Announced at CTIA Enterprise and Applications last month, the Motorola Bravo is available on AT&T for $129.99. It's one of several mid-range Android phones that are either available now or coming soon - and if you view it with the understanding that it's not a high-end unit, it's a decent smartphone.
Here's what I've discovered thus far:
- You get the standard items in the box - an AC adapter module, USB cable, 2 GB microSD card (in the phone), and instruction manuals.
- Bravo's 3.7-inch WVGA display looks good. It offers 480 x 854 pixels, and supports 16.7 million colors. It's no match to the picture quality on the AMOLED-toting Captivate, but it gets the job done and given the price point, I'm impressed.
- With a curved, pebble-like feel, the phone is easy to use in one hand. The chrome accents on the back are nice, and the matte battery cover compliments it well. Instead of four capacitive buttons, the Bravo comes with three: Menu, Home, and Back.
- The Bravo offers an 800 MHz processor, and for the most part, the phone is zippy. I noticed a bit of lag when I pulled it out of the box, but once I removed the live wallpaper, I noticed an improvement. MOTOBLUR has been improved from the Motorola Devour days, and while it'll still be bloated to some, it runs more efficiently.
- On that note, the Bravo ships with Android 2.1. With all of the devices that are running Android 2.2, I'm surprised that the Bravo and Flipside didn't come with it, but I digress. In a nice little AT&T-themed touch, the Bravo highlights in orange versus the red that you're used to on the DROID X and DROID 2. The phone comes with the same fantastic on-screen QWERTY that the DROID 2 and X ship with.
- As I've said in past videos, I'm a fan of BLUR's widgets. They're clean, stylish, and they offer quite a bit of customization. Unlike Sense or TouchWiz widgets, I can customize the size to fit my personal needs.
- As you would expect from an Android device on AT&T, you can't sideload applications. If you're an experienced Android user or someone who likes to tinker with the device outside of the Android Market, this isn't the phone for you.
- So far, call quality has been strong. The Bravo offers Motorola's CrystalTalk technology, so overall voice quality has been excellent. Two of my callers told me I sounded like I was on a landline, and quality was great on my end as well. I took it to an AT&T dead zone in Charlotte today, and was able to hold the call, though it was incredibly choppy.
- I haven't conducted formal battery tests, but the Bravo ships with a reasonably large (for a mid-range phone) 1,540 mAh battery, so I expect it to be reasonable. I charged it this morning, and with moderate use that included calling, text messaging, browsing the web, and downloading apps, I have 30 percent remaining.
More to come! Be sure to check out our Motorola Bravo unboxing video.