Even though the Moto X is going to be on every US carrier, Motorola still feels the need to have a line of Droid handsets on Verizon. Motorola’s Droid Razr HD, Maxx HD, and Razr M were relatively successful products, and they were actually really good. The Maxx HD brought hours and hours of battery life, a speedy processor, and a decent HD display. The Razr M was a very nice smartphone in a small package, and was one of the best small Android phones you could buy at the time. This year, Verizon and Motorola unveiled the Motorola Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Motorola Droid Mini at a launch event a while back. These products are now available for $200, $300, and $100 on contract respectively at Verizon, so we decided to try out the Ultra and Maxx handsets for ourselves. Can these Droids stand up to the likes of the HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, and Motorola’s own Moto X? Are these the Droids you’re looking for? Scroll onwards to find out the answers to these questions and more in our hands-on with the Motorola Droid Ultra and Maxx.
Look and Feel
The new Motorola Droids’ design can be described in two simple words: Typical and grrr. The Motorola Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx have designs reminiscent of last year’s Razr HD and Maxx HD, and even the OG Droid Razr and Razr Maxx. Both models have backs that appear to be made of woven Kevlar, but they are constructed of different materials. The Droid Maxx has a matte soft-touch plastic back, while the Droid Ultra has a glossy plastic back. The Droid Maxx’s matte soft-touch plastic back feels much more premium than the Droid Ultra’s glossy plastic back. The Ultra does not feel like a $200 smartphone, and it actually feels very gross. It kind of feels like one of those cheap plastic cases you can buy for one dollar online. The Ultra actually feels somewhat worse than a Galaxy S4. They are both made of glossy plastic, but the S4 feels almost sturdy when you are gripping it. The Ultra’s plastic casing feels squishy and overall very uncomfortable. It is quite puzzling why Motorola even decided to use different materials for the Ultra and Maxx. Last year’s Razr HD and Maxx HD looked almost exactly the same, and felt like premium handsets. Motorola should have just kept the design the same across its whole line of Droids, and given the Droid Ultra the nice soft-touch plastic. As far as looks, the new Droids are no lookers. They do not come anywhere close to the beauty and sophistication of the HTC One or the iPhone 5. Don’t think that we are calling the Droids ugly though; they just look like typical Droids. The plastic backings, slightly rounded edges, and woven backs look very utilitarian. The only Droid that we could deem ugly is the Ultra. We don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but it is just straight-up ugly. The glossy back looks so cheap, feels bad, and is nowhere close to flagship status. The back comes in two colors, black and red, and none of them look good. If you decide to get the Ultra in red, you will regret it quickly. The red version looks very cheesy, cheap, and gimmicky. If you could not tell already, we do not like the red Motorola Droid Ultra at all. There are even many free handsets that look much better than the Ultra. The Droid Maxx, however, does look very pleasing. Its chiseled edges, soft touch woven back, and its premium feel make it one of the better looking phones out there. It is does not stand out from the crowd like a Nokia Lumia or look as beautiful as a HTC One, but it does look like a $300 smartphone. If you do care about how your handset looks and feels, you would be better off spending the extra $100 on the Motorola Droid Maxx.
Software
As far as software skinning goes, Motorola has been one of the better OEMs about keeping it to a minimum. They did take a bad turn with MotoBlur back in the day, but Motorola’s skin on their most recent devices has been very nice. Today Motorola has mostly stock Android on all of their devices, and their additions are either useful or not that bothersome. Motorola does change a few icons, add a few features, and a few extra apps, but this is much better than what Samsung, LG, and HTC have been doing. In Motorola’s newest crop of devices, Motorola has included some of their best features yet. One of the features allows you to shake your phone a few times to open the camera from anywhere in the phone. This worked every time we tried to do it, and it was very fast. It is similar to repeatedly wiggling a door knob, or opening a combination lock with an incredibly thick knob. The camera gesture is very natural, intuitive, and definitely one of our favorite software features. It may be small, but it is mighty.
Another unique feature that comes with the new Droids is Active Display. This is both a software and a hardware feature that could be the next big thing in notifications. With AMOLED and OLED displays, you can select the pixels that you turn on. This is why blacks are so deep, since they are pixels that are turned off. The AMOLED displays that Motorola uses on the new Droids and Moto X allow Motorola to use Active Display. Active Display is a way of displaying notifications in a more efficient way than blinking lights and lighting up the entire screen. With Active Display, the screen subtly pulses the time, and an icon representing your most recent notification. You can halfway swipe on the icon to preview your text, email, Twitter mention, et cetera. Fully swiping the icon lets you directly respond to the notification. This is very handy, and quite possibly the best notifications system that we have ever seen. Hopefully, Motorola and Google will put this feature into Android itself later on.
Ever since Google released Android Jelly Bean 4.1.1, Google Now has been one of the best features of Android. The way Now works might be a little creepy to some people, but its features are incredibly useful. It keeps track of your search queries, your location, and what you do on your phone to give you so much information. It can sense where your home is, and always present traffic times when you are out and about. Google Now can also show you restaurants near you, attractions near you, and movie times near you. If you have a favorite sports team, you can set Now to show you scores and game times for your team. This feature is not exclusive to Motorola’s handsets, it’s built into every Jelly Bean device, but it is something to consider when buying a Droid, Moto X, or any other Android device. What is special to these Motorola handsets is the ability to search queries while the phone is in stand by. You can say, "Okay Google Now..." and then almost anything you want your phone to do. All you have to do is calibrate it, so no one else can control your phone just by talking, and then you are ready to go. Once you start using Now, you’ll never want to leave. Outside of Active Display and Motorola’s camera gesture, nothing else is too remarkable. Strangely, Motorola’s newest crop of Droids only come with Android 4.2.2. Sure it is the newest version that every other OEM has, but the other OEMs are not owned by Google. Since Google owns Motorola, we would think that Motorola would at least have access to Android 4.3 by now. Yes these are not devices made built by both Motorola and Google, but they should still at least get 4.3. Even the device Google and Motorola built together, the Moto X, does not have 4.3. 4.3 might be a minor update, but having the latest version of Android before any other handset could have been a big selling point for Motorola’s Droids and Moto X.
Display
If you have ever used a Droid Razr, Razr Maxx, Razr HD, Razr Maxx HD, or the Razr M, you will know that Droids have never had good displays. The OG Razr, Razr Maxx, and Razr M had terrible screens, but Motorola put some decent screens in the Razr HD and Maxx HD. The new Motorola Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx have screens similar, if not the same, to last year’s models. The displays are slightly larger at five inches compared to last year’s 4.7 inch screens. This is somewhat of a disappointment, since the screen is larger but retains the same 720p resolution. The newest Droids pale in comparison to the pixel density giants like the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4. When looking at the screen just slightly closer than normal, you can see the fuzzy text and slight pixilation. This is not too big of an issue when you do look at the new Droids' displays from a normal distance, but it is something to remember when considering which smartphone to buy. Pixel density is not the only problem with the Droid Ultra and Maxx. AMOLED and OLED screens have always had the same positives and negatives. They offer some of the deepest blacks, but colors are oversaturated and do not look anywhere close to natural. Some more recent AMOLED panels, like the one on the Galaxy S4, have been very nice but the Droids do not have that kind of display. The newest crop of Droids have very typical AMOLED displays. Colors are extremely over saturated, whites are somewhat yellow, but blacks are deep. Reds are particularly over saturated, and the default red square background almost hurt our eyes to look at. When looking at anything with a white background, the whites were noticeably yellow. Green icons seemed too green, and almost sickeningly over saturated. These problems will probably go unnoticed if you have not used too many other devices, and you probably would not care if you are the average consumer. The Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Mini have displays that are quite simply, forgettable.
Performance
When Motorola announced the new suite of Droids, they talked about some eight core mumbo-jumbo about the processors inside the Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Mini. Motorola was branding the processor as their own special “X8” processor, but it is not really anything special. Motorola’s X8 processor is actually a dual-core 1.7 gigahertz Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. This is inside all the new Droids, and the Moto X. Performance is similar to other smartphones with the S4 Pro processor, and it therefore does not come close to any of the flagship smartphones today. The HTC One, Samsung Galaxy S4, and the upcoming LG G2 are much faster than the Droids, even though they are months older than Motorola’s latest smartphones. These handsets might have faster processors, you cannot tell the difference in normal use. The average consumer probably does not need 1.9 gigahertz of quad-core power. They probably also do not need an incredibly powerful graphics processor to do intense mobile gaming. Most people just need a processor that can handle Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the occasional Temple Run game. The Motorola Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Mini can handle most everyday tasks at a quick and speedy pace. While we were playing with the Droids transitions from app to app went smoothly, browsing the internet was a breeze, and touring the OS was as quick as it could be. You can barely see that the processor is slightly slower than the best when playing games. Less intense games run well, but you can see that frame rates are a little slower than they should be. This is only with the most detailed games, which most people are probably not going to be playing. The newest Motorola handsets are just as fast as you need them to be, but your gaming needs might not be completely satisfied.
If you have paid attention to or have had any of the more recent Motorola handsets, you would know that they have never had great cameras. Most Motorola phones have decent or pretty terrible cameras. This has changed with the new Droids, and Motorola has branded their camera as a ClearPixel camera. Motorola is using this moniker, because their camera lens absorbs more light than the average smartphone sensor. It does not absorb as much light as the HTC One’s Ultrapixel camera, but it is a noticeable improvement over most smartphone cameras. In reviews of the Motorola Droid Ultra, low-light pictures are less noisy than most other cameras. As we said before, it is not as amazing as the One but it still is a nice low-light camera. Daytime shots, however are not quite as good. Some pictures are good, while others are complete misses. Some pictures are nicely lit, composed, and have natural color reproduction, but others are quite the opposite. Some photos come out grainy, dull, and look nowhere close to decent. The camera is basically meh. If the camera is one of your top priorities on a smartphone, you might want to consider skipping out on Motorola’s latest Droids and the Moto X.
Wrap-up
Even though the Motorola Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Mini are not too remarkable, they are very nice handsets. The Maxx offers nice specs with some of the best battery life of any smartphone, and the Mini offers all the high-end specs in a small 4.3 inch package. The only particularly bad thing we can say about the new Droid line is that the Droid Ultra really does not have a need to exist. It does not have the nice build of the Mini and Maxx, it does not have the amazing battery life of the Maxx, and it does not have the special feature of being compact like the Mini. Motorola could probably sell more units by making the Droid Maxx $200 and keep the Mini at $100. The Maxx being the same price as other flagships, having specs not noticeably different by most people, and by having amazing battery life might make the Maxx look like a great buy. Many people would buy the Maxx just for the battery life alone, and a good price would seal the deal. Want more information on Motorola’s latest? Hit up the links below for more information.
Extra coverage: Engadget Motorola Droid Ultra review, The Verge Motorola Droid Ultra and Droid Maxx review
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