Review of Motorola's DEVOUR Android social-networking smartphone for Verizon

If you’re looking for a robust social networking smartphone on Verizon Wireless, look no further than the Motorola DEVOUR. While it offers less screen real estate and a bulkier form factor that the DROID, the focus on social networking and multimedia makes it a compelling device. I think teens and young adults will love what the DEVOUR has to offer, even if it is a little less powerful and robust than the DROID.

Physical Aspects

The 180g (5.89oz) Motorola DEVOUR measures a bulky 115.5mm x 61mm x 15.42mm (4.5in x 2.4in x 0.6in) and, in the hand, feels a lot like a T-Mobile Sidekick. It’s a smartphone that doesn’t necessarily look like one; and it feels like a device targeted at the teen market due to its less-than-chic design and landscape QWERTY-slider form factor. during my testing, three people on different occasions told me that the phone would be too bulky and large for them to carry daily. that said, I really appreciated the solid aluminum design of the device. it feels like it could take more than just a few bumps and scratches.

The mechanism of the QWERTY slider is very sturdy and smooth, and I liked that with just a slight push the screen had enough energy to slide up on its own and reveal the full QWERTY keyboard hiding underneath it. The entire phone has a silver aluminum color that’s accented with bits of black. The backside has two large rubber surfaces for grip.

Considering the size of the DEVOUR’s surface area, the display looks way too small. it measures 3.1 inches across the diagonal (just like Motorola’s CLIQ and BACKFLIP) and has a very average 480 x 320 pixel HVGA resolution. By comparison, the Motorola DROID has a much sharper 854 x 480 pixel resolution and a larger 3.7 inch screen. that means you’ll see more of a website on the DROID, and images, text, and video will look sharper its screen. In any event, the DEVOUR’s display was bright enough to view under direct sunlight with the brightness set to full.

Just below the screen there are three touch sensitive buttons that responded well, and with haptic feedback, to my taps. one is for the menu, one to return home, and one to move backwards out of menus. To the left of these buttons is a small blue LED that flashes for alerts. on the bottom left hand corner of the phone (or bottom right if you’re holding it in landscape mode), there’s a new optical track pad. I found that the track pad was finicky and most of the time was generally unreliable. I preferred to use my finger on the screen to make selections, and think a 5-way navigation pad similar to the one found on the Motorola DROID or CLIQ would have been more practical. In any case, the optical pad was sufficient for selecting small links on websites that were too small to tap easily using my finger.

The full 4-row QWERTY keypad, with a dedicated number row, felt a little cramped after a few days of usage, mainly because it’s recessed in a valley between two metal chunks. I was able to get used to it quickly, though, and I liked that the keys had a bit more spacing and bounce to them than on the Motorola DROID. Moving around the phone, there’s a battery and microSD(INFO) hatch (an 8GB card is included) on the left-side of the phone that was a bit confusing to figure out at first. it has two rubber grips on it, and you need to slide the roughly 3-inch long rubber shield downward to remove it and access the battery and microSD card inside. This piece felt flimsy and impractical, though. A solid metal door might have made more sense. The power button and a 3.5mm headphone jack are on the top of the phone, which was convenient for accessing from my pocket. on the right side there are volume keys and a voice-dial key as well as a camera quick launch button. These all felt a little too soft and didn’t offer enough feedback for my tastes; it was often hard to tell if I had pushed the button hard or long enough to activate its functionality.

Review of Motorola's DEVOUR Android social-networking smartphone for Verizon