released since then that I think people are expecting WAY to much from the bionic. In order for it to be something "special" the bionic would of had to be released months ago. So unless they completely change up specs and up the game I don't see the bionic being any more than a D3 without a keyboard and a LTE chip.



Just my 2 cents. Hope that helps some of you make a decision.

 

[BleedingPurist]

Hey people

I haven't been around much in a long while, my D1 got tired of all the rooting, surfing, calling, picture/video taking and the "new toyness" wore off. Work got busy, life went on. My D1 continues to hang in there like a hair in a biscuit, BUT my daughter picked up her D3 yesterday and now she's asleep and I can't get it from her to play with it.

This has been asked 1,203,014 times already, but HOW IS IT?

I'm holding out for the Bionic, at 50 my eyes will welcome the BIGGEST screen possible!! What is the D3's possible pixellization I've been reading about?? Just curious, no biggie.

Other than screen size and 4G the D3 might have snagged me except for my up isn't until 9/14.

Later ya'll

Personally, I love this phone! I've had it a full 24 hours, and I'm still being blown away! The screen size is just right imo (the 4.5" Bionic screen just seems massive!), but the pentile screen is a little annoying if you play games. Things like Pocket Legends and Star Legends really amplify the pixel flaws, but other games, like NOVA, play and look flawless. You get used to it after a while, and unless you use your phone 2" from your face, you'll probably never notice it. Sound quality and video quality are excellent, and this thing is seriously fast (2138 quadrant score - my first and only run). Surprisingly (being a LauncherPro user since beta), I don't find the Blur UI super annoying. The transitions are nice, the widgets (Blur only) are resizable and intuitive, and it really just looks nice. Eventually, I'll replace it with LP for customization, but I'll give Blur another day. The real winning feature on this phone though, has to be the keyboard; seriously, coming from the Droid, this keyboard is a beast! Five rows, with one dedicated exclusively to numbers, good key spacing...it's incredible, hands down! I hope this kinda answers some of your questions.

Sent from my DROID3 using DroidForums

Hey, thanks for the reply!! Unfortunately, I DO hold my droid very close to my face (when I have my contacts out - at night when surfing/playing games in bed). With my contacts in I wear reading glasses at a more reasonable distance. Pardon my ignorance/lack of research, but will the Bionic be a "pentile" screen??

THANKS again!

I do the same in bed since I also wear contacts. Quite plainly, the pentile screen is just not an issue and those that have made it one have been beyond silly. Yes, the Bionic will more than likely be Pentile. In fact, most likely the Bionic will be very similar to the Droid specifications-wise, except it will trade the keyboard and global capability for LTE. It may have 1 gigbyte of memory, but if it does the other half of that will be for webtop.. meaning you are back to using the exact same amount of memory as Droid 3.

 

[haproot]

From my understanding the bionic will have the Tegra2 chipset, which is actually slower than the ti omap4 set in the d3.

It is my understanding the Bionic will have the same OMAP 4430 as the D3. Same GPU too.

 

[MinionOfEckerd]

From my understanding the bionic will have the Tegra2 chipset, which is actually slower than the ti omap4 set in the d3.

It is my understanding the Bionic will have the same OMAP 4430 as the D3. Same GPU too.

I heard a third story! It will have the next level higher OMAP! (4450/4460? I forget...)

 

[Cdjones187]

From my understanding the bionic will have the Tegra2 chipset, which is actually slower than the ti omap4 set in the d3.

It is my understanding the Bionic will have the same OMAP 4430 as the D3. Same GPU too.

I heard a third story! It will have the next level higher OMAP! (4450/4460? I forget...)

Guess I've actually heard that also, OMAP4 is supposed to be a pretty amazing chipset.



Another big deal breaker now could be the type of ram in the bionic, ddr2 would make a single core mpu a lot faster.

 

[darkmatter]

It is my understanding the Bionic will have the same OMAP 4430 as the D3. Same GPU too.

I heard a third story! It will have the next level higher OMAP! (4450/4460? I forget...)

Guess I've actually heard that also, OMAP4 is supposed to be a pretty amazing chipset.



Another big deal breaker now could be the type of ram in the bionic, ddr2 would make a single core mpu a lot faster.

To have the TI OMAP4 chipset means to have ddr2.


I've switched to GO launcher. I did like blur, but two things I couldn't stand (which any decent launcher should let you change and customize anyway) were the 4 (wtf even number) launcher buttons. I just can't get into not having the app drawer button in the middle. And the side scrolling app drawer. If moto added the ability to change those two things up, I would be perfectly happy with blur. (or if its already there, make it easier to find, lol)

I've also found that going 5x4 grid size for the home screens looks a lot better on this phone. 4x4 had a lot of space between the icons, 5x4 just seems to look more tidy.

 

[jmdale1984]

I heard a third story! It will have the next level higher OMAP! (4450/4460? I forget...)

Guess I've actually heard that also, OMAP4 is supposed to be a pretty amazing chipset.



Another big deal breaker now could be the type of ram in the bionic, ddr2 would make a single core mpu a lot faster.

To have the TI OMAP4 chipset means to have ddr2.


I've switched to GO launcher. I did like blur, but two things I couldn't stand (which any decent launcher should let you change and customize anyway) were the 4 (wtf even number) launcher buttons. I just can't get into not having the app drawer button in the middle. And the side scrolling app drawer. If moto added the ability to change those two things up, I would be perfectly happy with blur. (or if its already there, make it easier to find, lol)

I've also found that going 5x4 grid size for the home screens looks a lot better on this phone. 4x4 had a lot of space between the icons, 5x4 just seems to look more tidy.

I went with 6 x 4 on Launcher Pro, and it's really helping me like the phone a lot better.

 

[sarreq]

coming from the d1, it's taking some getting used to the newer hardkey layout. I'm not liking Moto's apps much (they're easy enough to replace though), and for some silly reason Swype's layout is a bit different (but not catastrophically so).
past that, it's nice and zippy, the digitizer isn't schizophrenic like on the d1, and the screen, cameras and physical keyboard are all awesome.

 

[wkearney99]

Dude you would think these people were blindsided by the fact that their moto phones would come with blur. I have had no issues. I swear people are making up issues its like that psyco person who always has some rare disease no one ever gets but they've gotten 10 diffrent ones somehow .

+1 on that! Yeesh, the whinging is pathetic. It is what it is, adjust or move on.

 

[bsweetness]

First impressions after having it for a day - love it. The only problem I've had so far was one force close on the camera app. Besides that, everything has been great. This turned out to be pretty much exactly what I was wanting. Well worth the wait.

 

[jstafford1]

First impressions after having it for a day - love it. The only problem I've had so far was one force close on the camera app. Besides that, everything has been great. This turned out to be pretty much exactly what I was wanting. Well worth the wait.

+1 but no fc at all for me

end of line...

 

[wkearney99]

Just got my droid 3, car dock, and multimedia dock today

I like how the new car dock actually has a usb connection on it and a special cable that you can plug into the dock that has usb and audio on it. Its not like the droid 1 car doc where you had to plug the power and audio cable right into the phone.

The downside being they don't include a car charger. And most chargers come with a cable already attached.

Personally I'd rather they set up an FM modulator inside the dock instead of the audio jack. I suppose I could cobble up something as an alternative using the audio out.

I wonder, does the cable just have wires in it or is there a USB audio module being used here?

 

[BigFwoosh]

I ended up picking up a Droid 3 yesterday as an upgrade to my Droid 1. So far I'm totally loving it. It's such an improvement in every way from the Droid 1, aside from bloatware, and root will fix that. Here's a quick rundown of my thoughts if anyone is interested.

My main concern was the pentile screen since everyone loves to talk about how terrible it is, but it doesn't bother me one bit. I can see the pixels and everything, sure, but it still looks great to me, and the extra screen real estate is welcome. The screen also seems very resistant to smudges.

The keyboard is amazing. This is how a QWERTY should be. And no more little nubs covered in plastic; this thing has real keys.

I've had some screen redraws, but nothing even remotely as bad as I had on my Droid 1. Screen redraws used to take ages on my D1, but on the D3 it takes maybe a second, and it only seems to happen when using an app that uses a lot of memory (browser, games, etc). It's a non-issue for me.

The camera is a vast improvement from the D1, as evidenced from the picture thread. Pics in low light are not stellar (this is a phone, after all), but are far more passable this time around. The flash still washes out the picture, but I expected that. Video recording is a MAJOR step up from D1, as you get buttery smooth framerates even in low light. Note, I have only recorded in 720p, but this will likely be plenty for me.

As for Blur, people seem to love it or hate it. I don't get why there's so much hate, honestly. Sure it's not as flexible as LP or ADW, but it's damn pretty, smooth, and even has some useful widgets. I especially dig the calendar and contacts widgets. The "shining" effect when switching screens is cool, and though a lot of people don't seem to like the blue theme going on, I think it looks really nice. I also love the way icons and widgets reposition themselves automatically when you move another icon or widget over them. It definitely beats the hell out of moving each icon one-by-one so that you can put one widget in their place.

For build quality, I think it's a really solid feeling phone, even though it's plastic on the outside. Having a metal exterior would have made the phone quite a bit heavier, and I think the weight of the D3 feels just right. In a way, I feel like I have an easier time one-handing the D3, but that may be owed more to it being a larger device.

Another thing I'm really liking is the brightness of the notification LED. It's much more noticeable than on the D1.

I'm noticing a lot of cell standby on my device, like everyone else, and I'm sure this will be remedied with a software update. The phone seems to be selling quite well, so it will be in Moto's interest to fix problems quickly.

Honestly, I'm super happy with my purchase. I was adamant before about waiting for the Galaxy S2, but my D1 was on its last legs for so long I couldn't take it anymore. The USB port only held a connection if the cord was at a specific angle (makes it pretty hard to debug apps!), and my wifi never worked properly from day one (it cut out after a couple minutes of use every single time). I feel like even with the GS2 out there blowing away the competition, this is a very solid phone, and it will be amazing once we can get Cyanogenmod on it.

 

[neilrl79]

Dude you would think these people were blindsided by the fact that their moto phones would come with blur. I have had no issues. I swear people are making up issues its like that psyco person who always has some rare disease no one ever gets but they've gotten 10 diffrent ones somehow .

+1 on that! Yeesh, the whinging is pathetic. It is what it is, adjust or move on.

I'm not sure you guys understand the purpose of this thread. People are giving their 1st impressions of the phone, good, bad and indifferent. Try giving your opinions on the phone without judging others.