Design
It is clear to me that the Droid 4 takes its design cues from other
devices in Motorola's current 2012 lineup. The phone sports the black
obelisk motif, complete with slightly rounded corners and beveled edges,
as do the Droid Razr Maxx and Droid Razr. It is a classy look sure to
fit in equally at the office or out on the town. There is no getting
around, however, the large size of the Motorola Droid 4. I mean its
girth stares at you right in the face practically begging for trouble.
This bruiser measures 5 inches tall by 2.65 inches wide with a full
thickness of half an inch. Weighing 6.31 ounces, the Droid 4 is also
hefty. Compared with the wafer-thin trend modern smartphones are taking,
this handset stands out.
User interface
The Droid 4 runs Gingerbread 2.3.5. Motorola does its best to perk things up
with its own UI on top of Android. It is not a bad attempt with five home
screens, a helicopter view of all at once, and some support for social
media.
Features and performance
Despite the Droid 4's sweet keyboard, the smartphone has other standout
features, such as access to the Android Market, which now contains over
300,000 apps. I did notice that besides the usual array of
Motorola, Google, and Verizon software, a few tittles looked intriguing.
First is the Slingbox application, which lets you stream live content from home
cable boxes directly to the phone and even lets you change the channel.
You do have to have optional Slingbox hardware installed in your home
for this to happen. Netflix is onboard too, saving me the trouble to
download it myself. Motoactv software is here as well, an application that
enables Motorola phones to connect to the company's line of fitness
gadgets.
