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Droid X2 Review

blog said:
Now that mine is activated and I've had a little bit to play around with it, I'll give my first impressions. A little background first - I've had: Droid, Droid Incredible, DroidX, Fascinate, Thunderbolt, and Droid Charge (for 2 whole days), so if there's something I feel experienced in evaluating, it is the flagship Verizon android handsets. The original DroidX, with all its faults, is my favorite phone over and above the 2 newer 4G units.

I was really happy when i unboxed this sucker because it has the amazing build quality that I always loved from my original DroidX that I felt was terribly lacking in the Thunderbolt and especially the Charge. So far, so good.

The DX2's QHD screen immediately made my heart sink. The dreaded pentile array of subpixels from the Incredible and Fascinate (among others) has infected this phone too. It gives the impression of everything being full of tiny holes. Circles on screen don't have smooth edges, tiny text is nearly unreadable due to the fuzziness caused by this particular screen tech. It seems to me that only about 1/3 of users actually notice a difference, but I definitely do. It is nice to have the extra pixels, and it makes the DX2 feel like more of a tool than a toy. Colors are similar to what you'd find on the original Droid and DX - slightly washed out, mediocre black levels, but a nice bright white. Viewing angle fades from side to side like the original DX as well. Again like the DX, there is some ghosting when you are scrolling light objects/text on a black background. Overall I would rate the screen a disappointment in every aspect except for resolution.

I got a thunderbolt right as the leaked gingerbread came out for the DX, so I hadn't had a chance to play with the new Blur until now. It is definitely an improvement functionally. I find it to be kind of ugly in places (white menu backgrounds?), but there are some thoughtful additions vs stock android.

I fired up a few games to see how they compared to the performance on the Droid Charge. If I had to guess, I would say the Charge was actually faster/smoother in some of them due to lower resolution (or lack of Tegra optimization). Doodlejump actually wasn't completely smooth all the time. Guns'N'Glory ran fine. Pinball HD for Tegra ran nicely, and I might actually like it better on here than on the xoom.

Camera software is improved from the DroidX and it functions quickly and accurately. Nice job here. Unfortunately the sensor is same and the pictures are only average. Better than the thunderbolt, same as the droidx, and not as good as the Charge. I don't miss the crummy camera button from the original DX.

External speaker quality is very nice, much better than the Charge, and it doesn't have the stupid kickstand to block it like on the Thunderbolt.

Cliffs Notes:
Good phone in all the same ways as the original DroidX except for a subpar screen.
Click to expand...

At least the display is qHD, so the extra res helps offset the pentile lameness.
 
I have questions please:

1. How is call quality? My Incredible sucks with muddy call quality
2. Signal reception for 3G? Incredible is a tad weak
3. If the games are uninstalled, does this increase 4.3gb of internal storage? Seem at least 1GB is missing from total.
4. How does the display compare to the Droid X and TB?
5. Touch display responsive?
6. Camera faster than the slow Droid X?
7. Picture quality have less noise?
8. Wifi reception?
9. Loudness from speaker and 3.5mm?

Thanks!

Thanks!
 
rushmore said:
I have questions please:

1. How is call quality? My Incredible sucks with muddy call quality
2. Signal reception for 3G? Incredible is a tad weak
3. If the games are uninstalled, does this increase 4.3gb of internal storage? Seem at least 1GB is missing from total.
4. How does the display compare to the Droid X and TB?
5. Touch display responsive?
6. Camera faster than the slow Droid X?
7. Picture quality have less noise?
8. Wifi reception?
9. Loudness from speaker and 3.5mm?

Thanks!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

1. Call quality is SUPERB. Honestly, its so clear and not too loud or quiet...its perfect.
2. Had some problems getting 3G to show up sometimes, but restarted phone and all seems to be good. I have had 3-4 bars since started. Eris usually had just 2 where I'm at.
3. I will check and get back to you...
4. I have messed with TB, but not original DX, and I think the screen resolution is clearer and brighter than TB.
5. Touch display is a lot more responsive than my Eris...seems to be more than Inc2 that I played with a few weeks ago as well.
6. Faster (heard that from former DX users)
7. As far as I can tell yes. Still haven't played with camera much.
8. Great. Full reception. (I am picking up 6 more networks from my neighborhood that Eris never detected if that helps)
9. External speaker is mediocre, I've got a BB 9700 (and had a Bold 9000) that has really good external speakers, some of the best in industry. Haven't tried headphones yet.

Hope this helps!
 
rushmore said:
I have questions please:

4. How does the display compare to the Droid X and TB?
5. Touch display responsive?
6. Camera faster than the slow Droid X?
7. Picture quality have less noise?
8. Wifi reception?
9. Loudness from speaker and 3.5mm?
Click to expand...

4. Same as DX display in every way except for resolution and the pentile array. TB display looks a little cleaner since it is SLCD, and the colors are brighter, and it doesn't ghost as much. Really it's a mixed bag comparing the 3. Droid Charge display is way better than all of them (despite lower resolution)
5. Touch is responsive. No issues.
6. Camera speed much improved from DX
7. Picture quality not improved that I can tell. Still looks like a DX picture.
8. No wifi issues
9. Decent speaker
 
To blog, thanks for quite thorough and objective review on DX2. I got a few more questions for you since you have both Charge and DX2.

1. How does qHD screen on DX2 compare to SAMOLED+ on Charge in terms of text clarity, contrast, viewing angle? Since it's pentile on qHD, it will diminish its resolution advantage a little but I wonder how that compares to RGB square pixels on WVGA SAMOLED+.

2. How's signal reception on both device? I know that 4G LTE is still immature network and Tbolt, Charge sometimes undergoes sporadic 4G/3G transition. But dropping data connection on 3G covered area is unacceptable for me.
 
jinwons said:
To blog, thanks for quite thorough and objective review on DX2. I got a few more questions for you since you have both Charge and DX2.

1. How does qHD screen on DX2 compare to SAMOLED+ on Charge in terms of text clarity, contrast, viewing angle? Since it's pentile on qHD, it will diminish its resolution advantage a little but I wonder how that compares to RGB square pixels on WVGA SAMOLED+.

2. How's signal reception on both device? I know that 4G LTE is still immature network and Tbolt, Charge sometimes undergoes sporadic 4G/3G transition. But dropping data connection on 3G covered area is unacceptable for me.
Click to expand...


1. clarity, contrast, viewing angle the samoled+ crushes the dx2 screen. Not a competition. Also black levels are not even close, the DX2 looks grey in comparison. HOWEVER if you hold the DX2 away from you at a certain distance, the pentile array disappears and you have a cleaner looking higher resolution display. For me, that distance is nearly at arm's length (not how i use my phone). Also the whites are whiter on the DX2. If you use your phone in a dark room very often do yourself a favor and get the Charge. It looks amazing.

2. No 4G for me here in austin yet. I had constant 3g dropping issues with the thunderbolt (and rebooting issues) before and after the patch. So far no issues with the Charge at all in my 2 days of ownership. Haven't had the DX2 long enough to say anything about it, but my DX never had a single data issue.
 
Not particularly pertinent to this thread, but since I keep mentioning the Charge: the back of mine already has scratches even though i have babied it. My DX didn't have scratches like this on it after being dropped on concrete twice. The materials quality is truly appalling. BUT if you are the kind of person that uses a case and screen protector you might not care.

This is one area where motorola wins easily (and always has since the dawn of android on verizon)
 
I am still on the fence and mainly due to the pentile display. I have messed around with the Charge a lot and notice the display is sweet, and nice how (unlike the TB) there is an option to choose only CDMA if needed if in 3G only areas or only want to use 3G. The two issues for me with the Charge are the slow a55 RFS file system and compared to the Droid X and my Incredible, the display does not seem as responsive, but it could be the display units I have messed with.

Between the two devices, there is one killa' device :)

The main issue besides the pentile display for me is the dimensions of the display. I prefer the 16:10 design of the Charge and most other phone displays, rather than the 16:9 Moto displays. 4:3 games played with emulators are larger and I prefer the shape for web browsing. Not sure why Moto did this in the first place.

The Droid X1 display pales to the Charge, but the chipset in the Charge does not have a chance with the slow file system. My Incredible is faster than the Charge, but this should be opposite. The Droid X1is also snappier, so odd how the DX2 is not (by some reports).
 
The X2's screen isn't bad at all. Being pentile means it isn't the best screen on the market, but it's still a nice screen.
 
I have my DROID x2 and I love the phone! Battery life has been great so far the display is gorgeous and the speed is amazing. Like I stated on other posts the X2 can load browser pages as fast as 4g phones in 4g areas. I can't wait to see gingerbread on this device to see its full potential in speed and benchmarks. I do like the new blur alot. I usually use launcher pro but the new blur is nice. I think Motorola made the right call in keeping the design. It feels premium!
 
blog said:
Camera software is improved from the DroidX and it functions quickly and accurately. Nice job here. Unfortunately the sensor is same and the pictures are only average. Better than the thunderbolt, same as the droidx, and not as good as the Charge. I don't miss the crummy camera button from the original DX.
Click to expand...

Wait, What!? As someone who owned the DX for a while, if you're saying the DX2 sensor is the same as the DX and takes the same pics, then there is no way in hell it takes better pics than the Thunderbolt. I've seen PLENTY of photos taken with the TB and it takes breathtaking photos at stock settings. As someone who owns the iPhone 4 with the amazing pic quality, I would even say the TB takes better pics in certain conditions. Sorry but there is no way the DX2 camera takes better pics than the TB if its the same as the DX. I thought the DX camera was absolutely horrid.
 
^You should check out some the the massive DX1 camera pic threads. Just checking pics in there I wouldnt say absolutely horrid. I'm also no camera guru tho. I thought the Incredible and DX1 took good pics. You did mention stock settings for the TB tho...so maybe stock settings the DX1 didnt take good pics. Dont really know just some food for thought.

utekking said:
Got my phone a couple of hours ago, Love it so far. I had the D1 up to a week ago and when it died. Early upgrade was the DX1 but traded that in for the DX2. So much faster, the speaker phone is much better. The DX1 earpiece sucked but this one is crystal clear. Will have to play with it some more before I can say anything else about it. BUT I LOVE IT SO FAR!!!!
Click to expand...

So the speaker is better than on the DX1?
 
JoJoCal19 said:
Wait, What!? As someone who owned the DX for a while, if you're saying the DX2 sensor is the same as the DX and takes the same pics, then there is no way in hell it takes better pics than the Thunderbolt. I've seen PLENTY of photos taken with the TB and it takes breathtaking photos at stock settings. As someone who owns the iPhone 4 with the amazing pic quality, I would even say the TB takes better pics in certain conditions. Sorry but there is no way the DX2 camera takes better pics than the TB if its the same as the DX. I thought the DX camera was absolutely horrid.
Click to expand...


The thunderbolt's camera was the worst I have used in an android camera. Horrible in low light.

In any case, I stand by my opinion that the DX2 camera is decent, and the Charge's is very nice (but slower than the DX2's)
 
blog said:
Good phone in all the same ways as the original DroidX except for a subpar screen.
Click to expand...

I could not agree (with your entire assessment) more. The high res was nice, but I hated the screen. I've also owned all of the same phones you have (minus the Charge). I took my DX2 back b/c I couldn't get past the screen and occasional lag. Dual core is nice for games and hdmi output, but 512mb RAM vs the 768 in the Bolt and the Dinc2 (which I now have) makes a difference in the overall experience, plus HTC sure seems good at making the UI run seamlessly on their hardware. Anyway, just wanted to give a big fat +1 to that evaluation.
 
blog said:
The thunderbolt's camera was the worst I have used in an android camera. Horrible in low light.

In any case, I stand by my opinion that the DX2 camera is decent, and the Charge's is very nice (but slower than the DX2's)
Click to expand...

Ok I guess I don't quite fully agree... ;) In my case, I loved the Bolt's camera - though I never used it in low light. But in normal situations it was extremely fast, clear, and the pictures always turned out great. The few pics I took on my DX2 were a bit cloudy, and it was definitely slower.
 
man I cant believe how picky some people can be about a screen. Ofcourse super amoled is better and it has rich colors and it also is a battery killer, so is SLCD. I had the thunderbolt and I really like the dx2 screen as well. I mean the screen is sharp as hell, it just has a different tone to it, I am not getting the stuff about small text not being readable, if you load up a full page of engadget it is not readable on any screen unless you zoom in a little, coming from the thunderbolt I know. I zoom in a litte and even if the text is small I can read it just fine.
 
jntdroid said:
I could not agree (with your entire assessment) more. The high res was nice, but I hated the screen. I've also owned all of the same phones you have (minus the Charge). I took my DX2 back b/c I couldn't get past the screen and occasional lag. Dual core is nice for games and hdmi output, but 512mb RAM vs the 768 in the Bolt and the Dinc2 (which I now have) makes a difference in the overall experience, plus HTC sure seems good at making the UI run seamlessly on their hardware. Anyway, just wanted to give a big fat +1 to that evaluation.
Click to expand...

Tegra 2 with 512mb kicks 8655 with 768mb's butt. No contest. Perhaps the DX2 has UI issues or whatever else, but the 8655 even with 768mb or 1gb even is not a match.

Chipset & memory would not be the issue here. My gTablet with Tegra 2 with 2.2 is faster than the TB and higher res display as well.
 
I don't understand why people are trash talking the qHD screen....how darn good does it have to be?! I must be blind or just not as picky....to each his own. I love the DX2's screen and resolution.
 
rushmore said:
Tegra 2 with 512mb kicks 8655 with 768mb's butt. No contest. Perhaps the DX2 has UI issues or whatever else, but the 8655 even with 768mb or 1gb even is not a match.
Click to expand...

Maybe in some situations, but in others RAM is more important. Most of the OS isn't even optimized for dual core usage anyway. Either way, the DX2 lagged on me in a few places, and the Bolt and Dinc2 never have - literally, never. So even if it's all UI, that's enough for me.
 
Most of the "issues" I had were light text on black background - and smaller text at that.

The other issues I had...

- Dropbox would FC almost every time I tried to download a file (possibly with the new internal storage partition it's confusing apps?)

- Go into the Facebook app's settings and see if you can scroll down beyond "other settings" where it should say "sync contacts"

- the screen... the video I posted above, plus (no matter what Launcher I used) seeing the "ghost" trails when scrolling on the home screen...

- power button - I'd hit it, and it would take a full second at times to get the screen to even come on

I totally get some of that is nitpicky, but put together it affects the overall experience.
 
John58543 said:
I don't understand why people are trash talking the qHD screen....how darn good does it have to be?! I must be blind or just not as picky....to each his own. I love the DX2's screen and resolution.
Click to expand...

Very True, some people just will never get satisfied. I was actually blown away by the sharpness of the screen when I first turned on the phone. Ofcourse the colors are different. To each his own, I am really not that picky about screens. I mean everyone does something different to make their product different. I guess when you try 5 different phones you are going to find something different in each one. I like to stick with one phone for 8 months or so and I sell it off and upgrade to next better thing. I am sure it will last me that long.

I dont even notice half of the things people are talking about, specially the ghosting when scrolling the home screen. Oh well I am content with the phone.
 
I don't want to sound all negative. The screen was crisp and bright, and the higher resolution helped to offset some of the "issues". Very solid feel, awesome call quality, definitely fast and snappy - only a couple of places it would lag for me. It felt rugged and strong. And the bottom line with it (vs the Thunderbolt) - I trusted it... the Bolt's signal would go wanky on me occasionally - hated that.

The Bolt was great, but the LTE network needs to mature some, imho. I moved from the Bolt for better battery life and a non-4G phone that was reliable. I tried the DX2 first, and now I'm trying the Dinc2 - which is basically a smaller Thunderbolt with no 4G, and global capabilities. If I don't like the Dinc2 I'm going to go back to the DX2. Didn't mean to give the impression it was all bad or anything...
 
jntdroid said:
I don't want to sound all negative. The screen was crisp and bright, and the higher resolution helped to offset some of the "issues". Very solid feel, awesome call quality, definitely fast and snappy - only a couple of places it would lag for me. It felt rugged and strong. And the bottom line with it (vs the Thunderbolt) - I trusted it... the Bolt's signal would go wanky on me occasionally - hated that.

The Bolt was great, but the LTE network needs to mature some, imho. I moved from the Bolt for better battery life and a non-4G phone that was reliable. I tried the DX2 first, and now I'm trying the Dinc2 - which is basically a smaller Thunderbolt with no 4G, and global capabilities. If I don't like the Dinc2 I'm going to go back to the DX2. Didn't mean to give the impression it was all bad or anything...
Click to expand...

that is one thing I agree with you, the bolt was a great phone but battery life was sorta ok. Plus the damn 4g connection was flaky as hell. I told myself I wouldn't put up with that anymore, but I couldn't connect to my SSID at schook which is hidden and uses enterprise security. It was a pain having to reconfigure the settings every day, while my friends droid x worked great.

I wanted to get the charge but I didn't wann be stuck with samsung's unreliable support and thinking I would never get gingerbread unless I am in asia.
 
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