Motorola Droid 4 Review

PSA: So as my first review I want to lay down some ground rules on your guys about how I run these reviews. I will likely run all my reviews in the same manner as this one. First I will start with an brief overall summary that covers my basic thoughts on the phone, add a spec list for the phone, then afterwards i will tear the phone down a little, lastly I will add a gallery and my unboxing video that i uploaded earlier in the week, and end with some final words. I will always use stock software and apps, unless I can’t help it (ie. I can’t use sense keyboard for my life). Lastly, just like any reviewer I will try my best to keep my personal bias aside from the facts, if you all know me, then you’d know I love blur and hate sense, but that shouldn’t be noticeable in the reviews. Enjoy my reviews all!

For our first review I received a Motorola Droid 4. Overall  this was a great device, and I feel as though it is the best physical-keyboard, android phone on the market right now. It’s basically a toned down version on the Razr with a keyboard. Featuring a dual core processor, 5-row qwerty slide out keyboard, and 4G LTE bands this phone is hard to beat….by other qwerty phones. Sadly Motorola included a crappy camera, a less than stellar screen, and Android 2.3.x Gingerbread disappointing many of their followers. Anyways if you can’t live without a keyboard then definitely grab this phone, you won’t be TOO disappointed. I give this phone a 3 out of 5.

Current firmware:
System version: 6.13.219.XT894
Android version: 2.3.6
Build number: 6.5.1_167_DR4-1_M1-219

Specs:

Price: 99.99$ on 2 year contract
549.99$ retail

Thumbs Ups:

• LTE: It’s great that Moto finally included LTE technology in their original Droid line, as everyone was hoping they would add it to the 3rd generation, but they failed to, including it now means that Motorola listened to the complaints and learned about their competition.
• Price: This phone is only 100$ on contract now, that’s great for a more than average LTE device, plus the best keyboard device it’s a steal to get it at this price. Especially not seeing many qwerty devices on the horizon.
• Battery: The 4 may only have a 1785mAh battery and it “may or may not” be removable like it’s older brothers but this battery lasted me all day. That includes lots of GVoice texting, social networking, syncing of multiple emails and  streaming music.
• Qwerty: The 5-row keyboard is amazing, this beats any 4-row keyboard out of the water. A couple of things I’m going to be nitpicky about though. For one, the “caps lock”/”shift” buttons location is weird and I had to definitely get used to it. Also many symbols are left out of the physical keyboard and are not associated with a symbols button that brings on an onscreen notification with additional symbols. Everything else though, the navigation keys, edge lighting and spacing are nearly impeccable.
• Processor: This dual-core processor is powerful enough to take many actions at once while on the device, I noticed very little to no lag while operating the phone. Mostly everything was smooth as ….syrup. Not melted butter…
• Smart Actions: This application is similar to on{X} and tasker, as certain times, locations, etc the phone will be able to do different things that you dictate. Such as at night, (11pm) I can set an action that automatically turns off my ringer and turns it back on in the morning. Great Addition.

Thumbs Down:

• Gingerbread: Seriously Motorola?! This phone came out in February, Samsung and HTC were announcing updates to ICS at this time, why can’t you? Granted you did notify the public that it takes around 6 month to alter Android to function with your skin (Blur), but jeez. No official date, just Q3. Wow.
• Camera: Maybe it was just my subjects that I was trying to capture, but keeping the camera at stock settings most of pictures were dull or blurry (in low light). It absolutely sucked. In midday sunlight, the pictures did come out pretty well.
• Bloat: Around 25 applications. Applications that can’t be uninstalled and are generally useless to stock users, just clog up the phone and make it slower… VCast, Let’s Golf 2, and Device Setup? Pointless.
• Display: So while Motorola included Super Amoled Advanced screen on both the Razrs, they decided to skimp out on the 4. Alot of people talk about pentile matrix and the ability to see the pixels in on the screen, and the Droid 4 is unfortunately an example of that. The screen even makes a poor example while doing simple tasks like sliding through your app drawer.
• Locked: For all your developers and rooters out there, this phone is like every other Moto phone after the original Droid, bootloader locked. So no custom kernels and other such “hackery”.

Honorable Mention:

• Even with lessened specs and a locked bootloader this phone does happen to be involved with a great group of developers. If you want to do even more with the phone, involving rooting and ROMing, the Droid 4 won’t leave you behind (including ever popular ICS AOSP ROMs: GummyAOSP and AOKP).
• Blur has been heavily revamped and is the same as in the Razrs, this UI has definitely grown since it’s 3G-only and Bionic device days. Before one rags on the UI they should definitely try out this new version. I personally like it alot but I understand, it’s no AOSP.

Tie-up:

This phone is a perfect beast for anyone who has to have a keyboard, there simply isn’t anything else better. Although if you were hoping to have a device that has top notch specs including the latest Android version, I’d pass and look at it’s older brothers.

Unboxing:

[Show as slideshow]

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