Mobile News

Release Date: February 25, 2010

$480 Retail
$149 with 2-year Verizon Contract
$99 with 2-year Verizon Contract but Only When Purchased at Best Buy

Battery

Because this Android 1.6, slider phone does so much, the Motorola Devour goes through battery power quickly, which is the tradeoff for this high performance mobile device. However, when the battery reaches low power of 20% remaining, the phone will automatically shut down until it is powered. Unfortunately, this leaves the user with absolutely no warning. The average person can expect to get 4-5 hours worth of use between charges.

Memory and Processor Speed

The Motorola Devour features a Qualcomm MSM7627 processor, which is the same one found on other popular cell phone models such as the Blackberry Curve 8530 and Palm Pixi. The Devour’s processor includes two ARM cores–400MHz modem processor and 600MHz CPU core. In addition to this exceptional processor, the Devour also has 8GB of internal memory with a supported removable SD mini card memory of 32GB.

Screen

This phone’s display consists of a HVGA well-responsive touchscreen with a size of 3.1″. The majority of users are pleased by the screen’s vibrant, clear colors. Devour’s screen also doubles as a camera viewfinder; however, when used in this manner, the display is pixelated and grainy; this could be due to software issues and not display problems.

Form

The Devour by Motorola is certainly not known for being slim, small, or lightweight. Although this phone can fit in a large pants pocket, it’s bulky size creates an unsightly bulge. On a positive note, the Devour’s metal case makes it ideal for those who frequently drop their phones while at work or simply due to sheer clumsiness. It’s the Hefty bag of cell phones.

Controls

The “Tab” and “Shift” buttons of this easy-to-see, large keyboard are located on the right, which can be problematic to some users. Overall, people have found the Devour’s keyboard easy to type on using only thumbs. In conjunction with the keyboard, the Motorola Devour also showcases a touchscreen with a small, frontal, optical trackpad that controls only the screen selections. The standard “Home,” “Back,” and “Menu” buttons as well as the camera shutter are located below the phone’s screen while the “Power” button can be found on top.

Camera

This phone includes a 3.0 megapixel camera with continuous zoom that falls short of expectations. Besides the disappointing zoom that usually creates grainy photos when used, the camera takes consistently good pictures.

Other Features

*  Includes the efficient and fun MotoBlur social networking function that retains a user’s information if they ever replace their cell phone with any other model that also contains MotoBlur
*  Quickoffice for Microsoft Office document access on the go
*  Synchronized address book and calender
*  Google Maps mobile version and GPS receiver
*  RSS reader built-in
*  Quick web browser
*  Loud and clear external speaker, even when not using headphones
*  YouTube application
*  Verizon Wireless’ exclusive VCast Music
*  Video gallery and picture applications