Introduction
Contents
Since their inception, most of the Android smart phones have been created to compete with the iPhone. It seems inevitable that at least one model would compete directly with the BlackBerry. The Droid Pro, a world-roaming capable smart phone with a full QWERTY keyboard is that phone. We set out to see if the Droid Pro could really be a BlackBerry killer.
The Droid Pro comes in a fairly plain gray box embellished with the Verizon, Google, and Motorola logos, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The Droid Pro box
The contents of the box are shown in Figures 2 and 3. The box contains the Droid Pro itself (shown in Figure 2), along with several cables and brochures (shown in Figure 3). These include a Micro to USB sync cable and a Micro to USB wall charger. You are immediately reminded that this is a "world phone" because there are also a few international power adapters: type G for United Kingdom and Africa, type C for Europe, and type I for Australia, New Zealand, and China. These adapters fit right over the American wall charger. Also included are some consumer information pamphlets and a Global Support Guide.
Figure 2: The Droid Pro
Figure 3: Other box contents
The ability to work not only on Verizon’s CDMA network in the U.S., but to also be able to roam onto the GSM and UMTS 3G networks give this phone the ability to be used worldwide. This really sets this phone apart from the others on the Verizon network. It also supports the basic business capabilities of the phone.
As shown in Figure 2, in size and shape, the Droid Pro is a pretty typical candy bar-type phone that could easily be mistaken for a BlackBerry. At 2.36 x 4.69 x 0.46 inches (61 x 119 x 11.7 mm), it is similar in size to the Motorola Droid 2. The Droid Pro weighs 4.73 oz (134 g) and has a nice sturdy build. Its simplistic design is similar to many other phones of this caliber. The front frame is gun metal gray with a black bezel around the screen and a black keyboard. The sides are wrapped in silver and the back is black. The rectangular shape has slightly rounded corners giving it a good feel in the hand.
The Droid Pro comes with a 2 GB Micro-SD card pre-installed. This seems a little skimpy compared to several other Verizon Droid phones that come with 16 GB cards. For a business phone, this may be adequate, but even business users may want to listen to music or store videos. We would have liked to see the Pro come with a higher capacity card.
Because it is a GSM phone as well as a CDMA phone, the Droid Pro also has a SIM card pre-installed. Both the memory card and the SIM card can be seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4: The back of the Droid with cover removed