Review Motorola Droid 3

What's hot: Excellent build, fast, great keyboard.
What's not: Voice quality could be better.

Reviewed July 20, 2011 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief (twitter: @lisagade)
Another year, another Droid smartphone from Motorola. Sequels often become dull, but somehow we never get tired of Motorola’s high end slider Android phone. The Droid 3 on Verizon Wireless amps the specs to match today’s high end handsets: a dual core 1GHz CPU, a sharp 4” qHD 540 x 960 touch screen and both front and rear cameras. The tweaks aren’t all hidden inside; we particularly like the Droid 3’s keyboard that feels better than ever and sports a dedicated number row.

Those of you who have a Droid 2 are likely still under contract and won't be looking at this phone as your upgrade, but original Motorola Droid owners should definitely check out Droid the third.  As we’ve come to expect from the Motorola Droid, build quality is excellent with plenty of metal, a soft touch finish and a luxurious keyboard slider mechanism. The phone runs Android OS 2.3 Gingerbread with Motoblursoftware. Verizon and Moto throw in some business oriented software like Citrix, but there's fun stuff too like the game Nova HD (playable demo) and all the Adobe Flash you can eat. Battery life is good with the stock 1540 mAh Lithium Ion battery (a consolation for not getting 4G LTE).

The design is masculine and elegant. The phone has 4 front capacitive Android buttons that work well, a micro DHMI 1.3a port, micro USB port and a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack. The small power button is up top and it’s a bit hard to press. That’s good for avoiding accidental power ons, but annoying when you actually intent to turn on the phone.  Verizon says the Droid 3 is the slimmest QWERTY slider smartphone, and that thinness, combined with a metal battery cover, means that the back of the phone sometimes gets warm to the touch. Why? Metal transfer heat and the thinner the phone, the closer the motherboard is to the casing.
The 4” Gorilla Glass display sports the same resolution as the Motorola Atrix 4G and HTC Sensation 4G; qHD 540 x 960 vs. the usual 800 x 480. We appreciate the extra pixels when viewing web pages and photos, and the 240dpi pentile display is both sharp and bright. the phone has a tricolor notification LED above the display.
The Droid 3 keyboard is one of our favorites among lateral sliders. It’s roomy, tactile and the keys aren’t slippery. New for the Droid 3 is a dedicated number row that’s highlighted in light gray vs. black for the alpha keys. Alternate characters are masked in yellow vs. white for the main characters and the backlight is an even white. The keyboard slides out with a pleasing click and locks in place; it’s definitely a sturdy mechanism. Four arrow keys handle directional navigation, and there are buttons for voice command, search and “OK”. The “@” symbol and “/” don’t require secondary key presses but there’s only one shift key
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