While the Droid X [portal page] beats the iPhone 4 [portal page] in a straight-up megapixel to megapixel comparison by 3 megapixels (Droid X’s cam is 8 MP while iPhone 4’s is 5 MP), the iPhone 4 uses a fancy back-illuminated sensor, which enhances it’s ability to capture light, according to Apple.

The Droid X supports 720p HD recording, just as the iPhone 4, and interestingly, the Droid X has a mechanical shutter. The Droid X also has a dedicated two-stage camera button which focuses and captures, as well as a dual-LED flash. The iPhone has a single LED flash. Additionally, the Droid X can upload HD video directly to YouTube, whereas the iPhone 4 has to have the video put onto a computer and uploaded to YouTube for HD quality (Apple plans on updating this at a later time, so it’s a software restriction, not hardware).

Below I’ve taken some shots with both the Droid X and the iPhone 4 for comparison. The videos were both taken from the respective devices and uploaded to YouTube through a computer, just to ensure that no compression was taking place during the phone upload process.

Because this is a camera comparison post, I’ve bumped up the click-through pictures to a larger than usual resolution, so be sure to click on them for a more detailed view.

General

Macro

High Light

Medium Light

Low Light

Low Light (with flash)

Video

If you have a powerful computer and you’d like to watch these videos side-by-side, give this link a try. Slower computers will likely stutter if you try to run both in HD at the same time.

The iPhone has somewhat of an unfair advantage as it has auto-exposure adjustment, while the Droid X requires manual adjustment in the settings menu of the camera app. All pictures taken with the Droid were at an exposure of 0 (it ranges between -3 and +3) but just for comparison’s sake, here is the Low Light Droid X shot with the exposure turned up to +3 along side the same iPhone 4 Low Light shot that you saw above.

It’s hard to say which of the two has a better dynamic range, but the iPhone 4 seems to have more vibrant colors (not necessarily more accurate, however). The iPhone 4’s HD video also looks noticeably better than the Droid X’s in terms of sharpness and framerate, though the Droid X doesn’t seem to focus its camera before shooting HD video which is somewhat odd.

I just shot some pictures of the Droid X [portal page] and a few with the phone next to the iPhone 4 for reference. Here are a few choice photos, and you can find the full set in the Droid X’s gallery page. Stay tuned camera comparison is coming up next.

The Droid X [portal page] just showed up today and we’ve got a quick unboxing with more coverage coming soon! Check it out:

The Droid X [portal page] can now be officially purchased through Verizon. New customers can snag one for $199 with a new 2 year contract, and existing customers eligible for an upgrade can re-up for another 2 years and receive the same $199 pricing. Like all the Droid phones (and other Verizon smartphones) Verizon requires a data package of $29.99 or more for use with the phone.

The Droid X officially launched on the on the 15th, but they appear to be backordered as the site currently says “Due to high demand, this device will ship by 7/27”. Surprisingly, that date is sooner than the shipping date on the similarly speced Droid Incredible (by HTC) which launched back at the end of April.

Verizon has launched a new Droid site featuring the original Droid [portal page] the Droid X, and the Droid Incredible. The flash based site has a rather novel head-tracking option which, upon being given access to your webcam, will tilt the content from side to side as you move your head around. The idea here is to make it feel as though you are able to look around the phones, but the effect isn’t convincing. The site also doesn’t run very smoothly without a powerful computer.

If you’d like to compare the original Droid and the Droid X (both by Motorola), this link will take you to a comparison sheet provided by our product database over at UMPCPortal.com.

I’ve been quite surprised by how many of my non-tech friends have heard of the Motorola Droid X. Generally I’ve found that non-techies pretty much only recognize the iPhone, but Verizon must be doing a decent job of marketing upcoming devices here in the US.

Tnkgrl, who always seems to have her hands on the latest smartphones, has graced us with a great Droid X unboxing. You can find one of her videos below (for the other, click through to her site for the first power-on video).

One of the most surprising things that you’ll probably find is how large the Droid X is. The HTC Incredible, iPhone 4, and Nexus One all look quite tiny by comparison. The screen is a whopping 4.3 inch and the only current smartphone screen that I know of that surpasses it is the Dell Streak’s 4.8 inch screen [Portal page].

In addition to the videos, tnkgrl has a bunch of great shots of the device in a flickr slideshow.

If you want a detailed run-down of the Droid X’s specs, check out our Droid X tracking page in the Portal. There has been some initial confusion over what CPU the Droid X uses, but we’ve confirmed it to be a 1GHz Ti OMAP 3630 CPU. The Droid X specs that you’ll find in the Portal are from an official source, and not cobbled together from rumors.

Joanna Stern of Engadget has a thorough preview of the upcoming Motorola Droid X, and man… does that thing look huge!

As we see smartphones and MIDs continue to become one in the same, smartphones are getting ever larger; good news for the rather large Dell Streak [Portal page]. The Motorola Droid X has a 4.4 inch screen with an 854×480 resolution, which is nearly an inch larger than the iPhone 4’s 3.5 inch screen [Portal page]. Here’s a list of unofficial specs for the Droid X:

• Android 2.1 with a custom Motorola (MotoBlur) interface
• 4.4 inch capacitive screen @ 854×480
• 8 MP camera 720p HD recording capable
• 1GHz  ARMv7 CPU (Engadget guesses OMAP3630)

Verizon is going to be officially announcing the Droid X on June 23rd (a day before the iPhone 4 goes on sale, what a coincidence!) , so I’m sure we’ll see full specs then. Jump through to Engadget’s article for some videos of the Droid X in action, and check out their galleries:

Pictures of the Motorola Droid X

Test shots from the Motorola Droid X’s camera

Pocketnow.com has gotten its hands on some images and a video of the HTC Incredible, and upcoming phone which looks quite a bit like the HTC HD2 and appears to be on its way to Verizon (the boot sequence shows a Verizon animation in the video.) Despite aesthetic similarities between the HD2, the Incredible comes with Android 2.1, which I’ve been wishing was available on the HD2 the HD2 (it uses Windows Mobile instead). The phone is equipped with HTC’s ‘sense’ UI which is a custom interface on top of Android. The Incredible has a Snapdragon chipset, presumably at 1GHz; 256MB of RAM, 800×480 3.5-3.7 inch screen which the Pocketnow tipster thinks may be AMOLED. The back of the phone has a large looking lens with dual-LED flash, no word on the megapixelage yet, but my bet is on 5.0MP. The phone looks very responsive in the video. Click here to have a look at the video.

via Engadget