Rumors about the Droid X have swirled around the Web for a while, as people wondered what the follow-up to Motorola's popular Droid phone would offer. Now we know. Motorola and Verizon Wireless have taken the wraps off of the Droid X, a smartphone they are calling "a pocket-sized home theater."
Price and Availability
The The Droid X will cost $199.99 when you sign a new two-year service contract with Verizon Wireless. The phone will be available on July 15. That price is the same as what AT&T is charging for a 16GB iPhone 4 and what Sprint is charging for the HTC EVO 4G.
Design
The Droid X features a different look than its predecessor, the original Motorola Droid. The X is more rounded in shape than the boxy Droid, and sports physical buttons below the screen (Menu, Home, Back, and Search) rather than the touch-sensitive buttons found on the Droid.
The Droid X also is lighter and thinner than the original Droid, in large part because this all-touch-screen phone lacks the slide-out keyboard found on the Droid. If you rely on a hardware keyboard, this news may disappoint you. But I found the original Droid's keyboard too flat and slick to make typing easy.
The new Droid X also features a much larger display than its predecessor. Measuring 4.3 inches diagonally, the screen is the same size as the mammoth display found on the HTC EVO 4G. It sports a resolution of 854 by 480 pixels, which should make images look sharp. The display also supports multi-touch, so it will register more than one tap at a time.
Software
The Droid X will ship with Android 2.1, which is a slight disappointment, as this is no longer the latest version of the Android OS. Android has since been updated to version 2.2. The X should be updated to Android 2.2 later this summer.
For more details on Android, read my complete review of the mobile OS.
In addition to the Android OS, the Droid X features Motorola's Motoblur user interface, which syncs information across your e-mail account, social networks, photo sharing services, and more. All of your contacts are collected in one master list, from which you can browse their activity on various sites and services and your communication history with them.
I have mixed feelings about Motoblur. While it offers an easy way to see a lot of information from different sources, it can, at times, offer too much information. When I tested Motoblur on the Motorola Cliq, for example, I found that all of the Motoblur widgets tended to overwhelm the phone's home page. It has been reported that the version of Motoblur on the Droid X has been toned down a bit, though, so this would be a welcome change.
High-Speed Wireless
Despite the similarities between the HTC EVO 4G and the Droid X, there is one important difference between the two phones: only the HTC EVO 4G supports super-speedy 4G networks. The Droid X supports Verizon's high-speed 3G network, though, as well as Wi-Fi wireless networks.
The Droid X also can be used as a Wi-Fi hotspot itself, to which you can connect as many as five wireless device for Internet access. This feature requires an extra $20-per-month service plan, however.
Camera
Like the Droid Incredible and the EVO 4G, the Droid X features an 8-megapixel camera. The camera includes a dual flash, and can capture videos in HD.
Multimedia
Verizon and Motorola are touting the Droid X as a multimedia powerhouse, and the phone's multimedia offerings do look impressive. The 4.3-inch high-resolution screen offers a big, bright canvas for watching movies. And using Verizon's V CAST service, you can now access movies from BlockBuster On Demand right on your phone.
The Droid X also comes with an HDMI port, so you can connect it to your HDTV for viewing video content on your big screen. In addition the phone is DLNA-compatible, so you should be able to use it to stream video content to set-top boxes that share that certification.
Bottom Line
On paper, the Droid X looks to be one of the most impressive smartphones available today. Stay tuned for a full review to see if the performance lives up to the hype.