Motorola DROID Does? A Deep Dive Look


Design



The DROID has a boxy design in comparison to the iPhone and many other smartphones today that have rounded corners and edges. The edges of the DROID are harder with angular slopes. The body is comprised of a mix of plastic and metal and the phone has a very solid feel overall. When you consider this phone has a full hardware keyboard, the overall thickness is really quite impressive.


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The large, 3.7-inch, high-resolution display covers the majority of the front of the handset. The screen does tend to attract fingerprints but we didn't notice a problem with performance even when there were a number of fingerprints on the screen.



Below the screen, you'll find four capacitive buttons (Back, Menu, Home, and Search). There's a short ledge below these buttons since the lower portion of the slider is a bit longer than the upper. This small strip has a small microphone hole that is visible when the device is closed or open.


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The top of the DROID slides to the right to reveal the aforementioned QWERTY keyboard. The slider is smooth, though unlike other sliders we've seen, it doesn’t slide and automatically snap into place. Instead, you'll need to use a tiny bit more force to slide the screen. Once settled, it clicks firmly into place. The keyboard itself is wide and mostly flush. At first, we weren't very fond of the overall feel of the keyboard because of its flat and closely-placed keys, but soon, we felt right at home typing away. The keyboard is also backlit, which is a nice touch. A 5-way rocker is located to the right of the four-row QWERTY keyboard. For users who don't always want to use the hardware keyboard, there's also an on-screen keyboard that's quite usable.


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On the top of the DROID, you'll find a 3.5mm headphone jack as well as the power/sleep button. Along the right edge is the phone's volume rocker and camera buttons. The left side of the DROID houses the MicroUSB port. The 5 megapixel camera and dual LED flash are located on the back of the device along with the battery cover and a gold metallic grate that covers the DROID's speaker.


When closed, the DROID measures approximately 2.36 inches wide by 4.56 inches tall by 0.54 inches thick. It weighs 5.96 ounces.  It's clean, almost minimalistic and very well made.

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