Motorola Droid's website published a bit early, with specs galore (update: video)
By Ross Miller 
posted Oct 22nd 2009 7:59PM
posted Oct 22nd 2009 7:59PM
Update: Guess Motorola realized the error of its ways, but not to fear, we've got the site and specs captured in the gallery below.
Update 2: Some kind soul inhabiting middle internet managed to snag video of the Droid in action. Check it after the break.
[Via Boy Genius Report]
Sweet
No..... im pretty sure the only thing that cures cancer right now is a app in the apple app store.
100% sure.
not an extreme amount of improvement over the other android phones, but definitely enough to put it at the top.
GAME ---- SET ---- MATCH
Gone are the days of comparisons........ with the use of *#*^&~ Killer.
This will be the phone, AT&T "wished" they had in their stable.
Finally............it's over.......... we have a WINNER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Kunikos, for an iphone lover you sure dont know much about the platform. 75,000 apps. It says it on all the commercials. Thats a few hundred percent less than a couple hundred thousand.
Even sweeter:
WEB BROWSER
Webkit HTML5, Flash 10 (available 2010)
The one big disappointment I'm seeing right now is the absence of IM support for YIM/MSN/AIM, I use that all the time on my LG Voyager and it's awesome (to a point, of course).
Page is down. They probably got wise.
@Bryan Don't feed the troll... just down rank so we can ignore the post, but that math doesn't sound right
just 100% less is 0.... or am I too sleepy?
pal :)
@Ignatius- Have you tried Palringo for Android? Works great- I use it on Windows Mobile as well.
I can't believe I'm drooling over a motorola...
Forget pics, check out some video of the website before it got pulled. Man I can't wait for this phone!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vd7SglA91A
@Ignatius there is also meebo for android, i'm i allowed to say there's an app for that?
someone needs to tell verizon to quit sucking have require at least 2 GB of non-removable memory be included on their high-end main phones. Nothing like "Ohh I had to switch memory cards so I lost half my apps." to ruin your phone experience. Seriously, 2gigs costs about $4.00 these days if not less if you buy it in bulk.
@ignatius:
If you think the IM is good on the Voyager, you should try it on the enV Touch. I used to have a Voyager and I had so many problems I got them to send me a enV Touch for free when they ran out of Voyagers in the store. Anyway, one thing I hated about IM on the Voyager is that it only worked in landscape orientation. It does portrait or landscape on the enV Touch's external screen, with the accelerometer allowing for it to switch between them easily. It's great when you get an IM and you just want to glance at it or when you have an audio cable connected to it. Maybe you can get a free one like I did.
@Jon I don't think Android lets you save any apps onto external memory to begin with, so once your onboard memory is full, you're SOL. I have been playing around with an HTC Hero for the past week or so, and its 512MB onboard hasn't been a problem at all. Not that I'd argue against having more onboard memory, just that the external cards at this point are only for media, etc.
too true: under physical > color: licorice w/brown sugar accents. not even sure what that means.
funny how the source of this youtube vid has a username "letsfindjesus" is he an official editor of engadget zine too? lol
sources: http://pinoytutorial.com/techtorial/motorola-droid-specs-revealed-in-motorola-site-temporarily/
Why am I afraid that I am going to be let down with this?
Don't worry, there is always abstinence.
I feel a little bit let down already, no 1ghz processor and it comes with a 16gb micro sd instead of onboard memory. Call me crazy, but I think I'll wait for the HD2.
Probably because of the middling 550Mhz processor that basically every Android phone has already.
*Sigh* @Sonic. You have no idea what you are talking about. You are a horrible troll.
Because as far as I cant tell its not sporting that much desired 3.5 Headphone jack.
From the page....
HEADSET JACK
3.5 mm
@Bryan I know. I know. cool nice :)
In what way is having the 16GB as removable memory worse than having it built in? Seems like a straight up win to me. Upgradeable over time FTW, just like a computer.
@jjonke and Badger
I hear you guys. But instead of complaining about the 550Mhz (really though, wtf, everything said 600) and the microsd, let me just say one thing which I haven't seen mentioned in these comments yet.....
This thing better have a f*#%ing digital compass, or they'll be a nice list of "droiddoesn't" 's. I want augmented reality capability and if droid doesn't deliver I'm going to find it really hard to buy a phone without technology that plenty of phones have had for a few months already (and a processor that's only on par); not to mention the news of other new android phones in the near future that might be able to deliver better. I'm going to be stuck with it for 1-2yrs meanwhile the iThing and a handful of android phones are already running layar. I'm through "settling" with verizon like I have for 7+ years so they better deliver. I'm starting to fear that this is going to be the typical vzwfail.
Oh and nightshots? How about some real flashes like the pictures looked like, I don't call having two leds being able to take pictures in the dark. That's nothing new so don't go bragging it.
*Sigh* The sad thing is, is that I'm probably going to end up getting this whether it kicks ass or just sucks and I have to settle again. My launch day voyager's front screen died a long time ago and I've been in the market for a smartphone and playing the "wait for this next awesome phone verizon might get" way too long. The only phone that even ever made it to vzw that I was looking forward to was the touchpro and they managed to make a stupid ass idiotic keyboard design (arrow between m and n when there was plenty of opportunities to avoid that), not to mention the fail that is windows mobile. Oh, and freaking ATT got the same phone with one difference, the keyboard flaw fixed, in the next few weeks...
Okay I'm done ranting (yea that wasn't just one thing). I need to go breathe. Don't mess this up droid.
because 32gb micro sd cards are expensive, so i'd better buy a 16gb one to complete the formally supposed (but now officially false) internal 16gb rom to have 32gb. Too bad.
and i thought we couldn't install downloaded apps on micro sd cards because of piracy concerns ?
unless google wants us to root our phones, but average joe won't know it's even possible.
it is strongly rumored to have a ti omap 3430 at 550mhz which produces more power and 2mips per mhz than the old msm7201 at 528mhz which only gives 1mips per mhz.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture#ARM_cores.
O.M.F.G
Actually I think it's infinitely better processor considering it's a Cortex-A8.
Could you expand on that a little please? At first I was very upset at seeing a processor only a little higher than the one in the G1. Your comment gives me hope.
@Wii60: It's an ARM Cortex A8 CPU, which is vastly superior to the ARM 11 CPUs that are found in other Android devices. The pre-3GS iPhones also had ARM11 CPUs, while the N900, Pre and 3GS have A8 CPUs.
@wii60 It's like comparing a pentium 4 to a core i7, sure the clock speeds are similar, but clock speeds just tells you how many times a second they can do their command, the commands the i7 and the omap3 chip that the droid uses in this case are much more powerful than the pentium 4 or arm11 respectively
Why is it clocked at 550 if its an OMAP3430? I thought default for OMAP3430 was 600 mHz
@Detox
Kinda, Sorta
The Droid uses the Cortex A8 "design." Meaning ARM says to everyone here is our new super fast mobile platform. Fab plants licenses this tech and implement it in phones. The Cortex A8 on the iPhone 3GS is manufactured by Apple/Samsung and includes a POWER VR SGX 535 GPU and runs at 600MHz. In terms of mobile computing this combo can be referred to as the CPU (Much like Zune runs on Tegra, but Tegra is a CPU + GPU).
The Droid however, according to specs, runs on more or less the same design, its just implemented differently. (Apple uses a custom implementation, and Droid uses OMAP 3430).
The main differences between Droid and 3GS on a spec sheet is 3GS runs at 600MHz compared to 550MHz on Droid (which I suppose to be equivalent to 700MHz on the ARM11 (G1), the architecture change means alot faster computations on the same Mhz, think Core2/Pentium) and the 3GS uses an SGX 535 while the Droid uses SGX 530.
What 50MHz / SGX 530 means in comparison to the iPhone I can't really say, but I can assure you that the Droid sh1ts all over the G1 and friends.
@KillaChaos
Thanks for all that info, but that's exactly why non-geeks don't care about specs. In the end, the only thing they will care about is actual performance. We'll see how it fares.
Depending on conditions, it may be possible to overclock the Droid well beyond 550MHz. The G1, which houses a 528MHz processor, only ran at 384MHz on launch, and still runs at 384MHz on stock ROMs.
I believe the Cortex A8 is around two times faster than an ordinary ARM11 clock for clock, so this Droid would really perform like an "ordinary" Android phone overclocked to 1100MHz (which isn't possible).
And the Snapdragon is a Cortex8 running @ 1ghz. So Qualcomm has the fastest Cortex8 chip (the GPU part isn't the fastest though)
@Detox and Chinpo..
Cortex A8 default is normally 200mhz and scale up to meet demand with a max of 1hgz, although many run a max of 600mhz due to thermal issues.
Its a bit like the new i5 cpu's, they bump up to meet single thread demand. The advantage of this is to save power by having a lower base clock but giving power when needed to achieve 'race to idle'. If it ran at 600mhz constantly, it would melt your precious.
In most cases, 550mhz is plenty, but if it was me, i would want at least 600. ;)
N900 ftw.
@coolbho3000
Are you serious? So if I get a custom ROM it'll run at full speed? If so then I will definitely get one. It's fast enough already but if it can be overclocked then I'll go crazy.
The Snapdragon is an ARMv7, but don't confuse it with the Cortex. The Cortex is a specific processor, while ARMv7 is an architecture. The Cortex is to ARMv7 as the Core 2 Duo is to x86-64. While TI has only licensed the Cortex from ARM, Qualcomm licensed the whole ARMv7 architecture and is basing Snapdragon from that. Clock for clock, the Snapdragon will likely perform differently from the Cortex.
The Snapdragon scales from 245MHz to 998MHz with a few speeds in between, by the way.
The Cortex A8 should have some insane overclockability, and with custom kernels, overclocking should be possible (as long as Motorola violates the GPL and doesn't release the source for several months like HTC did with the Hero). The developers of the Pandora mention that it's possible to overclock the 600MHz version around 50%.
*as long as Motorola doesn't violate the GPL
I am confused.
N900 or this
I'll help: HD2
I hate windows mobile.
Sense UI on 6.5 is not bad at all (especially when running on a Snapdragon).
It's still Windows Mobile though.
For me, this phone does it. The N900 has a resistive screen and Android has more developer support.
When did you put Sense over WinMo? I will assume you must mean Touch Flo 3D
yeah, I guess thats what they meant, but I am sticking with N900.
its open source, like really open
4-row keyboard versus 3-row keyboard, battery life, and software development community could be useful differentiators. Also, the OS's for the HD2, the N900, and Droid are in totally different stages in their development cycle.
My impression is that the hardware design is a little better on Droid than the N900: it looks slimmer, has a larger keyboard, and a reasonable battery life. Keep in mind that the OS's on these phones can probably be swapped, since the hardware is so similar. So I wouldn't make any decisions until you see a full rundown of Android 2.0 and Maemo5, a battery life comparison, and comparisons of app development, the usability of the keyboards, and the internet browsers. In my mind, those are the main factors I'm looking at.
It's debatable cause in WinMo you can also do whatever you want and there are a lot of SDKs around for multiple configurations.
Very nice! As a new VZW employee and former iPhone user, I'm completely stoked for this phone.
No bias either......
I like the 16:9 screen but it’s such a complete rip-off of the new iMac. Jeez.......
Good to see the evolution of ANdroid. It's catching the wind.
Wait... iMac invented 16:9? I learn something new every day.
@Jim
. . .Shrugg, No comment.
could we please understand jim's humor and not downrank him for mocking ieye?
@Jim: So, you're openly admitting then that the newest iMac was a blatant ripoff of the Zune HD? Awesome.
mmmmm Eclair
I noticed that too. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in the article that this is coming with Android 2.0 (Eclair)
Since G1 just got upgraded to Donut, and Eclair is already coming out, does that mean G1 won't get Eclair?
I had a chance to play with this phone and it is sick, but I'm holding off for the HTC its a lot more pocket friendly. This handset is a beast the display is SICK, but i HATE the keypad.
Now I don't even care how ugly it is, specs are awesome
Hey but that's the thing. The pics of it here make it look sleek. It looked crappy in those earlier photos. IMO it looks sexy now! O!M!G! This is my next phone!
*screams like Ned Flanders
Should we assume there's a compass?
Well it is running Android, so...
Assuming all Android phones till ate have had one, yes. Hell the G1 had it. If this does not, it could be buzzkill.
So? The OS doesn't point to the inclusion or lack of a hardware feature.
It came with a sun-compass, but that was rejected from the app store.
Hopefully it's just an oversight in the otherwise thorough tech specs.
@Fernando- see one comment up.
16 GB is a big deal. But why not build it in instead of putting it on microSD? There still should be room for the slot.
Flash ram has volatile prices. By leaving it as an easily removable component, they can procure whatever size they want, from whoever they want, at any time they want. That has the potential for big cost savings.
I'd rather have a memory card I can upgrade to be perfectly honest.
"16 GB microSD pre-installed; supports up to 32 GB microSD expandable"
Funny how they left that tid-bit out.
Problem is that it's only 512 MB of flash for apps and other non-media stuff. At least it's twice the amount on the G1/myTouch/Hero.
what's cool about micro SD memory cards is you can potentially keep another 16GB micro sd ($50) and 8GB sd card ($17). I mean, that's 40GB or more (potentially, if you bought them). anyway they're so small you could keep them in a wallet or purse and have one for movies, one for music, etc.
even one extra 32 GB ($100) card gets you 48 GB
because they way you flash android phones is by using a micro-sd card.It has something to do with the way the bootloader works.HTC branded phones (read: That are NOT powered by google) use a flashing program throught windows , the rest use a combination of OTA+MicroSD flashing
Can hardly wait...
This looks to be the 'One To Beat' - at this point.
waiting for the @HTC dragon...
While this may not look better than the iPhone visually, to me, it's added functionality - and the Verizon service - more than make up for the looks.
I'll be first in line to dump my iPhone 3Gs and pick up one of these;)
does this have a multi-touch screen?
Yes.
Marginally better processor? Isn't that 550MHz processor a Cortex A8 though? If so, then it's more than just marginally better than the ARM 11 528MHz processors that the other Android phones have.
To my knowledge that's exactly what it is, which is only 50Mhz short of the iPhone's 600Mhz I think.
It also has a dedicated video processor, not shared like the iPhone.
Perhaps I can get some insight here: T-Mobile or Verizon?? I'm really tempted to switch to VZW just to get this phone, but don't know who to believe about their experiences with customer service, reception, etc...
What's the word?? It's either this if I switch, or CLIQ if I don't
Might check to see if it goes to the UK and import one for T-Mobile.
Verizon kills T-mobile in coverage, especially for 3G, where they don't even deserve to be compared together. Your comparison should be Sprint or Verizon.
One question, Mac compatible? I could use my Dell but its like 7 years old and kinda slow. Plus I don't have any of my contacts, music or photo's on it. Screw the iPhone and ATT. I would never leave Verizon, but my Voyager sucks. I need a new phone and this might be it.
yes, android is compatible with os x. it mounts the phone as a drive, like any other external drive.
On Android contact syncing done through the cloud, it isn't like the iPhone (and many others) which facilitate syncing through a physical connection and an app running on your computer. Basically you load up your contacts to gmail (there are various apps to sync the contacts from any app to gmail), then once you input your gmail account into the phone your contacts will be automagically populated over the air and will remained sync'd OTA (over the air).
Apart from that, the phone appears as a generic USB storage device so you can simply drag and drop your pictures and music to the device just like you would with a USB stick or you can use one of the many apps that support syncing to USB storage devices (ie DoubleTwist).
Android is compatible with Windows, OS X, and Linux, from what I recall.
I'm not buyin' a-near-nother phone till these companies get their data plan pricing right! $80+ a month is ridiculous!
Although it's not much of a decrease, Sprint's Everything Data 450 is $70. Just sayin.
Verizon's too :P http://short.to/upsf
I've been with Sprint forever, and was going to go w/ a webOS based phone after my crappy Mogul.. but this phone has definitey changed my mind.
Been eye'ing it up since it first showed up here on engadget.
iWonder how Verizon will cripple this thing? iSuspect it'll be locked down GPS or something else annoying.
They can't really lock it down much, it would be a violation of the GPL
Its going to cripple it by calling it the iPhone.