Bendable Media

The Motorola Droid X goes on sale July 15

It’s a story that has become predictable this year: each month, seemingly, a brand new and very exciting Android-based phone hits the market. Last month, it was the HTC Evo. Before that, the HTC Incredible.

Now, it’s the Droid X, a new smartphone from Motorola and Verizon Wireless that is big, sexy and packed with features. The Droid X is yet another phone that represents a “new way of computing,” as Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in introducing the phone during a New York City press conference. (I viewed the event via Webcast at a Chicago press gathering to launch the phone.)

Schmidt was referring to how tethered consumers have become to these very powerful mobile devices that are easily personalized to our needs. And he’s right; you can’t even attend a press conference about a cool new phone anymore without witnessing attendees checking email on their existing cool phones. We wake up in the morning and interact with these mobile devices, Schmidt said, and we check them before going to bed. If we leave home without our smartphone, we go back and get it.

How true, and the Droid X will do nothing to solve that problem. Indeed, it’s a phone you want to engage with because of its size — it has a 4.3-inch screen — and the multimedia features it packs. The worker bee needn’t worry about a lack of features, either, as it includes software for corporate email and mobile security. If you lose your phone, it can be remotely wiped clean by the office IT team.

A dock can charge the Droid X and can be used to watch video

The Droid X goes on sale July 15 at Verizon Wireless for $200 (after rebate). The phone runs on the Android 2.1 software platform, but can be updated to the 2.2 version later this summer. It includes an 8-megapixel camera with a responsive lens, as my brief tests indicated. It does not have a front-facing camera, however, like the Evo and iPhone 4.

The Droid X can shoot and display video in 720p HD, includes 8gb of internal memory (it can hold 40gb of stuff with memory cards) and it allows you to touch type in two ways. (More on that below.)

It doesn’t include a kickstand like the HTC Evo — that is a really, really useful feature — but Motorola created a dock for the Droid X, as it did for the first Droid, that acts as a stand and a charging station. You can use the dock to turn the phone into clock while it charges, but also to display video across its large screen. Also, and more importantly, the dock includes an HDMI port (so does the phone) so you can attach the phone to a TV or computer to watch high-def programming that originates from the phone.

That programming can be what you shot with the camera, a TV show watched via Verizon’s Vcast service, or a movie from Blockbuster, as the Droid X includes an app from the movie rental chain that allows you to download movies and stream them onto — or through — your phone.

The dock is sold separately, however, and costs a too-high $50. Another add-on accessory is the $40 car mount; the right price considering its fantastic function. By placing your Droid X into this mount, you turn the phone into a turn-by-turn navigation tool. It’s a GPS killer, as I noted when the first Droid came out. On the Droid X, you can also run a background program, like Pandora Radio, to play music while you navigate.

The Droid X offers the traditional tapping of keystrokes, or the new 'Swype' method to write an email or text message.

An accessory you need to buy but should ship with the phone is an HDMI cable. It’s a real bummer one needs to pay $25 for a cable. Both Sprint, with the HTC Evo, and Verizon have chosen not to include an HDMI cable with their phones, an inconvenience for customers interested in playing the high-def video they shoot with the phone on a big HDTV screen. That’s a shame for a phone that costs $200 to buy, plus a monthly nut of about $100 to operate. Boo.

One cool tool that I’m excited to play with is called Swype. This is a new way to enter text for messagjng. With Swype, you just slide your fingers across the keyboard to connect words. In my brief tests, it was difficult to grasp at first, but I started to get the hang of it after 5 minutes. The New York Times recently wrote a fascinating profile on the development of Swype.

As usual with a new Android phone, there’s a lot more to say. My notes are chock full of thoughts and ideas, but I need to start spending more time with this big beauty. I’ll provide additional details soon.

Related Posts, Bendable Gadgets:

• The HTC Incredible, is, well, pretty sweet
• Three tipping points leading to mobile explosion
• Apple, Google dominate smartphone market; others hurting