Motorola Droid X vs Apple iPhone 4 - Design, Hardware and OS
The Motorola Droid X was without doubt, the best Android smartphone to date when it was released. It stands slightly above the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Evo 4G in terms of features and specifications and was the best competitor to the Apple iPhone 4.
In this article we check out the Droid X and the iPhone 4 and see how they fare in comparison.
Design and Display
Both the iPhone 4 and the Droid X have their own fan bases when it comes to design. The iPhone has an elegant, clean, Apple-esque design while the Droid X has a sleek, industrial design reminiscent of Motorola. Design wise, both of them are superb phones. The Droid X is a bit bulky, but still pocketable. Try out both before you make a decision.
The iPhone 4 has a beautiful 3.5 inch retina display with a resolution of 640 x 960 pixels. It is one of the best displays ever with amazing clarity and detail. The Droid X has a bigger 4.3 inch display with a lower resolution of 480 x 854 pixels which is great too, but not as good as the iPhone 4’s display.
Hardware
Both the Droid X and the iPhone 4 are mini computers in their own right. They have excellent hardware - both have a 1 GHz processor, 512 MB RAM etc. The Droid X has 8 GB of internal memory and comes with a 16 GB memory card (with support for up to 32 GB) while the iPhone comes in 16 GB and 32 GB versions. Both perform neck to neck, when it comes to the hardware.
Operating System
The Droid X comes with Android 2.1 Eclair with the MotoBlur UI and can be upgraded to Android 2.2 Froyo. The iPhone 4 comes with the latest version of the iPhone OS - iOS4. The iOS platform has more than 350,000 applications in the App Store while the Android Market has around 200,000. While the iPhone is restricted, the Android Market is open. Also Android 2.2 offers Flash support which the iOS 4 will never have. Android also has the Swype text input system which improves typing speeds significantly. On the other hand, iPhone proponents claim that the iPhone’s UI is far better than both the basic Android UI and the MotoBlur UI (or HTC Sense / Samsung TouchWiz for that matter).
In my opinion, both platforms are excellent; you wouldn’t go wrong with either one.
Multimedia
Both the iPhone 4 and the Droid X are multimedia powerhouses. The Motorola Droid X has a superb 8 MP camera with autofocus and a dual LED flash which takes shots at a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. The iPhone 4 has a great 5 MP camera with autofocus and LED flash which can capture images at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. Both of them take excellent shots but the iPhone has a larger image sensor which results in better pictures. Both the iPhone 4 and the Droid X can also record excellent 720p videos at a frame rate of 30 FPS.
The iPhone 4 also comes with a front facing secondary camera which lets you make video calls using the Facetime application; the Droid X doesn’t have a secondary camera. For this reason alone, the iPhone 4 is a better choice when it comes to camera.
Connectivity
Both the iPhone 4 and the Droid X support all the standard connectivity options like GPRS, EDGE, 3G HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with A2DP, GPS etc. Both of them also support tethering so that you can connect your computing devices to your iPhone or Droid X to access the data connection.
However, the Droid X runs on Verizon’s much better network compared to the iPhone 4 which runs on AT&T’s mediocre network (unless you get a new Verizon iPhone 4). The Droid X can also act as a mobile hotspot (a feature in Android 2.2 Froyo) which allows it to act as a mobile hub for other devices. This is a superb feature which the iPhone doesn’t possess.
When it comes to connectivity, the Droid X beats the iPhone 4 by a good margin.
Conclusion
Both the phones are excellent devices, I would happily own either one. If I had to choose, I would probably go for the Droid X, but that’s simply because I prefer Android to iOS. There are many who would choose the iPhone 4 and they aren’t wrong in making that decision. Feature wise, both phones are amongst the best phones available. You can’t go wrong with either of them.
