Droid 3 First Impressions/Reviews

[terpitude71]

Howdy everyone,

The purpose of this thread, is to hear members thoughts & opinions on how the Motorola Droid 3 stacks up amongst a suggested list of attributes:
Aesthetics
Screen
Hardware
Phone - including bluetooth & speakerphone usage
Overall User Interface (including the new Blur)
Widgets
Signal quality (Compared to other devices)
GPS
Social Networking
Email/Calendar
Battery Life
Performance
Media (music, movies, DLNA)
Keyboard's
Camera (both still & video)
How the Droid 3 compares to your previous smartphone (if applicable)
Disappointments (if any)

Feel free to provide as little or as much detail as possible, while trying to make it as useful as possible. Hopefully this will help others who are considering the Droid 3, but would like to hear some user feedback first. Also, please do not review the Droid 3 prior to having one

And if you read a review that you found helpful, please use the Thanks button to show them your appreciation!

 

[cozz]

I upgraded my D2 to a D3 and thought I would share my impressions. I've had the phone for about a week now.

Build Quality: 8/10

The phone has a very nice feel to it. It has a good weight, and the materials seem have a very good feel to them. The sliding mechanism feels very sturdy. My D2 would sometimes slide part-way open in my pocket, and so far that has not been the case with my D3. I know that it might wear down over time, but it feels the slide feels much sturdier than the D2 did even brand new. The glass that covers the screen is gorilla glass which is awesome, very hard to scratch even without a screen protector on.

My biggest gripe with the build is that the brushed metal-looking pieces that border the screen part and the keyboard of the phone is made from a very soft material. It is easy to scratch or ding up. I've been very careful with my phone over the past week and have already managed to mark up both the piece around the screen with a ding and the piece around the keyboard with some scratches. It was the same way on my D2. It just seems dumb that they would use such a soft material. But i guess if the phone was impossible to scratch, we wouldn't have to spend $25 on a case and other companies would lose money, right?

Also, the battery door is a pain in the butt to remove and feels very flimsy. Personally this isn't a problem for me since I rarely remove it, but it could be an issue for some.


Performance: 8/10

I had very high hopes for the dual-core, and while the phone has come close to meeting my expectations the performance has not been quite as good as I had hoped. The phone is clearly faster than the D2. Scrolling through home screens is quick and snappy, phone startup and shut down is quite fast. Apps install very fast once downloaded, and most apps open quickly.

However I still experience lag and shudders more often than I thought I would have thought upgrading to a dual-core. Sometimes there is a few second lag before apps open or close. Sometimes when scrolling through lists or switching between screens the phone feels behind my actions. Overall the phone feels very fast, but the hiccups occur enough for me that I thought they needed to be mentioned. The dual-core just isn't quite the "oh-wow" factor I was anticipating.

As far as battery life is concerned I think the final verdict is still up in the air. I usually am able to make it to the end of the day with about 20% battery left, and I have been playing with my phone a lot more than normal since it is new and I have been exploring/tweaking settings and apps a lot. Even with the heavy use, the battery does not seem as good as it was on the D2. I think with the newness of the phone, and the upgrade to gingerbread some apps aren't working 100% correct and taking up more juice than they should. My guess is that battery life should increase when some bugs get ironed out. For now however, battery life has been a big issue for some, and a minor issue for myself. As long as you keep an eye on your apps and widgets, you should be able to get about 24 hrs off of a charge.

Now I know I gave performance an 8/10 and then spent most of my time on the negatives. But even with the couple gripes about the dual core and the questionable battery life (so far), I still feel that the overall performance of the phone is quite good. The performance definitely feels like a solid upgrade over the D2.


Call Quality: 6-7/10

This one is a little hard to score because my experience with the call quality has been a mixed bag.

For the majority of the time, call quality is great. On most of the calls the sound is very clear and sounds very natural.

However I have experienced a number of calls where the caller sounds very muffled and "tinny", even to the point where I've had to ask them to repeat themselves a few times. I've also experienced some static, and some echo effects. Now I know that many things like signal strength of both phones can change the quality of the call. But there has been once or twice where I've been calling a land-line, have had full bars, and still experience poor call quality.

Now most of the time (probably about 70%) the calls are great, and I'd go so far as to say that when this phone is sounding good it may be the best sounding cell phone I've used. But so far I have experienced poor call quality maybe 30% of the time. I've been using my phone in the same area that I've used my D2 for over a year, and I never used to have these kind of issues with such frequency. Sure I used to get a bad sounding call on the D2 (or any phone) once in a while, but with my D3 it happens enough where it has become my biggest issue with the phone. If I remember I will try to update this section in a few weeks with further thoughts on the frequency of the poor calls.


Display: 8/10

As I'm sure you know, the D3 uses the PenTile display, and has the typical PenTile drawbacks. Pixels are quite evident if you have bright, solid colors (battery indicator) or fine lines such as small text. There are some ghosting effects that happen when scrolling through text. If you need to see before you buy, go in to the store and check out the live wallpaper called 'Grass' on the D3 and some other phones and compare side by side. I think the drawbacks of the PenTile display are quite evident when you look at the edges and the color of the blades of grass.

Now with that out of the way, I consider myself a pretty picky person when it comes to my new toys and I am happy with the display. I think it is very bright, and 90% of the time looks very good. It even is pretty easy to see in direct sunlight (given the brightness is high enough). The display doesn't get washed out in sunlight as bad as other phones.

I know there are some pretty bad stories about the PenTile display (such as the DX2), but I am quite pleased by the display on my droid 3. I'm not sure if they made some tweaks with the D3, and I'm sure the smaller screen size helps, but I do like the display. Just not quite love.

The touch response of the display is awesome. This really stands out as a big improvement over the D2. The first thing I tested with the touch screen was the game 'Mini-Squadron' since the game requires using two fingers touching the screen, and one of them moving around a lot. On my D2 this game did not work very well. It had a hard time reading the constant multiple touch inputs, and the game was pretty hard to play. However on the D3 it feels as smooth as butter. There is no trouble with the multiple touch inputs, and they are read accurately and it feels very responsive. Things like pinch to zoom also feel much more accurate and smooth. I've even noticed a big improvement to the accuracy of reading very small or precise things such as clicking on webpage links. I'm very happy with the touch screen.

Keyboard: 10/10

Last, but certainly not least, this the reason why most of us will be picking up the D3. The keyboard is fantastic. It is very spacious with plenty of room between the keys. Typing feels blazing fast. I wasn't too excited about the extra row for just numbers at first, but after a weeks worth of use I can say that it is very nice to have the dedicated number row. There is plenty of space between the number row and the screen when it is opened, so even with a case on the phone it is very easy to hit the numbers on that top row. The amount of 'travel' with the keys feels very good as well. You really get a nice 'clicking' feeling when typing. There is even a small indicator light next to the shift and alt keys that lights up when the shift-lock or alt-lock is enabled.

The keyboard is definitely the shining feature of this phone.


Summary:

The droid 3 is a great phone. Personally my biggest issue is the call quality, and the poor calls only happen some of the time.

If you want a keyboard on your phone, this is definitely the one to get. If you don't care about the keyboard then you may want to wait to see if some of the bugs get ironed out, or save yourself a little weight and thickness and look to a different phone.

 

[srv]

Howdy everyone,

The purpose of this thread, is to hear members thoughts & opinions on how the Motorola Droid 3 stacks up amongst a suggested list of attributes:
Aesthetics
Screen
Hardware
Phone - including bluetooth & speakerphone usage
Overall User Interface (including the new Blur)
Widgets
Signal quality (Compared to other devices)
GPS
Social Networking
Email/Calendar
Battery Life
Performance
Media (music, movies, DLNA)
Keyboard's
Camera (both still & video)
How the Droid 3 compares to your previous smartphone (if applicable)
Disappointments (if any)

Feel free to provide as little or as much detail as possible, while trying to make it as useful as possible. Hopefully this will help others who are considering the Droid 3, but would like to hear some user feedback first. Also, please do not review the Droid 3 prior to having one

And if you read a review that you found helpful, please use the Thanks button to show them your appreciation!

I've had the thing since Thu, upgrading from the OG Droid. I'm really liking it. I don't understand why some folks don't like the screen. It seems pretty damned good to me, and a couple people who played with my phone were raving about the screen. The keyboard is awesome, battery life seems fine, call quality seems fine. The only issue is the phenomenal amount of bloatware - it's astounding, even for VZW. That, by itself, would be enough reason to root it.

 

[fjfisher601#AC]

I've had mine since Thurs- and very happy with it- although the recessed usb is such that many other Micro cords will only charge and not allow tethering- other than that- I think I'll be happy for the next 2 years while the Network bugs and battery issues get resolved for the LTE network.

This phone is plenty fast ! And I'm getting more than 24 hours on a charge-( thank you Juice Defender)
Launcher Plus too helps the app switching- -Keyboard is great for us fat fingered folks

 

[frenzy757]

wait you cant do USB tethering on the Droid 3?

 

[trailblazen]

Screen Review:

Bought it for my wife thursday and been tinkering with it and I actually like the screen. I use the Battlefield 3 "Thunder Run" trailer in HQ off of youtube as sort of a benchmark for the video/screen of phones because to be honest it challenges most computers because of the high definition graphics that Dice brought to the table (but this isn't a gaming forum I know LOL) and I have to say I am really impressed. I had a Charge before I found out I could be grandfathered into Unlimited data and I actually think that the video was actually a little better quality and less stutter on the D3 than the Charge. I watched the video under identical settings (Wifi, brightness max, not plugged in) and in the end was very happy with the screen on the D3. I do notice the Battery pixilation if I stare at the icon but in the grand scheme it really doesnt affect much and if I was joe random off the street that doesn't read the AC forums about the Pentile issues wouldn't know it any better.

 

[Jet300]

Wife got hers on 7/15. It is her first permanent Android phone coming out of an LG Env Touch. (bought here a D2G of Craigslist on 7/1 to use for two weeks to secure unlimited data) Anyways....

The first phone she bought had a bad LCD panel. When we got home I noticed there were reversed flashing pixels horizontally across the screen about 1/4 way up from the bottom. Exchanged that phone and its display is perfect.

Build Quality

It's a Motorola Device. It's solid and creak free. It seems lighter than the OG Droid and D2G. The battery door is made of rubberized plastic. Surprised to see that from Moto. But once its installed you don't realize its plastic. No issue there. The slider started smooth and a bit stiff. But, after a weekend of use, its just smooth. Bezel is a nice gunmetal color. Looks nice. The screen has Gorilla Glass; always a good thing.

Communications

Call quality seems very good. No issues. However, in general VZW is very strong out here on Long Island. WiFi worked flawlessly. Speeds were right as expected on our in home WiFi network. The device pairs quickly via Bluetooth with our Nissan. No sync issues with GMail or the Market. All previously installed apps from the D2G were downloaded to her phone by the time we made it home from the 15 minute trip from VZW kiosk at our local BJ's Wholesale Club. Nice.

Home Launcher

The new stock launcher looks like it would be very livable. Its very snappy with no lag. The app drawer slides sideways with a neat twist transition and has organization options. Good job by Moto. We installed ADW Launcher EX purely for the ability to scale the home screen icons bigger because my wife has a visual impairment and it allows for her to see the screen better without the need for a magnifying glass. ADW runs flawlessly. Android OS customization FTW! Take that Mr. Jobs.

OS and Performance

Gingerbread 2.3.4 runs smooth and the phone feels quite snappy. No GTalk Video baked in though? Surprising. Quadrant scores are in the mid 2200's with about 40 apps on the phone so far. Seen very little to no lag to speak of while setting up the phone for her. In fact side by side comparision with my Droid X was getting me a little sad and wanting of that new Bionic! LOL Lot of VZW bloatware. Need root STAT

Display

Well, what can you say, its Pentile, Love it or hate it. I'm in between I suppose. The "Grass" live wallpaper looks horribly pixelated and I do notice the pixels (even at normal arms length) when looking at the phone for long periods such as when I was setting it up. I don't think a casual user will notice anything is amiss. Just don't show them this phone side by with a iPhone 4.

That being said, color is nice and the screen is bright. I also am very happy to see that "Display" is no longer at the top of the battery usage statistics. Android OS now has that top honor.

Keyboard

Well, what can you say. Its pretty fantastic. Compared to the mess of the OG Droid and D2G, this is wonderful. In fact, its pretty wonderful compared to a lot of keyboards out there. Because of its increased size and width, some keys are a bit of a reach, but its comfortable to use. Coming from a portrait keyboard like a BlackBerry, its W_I_D_E. Not a deal breaker in anyway. Just different. My wife has small hands and she has only raved about it. I guess she's used to typing sideways from all those years on the Voyager and EnV Touch.

Conclusion

The device is being sold at a great price (Got hers for $99 with the upgrade) and it is a nicely made device. Performance is very smooth so far. I suspect the screen will be perfectly acceptable for the general consumer. However, we are scratching our head as to why they included a front camera with no software to use it for video chat. Hoping that will be fixed soon. Overall, I really think this is going to be a real solid 3G phone for VZW. I just don't understand the lack of marketing. Very strange by VZW.

 

[rushmore]

Aesthetics = Efficient 9
Screen = Pentile works better with 4" size 8
Hardware = Solid build 9
Phone - including bluetooth & speakerphone usage = Speaker phone works well 9, no BT use yet
Overall User Interface (including the new Blur) = Like the Blur/Ginger mix (nice surprise) 9
Widgets = Do not use
Signal quality (Compared to other devices) = Best of any device used 10
GPS = Works well 9
Social Networking = Do not use
Email/Calendar = Functional 8
Battery Life = Better than my Incredible and good for what is in the device 8
Performance = Best I have used so far (G1, D1, Inc, DX2, Revolution) 10
Media (music, movies, DLNA) = Works great 9
Keyboard's = Work of art 10
Camera (both still & video) = Ok unless use the flash (blue tint) 7
How the Droid 3 compares to your previous smartphone (if applicable) = Both the Incredible and DX2 were laggy messes after a few hours use. I have 215 apps at 1.3gb and still not beed to reboot the device. Surprising for a 512mb ram device (to some at least). 10
Disappointments (if any) = The power and volume buttons are too thin and small.

Overall = 9

 

[NYCBest]

I've had mine a few days. I'm surprised to see everyone seems satisfied with the performance. I find the phone always running with only 14% (60MB) free RAM. I know android is supposed to be able to handle running low on RAM and kill apps as needed. But due to the low ram I've had the phone reboot 4 times, launcher pro crashed too often to keep using, and just random sluggishness with returning from an app to the default launcher. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the phone, I love it. But really need to get rid of all the bloatware before i'd say the performance is great.

 

[complexx]

For reference, I just received a second Droid3 in the mail today for my other phone line and the slide out is markedly easier to operate now. The phone is charging so I haven't even booted it up yet, hence, I don't know about any other differences, but I wanted to report on this.

*It appears that my hard case was causing the stiffness.

 

[McDragon]

I received mine last evening at 6:30. I am coming from a fascinate and I can tell it is just a world of difference between the two. Only issue is the Fascinate was rooted from 1 hour after having, and it will be a while until the Dev's figure out the root procedure for the D3. Not a major deal breaker. Just a case of putting on the desktop what I want and no bloat. ADW Launcher EX is very customizable so you can get work done.

 

[nomad005]

I've honestly have had no problems with it.

My phone stayed at 80% all day with light use. So whatever complaints about idle drain battery, its a specific phone issue.

 

[oh ok then]

After being cockteased with the HTC Merge for the better part of 6 months, I was ready for something with a keyboard. After having this a couple of weeks, my thoughts:

Pros:

- Keyboard. It's really good. Keys are well spaced, very clickable, and just have an overall nice feel to them. The keyboard is a joy to use.

- Camera. Takes very good photos with some work. I shot 1080P footage at a football game, threw it up on a 52" LED TV, and we were all blown away by the quality.

- Screen size. A lot of real estate here.

Cons:

- Slow. Like, really obnoxiously slow most of the time. I press an icon and have to wait 2-3 seconds. I want to go back on a web page, I press back. No response. I go to press it again, and then suddenly it processes the last request, so now I've backed completely out of the browser.

- Camera. Unacceptably slow to load. For what I pay for the phone, it's completely unacceptable to have the camera app load so ******* slow. It's also 50/50 on taking a good shot. Because the phone is so obnoxiously slow, often times the shot becomes blurred by the time its finally snapped.

- Bulky. Look, all I wanted in life was a HTC Incredible with a slide out keyboard. This thing is surprisingly heavy. Even though I bought it for the keyboard, I find myself using the front screen because it takes so long for landscape mode when I extend the keyboard. No fun. Think about it, this thing weighs as much as (2) Quarter Pounders from McDonalds. If that's your thing, fattie.

- Call quality. If it weren't for the slowness to make me return this, the horrid audio quality would do this in. Persistent echo, static, just unpleasant to even have a conversation. I talk to everyone on speaker phone or Bluetooth because of this and the girth of the thing. The speaker is tinny and echoes too. It's not very loud either. I used to rock out to Pandora on my DINC, now I don't even bother.

- Screen. How many more negative things can I say, right? The screen is bright, but the colors are all ****ed up and weird. Whites seem really off. It hurts my eyes to use the screen.

- Battery. I'm not some ladyboy who just came from Blackberry and now cry bloody murder because I have to recharge every day. I accept that. I took the phone off of the charger at 8:30. By 1:30, it was at 40% battery life. I did the same exact routine with the DINC. By 1:30, it would be at 70%.

What an annoying phone. You're going to run slow AND drain the battery in the process to do it?

Overall: Do not like. The one thing it does very well, for me at least, is the keyboard. I'm very disappointed. It weighs too much, sounds like ****, screen is ****, do not want.

 

[spacecasespiff]

Well that was quiet the review of the d3. That's the worst one I've ever read about tnis phone. The first thing I will say is you need to do factory reset and that just might make your phone run faster and nelp your battery. I cam from a droid x that I had for 8 months and I would say that that phone was a great phone it was fast and solid. So already coming coming from a fast phone I do think that. The d3 is faster and it should be because of the duel core and I have to say it is. My phone is not slow at all I never wait more then 1 second for anything to open. Yes the camera is slow but its a phone not a camera so im good with it. I've has 0 issues with my call quality. People think im on a land line its that good. The screen is fantastic all around. I've compard to a dx and a samsung vibrant and I think its better then both of them. I just don't see why people don't like it and I've tried to hate but when people that have the iphone 4 say it looks almost as good as the retna screen that's pretty darn good. I like the fact that its heavy it make me think I've gota well made phone with meatal and not all plastic. Its after all a slide out with a keyboard so its gonna be kinda thick. I like that gives my something to hold on to. I love this phone I love moto phones I love the droid line of phones. I think that if anyone is having issues with there phone either take it back or do factory reset wich should fix most of there problems. But then again it might not.

 

[Johnly]

I like the D3. The screen is gorgeous and the keyboard is so good. I hope they exploit that camera and gain root! Lord knows it is slow ha ha!

 

[jayarh1]

anyone else's lock button hard to press as mine? it's like it stuck halfway in

 

[Markster1]

After being cockteased with the HTC Merge for the better part of 6 months, I was ready for something with a keyboard. After having this a couple of weeks, my thoughts:

Pros:

- Keyboard. It's really good. Keys are well spaced, very clickable, and just have an overall nice feel to them. The keyboard is a joy to use.

- Camera. Takes very good photos with some work. I shot 1080P footage at a football game, threw it up on a 52" LED TV, and we were all blown away by the quality.

- Screen size. A lot of real estate here.

Cons:

- Slow. Like, really obnoxiously slow most of the time. I press an icon and have to wait 2-3 seconds. I want to go back on a web page, I press back. No response. I go to press it again, and then suddenly it processes the last request, so now I've backed completely out of the browser.

- Camera. Unacceptably slow to load. For what I pay for the phone, it's completely unacceptable to have the camera app load so ******* slow. It's also 50/50 on taking a good shot. Because the phone is so obnoxiously slow, often times the shot becomes blurred by the time its finally snapped.

- Bulky. Look, all I wanted in life was a HTC Incredible with a slide out keyboard. This thing is surprisingly heavy. Even though I bought it for the keyboard, I find myself using the front screen because it takes so long for landscape mode when I extend the keyboard. No fun. Think about it, this thing weighs as much as (2) Quarter Pounders from McDonalds. If that's your thing, fattie.

- Call quality. If it weren't for the slowness to make me return this, the horrid audio quality would do this in. Persistent echo, static, just unpleasant to even have a conversation. I talk to everyone on speaker phone or Bluetooth because of this and the girth of the thing. The speaker is tinny and echoes too. It's not very loud either. I used to rock out to Pandora on my DINC, now I don't even bother.

- Screen. How many more negative things can I say, right? The screen is bright, but the colors are all ****ed up and weird. Whites seem really off. It hurts my eyes to use the screen.

- Battery. I'm not some ladyboy who just came from Blackberry and now cry bloody murder because I have to recharge every day. I accept that. I took the phone off of the charger at 8:30. By 1:30, it was at 40% battery life. I did the same exact routine with the DINC. By 1:30, it would be at 70%.

What an annoying phone. You're going to run slow AND drain the battery in the process to do it?

Overall: Do not like. The one thing it does very well, for me at least, is the keyboard. I'm very disappointed. It weighs too much, sounds like ****, screen is ****, do not want.

+1 I found the same problems as you. Only thing I liked was the keyboard. Went to a Dinc 2

Tapatalk on Incredible 2

 

[Wildo6882]

anyone else's lock button hard to press as mine? it's like it stuck halfway in

Yup, going to get a replacement phone right now. Hopefully it's better!

 

[oh ok then]

+1 I found the same problems as you. Only thing I liked was the keyboard. Went to a Dinc 2

Tapatalk on Incredible 2

Nice.

I am canceling my contract and flashing an EVO to Boost.

 

[Redx]

I have had my Droid 3 for 2 weeks. Came from Blackberry Bold. Phone is awesome! Camera takes amazing photos. Screen is big, clear and good touch recognition. Dislike that the camera takes 2-4 seconds to load up. But everything else works great. Battery isn't too bad, probally 60-70% by 5pm