Motorola DEVOUR/Review

Motorola DEVOUR

Price: $100 with contract
Official Site: Motorola.co
Specs: 3MP camera; 389 mins of talk time; Android 1.6; 3.1" HVGA; 5.89 oz; 8GB microSD
Company: Motorola

 The Motorola DEVOUR joins the DROID and the Eris as the third Google Android-powered phone for the Verizon network. Positioned as a midrange smartphone, the DEVOUR has a few new features and some scaled specifications that Motorola has targeted for an audience interested in a “younger brother” DROID device. The key bullet point for the DEVOUR is MOTOBLUR, which keeps you constantly connected to all of your social media networks. The Motorola DEVOUR is available for $99.99 with a new two-year contract, but it is possible to locate an even better price on the smartphone through some bargain hunting on sites like wirefly.com.

Taking an aesthetic cue from the current generation MacBook Pros, the Motorola DEVOUR goes for the single-body aluminum-and-black-casing look. The style of the DEVOUR is without question one of its strongest aspects, and the phone looks fantastic both turned on and off. The slide-out QWERTY is a step up from the one used on the DROID. The buttons are hard, slightly domed, spaced out nicely, and are overall much more ergonomically comfortable. While the build quality is certainly in line with high-end Verizon phones and the DROID, the hardware on the DEVOUR is clearly more budget-minded.

The screen on the DEVOUR retains the capacitive touch technology of the DROID, but the lower resolution is hard to ignore. The inclusion of MOTOBLUR is a cool feature for Twitter and text message fanatics who crave instant updates, but it has yet to be reworked for Android 2.1, so the DEVOUR is locked into an older build. While an updated version is surely in the works, there is no current timetable for a release, and these types of updates tend to run way off schedule.
The camera on the Motorola DEVOUR is not one of the better offerings we have seen on either Android-powered phones and smartphones in general. At 3 megapixels and with no auto-focus, this is major step down from what is included on the DROID. The media experience remains pretty much unchanged from other Android products. There is the V CAST app with Rhapsody and DLNA support, but no killer feature to be found.

This would have been the perfect area for the DEVOUR to differentiate itself. The battery life on the DEVOUR is rated at almost 400 minutes of talk time, but like with any high-powered smartphone, you are going to want to charge it on a nightly basis. The DEVOUR seems best approached as a messaging phone, but the current price point is just too close to the DROID to really make it stand out in any way from the glut of smartphone offerings.