Review: Motorola Devour
Clock
The Motorola Devour presents a large clock on the locked display, so you can check the time without unlocking the touchscreen. Once you've started using the phone, the clock is a tiny set of numbers up in the notification bar, and you can also tap the bar quickly to see today's date. You can add an analog clock widget to any (or all) of your home screen panes, but you don't get the huge selection of cool clock designs that you'll find on an HTC Hero or other HTC Sense phone. There's an easy alarm clock app on the phone, too, so you can set multiple alarms and leave the phone by your bedside as an alarm clock radio. You can even wake up to one of your MP3 tracks or a video when the alarm goes off.
Bluetooth
The Motorola Devour supports Bluetooth 2.0+EDR with protocols for handsfree devices and stereo music playback. I paired the Devour with my various Bluetooth devices with no trouble. I tried a few Bluetooth headphones from Plantronics and BlueAnt and the Devour found them quickly and paired easily. Sound quality on the Devour was pretty good, on par with other phones we've paired with these headsets. Reception could cut out occasionally as we moved the phone to and from our pocket, but that's not unusual for Bluetooth. You can even use voice dialing with your Bluetooth earpiece. I also paired the Devour with a set of stereo Bluetooth speakers from Parrot and music came through loud and clear.
GPS
With more Verizon Wireless services on board than the Motorola Droid, the Motorola Devour offers a strange, equivocal mix of GPS navigation options. You can pay a monthly fee to use the newest version of Verizon Wireless' VZ Navigator. Verizon's navigation app has seen significant improvements recently, with a much better interface and some very convenient location-based features to help you find local movies, gas prices, concert events and more. Or, you can go with the free navigation now offered in Google Maps on the Devour. Google's free navigation is surprisingly good, and I could hardly tell the difference in quality between the two. VZ Navigator does have more features built in, but not enough for me to justify paying $10 per month. Plus, VZ Navigator had trouble using the GPS signal on occasion. While Google Maps found my location quickly, VZ Navigator would sometimes stall, requiring a full restart of the phone to work properly. This only happened a couple times during my testing, but for a paid app it should work better than the free option.
Market
The Motorola Devour gets access to the Android App Market. Apps on the Market tend toward the productive or system hack side of the developer world, with fewer games and entertainment apps than you'll find in the Apple App Store, unless you think it's entertaining to hit a button and hear Stewie Griffin speak, in which case you're in luck. Not every application will show up, even in a targeted search. For instance, I wanted to test the graphically intensive Sherpa app, but it wasn't available for the Devour so it didn't appear. Only apps that work with Android OS 1.6 (and not the other 3 versions currently on the market), will appear. Even so, there are plenty of apps for Twitter, Facebook and other social networking functions, including loads of options to update your status or upload pics.
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Motorola Devour
