Motorola Droid review: The Verizon slider that made Android a real iPhone rival in the US.
The "Droid Does" phone that launched a brand.
The original Motorola Droid was the breakthrough Android phone in the US — Verizon's "Droid Does" campaign positioned it against the iPhone, and Android 2.0 with free turn-by-turn navigation made it a genuine alternative. It kick-started the Droid brand and Android's US momentum.
01Display
56/10056/100 trails the 61-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2009.
02Camera
50/10050/100 trails the 55-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2009.
03Performance
48/10048/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2009.
04Battery
54/10054/100 trails the 57-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2009.
05Build
62/10062/100 puts it above the 58-point average for flagship phones of 2009.
06Value
58/100At 58/100 this is one of the strongest value showings among flagship phones of 2009 — 14 points above the cohort average.
- Launched Android 2.0 with Google Maps Navigation.
- Physical QWERTY slide-out keyboard.
- FWVGA was sharp for 2009.
- microSD + jack.
- Slider keyboard was cramped.
- Single-core 550 MHz.
- CDMA/Verizon-locked.
- Average camera.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 35-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .