Droid 4 vs Droid Razr

Flashback to 2010. A simpler time. I was finally abandoning my BlackBerry, which is basically one step above bag phone by today’s standards. I was torn between two devices: the Motoroala X and the Motorola Droid 2. I opted for the physical keyboard, and have not looked back.

Flash back to present. A time less simple. With Katie’s iPhone 4S in the mail, it is nearing my turn to make a decision regarding my new device. The best phone on the market, in my book, is the Droid Razr. The kicker is the soon to be released Droid 4…

moto droid 4
...hmm

This thing has the same stuff under the hood as the Razr, very, very similar to the duality between the Droid 2 and X. Trading .3 inches and AMOLED for a smaller qHD screen…sort of a tough call.

But…the good news is that I have a few months left before I need to make the decision. My Christmas wishlist instead is one involving [link redacted] this year. I am a sucker for strange electronic devices…that should be apparent from the remote controlled clock. I’m hoping to pick up some hackable gizmos that I can chop apart, and leave the phone decision for another day.

iM tiRed of lazy tech journaliSm

Tech writers are the best. I most certainly don’t read the stuff that hits news aggregates because of informative banter and notable content, I read it for comic value.

Well… comic value and insight into human nature. Most notably: laziness

It seems to me that the easiest way to get published is to talk about a i* killer. Replace the wildcard with either “pod”

pod
(expensive media player)

“pad”

pad
(expensive tablet)

or “phone”

iphone
(sort of like an Android, but worse, except for battery life, which doesn't matter)

…and write a half-assed article about a new product. Guaranteed Google, MSN, Yahoo, Drudge, or whoever else will have that bad boy on the front page.

Protip: Next time you are charged with the task of covering a new Samsung product’s press release, save some time and just go with “End of Apple???” and be done with it. The whole killer angle was spent several years ago…when we nerds were buying Sandisk players, loading Ubuntu on netbooks, and making wild guesses on forums what RIM was going to do with the next generation of BB phones. Oh….the good old days.

FWIW, I’ll put a Droid X up against all three of those products. For the price point, nothing can touch that machine…my Droid 2 included.

Droid 2 or Nexus One 2.2 Plus

The proof is in the pudding (or in the froyo?) on this guy. Droid 2, hands down. Sorry Nexus fans.

I ran a benchmark test on my Droid 2 running Froyo. Here are the results, in slick, colorful, sideways bar graph form.

droid2
crappy pic...awesome font

Sorry for the awful picture quality…I had to log into my dual boot, in order to use Dell Webcam Central (garbage) to snap a picture of my phone. Turns out, my phone is also my camera, and I have yet to grab a screenshot app. Whatever. I’ll summarize the results.

Droid 2 with Froyo —— 1384 units
Nexus One 2.2 ——————— fewer unit than 1384
Others Played ——————– far fewer units than even 1384

Not sure what these units are, really, but the Droid 2 is clearly superior. I used an app called Quadrant, which is alleged to be quite legit.

It surprised me that the Droid X is lagging behind 2.2+ that much…it was supposed to be hotter than Hades. The Samsung Galaxy S is making a solid case for itself, sitting well above the Nexus One and HTC Desire.

As for those on the Moto Droid…hang in there. Hopefully you can manage to break your phone under warranty and get something with the Snapdragon under the hood.

****Bonus Bloggage…after I snapped the above picture and put together this post, I knuckled up on the Widowmaker pictured in the background. My knuckles indicate that I once again lost.****