Motorola Droid X officially teased; the war on smartphone screens has begun

This week has been really incredible. You see, we don't like to post about rumors, even though we actually stay tuned to them, listen to them, and pray for some of them to become true. We've been weeks, if not months, being teased with pictures of a brand new Motorola device. At first, it was believed to be only one, and a successor to the Droid launched last November, but as more and more material got leaked throughout the web, the rumor spun off in two distinct devices. Well this week, after being rumors, at least one of them has become more than real. Find out what's going on after the break.

We begin on Tuesday, when we were shocked at Engadget's news: Verizon, Google, Motorola and Adobe were announcing a press event on June 23^rd to showcase the next generation of Droid. This meant at least one of the devices was real, and by real we mean that it's about to become a consumer device, not just a prototype running around the web. Now, what's interesting about this event, is the list of speakers, which we can see includes John Stratton from Verizon, Andy Rubin himself from Google, Sanjay Jha from Motorola, and Shantanu Narayen, CEO of Adobe. This is not, as you might've guessed, any list of speakers; these are the people making the decisions we see, as consumers, nearly two years later, taking into account a smartphone takes around 18 months to develop. So, why now? And why this panel of speakers?

Note: All calculations where performed in a couple of websites: http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html and http://thirdculture.com/joel/shumi/computer/hardware/ppicalc.html

We're currently working on our piece about Google I/O, but this was an opportunity we just couldn't miss. The first question might have an easy answer: Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, also known as WWDC. There, we watched Steve Jobs doing what he's been doing ever since he began to turn Apple into one of America's most profitable companies, give history a new "Stevenote". Steve presented the latest iPhone model, the iPhone 4 (i4 for us), and gave a big blow to all handset manufacturers in three key technical points. Of course, this being Apple, and this being the first iPhone model we've truly liked after four years, we'll be writing a lot about it, but for understanding our point here, we must reveal one of the i4's mobile industry leading features: a 960x480 3.5" screen which, which at 326 pixels per inch (ppi), is the highest density screen ever made available to consumers. The i4 was announced just three days after Android's latest flagship device, the HTC Evo 4G, was released on the Sprint network. The Evo, in short (because you'll hear us talking a lot about this device, stay tuned), is the idea of what we described as the best smartphone money could buy a few months back; it sports an epic 4.3" inch screen with a 800x480 pixel resolution, similar hardware as the HD2, Android 2.1 with HTC's Sense, and a lot more. When the i4 was announced, it was compared throughout the web with the Evo 4G, specially, you guessed right, against its screen. 

So, why is this screen density stuff so important? Apple and Steve called the i4's screen "the Retina Display", because Steve claimed that, at the distance we typically use a smartphone, the human eye cannot see past more than 300 pixels per inch. What did he mean by that? If you have an Android device with a 320x480 screen or an iPhone that's not the new i4, you can see tiny squares within the screen under certain situations (for example, in low-light conditions) that take different colors when you get really close. Those squares are the screen's pixels, and every time we see something in a screen, what's happening is that those pixels take a certain color, and because there are so many, we can "draw" User Interfaces, pictures, videos, apps, games, etc. Screen density is the amount of pixels we can put into a screen with a certain size. The more pixels you can put into a screen, the smaller they are, so it makes it harder for us to actually see the pixels in a screen. When they get past a certain point, they're so small we can't even notice them: that's how we can see stuff in our screens. And since everything that's good comes at a price, the more pixels you cram into a screen, the more expensive it becomes. Why does Apple sell the Retina Display as the best screen ever made? Well, because our smartphones are carrying resolutions near the typical resolution of a classic square monitor (1024x768), while being significantly smaller. Because Apple multiplied by four the resolution in the i4, and kept the same 3.5" size, it has a screen density far away from anything we've seen, 326 ppi. Let's give you a couple of examples: a full high definition TV (1920x1080 pixels) with a screen size of 37" has a screen density of about 59 ppi, while a 17" screen of the same resolution only manages to get up to 129. Why did I say "only"? Take one of the first generation Android devices, or even the Palm Pre (which is close), with a 3.2" screen and 320x480 pixels resolution, and we're getting 180 ppi. 

Now, your question would be, "what about the Droid, the Nexus One, and the Evo? They're only slightly bigger against the gain in resolution compared of first-gen Android devices, don't they get close to the i4?" They do, sort-of. The Droid has the highest pixel density of the pack because of its 854x480 screen resolution and 3.7" screen, managing 264 ppi, then comes the Nexus One (800x480, same screen size as Droid) with 252 ppi and then the Evo with 216 (roughly 217) ppi. With its breathtaking 326 ppi, and such a small screen, Apple & Steve claimed it was as good (or even better) than reading a magazine, and claimed the best screen throne Android had taken since the arrival of the Droid, because as you know, the first three iPhones have the same resolution as a first generation Android device in their 3.5" screen, or 164 ppi.

Back to this week, and back to the event. Verizon has been the one pulling Android into the mainstream since October with their teases; since then, since the Droid arrived, the rest of Android devices were simply known as Droids running in other carriers. Of course, Verizon has put their logo in all of their ads around the cities, TV and the web, to make sure "Droids" only work in their network, but still, I truly believe Android wouldn't have been, well, less geek oriented, if it wasn't for Verizon and how they've brought Android into the map. A couple of months back, Verizon added the Droid Incredible to their lineup, which is built by HTC, and so Motorola started losing ground; they lost their place as Verizon's flagship Android device. Motorola is the second most important handset manufacturer, and HTC grabbed their place at Verizon, even if the original Droid is still being sold because of its hard-keyboard, which the Droid Incredible lacks. It was obvious Motorola wanted to regain their spot in Verizon, and so a move was required. What we didn't see coming though, is a summer announcement, but we'll discuss this later. The fact now is, Motorola has brought Android back into the spotlight after being nearly silenced by Apple, and I'm really curious about Andy Rubin being listed as a speaker, because the presence of Adobe's CEO means (or should mean) the device could run Android 2.2 or Froyo, which was announced at Google I/O (remember, we're preparing a couple of posts on the event). The presence of Sanjay Jha means Motorola is relying heavily on Android, and that getting back their position at Verizon is important for the manufacturer, and we couldn't agree more. We'll just have to wait for June 23^rd, and see how this new army of Droids come to life.

Later that same day (this Tuesday), Engadget got a hands-on for two hours on a prototype we know as Droid X. We had seen leaked photos of it, including pictures in which it was seated next to an Evo 4G, leaving the HTC built device smaller in comparison. Our first theory was a 854x480 pixel resolution screen at the same 4.3" screen size, because we saw the Droid X's screen to be longer and less wide, similar to what happens with the original Droid and the Nexus One, both having same screen size but the Droid's resolution being slightly higher. Then came today, and we got hold of the news: Verizon was teasing it in their official website. At first, the page said "720p screen", which took us into overdrive, but it was then switched to "Captures 720p", and Engadget confirmed the prototype has an 854x480 resolution screen, leaving it at 227 ppi. Now, we hope someday this becomes true, because the day we see a 720p or 1280x720 pixels screen in a smartphone, even if it's as big as the Evo or the Droid X (remember, higher screen size reduces screen density at the same resolution), it would mean an incredible density of 341 ppi, or higher.

Even if Motorola and the other companies involved in manufacturing the Droid could not make the 720p a reality, we're far from done here. There's a lot more we must debate, since the new Droid, Apple, HTC, Palm, Microsoft, Samsung and the others are far from giving up, and I'm sure we still have plenty of surprises left in this new front of the smartphone wars. But for now, all we can say is, it's an amazing time to watch the mobile industry. There are so many handset manufacturers, all pushing each other to deliver the best handset, under the banner of Android, and at the same time, they all fight together, and try to push the boundaries of innovation, across all platforms.

Some photos are courtesy of Apple, Android Headlines and Engadget.