When Google released its first Google phone with T-Mobile in 2008 the industry had high hopes. Here was an open source platform that would change the face of the industry and give Microsoft, Apple and anyone else who happened to be interested, a run for their money.

The problem was, that while the concept was there, the execution was poor. The G1 was a dog of a handset with a poor design and while sporting a promising interface, was lacking in many ways.?Here at Pocket-lint we gave it a 5/10 citing the handset as a "not consumer ready device" and one that you should steer clear of:

"Our suggestion would be to wait 6 months to a year and by then you'll have so many handset choices (perhaps even the Touch HD) that will offer a far better, sexier, more consumer focused, offering that this will be old news and look, well, rather crap. A great OS let down by a shoddy handset design."

And guess what? 6 months down the line we started to get those far better handset choices in the guise of the HTC Hero and Samsung i7500. Now a year to the day since we posted our G1 review, has Android, Motorola and Verizon brought a handset to market that is any better? Read on to find out.

As a quick background, it's worth pointing out that this handset has been created by three parties, all hoping to get something out of the deal. Motorola has built the hardware, which we will come to in a moment, Google provides the interface and Verizon the network.

Motorola or Verizon have, it seems, been allowed to interfere with the software implementation. There is no Motoblur, no operator bloatware and certainly nothing that isn't Google.

Motorola might have been "allowed" to slap a user interface on the CLIQ (DEXT in the UK) but here, they haven't even been allowed so much as nuance. Its job has been hardware, and hardware alone. Even the name, Droid, is going to be used by Verizon to create a family of handsets from a range of manufacturers.?Motorola is very much an OEM player in this threesome.

Sporting all the exciting features that you would expect (more in a moment) all of these features have been shoehorned into a handset that is surprisingly compact, but distinctively retro in its appeal. While the iPhone and iPhone 3GS is all about curves, the Droid by Motorola is about angles. It's not dainty by any stretch of the imagination.

Slightly thicker than the iPhone, it is weighty in the hand and comfortable in the pocket. It's not small, but its not HTC HD2 massive either.

Rather than opt for a white or silver, it's black and "brown sugar". That "brown sugar" will come across as "bling gold" though, and it's the first time we've seen gold on a phone that wasn't attempting to charge us thousands for the privilege. We're sorry to say that it's a bit too ostentatious for our liking. Luckily it's really only kept to three small details: the speaker grill on the rear, the d-pad on the front and the dedicated camera button.

There is a reason it has been called the Droid: the design, like a robot, has no emotion.

So what have they put inside? The key tech specs include a massive 3.7-inch screen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, Android 2.0 and a processor fast enough (550MHz) to power it all. Storage is offered by a 16GB microSD card that comes pre-installed (not hot swappable) and there is of course the usual bevy of connectivity technology such as GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Quad-Band and, because of Verizon, CDMA.

There is a 3.5mm jack and speaker for the music savvy and a small green light that flashes when you've got a message or alert of some sort. You can turn it off, but it will keep the BlackBerry switchers happy.

Gaming-wise the processor is powerful enough to cope and with built-in Open GL support for the games we played (Robo Defence amongst others). With only 256MB of available memory for apps, the move could limit what games (i.e., high octane graphic-filled) will work. It will certainly make developers lives harder.

On the camera front you get a 5-megapixel camera with the ability to capture video at DVD quality up to 24fps and zoom in 4x via a digital zoom. There is a dual LED flash and it features automatic focus.

Within the camera application itself, which is turned on by pressing the dedicated button on the side of the handset, you have some control over the way the camera acts. There is of course the usual still and video modes and a quick access point to the photo galleries. There is also the ability to change the settings of your images like White Balance, Scene mode, Flash mode, Color effect, Store location, Picture size, Picture quality and Focus Mode.?Scenes offered include Portrait, Night, and the like but there is no Macro.

In use and the camera struggled to autofocus on our subjects. You get a warning and the ability to take an image still, but what's the point if it's blurry? This is a nice addition rather than a reason to buy just like most phones that aren't camera focused. Dedicated compact cameras don't have too much to worry about just yet.

Then there is the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Used landscape it instantly reminds us of the HTC Touch Pro from 2008. The keys are arranged across four rows and lay flat. You'll either love or loathe this as it doesn't give you any indication of where you are on the keyboard - one of the key reasons for going QWERTY over touch. Next to the keyboard there is an overly-large d-pad.

Of course you don't really have to ever slide-out the keyboard as the phone's 3.7-inch touchscreen combined with Android's landscape and portrait keyboards, don't need you to. The screen is bright and as crisp as any other screen in the market that isn't OLED. Beneath the screen are four quick shortcut keys: back, menu, home and search and they get you to where you want to go quickly. All are touch-sensitive and all are built into the glass screen so it's a continuation, like the BlackBerry Storm 2, rather than four separate buttons.

Physical buttons, aside from the hidden keyboard, are kept to a minimum: dedicated camera, volume and lock. Even though it has a QWERTY keyboard, those keys are really just for that. There is no "Mail" key or five ways of accessing the home screen as can found on your average Nokia.

Power it on and the fun starts. Someone, somewhere, clearly has a sense of humour. While the notion of a HAL-esque eye looking out at me sends shivers down my spine every time I've booted the system, the fact that is plays an audio clip that says "Droid" in a robot accent does make you giggle. Expect yourself, if you sign up for this handset, to be boring you friends for days, if not weeks.

If you've used Android before you will know what to expect. As we said at the beginning, this is very much a Google experience. There are no tricks, no Sense UI elements, no Motoblur. You get a desktop, and the slide-out draw for your applications and that's it.

Sporting Android 2.0 there are a number of new features that have been added to the mix to justify getting this over the HTC Hero - for the time-being (HTC have confirmed 2.0 will be coming to the Hero). The OS is quick and nippy in use.

Android 2.0 offers more functionality improvements over 1.6, rather than visual flair or excitement in the same way that perhaps Apple concentrates on. But it's the little things that can soon add up to make it better than the sum of its parts.

One of those is the ability to mute the handset with a swipe of your finger before unlocking it. The other is the search box that like the Palm Pre and iPhone allows you to search the phone, and its data straight away. Where it beats the iPhone is that it automatically starts searching the web for you, integrating those results into the mix as well.

Among the improvements will be email and contact syncing with multiple?accounts from multiple sources, Exchange sync support, a combined inbox for those multiple email accounts, better calendar, improvements in address book UI, loads of camera improvements including flash, digital zoom and a macro mode, a better virtual keyboard, improved graphics, three-point multi-touch, a better browser and Bluetooth 2.1.

Setting up email was (almost) straightforward. Gmail users will be able to punch in their username and password, while Google Apps users will have to make sure they are running all the right software on their domain. We had to enable Google Talk (Chat) before it would allow us to sign in to the service - cunning.

If you are a Google Apps user it will automatically sync everything to the phone. Contacts, Calendar dates, the lot. It's very pain free, In fact the most pain-free install we've ever experienced. Multiple calendars, multiple contacts, and over 10,000 emails accessible in about 60 seconds. This is very much the essence of Android for those already in the Google system.

As for browsing the phone as you covered too. It's not iPhone easy yet, but there are lots of impressive new features. The main one is that when you load up a page you get a full "desktop" view of the page you are looking at. Double tapping zooms you in to the page, but frustratingly there is no pinch zoom or multi-touch support. We aren't sure why as it's on the HTC Hero and the lack of it makes the browser harder to use. You do get zoom buttons, but they aren't the same.

We also noticed some strange page layout issues with the browser (see picture) that while not impeding your browsing experience completely, isn't how those pages were designed.?YouTube videos are playable and loaded into the handset's media player. It's a painless experience.

One of the biggest elements to gain excitement on the launch of the Droid by Motorola and Android 2.0 was the introduction of Google Maps Navigation. Currently only available on the Droid, it brings true turn-based GPS to the phone for free.

The new offering aims to take on the GPS hardcore from TomTom and Garmin by offering a fully-functional GPS device in your phone. Users can speak their directions to the handset rather than having to type them in and access maps and Points of Interest via the "cloud", suggesting mapping updates and new features needed to be downloaded will be a thing of the past.

In practice and it's as good as it sounds. Telling a phone to "Navigate" to a destination is very Start Trek.?Feeling peckish, our first request was to "Navigate to pizza in Hoboken". After it analysed our dulcet tones, it then offered us a number of pizza restaurants in Hoboken with the option to click on one to give us directions. No multiple menu systems, no working out where they were - just a phrase and off we go.

While the system waits for the GPS to kick in you get a run through of the route and then there are a series of different views you can catch including 2D, 3D, and Street View. You can also overlay layers on to the maps such as live traffic (where supported), Satellite, and Points of Interest like ATMs, Gas Stations and Car Parks.

The software does take some getting used to, we struggled at first, and it doesn't seem to be as intuitive from the outset as TomTom or Garmin. It lacks that experience of helping people out get from A to B, like easily finding recent destinations. There also is valueable information that is missing from the "dashboard", like estimated time of arrival, the ability to block roads, and other niceties that you just expect from even the cheapest PNDs. The voice is pretty ropey as well, and of course, you are dependent on downloading your maps too.

The performance is good, but Google has a long way before the dedicated manufacturers should really start the firesale.?This is a free GPS solution and therefore one that isn't to be sniffed at, just don't expect to ditch your dedicated device just yet.

Being the most advanced Android handset on the block currently has its benefits, mainly that you have full access to virtually all of the apps in the Android Marketplace. While our recent review of the HTC Tattoo found that there is currently plenty missing from the lower end phones, this didn't seem to be the case here.?

So you've got your new phone, it's a funky new shape and there isn't the massive eco system. While the Droid doesn't come with speaker docks and cases, Verizon is offering two accessories that make perfect sense. The first is a docking station for your nightstand, the second is a windscreen cradle so you can use the Google Maps Navigation. Both cost $30 and really are just cleverly designed bits of plastic with magnets in the right place to activate software on the phone - hence the cheap price.

The docking cradle loads a dashboard style interface that lets the phone become a glorified alarm clock. It works too. You get a big clock, the weather, access to your music and photos as well as the ability to dim the light so you can sleep. There is also a quick button to the alarm settings. We really like it. It's a neat idea first seen on the BlackBerry Bold and one that is welcomed here. The car mount does a similar thing and loads the navigation interface. It doesn't however go the one step further - like the TomTom for iPhone cradle - and boost the GPS signal, but Google has confirmed to us that it would be possible within Android to do it if a manufacturer wanted to.

Verdict:

It's the question that everyone will ask, so we might as well get it out of the way now - is this an iPhone or HTC Hero killer? And the answer is no.

Where the Droid by Motorola or Motorola Droid, as it will no doubt be known, succeeds is that it offers you a state of the art experience of Android 2.0 on a network that has flawless telephone reception across the country. Against the iPhone, which is a multimedia internet device first and a telephone second, that will be a deal clincher for many.

In tests around New York, a notorious AT&T blackspot, the Droid outperformed the iPhone when it came to network connectivity every time.?Get past the small detail of making phone calls and there are some really nice features here. The docking station, the ease of setup and the sheer list of tech specs make this no slouch.

But there are issues. The QWERTY keyboard isn't that great, no multi-touch in browsing is frustrating, and the Google Maps offering is close but not quite there yet.

In fact the best way to think of this handset is the true sequel to the T-Mobile G1. For some, especially those who don't like the idea of their OS being meddled with (a la the Sense UI) this will be their calling. To others looking for that graphical eye candy you won't get it here.

This is a fantastic phone, but would we personally choose it over the Hero? Not if the Hero, as suggested by HTC, will be getting Android 2.0.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Motorola Verizon Google Motorola Droid Android

Droid by Motorola mobile phone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:09:29 +0000

The Motorola DEXT is a QWERTY side slider running the Android OS, so differentiates itself from recent touch-only handsets out there. It's a format that divides people: if your touch system is good enough - like the HTC Hero or the iPhone - you potentially don't need the physical keyboard.

The phone is weighty enough to be taken seriously at 163g and seems to be solidly constructed. There is some creak and movement around the slide mechanism, but it feels positive enough, and should last your perhaps lengthy contract. The choice of materials is good: although plastics are used throughout, it stays relatively free from fingerprints.

The design though is something of an oddity. It features a 3.1-inch, 320 x 480 pixel, touchscreen display, but that sliding keyboard does account for it being a rather chunky phone. It measures 58 x 114 x 15.85mm, so is relatively thick, but if you like keyboards, that shouldn't put you off.

It is at first glance similar to the LG GW520 in design, although Motorola have made the bottom slightly larger than the top. Rather than an almost seamless fusion of the two halves like the Palm Pre, you can't help but notice you're holding two distinct lumps. Unusually the button labels on the right-hand side for the lock/power and camera shutter are almost obscured by the screen (when closed) and once the phone is opened, the buttons are then lurking around the back of the screen and difficult to get to.

Other hard buttons include a volume rocker on the left, with a neat hard slider that turns the ringer off. A Micro-USB socket sits on the left side too. The top features a 3.5mm jack for your headphones.

Around the back of the phone is a 5-megapixel camera, lacking a flash. Given a steady hand and plenty of light, the DEXT will give you a decent image. It suffers the normal problems of shutter lag, an inability to deal with high contrast scenes and noise in shadows and low light however.

The video capture is a surprising let-down for this level of device. It records at a maximum of 352 x 288 (HVGA) at 24fps, which is notable only because of the low resolution. The results are of little use, fine as novelty, but in the age of sharing via YouTube the DEXT won't compete with other handsets.

Motorola has tackled the social networking trend with Motoblur. Like the INQ, HTC's Sense UI and more recent Vodafone 360 People application, it tackles your existing online existence by mashing this information up together - hence the "blur". Essentially, like the Sense UI, it is a skin that sits over Android to make things immediately more user friendly.

First-up it presents you with five customisable pages that you can thumb between. Each of these pages can be populated with widgets, folders, shortcuts to applications or contacts and so on. The widget selection is good too covering most bases.

When you take your shiny new Motorola DEXT out of the box, you are asked to supply your details for various social networks and services: Google, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Picasa, LastFM and Photobucket are all ready to rock. You can also add POP or IMAP accounts as well as setup your Exchange email. Email refresh is a rather slow 15 minutes at the fastest setting.

Your Google account is already central to the Android experience and a simple way of bringing your contacts and calendars to the fore. Motoblur takes this a step further and integrates information from the other networks so you have one uber contacts list and one uber update stream.

The uber update stream is what Happenings essentially is. It will sit as a widget on the home page and pump updates at you. Sounds great, and for light social networkers, it is. For Facebook updates it works well, giving you the chance to see things happen and respond, without opening up a separate Facebook app.

It's a nice idea and it seems to work well enough, but it isn't without its problems. Occasionally we found the blur too literal: when Happenings just didn't update. There doesn't seem to be a way to force a refresh either, it just tells you that you're looking at an update from 6 hours ago.

Heavy Twitter users might also find that having 500+ Happenings a day is a little to much to bear. Fortunately you can filter the Happenings application (rather than the widget) to display only one of your streams, so you can then scroll through Twitter in a more traditional format.

Of course, this being an Android handset, you could opt out of the Twitter integration and install Twidroid (or whatever) through the Android Market. As with the iPhone's App Store, new apps are always appearing and there is plenty of choice to make your handset do what you want it to.

Happenings aside, Motoblur gives you a great Contacts book. Taking your existing Google Contacts, adding in Facebook pictures (or Twitter pics) and mashing all that information together is impressive.

Open up a contact and you have all your options to communicate with that person. You can phone, text, email them, message them on Twitter, you can write on their Facebook wall or Poke them, or use IM. You'll find their birthday there. When you place a call, you'll see their latest status on the calling screen - an instant ice breaker, or something to avoid asking about.

You also get a Messaging widget, which will filter out your direct messages so they aren't languishing in your uber Happenings stream. Messaging will give you Twitter direct messages, Facebook messages and emails all in one pot, with a universal inbox for everything and the option to flip through to individual accounts to make things easier to view.

The capacitive touchscreen looks good and has a nice sharp resolution, making it great for watching video content. There is no Flash support here as yet, but we suspect it will be along shortly.

The touch interface is responsive enough, but isn't foolproof. Flicking through pages in Motoblur is slick and arriving at a page (usually) delivers real live information. Flicking through Happenings pages likewise has a reassuring speed, only occasionally slowed down by the likes of images from a Twitter picture change and the like.

But lag does creep in on occasion, especially switching around some of the richer content. We also found that sometimes you'll just get no response. You'll be tapping a widget waiting for it to open and nothing will happen. These feel like software issues and hopefully can be rectified with an update from Motorola.

The onscreen keyboard is pretty good, giving you a pop-up letter to confirm a press. Press and hold gives you the character alternatives and as you write you get predictive suggestions in a narrow bar above the keyboard. You get onscreen QWERTY in both landscape and portrait modes, although not all applications will flip to landscape when the physical keyboard is closed.

The landscape onscreen QWERTY keyboard gives you a little more space for the keys, but you do lose much of what you were looking at. The keyboards are relatively fast, but don't match the iPhone for satisfying precision.

However, chances are that you want the DEXT because of the slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Unfortunately it isn't the best it could be. The keys are all individual, but sit flush to each other. This lack of separation means it's all too easy to hit a neighbouring key. If they were smaller, ironically, the keyboard might have been better, as it is in the LG GW520.

Specific weaknesses lie around the alt and spacebar, which are too indistinct ranged across the bottom with a Google search shortcut, symbol and back key. Google search is great, but not in the middle of your normal typing keys. There is no sign of hold a key for caps either, which is a useful addition when bashing out semi-formal emails.

The keyboard is backlit and when you punch the alt key, the alternative characters on the keys light up too, which is great for using in the dark. The four-way navigator on the left-hand edge is excellent, picking its way through webpage fields and navi buttons, or navigating menus, without the need to constantly switch between keyboard and screen control.

The browser is reasonably good too (and you can always download another if you don't like it). The browser was quick to load full pages, giving you all the content. Zoom is handled by a quick press on the icons on-screen - not as elegant as the iPhone, but works well enough. A quick scan navigator lets you jump back and run down the page to the thing you want, before jumping you back in to read the content.

You can also have multiple pages open with ease, and it's easy to grab a link and share through the medium of your choice in Motoblur.

A widget will allow music control from the front pages, with basic pause and skip controls. Dump your music on the microSD card hiding under the back cover and it is quickly arranged in to songs, album, artist and playlist.

In terms of hardware you have everything you'd expect from an Android device. You have HSDPA with Wi-Fi to ease the data burden and Bluetooth. You get AGPS, with geotagging of images and Google Maps, with Orange Maps preloaded on the UK Orange edition of the phone. You also get a digital compass, accelerometer and proximity sensor, so it knows when it is next to your face.

Battery life is something of a let down though so you'll have to charge it every night. A heavy day of calls will mean you need to top it up during the day too.

Verdict:
But there is one more thing that disappoints with the Motorola DEXT and it's surprising: it's a poor phone for making calls. Yes, like the iPhone, the design means it is uncomfortable against your ear when make conventional phonecalls, thanks to a hard plastic ridge at the top of the screen. The speaker for calling is also poor and distorts heavily when you turn the volume up. If you happen to be somewhere noisy or someone is especially quiet on the phone, you'll never hear them.

So yes, there are criticisms, some of which may or may not bother you. The keyboard could be better, the video capture could be better. Motoblur's Happenings can become overwhelming. These things you'll have to live with, whilst the application switching lag, update downtime and occasional freezes could potentially be ironed out with software updates.

We loved the richness that Motoblur brought to contacts, filling them with information. We also like the fact the remote wipe, backup and a "locate my phone" service will be offered through the Motoblur website.

Overall, the Motorola DEXT is a good addition to the Android portfolio, but can be bettered. It's good to see Motorola taking the initiative and providing consumers with the sort of device they'll want. And if it's a QWERTY Android handset you want, then it is well worth looking at.

Tags: Phones Mobile phones Motorola Motorola Dext Motorola CLIQ Android Motorola Dext

Motorola DEXT mobile phone originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:09:03 +0100