Motorola Droid 3

Motorola’s Droid 3, now being offered in a Verizon BOGO scheme, has been torn apart by our friends over at iFixit. The latest incarnation of the Droid family (at least until the Droid Bionic arrives this August), packs some serious bang for your buck. Running on a a dual-core 1GHz OMAP processor from Texas Instruments, the handset sports a four-inch qHD display, a five-row slide-out full QWERTY keyboard and an eight-megapixel back camera that can record 1080p clips. The Droid 3’s dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor with 512MB RAM is clearly an improvement over an ARM Cortex A8 core from the original Droid and Droid 2. Unfortunately, iFixIt notes, Motorola paid no attention to the repairability of the handset because “you still have to take apart the whole phone in order to access the display and glass, a procedure hampered by Torx screws and glue that are used to hold everything together”, prompting them to give the Droid 3 a mid-pack 6 out of 10 repairability score.

While the Droid 2 World edition has a SIM card tray in select markets, the Droid 3 includes one by default, making it easy to use the phone internationally. “This SIM enables the Droid 3 to be used almost anywhere in the world”, reads the analysis. Other noteworthy design choices by Motorola: screws and latches are hidden beneath labels (good for the looks, bad for servicing the device), a hole through the motherboard allows sound to pass through for better transmission to the outside of the phone and a five-row slide-out QWERTY keyboard gives you more control, even with the keys feeling “cheaper in quality than the original keyboard”. The innards include an Atmel MXT224E capacitive touchscreen controller – the same chip powering touch-based input on the Samsung Galaxy Tab – a Qualcomm MDM6600 baseband chip for HSPA+ speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps, another Qualcomm-branded chip (PM8028) that works in conjunction with the MDM6600 to provide wireless data connection, 16GB of SanDisk-branded NAND flash, a Hynix memory controller and more.

Disconnecting the eight-megapixel rear camera (left) and removing the motherboard (right)

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BOGO, an acronym for “Buy-One-Get-One”, is a marketing tactics some (perhaps iOS fans) are adamant helped boost daily Android activations to over 550,000 handsets. The strategy is again at play at Verizon Wireless, the nation’s leading carrier which put Google’s platform on the map with the original Droid. And now, less than two weeks since the Droid 3’s arrival on the Verizon Wireless network, the carrier is offering the device in a hard-to-resist BOGO deal, reports The Phone Arena. You can take advantage of the offer at Verizon’s web site.

The reason? We’ve heard that there is another 4-inch slider coming to Verizon, but with some LTE’s in the very near future.

The carrier is also taking sign-ups for the Droid Bionic, a Motorola LTE phone which could launch August 4. The Gingerbread-powered Droid 3 features a four-inch qHD display, a slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, a back camera that can record 1080p clips, all thanks to a dual-core 1GHz OMAP processor from Texas Instruments. It costs $200 after a two-year service agreement or $460 contract-free. Would-be buyers should remember that Verizon no longer offers unlimited data plans.

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Motorola’s Droid 3 has been specc’d and benchmarked well before its June 17 China debut. Three weeks later, Verizon Wireless brings the latest and greatest Droid smartphone to America. A quick reminder: The Droid 3 runs the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread version, has a four-inch qHD display at 960-by-540 pixel resolution, a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, an eight-megapixel camera with 1080p video capture and a speedy dual-core 1GHz OMAP processor from Texas Instruments. Key thing: It’s available both with the usual two-year wireless contract for $200 and without a contract for $460, direct from Verizon Wireless here. And don’t forget that Verizon no longer offers unlimited data plans. Full release below.

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