The Motorola Droid 2 is already getting replaced by the Motorola Droid 3, which is available now from Verizon Wireless for $199.99 with a two-year contract. It’s got an all-new qHD resolution 4-inch touchscreen, world roaming capabilities, and a beautifully designed 5-row QWERTY keyboard.

Motorola Droid 3 Review
Verizon Motorola Droid A855 Android Cell Phone (no contract)

The handset features the latest version of MotoBlur, one which thankfully does away with a lot of the fluff and offers a fairly basic and traditional Android interface. The Droid 3 ships with the latest version of Gingerbread (Android 2.3.4).  A dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4 chipset runs the show here, offering superb speed and responsiveness. It builds off the same basic design used by its predecessors, with a large central screen and a sliding keyboard. At 4.9 inches tall by 2.5 inches wide by 0.5 inch thick and 5.9 ounces, it’s a handful but thinner than before. It is built of quality materials and feels extremely solid, all while being wrapped in a very sleek, squared executive casing.

The smartphone features a 4-inch qHD (960×540-pixel resolution) display. While it’s not the largest screen that you can find on a flagship phone, it’s certainly large enough. It is plenty large enough for games and video, without feeling like a stretch to hold.
The D3′s keyboard features the famous and elusive “fifth row”: a dedicated set of number keys along the top, making phone dialing, calculator use, and life in general much easier on the casual typist. To access it, you push the screen to the right, and the slider mechanism is quite strong. The keys themselves retain the same plastic feel, but that extra spacing really does make them easier to use.

The Motorola Droid 3 features an 8MP camera with LED flash capable of 1080p video capture, a serviceable combination for the most part. The camera app has numerous settings and editing options, including effects, eight shooting modes or scenes, panoramic mode, and brightness settings. However, the cam and its LED flash have a harder time in lower light situations, which results in washed out and sometimes grainy shots.

Alone on the right edge of the device you will find the volume rocker; the microUSB charging port and micro HDMI output are found on the left edge.  On top of the device you’ll find a power on/off/lock button in the center along with a 3.5mm headset jack towards the right. On the back we see a pop-off battery cover, 8 MP shooter with LED flash, and a speaker grill and mic hanging out near the bottom. Below the screen, you get four touch-sensitive buttons for the menu, home, back, and search functions.

The handset has a hefty pair of lungs, belting out tunes with plenty of volume and good dynamic range. The Droid 3 ships with a 1,540mAh lithium ion battery with a rated talk time of 9 hours and up to 12.5 days of standby time.