Posts Tagged ‘Processor Design’

The Newly Released Motorola Droid Pro

posted by Catt Mallen
Thursday, September 2, 2010

Motorola has had a major success with its line of Android powered Droid line of phones. Starting with the release of the original Droid, complete with a marketing campaign as massive as anything that the iPhone has had, the handsets have rooted themselves in the public consciousness as a true competitor to the iPhone. When the Droid Pro is released later this year, it will finally serve as a replacement for the aging Milestone (which is the original Droid sans the branding).

According to many sources that seem close to the material, the currently unreleased Droid Pro will be the international version of the US only Droid 2. The major difference will be in the radio used to make the calls: while the Droid Pro uses the GSM/HSDPA radio that is most common throughout the World, the Droid 2 uses a CDMA radio that can be used on Verizon. The device, like the Droid 2, should look almost identical to the Droid/Milestone. This is handy because when shopping for Motorola Droid Pro accessories you can use the Droid/Mileston’s options. The dock for both the original Droid and the Droid 2 have the same capability; it is likely to be the same for the Droid Pro and the Milestone. This makes shopping for a Motorola Droid Pro cases quite simple because you already have a large selection of compatible options on the market.

Even today, people still consider the Droid/Milestone to be a fairly powerful device. While its OMAP processor is technically slower than the more common 1 GHz Snapdragon, a different processor design enables the Droid/Milestone to compute more efficiently. So in testing, calculations performed on the slower OMAP happened just as fast on the faster Snapdragon. However, the Droid 2/Droid Pro uses a 1 GHz OMAP processor. This means that performance on the handset is better than any other current option. In addition, the Android 2.2 “Froyo” is now available on the handset. In addition to several interesting new software features, this newer version of the operating system bring a much better performance over those older versions. All told, the Droid 2/Droid Pro flies.

Like the original Droid/Milestone, the new Droid 2/Droid Pro has an 854 x 480 resolution screen. This is somewhat smaller than the new iPhone 4, but the difference is not all that noticeable. This screen is fairly small in the current crop of Android devices at 3.7 inches, but this serves to make the pixels more compact. Also, many prefer the smaller size to the recent massive 4-4.3 inch screens. Touchscreen performance is just as good as it was on the original and is not likely to even be reduced when using Motorola Droid Pro Screen Protectors. One major complaint about the original Droid/Milestone was its keyboard. Considered a major differentiator, the keyboard suffered from flat, indistinguishable keys that were laid out somewhat oddly. The Droid 2/Droid Pro fixes this, doming the keys so that you can get a feel of each one and improving the layout. The differences are not massive, but then the Droid 2/Droid Pro is meant as an evolution of the Droid/Milestone rather than a brand new device.

Motorola’s new Droid Pro will definitely bring that much needed refreshment to Motorol’as Android line of handsets when it gets released. Althought the Droid Pro is more of an evolved version of an existing model opposed to being a brand-new model, its features and improvements are still significant enough to warrant purchase.

0