Electronics Top Reviews

Comment from D. Wayne
Time September 2, 2010 at 9:21 pm

I really wanted to like this phone. I have had the iPhone 3G for 2 years. AT&T was so bad I had to change, so I went with this phone and Verizon. Initially, I was impressed with this phone. It took a while to get everything activated, but no longer then it would have with any other carrier. BUT, after a day of use, I had a hard time hearing people and had people complaining that I sounded muffled.

I called Motorola, Verizon, and eventually Amazon. Motorola said they heard some people had a problem with the noise reduction microphone and that a software fix would be coming out that should fix it … but they never gave me a date … (the guy even hinted that I could stuff a piece of paper over the wire (causing it to vibrate less)).

In the end, no one would give me a solid answer, so I had no choice to return the phone. Amazon is usually pretty good with returns, but the woman on the phone explained that Amazon’s policy for Phone returns is 30 days FROM THE SHIP DATE. I wasn’t able to get the phones activated for several days after receiving them, so I was already a week or so into their 30 day period, so I decided to play it safe and ask for an exchange.

Besides bad phone call quality for me, I really thought this phone was nice. However, I think Google and Verizon are trending toward Apple and their strict controls over your device … for the life of me, I can’t understand why they insist on telling me what I can and can not do with a device I paid for and OWN!

Once I get the new phone, give a ride around the block, I’ll update the review.
Rating: 3 / 5

Comment from David L. Pearce
Time September 2, 2010 at 9:22 pm

I bought this phone last week directly from a Verizon store local to me. Awesome phone, until the 2.2.20 update was pushed to it. I didn’t realize it, but that update pushed Adobe Flash 10.1 to the phone, and enabled the browser plugin. My phone suddenly became nearly a brick. Asking it to swap from the browser to another app, or from another app to the browser, and if you were sitting on a page with flash (most use it for adverts, etc. nowadays), you can plan on waiting up to 15 seconds for the phone to become responsive again. It was totally ridiculous, and I can’t believe Motorola, Verizon, or Google would endorse Adobe Flash on the phone.

Uninstalled Adobe Flash and the phone was 100% again.

The keyboard is small, but it is a phone, and it feels like a football field compared to my old BB 8330 and 8530 phones (both were excellent machines). I do wish the “search”, “return”, “home” and “menu” “buttons” were mechanical keys, rather than touch regions on the edge of the screen. I occasionally end up touching them at the wrong time, throwing off my concentration on the task I was performing.

The phone uses a battery in about 10 hours if you are a heavy mobile web user like I am, so be sure you have charging facilities around. I don’t know if the Motorola charger uses any special charger wiring to the micro-usb port, but they do separate the charging cable and charger, so if you install the charging drivers on your laptop or desktop, you can easily charge the phone with your computer, without purchasing another micro-usb cable.

The only software I’d like to see improved is the mail reader. I think Apple has a slightly better interface for mail, with the swipe to delete a single mail (rather than tap and hold to delete). Additionally, I find that the overall gmail account vs. email is somewhat confusing. When you activate the phone, it asks you for your gmail account info to setup mail, contacts, and sync. But initially, for several days even, I didn’t get any mail through this account. So, I setup my gmail account as a gmail imap account in the email reader as well, and all was well for a couple days, then suddenly, my gmail starts coming through the overarching account you setup when you activate the phone. I am not sure if this was a problem on google’s side or not, but it was annoying. Now I can delete the gmail IMAP account. However, even more annoying, the phone gmail account doesn’t seem to integrate with the universal inbox. I find this annoying. Google needs to get on the ball with the consistency issues here with gmail and phone sync accounts. That’s the only reason I knocked one star off the phone, really.

I’d recommend the phone to a friend, and I would NOT recommend waiting for the iPhone 4 (even though the iPhone 4 seems to be a well executed piece of hardware), but to each his own!
Rating: 4 / 5

Comment from Christopher Wanko
Time September 2, 2010 at 10:53 pm

And as such, it’s a moving target, as T-Mobile has a new G2 coming out (G1 Blaze, HTC Vision, etc.) with a keyboard and 1Ghz CPU. For now, this is Motorola’s official update to the original Droid (which also has a keyboard), and it’s a winner.

So let’s start with the good stuff. It’s very fast, and it has Android 2.2 (Froyo), and supports Flash, and does nice things like synchronize your settings with Google if you so desire. The keyboard is coated with the same semi-sticky plastic they use on the body, which is a good thing since this is a $600 computer and you don’t wanna drop it. As I’ve been using Android since 2008, I can say that this device has never given me a “Force Close” on any application I’ve run thus far. Two years in, and this is the best Android device I’ve used: G1, Garminfone, MyTouch 3G Slide, HTC Incredible, LG Ally are all devices I’ve used, and only the Incredible would tempt me away. But, gotta have a keyboard.

Internal storage and apps2SD are two huge wins with this device. If you want to go ahead and store apps on the phone, you’ll likely not run out of space. If you think you might, you can push the app right to your SD card, and it supports 16Gb microSDs. If you’re an iPod user and your iPod holds less than 32Gb, this could replace it easily.

There’s bad stuff though. One, this is a Verizon-branded phone, and for some reason, call signal quality is not really very good. Calls on my block are static-sounding, which is really bizarre given that I live in Essex County, NJ and Verizon has blanketed my area for years. I hope Verizon hammers this out, as it isn’t a good beginning to the experience.

Also bad is the usual carrier-specific branding and lock-down: there’s no way to go 2G-only to conserve battery life, but you do get a battery-use profile tool that may or may not. I have it set to max battery but by day’s end, I need to recharge this. With GPS or WiFi, you might get 6 hours of solid use before you worry, 8 and you’re done. The radios just use lots of power.

Flash is not supported by default for this phone from Verizon. I had to manually download it and install it. It was available, then not, and I don’t know who is at fault there (likely VZW). The root procedure for the Droid 2 is out there, so maybe that’s where I will need to go. But, I shouldn’t have to… but that’s another bit of trouble, in that Motorola is not HTC. Motorola is happily locking these down, whereas with the HTC devices, it’s more of a token effort. Openness is a more effective tool for adoption than walled-gardens.

The camera works, and the flash is actually fairly effective in dark rooms. I like it, but for me a camera on a phone is your last-ditch documentary tool. It’ll do the job and capture the moment, but I wouldn’t rely on it due to shutter lag. It isn’t the worst but it still doesn’t immediately respond, so you’ll get a few blurry shots.

I waited four months for this phone, and it delivered. I fully expect VZW to fix my connection issues in some fashion, and the crew at XDA to supply me a custom ROM in the future. As someone who uses his phone for more than calls, this should last me at least two years before I get the itch go upgrade.

-C

Rating: 5 / 5

Comment from bigshotnick
Time September 2, 2010 at 11:44 pm

When I switched to the Incredilble I couldn’t stand not having a physical keyboard. So I traded my Incredible for the droid 2. From my 4 day experience I can definitely say its a keeper. Its just as fast as the incredible and same as the X. The screen is just right, not to small and not too big like the x. It fits in the hands nice. It is a little more bulky than my incredible but you get over it when you use that keyboard. I miss having the sense interface, but there are plenty alternatives. Battery life is what you would expect from a smartphone. A day at the most with moderate usage. I guess it works out good if you have a car charger. I charge it when I sleep and throughout the day I charge it whenever I get in the car. I absolutely love android and this phone runs it very well. I haven’t had a crash yet in the 4 days. I am somewhat disappointed in the cases for it. I personally like rubber cases but for the droid 2, the keyboard limits that. The snap-ons are the only alternative and it causes the phone to slide harshly. Other than that I really enjoy it.
Rating: 5 / 5