Samsung Galaxy S vs Motorola Droid X: Comparison

Samsung Galaxy S vs Motorola Droid X: Comparison
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Let Battle Commence

With the smartphone wars heating up, users now have a lot of options when they set out to buy a new smartphone. Android has taken over as the OS of choice for most independent phone manufacturers like Motorola, HTC and Samsung, and all of them are continually rolling out new devices. All of them have released excellent phones in the past and are now competing for the title of the ultimate Android smartphone. Both the Galaxy S and the Droid X feature prominently in our list of the Best Android Smartphones, but how to they stack up against each other?

Let’s compare Samsung Galaxy S vs. Motorola Droid X: the two favorites in the race for Android dominance.

Design

Both the Samsung Galaxy S and the Droid X have excellent designs. Both are stylish in their own right and have superb build quality. Both are

extremely slim, but are rather large owing to their super-sized displays. The Droid X is slightly bigger than the Galaxy S and weighs 153 gms compared to the Galaxy S which weighs 119 gms.

The Galaxy S has a 4 inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels while the Droid X has a 4.3 inch LCD display with a resolution of 480 x 854 pixels. Both the displays offer really good picture quality, but the display of the Galaxy S is brighter than that of the Droid X as it is a Super AMOLED display. The Droid X display is bigger than the Galaxy S display and has a slightly higher resolution. These are among the best smartphone displays I’ve seen.

Performance

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The Motorola Droid X and the Galaxy S have almost identical hardware configurations. The Galaxy S has an ARM Cortex A8 1 GHz processor and comes with 512 MB RAM. The Droid X has a TI OMAP 1 GHz processor and 512 MB RAM. The Droid X also has a separate graphics chip. The Droid X comes with 8 GB internal memory while the Galaxy S comes with 8 GB / 16 GB internal memory and both support up to 32 GB microSD cards. Both come loaded with Android 2.1 Eclair but should get upgrades to Android 2.3 soon.

The Galaxy S comes with the TouchWiz 3.0 UI while the Droid X comes with the latest version of the MotoBLUR UI. Both the interfaces have the same basic elements like homescreens, widgets and the notification bar. The graphics used in the interfaces are different, the UI elements in the Galaxy S are more stylish while the Droid X’s UI is oriented towards business users. Both the UIs are extremely responsive and fast but the Droid X’s UI is noticeably faster.

Multimedia

The Galaxy S has a great 5 MP camera with a resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. It also has autofocus and touch focus although it doesn’t have flash. The Droid X, on the other hand, comes with a superb 8 MP camera with autofocus and a dual LED flash which takes shots at a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. The image capture quality of both the phones is great, but the Droid X is definitely better. It also has a dual LED flash while the Galaxy S doesn’t. Both the Galaxy S and the Droid X can record excellent quality 720p video at a resolution of 30 FPS.

Both phones are extremely good when it comes to audio quality. Both have nice music player interfaces and watching videos is a delight on the large displays. Both have DLNA support and the Droid X also has HDMI out. The Galaxy S has a video out through the 3.5 mm headphone jack and supports HD video playback (720p).

Connectivity

Both the Droid X and the Galaxy S sport every connectivity feature one expects from a smartphone: GPRS, EDGE, 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n etc. The Droid X has Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP while the Galaxy S has Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP. Both support tethering and have a GPS transceiver with A-GPS. Both come with the Webkit based browser in Android 2.1. With the latest Android upgrade, they should also get Flash support.

The Verdict

So who is the winner in the Galaxy S vs. Droid X confrontation? As I mentioned before, both the Samsung Galaxy S and the Motorola Droid X are superb Android devices that are hard to fault. If you want an excellent camera with flash, go for the Droid X. If you want a smaller phone than the Droid X, the Galaxy S is your best option. The Galaxy S also has a slightly better display. Except for that, both the Droid X and Galaxy S are very similar and are very capable smartphones. You can’t go wrong with either of them.

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