The star performers of Motorola’s Droid-branded phones have always been clear: The keyboards take top billing. So it’s nice to see that after four generations of Droids, Motorola is still doing QWERTY right.
Our friends over at gadget teardown site iFixit thought as much on Monday, stating the Droid 4 is home to “the best keyboard yet” in the Droid series. The keyboard is sturdy inside and out, it’s positioned perfectly for one’s fingers, and it’s ready to sway remaining RIM loyalists away from their BlackBerries.
In terms of text entry, the Droid 4 also takes the exact opposite tack of Apple’s iPhone, and with good reason. Motorola knows that significant numbers of enterprise customers still love their keyboards, and the Droid has been the go-to Motorola device for QWERTY holdouts.
We’re sad to say, however, that the improved keys come at the cost of overall repairability. For one, the internal keyboard contacts are fused to the phone’s motherboard, so if you bust your keys, you’ll have to replace the whole darn thing. That’s pricey, and a needless pain in the ass to boot.
The battery, meanwhile, is a mixed bag. The good news? It’s user-replaceable, so switching between cells when you run out of juice is possible. The bad news? It’s a feat in finger dexterity to pop the Li-Ion nugget out of place. It’s covered by a massive sticker, slathered in adhesive and screwed to the phone itself. Inconvenient at best.
Even worse: If you happen to shatter your phone’s glass-covered faceplate, repairing it just plain sucks, says iFixit. You’ll have to break down the entire phone to reach the front glass pane. The same holds true if you want to replace the controller (the part that processes all of the touch input data). In short, DIY repairs will be arduous, and sending it out will cost more.
If you’re a QWERTY-loving business-type, breaking down the phone’s guts probably aren’t as important as its fancy keyboard. But for the hardware tweakers out there, the Droid 4 isn’t your friend.
