Gadgetory

hi this is Brian Bennett for cnet.com and right now we're taking a first look at the Motorola Droid Maxx what you see before you is the top dog in Motorola's legendary droid smartphone lineup for 2013 shipping now on Verizon for two $99.99 with two-year contract this gadget doesn't come cheap so what does the Droid Maxx offer to justify its steep sticker price quite a bit at least on paper first off the new Max sports a huge 5 inch 720p HD OLED screen the same display you'll find on it's less expensive sibling the Droid ultra it may not have the full HD resolution of the samsung galaxy s4 or HTC One that said the max is screen is big produces vivid colors and has high contrast and deep blacks the phone runs Android jellybean version 4.2 - not the freshest iteration Android 4.3 even so just like the Droid ultra the max of software is close to stock of course Motorola throws in some wild droid themed wallpapers and ringtones I especially like this one that looks like Skynet's global control center or something you might expect the Droid Maxx to use a high-octane quad-core processor like the Galaxy s4 and HTC One not so the max relies on Motorola's new x8 mobile computing platform that's built around a dual-core 1.7 gigahertz Snapdragon CPU that doesn't mean the max is underpowered the system boasts discreet quad-core Adreno graphics along with a processor for interpreting natural language and one for contextual computing it's the same technology motorola integrates into its flagship the Moto X and the other new verizon droids the droid mini Android ultra as a result the Droid Maxx feels nimble and responsive and thanks to motorola officially becoming a google owned company the maxx enjoys tight integration with the Google now advanced search application call touchless control speaking the phrase okay Google now at the phone will cause it to wake up from slumber ready to leap into action you can ask for directions facts or set reminders just to name a few options an active display feature uses only part of the screen to show notifications and alerts touch items to see more details or dismiss them the idea here is to fire up the phone less and save battery life above the screen is a two megapixel front camera while below it sit three capacitive buttons for basic Android control around back as the Droid Maxx is 10 megapixel main camera and LED flash there's a big speaker here too which pumps out a huge amount of volume motorola simplified the camera app for greater speed so you can spend more time taking photos and less time messing around with the camera settings you can also activate the camera by picking up the phone and twisting it in your wrist while you can't adjust image size you can toggle modes for HDR and panorama on or off I also like the Droid Maxx is traditional Kevlar fiber coating on back which resists both scratches and fingerprints at 0.34 inch thick the Maxx is remarkably trim especially considering it packs a ridiculously high capacity 3500 milliamp battery tipping the scales at almost six ounces however the max is hefty motorola says the maxes enhance battery provides a long 48 hours of mixed usage it is not removable though so you can't swap in a fresh battery in a jam the Maxx also comes with 32 gigabytes of internal memory unfortunately the phone lacks an SD card slot to add additional storage and like all the new droids the Droid Maxx links to Verizon's 4G LTE network for fast data I'm Brian Bennett for cnet.com and this has been a first look at the Motorola Droid Maxx you