Can the middle-tier Droid Ultra from Motorola stand up to competition when it hits the shelves come August 27th? The new Droids are on their way, and Motorola is hoping to shine bright in Verizon stores with the Motorola Droid Ultra.
Droid Ultra Specs include:
The hardware seems to be a downfall of sorts for the Droid Ultra, and among the list of things that consumers might find mediocre, the Ultra shows off a 5-inch 720p HD Super AMOLED display. While most would expect a phone released so late in 2013 to utilize a full 1080p display, the Ultra utilizes the lower resolution display. That being said, the display is still a sharp looking display and the 5-inch display has a comfortable range of motion for those used to devices like the HTC One or Galaxy S 4.
The other major complaint one would expect from consumers looking to purchase the Ultra during this late-summer release, is the fact that it only lists a 1.7GHz dual-core CPU. Don't be too easily fooled though, the X8 system that Motorola has built from the ground up is packing a decent amount of power and the device shows very little lag going in and out of applications and menus. It will be interesting to see how the system performs as time goes on.
While it may look like Motorola has some cause for alarm in terms of hardware, the company is looking to capitalize big with their interesting software approach. Where Samsung utilizes their own TouchWiz technology and HTC utilizes Sense 5, Motorola is using a nearly stock Android 4.2.2 on the Droid Ultra. Adding only a few tweaks here and there, their Motorola assist and Droid Zap features, and the same camera application used on the Moto X; The Droid Ultra's OS is packed with some helpful goodies. Your usual Verizon applications will also be present on the OS, but that’s to be expected and any fans of the Android platform will still find themselves enjoying the system.
The Droid Ultra has a large role to play in terms of Motorola's strategy to compete directly with devices like the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the HTC One. The Ultra offers some really cool software features, but is that enough to convince someone to spend $199.99 for the device? Part 2 of 2.
Jake Christiansen contributed to this report.
