Wouldn't going to the store to compare be better? Comparing different screens through yet another screen seems kinda odd to me.
I'm more curious how this screen compares to droid charge, or maybe even xperia play.
Droid X2 First Impressions/Reviews
- Thread starter terpitude71
- Start date
Wouldn't going to the store to compare be better? Comparing different screens through yet another screen seems kinda odd to me.
I'm more curious how this screen compares to droid charge, or maybe even xperia play.
JoJoCal19
Well-known member
Nah. I'm familiar with how the TB screen looks and I just want to see what the qHD screen looks like. I'm 40 minutes either direction from my closest Verizon corp stores and it's really not worth it for me to burn the gas just to look at the DX2 screen.
Yea, but can you really get a feel of the screen through your monitor? Not to mention it would be a picture of a screen seen from a monitor.
I know for a fact that Flickr butchers colors somewhere between the upload and the posting. Ie, same pic on the same monitor, side by side, the flickr image looks terrible compared to the actual picture file.
Another observation - this thing gets very hot very fast... It seems to be a common thing for all the dual core phones...
I found this X2 and TB screen comparison review YouTube - Motorola Droid X2 Hands On and ThunderBolt Screen Comparison
Sorry for the long response, but hopefully some can benefit from my experience. I am coming from a Blackberry Tour, which I pre-ordered back over 2 years ago when it first came out. My tour was my first smartphone coming from a flip phone that I only used for voice. Once on the BB, I only mainly used it to SMS and data. I then expanded my use to Camera/video, calendar for work (Lotus Notes believe it or not), google maps, google calendar, three email accounts (hotmail, gmail, verizon blackberry.net), weatherbug, memopad, sports scores, facebook, twitter, nfl redzone, bed side alarm clock in a dock, flashlight.
Aesthetics - Very nice phone to interact with. Like the smooth rubberized feel of the phone in the hand. Very light phone to hold. Fits in hand nicely. Sits nicely on table with the camera hump.
Screen - Large and very easy to read. Screen auto adjusts in sunlight, but you can still see the finger prints on the phone. Screen is so close to the edge and sensitive that I still catch myself accidentally selecting something i did not mean to.
Hardware- Very quick phone. When on wi-fi I prefer to use it over my Dell Inspiron 1000 laptop. Using the second core for more of the display rendering the only hiccups are only actually waiting for the data to download. I have had the screen lock up for about one minute and a reboot, but it was also attached to my laptop messing with an initial sync of the data SD cards to PC.
Phone - Both blue tooth and speaker phone work very good. Speaker seems to be plenty load. Wish the FM Radio app would play over the speaker as it needs headphone for antenna, but this is more an app issue. I have only used the actual phone over blue tooth so far.
Overall User Interface (including Motoblur) - I like the UI. Took some getting use to it coming from Blackberry Tour. To make a comparison of going from a MAC to a Window PC. So many ways to get to where you want that there are too many options. I just have to figure out my way.
Widgets - I am liking widgets very much. So far only loaded weatherbug temp and time one. Seems to update slow. The temp can be different between the weather-bug temp in my notification bar and the widget on my home screen. I know a little over kill, but I am a server weather spotter in my free time. So it is important to me.
Signal quality - Same as my BB tour. I download the app to find signal strength of the cell phone tower along with there location. I drove around a bit and it went from tower to tower very good. Although in my area it is a very strong 3G area.
GPS - No problems and very quick in finding and tracking my location. Used the nav app from Best Buy to my home on a very stormy night and it tracked me withing single digit meters all the way. My Tour has a tendency to not get a lock during storms. But once again I can usually pick up double digit GPS satellites in my area, although I have not downloaded that app yet on the driod x2.
Social Networking - Like the social media stream having facebook and twitter in one spot, but also can just go look at them individually. Only had one problem of a link within a link one a facebook posting.
Email/Calendar- I have already converted all my main email to gmail and google calendar. I have an app that takes my Lotus Notes calendar at work and put it on my google calendar. I have not tried to get my hotmail calendar synced up yet, but that would be just a nice to have any email calendar on one droid calendar. Added all my email accounts (gmail, hotmail, yahoo) with no problems. My blackberry email got shut down on the conversion. One thing that is different, is that I could take one of my emails and light up the LED when a new message came in on my Tour. Have not figured that one out yet. Anyone know how?
Battery Life - Battery life so far is much shorter that my BB tour. I have been trying to push the droid to it's limit to begin with (GPS, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, 10 min screen timeout, constant use) and I have not been able to last longer than 6 hours. But once I get into my normal routine again, will post an update if it will last me all day. But I don't expect it to match up with a BB tour.
Performance - Faster than I expected. Put this on WiFi and it goes instantly on any app. 3G the app comes up the same, but the data is a tad slower. Web pages are very quick to load also.
Media - Transferred my 16G SD with all my music, photos, vids from BB tour to Droid without problems. Streaming NFL Live video looks good and will look better once hook it up HDMI to the big screen. Did i say NFL red zone channel this fall will be great, if we have nfl. Did music on headphones and speaker good. Did FM radio on headphones while mowing the lawn and could hear it just fine.
Keyboard's - onscreen keyboard is taking some getting use to. Can only seem to type in landscape mode (in which a 4.3 screen pays off), but I like the word suggestions as you type. I do find myself missing a track ball mouse when trying to go back in a sentence to correct words. But I will adapt.
Camera - The camera is one of the best I have had. The continuous focus really pays off when trying to snap those action shots. It is very quick to snap the shot and be ready to take another one. I have not tried the video yet, but expect the same. Indoor zooms seemed to get a little grainy, but outdoors picture zooms were great. Wish it had more zoom on it, then I could truly replace my stand alone camera.
How the Droid X2 compares to your previous smartphone - Enough said on that above.
Disappointments - Verizon not selling this until Thursday in the stores, but could order online for delivery. Had to go to best buy to get immediately. Wish apps would completely close when exiting. Wish there was another way to go back other than the physical button. Physical buttons have a slight clicking sound and that is one of the reasons I did not buy a BB storm. Will see if it is noticeable in work meetings next week. Miss a physical camera button or a configurable physical button. Miss going to phone sleep putting in a holster, although I do like the droid x2 face in open holster. Miss changing the vibrate/ring when holstering.
Any questions let me know. I am still waiting for my car dock, home dock, HDMI cable to be delivered.
Mike out.
Aesthetics - Very nice phone to interact with. Like the smooth rubberized feel of the phone in the hand. Very light phone to hold. Fits in hand nicely. Sits nicely on table with the camera hump.
Screen - Large and very easy to read. Screen auto adjusts in sunlight, but you can still see the finger prints on the phone. Screen is so close to the edge and sensitive that I still catch myself accidentally selecting something i did not mean to.
Hardware- Very quick phone. When on wi-fi I prefer to use it over my Dell Inspiron 1000 laptop. Using the second core for more of the display rendering the only hiccups are only actually waiting for the data to download. I have had the screen lock up for about one minute and a reboot, but it was also attached to my laptop messing with an initial sync of the data SD cards to PC.
Phone - Both blue tooth and speaker phone work very good. Speaker seems to be plenty load. Wish the FM Radio app would play over the speaker as it needs headphone for antenna, but this is more an app issue. I have only used the actual phone over blue tooth so far.
Overall User Interface (including Motoblur) - I like the UI. Took some getting use to it coming from Blackberry Tour. To make a comparison of going from a MAC to a Window PC. So many ways to get to where you want that there are too many options. I just have to figure out my way.
Widgets - I am liking widgets very much. So far only loaded weatherbug temp and time one. Seems to update slow. The temp can be different between the weather-bug temp in my notification bar and the widget on my home screen. I know a little over kill, but I am a server weather spotter in my free time. So it is important to me.
Signal quality - Same as my BB tour. I download the app to find signal strength of the cell phone tower along with there location. I drove around a bit and it went from tower to tower very good. Although in my area it is a very strong 3G area.
GPS - No problems and very quick in finding and tracking my location. Used the nav app from Best Buy to my home on a very stormy night and it tracked me withing single digit meters all the way. My Tour has a tendency to not get a lock during storms. But once again I can usually pick up double digit GPS satellites in my area, although I have not downloaded that app yet on the driod x2.
Social Networking - Like the social media stream having facebook and twitter in one spot, but also can just go look at them individually. Only had one problem of a link within a link one a facebook posting.
Email/Calendar- I have already converted all my main email to gmail and google calendar. I have an app that takes my Lotus Notes calendar at work and put it on my google calendar. I have not tried to get my hotmail calendar synced up yet, but that would be just a nice to have any email calendar on one droid calendar. Added all my email accounts (gmail, hotmail, yahoo) with no problems. My blackberry email got shut down on the conversion. One thing that is different, is that I could take one of my emails and light up the LED when a new message came in on my Tour. Have not figured that one out yet. Anyone know how?
Battery Life - Battery life so far is much shorter that my BB tour. I have been trying to push the droid to it's limit to begin with (GPS, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, 10 min screen timeout, constant use) and I have not been able to last longer than 6 hours. But once I get into my normal routine again, will post an update if it will last me all day. But I don't expect it to match up with a BB tour.
Performance - Faster than I expected. Put this on WiFi and it goes instantly on any app. 3G the app comes up the same, but the data is a tad slower. Web pages are very quick to load also.
Media - Transferred my 16G SD with all my music, photos, vids from BB tour to Droid without problems. Streaming NFL Live video looks good and will look better once hook it up HDMI to the big screen. Did i say NFL red zone channel this fall will be great, if we have nfl. Did music on headphones and speaker good. Did FM radio on headphones while mowing the lawn and could hear it just fine.
Keyboard's - onscreen keyboard is taking some getting use to. Can only seem to type in landscape mode (in which a 4.3 screen pays off), but I like the word suggestions as you type. I do find myself missing a track ball mouse when trying to go back in a sentence to correct words. But I will adapt.
Camera - The camera is one of the best I have had. The continuous focus really pays off when trying to snap those action shots. It is very quick to snap the shot and be ready to take another one. I have not tried the video yet, but expect the same. Indoor zooms seemed to get a little grainy, but outdoors picture zooms were great. Wish it had more zoom on it, then I could truly replace my stand alone camera.
How the Droid X2 compares to your previous smartphone - Enough said on that above.
Disappointments - Verizon not selling this until Thursday in the stores, but could order online for delivery. Had to go to best buy to get immediately. Wish apps would completely close when exiting. Wish there was another way to go back other than the physical button. Physical buttons have a slight clicking sound and that is one of the reasons I did not buy a BB storm. Will see if it is noticeable in work meetings next week. Miss a physical camera button or a configurable physical button. Miss going to phone sleep putting in a holster, although I do like the droid x2 face in open holster. Miss changing the vibrate/ring when holstering.
Any questions let me know. I am still waiting for my car dock, home dock, HDMI cable to be delivered.
Mike out.
ottscay
Well-known member
Nice summary Mike. A few notes for you: The ability to go back and select words to correct gets infinitely better once you get the Gingerbread update (should be a couple weeks tops). The UI gets even faster on Gingerbread as well. The physical buttons will always make that sound (I expect you know this), or at least mine still do 9 months later.
As for closing apps when you leave them - Android will eventually close them. The thing is to not think of it as being analgous to to the BBOS. Some of the threads that are kept open are done so because they can be shared across different apps (that is, it actually speeds up opening of different apps) and of course you can instantly go back to those apps. Unlike on BBs where the memory just leaks and leaks until you have to restart, the OS's trash collector does a good job of cleaning out the memory as time goes on (in fact, it gets better after a couple days). And once again, Gingerbread does an even better job at this.
Anyhow, glad you're enjoying your new phone! I think I may have to trade in my X for an X2 at some point...
As for closing apps when you leave them - Android will eventually close them. The thing is to not think of it as being analgous to to the BBOS. Some of the threads that are kept open are done so because they can be shared across different apps (that is, it actually speeds up opening of different apps) and of course you can instantly go back to those apps. Unlike on BBs where the memory just leaks and leaks until you have to restart, the OS's trash collector does a good job of cleaning out the memory as time goes on (in fact, it gets better after a couple days). And once again, Gingerbread does an even better job at this.
Anyhow, glad you're enjoying your new phone! I think I may have to trade in my X for an X2 at some point...
I was watching a review and I see that the X2 comes with Motorola's new Task Manager. If you want certain apps to close when the screen turns off for 2 minutes, you can add apps to the auto-end list.
Motorola Task Manager
Thanks. Yes I was playing with the task manager a little bit. I was just afraid that I was going to auto stop something important. The Best Buy guy mentioned to download it, but it was already on the phone and on one of the home screens also.
delco714
Well-known member
I was thinking about buying this phone instead of waiting for the Bionic... what has the speeds of your 3G been on this phone? I have an OG droid and my 3G is about 300 kB/s download, completely awful. I want to junk this phone right now. I'm thinking part of it is the phone. At this point it can't even send MMS picture messages anymore! I live in the suburbs of Long Island, 20+ miles from NYC, so 4G is very strong in this area... what should I do? PS I use wifi all the time at home. But I don't have wifi at school or work, of which I spend plenty of time at. Additionally, I need a future proof phone that will last 2 yrs. I am in medicine so I have a lot of pertinent apps that must access internet and function exactly how and when I need them consistently.
After spending the weekend with it, I am returning it.
It is a good phone but not a great phone. The biggest issues are the battery life and the fact that it is not very smooth. The battery is not lasting more than 8 hours for me and the phone seems to get stuck doing certain tasks that the Atrix does without any hiccups. I'll wait for the next Droid X...
It is a good phone but not a great phone. The biggest issues are the battery life and the fact that it is not very smooth. The battery is not lasting more than 8 hours for me and the phone seems to get stuck doing certain tasks that the Atrix does without any hiccups. I'll wait for the next Droid X...
I'm just curious, are you using the task manager to disable tasks and if yes, how is the battery performance after?
Yes, auto kill off apps that I did not need running in the background. So far the best thing I have found on battery savings is to go into the Settings > Battery & data manager > Battery Mode > Select Maximum Battery saver. Going from 7am until 3pm and at 60% battery level. Light use while at work. Will report if I make it thru the day.
Update: I started using it heavily again around 6pm and it got me to 8pm and that was a complete drain to shutdown. One thing I noticed is that once you drain it all the way, putting it on the charger the battery meter still says 0% after 40 minutes on the charger and won't let me power it back up yet. Just displays the 0% battery charging on the screen. Anyone know if this is a way it is calibrating the battery somehow? I have always let new devices drain the battery all the way down on the first couple of cycles, but have never seen it take so long to just be able to get enough charge to boot up.
Update to my Update: Update on the charging. Still 0% after 1 hour. I unplugged the charger cable and plugged it right back in and it said I have 60% charge and it booted right up. Hummmm!
Last edited:
Probably mentioned here and in some other threads, but I have had great luck with JuiceDefender on my D2. Perhaps it could improve the X2 also.
My D2 always seemed to have a significant drain if I drove with the phone in my pocket, it was at least 10%/hour without use. I mean, I had every sync set for manual and still it had a drain from the radio when it had signal issues.
However with JuiceDefender it has no measurable loss because I have it controlling the wifi and mobile data. I have it set to turn off wifi when it loses signal, but also I have it set to stay on otherwise. Also the mobile data set to turn off with the screen.
My guess is the mobile data 3G draws significant power when weakened such as in the pocket, but just the cell connection for voice + text is insignificant, so that's why I like that I can turn it off with the screen using JuiceDefender. The free version if fine.
My D2 always seemed to have a significant drain if I drove with the phone in my pocket, it was at least 10%/hour without use. I mean, I had every sync set for manual and still it had a drain from the radio when it had signal issues.
However with JuiceDefender it has no measurable loss because I have it controlling the wifi and mobile data. I have it set to turn off wifi when it loses signal, but also I have it set to stay on otherwise. Also the mobile data set to turn off with the screen.
My guess is the mobile data 3G draws significant power when weakened such as in the pocket, but just the cell connection for voice + text is insignificant, so that's why I like that I can turn it off with the screen using JuiceDefender. The free version if fine.
Nope. I think this is something with Moto's lowlevel software. I have friends on the Defy, and one on the Atrix who complained about this same thing. My OG Droid running 2.3.4 still does it too.
Moto has good hardware... But they need to invest heavily in the software...
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