Hands on with the 48-hour-battery-powered Motorola Droid Maxx

A gallery and video of the Maxx and its little friend, the Droid Ultra, too.

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[coder543]

The Droid line hasn't been appealing in a long time? That's news to me. The HD RAZR models last year were beautifully designed, with sturdy construction, good performance, and excellent battery life. The cameras were the only thing that were even moderately disappointing.

From all indications, these new phones will never lag because of how powerful that GPU is, in concert with a more than adequate CPU. These phones have unique voice features as well, and the camera should be much improved over the previous ones.

What more do you want from a phone? A phone that performs excellently, is attractive, and has good battery life sounds pretty good to me.

 

[coder543]

Doctor Hoot[/url]":saanzw4g]I still don't get the appeal of this, outside the battery life.

So you've got two phones with lower pixel densities then last year's flagships.

The processors are dual-core, so also last-year standards.

And it could have run stock android to compensate, but it doesn't.

Is there anything good about these phones? (Apart from battery life)

You can't just say two generations of phones are both dual core and dismiss it at that. Newer CPUs are tremendously better than older ones, and the GPU in this is tremendously better than last year's phones had. We have more than enough CPU power on android as it is. The more GPU, the better. The screens are a little lower density than your average 2013 superphone with a 5 inch 1080p display, sure, but these displays are still going to be fantastic, and a large, large portion of the world's smartphone market will be at or below 720p this year. It's hardly a low end spec, even at these pixel densities.

This is practically stock android, I will also point out. Motorola has gotten to the point where they're just adding little touches here and there that make stock android tremendously better. Motorola Smartactions is an excellent example.

 

[coder543]

pcgamer1206[/url]":2xt0naxa]Is that $299 subsidized, or unlocked?

Subsidized. You don't actually think the droid mini is $99 with no contract, do you? That would be amazing though.

 

[coder543]

phoenix_rizzen[/url]":30auzmej]

coder543[/url]":30auzmej]

Doctor Hoot[/url]":30auzmej]I still don't get the appeal of this, outside the battery life.

So you've got two phones with lower pixel densities then last year's flagships.

The processors are dual-core, so also last-year standards.

And it could have run stock android to compensate, but it doesn't.

Is there anything good about these phones? (Apart from battery life)

You can't just say two generations of phones are both dual core and dismiss it at that. Newer CPUs are tremendously better than older ones, and the GPU in this is tremendously better than last year's phones had.

The Snapdragon S4 Pro SoC is a year old now, and the Adreno 320 GPU has been around just as long. Many of last year's phone (like the Nexus4 and Optimus G) include this SoC. IOW, these are "last-year standards" as mentioned in the OP.

We have more than enough CPU power on android as it is. The more GPU, the better. The screens are a little lower density than your average 2013 superphone with a 5 inch 1080p display, sure, but these displays are still going to be fantastic, and a large, large portion of the world's smartphone market will be at or below 720p this year. It's hardly a low end spec, even at these pixel densities.

I agree that 720p in a ~4" screen is just about perfect, and that 1080p in anything under 6" is a waste.

it was rumored to be snapdragon 600 based, but the S4 Pro is still not a bad processor at all, and compared to the equivalent processor in the RAZR HD, it is a huge step forward versus last year's. But even Ars speculates that it isn't Krait 200 like the S4 Pro, but Krait 300, like the S600, which means it isn't last year's processor, like I said.

 

[coder543]

Voo42[/url]":1vj0wuis]The one reason I'm shortly considering an iPhone when upgrading phones despite my clear preference for android (prefer the ui, the customizability, have lots of apps already, use many Google services, Swype!!, etc) is the fact that the battery life on every Android phone I've ever owned was less than satisfactory.

I love my nexus 4 and it was a great value for the price when I got it but the battery life is really weak (knew that when I got it too, there just wasn't any noticeably better alternative around for me). And really I don't have any need for a quad core in my phone, I'm actually contemplating trying one of those custom roms
that disable one or two codes to see how much it helps with battery life - I can't think of a single scenario where I'd profit from for cores.


So yes this phone certainly has some appeal to me, now please just a nexus version of it when I upgrade next time..

This is practically a nexus, and iPhones don't get that good of battery life.

 

[coder543]

Voo42[/url]":3tdny49w]

coder543[/url]":3tdny49w]
This is practically a nexus, and iPhones don't get that good of battery life.

So updates from Google, no custom skin and unlocked boot loader? (I really have no idea on that point, but that'd be surprising to me)

about battery life and iPhones (just the standard benchmark from the last AT smartphone article)

Notice the iPhone 5 down near the bottom with 4.55 hours of battery life? yeah. That's what I'm talking about. There's something funky and inexplicable happening with LTE on the iPhone, I'll admit, but the average iPhone will be closer to the non-LTE result, since only the iPhone 5 has LTE, and LTE is only common in North America at this point. Not to mention, having good LTE signal means you're either on Verizon or in the center of a large city... so you should take the LTE result with a grain of salt.