Motorola's Droid 3

The Droid 3, available now from Verizon Wireless, is the third phone to follow in the footsteps of Motorola's original Droid device. That first Droid set the standard for today's army of Android phones, and -- with the aid of its memorable marketing campaign -- helped turned "Android" into a household word.

The Droid 3 has a 4-inch, 960 x 540 LCD screen -- noticeably larger than the 3.7-inch, 854 x 480 displays on the previous Droid devices. The display is crisp and brilliant, with rich colors and true-to-life representation. While I might give a slight edge to Samsung's Super AMOLED Plus technology, I have no qualms about the quality of the Droid 3's screen, and I suspect most users won't, either.
The face of the Droid 3 slides sideways to reveal a newly designed five-row QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard, which features a top row dedicated exclusively to numbers, is a pleasure to type on: The keys are nicely spaced out and have a soft, rubber-like feel, and the sliding keyboard mechanism has a satisfying snap that sturdily holds the panel in position. If you like using a physical keyboard on your phone, you won't be disappointed.
Motorola's Droid 3 has a more rounded and less angular look than the Droid and Droid 2 before it. A power button is centered along the phone's top edge, with a headphone jack at the right; a charging port and HDMI port sit along the phone's left side, and a volume rocker lives on the right-hand side of the device. There's also an LED indicator on the phone's face that flashes to alert you of missed calls or new messages -- a nice touch absent in many other current devices.