Motorola Droid Ultra - Motorola's thinnest Droid ever

Motorola Droid 4 hands-on: Awesome keyboard, blistering 4G LTE

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

CNET - At CES earlier this year, Motorola dropped a trio of new Verizon handsets offering welcome improvements over the company’s existing device selection. They were the now legendary Droid Razr Maxx, Droid Razr Purple, and Droid 4. Out of that lineup, it was the Droid 4 that initially grabbed my attention.

Why, you ask? The simple answer is that it melds dual-core processing, a quality keyboard, Android, and Verizon LTE in one phone. That’s the holy grail to some, at least for Android addicts who can’t seem to live without a real physical QWERTY keyboard. Motorola seriously disappointed Droid fans with its Droid 3, which lacked the final puzzle piece, LTE data. Enter the Droid 4.

Design

It’s clear to me that the Droid 4 takes its design cues from other devices in Motorola’s current 2012 lineup. The phone sports the black obelisk motif, complete with slightly rounded corners and beveled edges, as do the Droid Razr Maxx and Droid Razr. It’s a classy look sure to fit in equally at the office or out on the town. There’s no getting around, however, the large size of the Motorola Droid 4. I mean its girth stares at you right in the face practically begging for trouble. This bruiser measures 5 inches tall by 2.65 inches wide with a full thickness of half an inch. Weighing 6.31 ounces, the Droid 4 is also hefty. Compared with the wafer-thin trend modern smartphones are taking, this handset stands out.

The trade-off for all that extra mass is just what makes it appeal to a very vocal set of Android users, a superb keyboard. Sliding the phone open reveals a gloriously engineered typing surface. While I admit keys are tightly packed together, travel is deep and buttons provide a deliciously rubberized tactile feel. Consisting of five rows, not merely four like on lesser devices, it has a dedicated number row on top. I also really dig the way the backlighting traces the outline of the Droid 4′s squat rectangular keys. The spacebar goes on for what feels like miles and is easy to hit without looking down. The Droid 4′s directional pad is nice as well and something you don’t see often either.

To be clear, though, some things about the keyboard do bug me. First, there is no special key for “.com” or an emoticon button. Those are just minor quibbles, especially since there are keys for often-used punctuation marks such as comma, period, backslash, and equal sign for all you math nerds out there (just kiddin’, computation is cool). The majority of keys serve as secondary symbols too. One detractor is that to activate secondary functions, you need to hit the Shift key twice. This would be fine except that the button isn’t marked yellow like all the secondary symbols are. At least a light on the left indicates when secondary functions are engaged.                 More

Motorola Droid Razr Maxx hitting Verizon on January 26

CNET - Verizon just made the Motorola Droid Razr Maxx ship date official. Enhanced with a big battery designed for maximum endurance, Android fans can scoop up the pricey $299.99 superphone in stores on January 26.

First unveiled at CES two weeks ago, the Droid Razr Maxx boasts a fat 3,300mAh battery pack yet still manages to keep a slim 0.35-inch silhouette.

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Motorola Announces Droid 4, Droid RAZR MAXX on Verizon Wireless

LAS VEGAS—At CES 2012, Motorola and Verizon Wireless have launched the Motorola Droid 4 and the Droid RAZR MAXX, two 4G LTE-powered smartphones for Verizon’s network.

The two companies are billing the Droid 4 as the thinnest 4G LTE QWERTY smartphone on the market—4G LTE and QWERTY being two things that usually lead to thicker phones. The Droid 4 measures 5 by 2.7 by 0.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 6.3 ounces. That’s no Droid RAZR, but it’ll certainly do given what’s under the hood. The new version looks a little softer and classier than the Droid 3. In addition to the five-row physical keyboard, which features sharp-looking, edge-lit keys, the Droid 4 also includes a 1.2GHz dual-core processor (bumped from the Droid 3′s 1GHz)and 1GB RAM.

The 4-inch qHD (540-by-960-pixel) display features “scratch- and scrape-resistant” glass, but is otherwise similar to the Droid 3′s panel. Motorola says the entire Droid 4 is enclosed in a water-repellant nanocoating as well. There’s still an 8-megapixel camera on board with 1080p video recording, plus 16GB internal storage, a microSD memory card slot, and a useful mirroring mode to throw images or video on a living room or hotel HDTV.



One annoying downside: The Droid 4 ships with Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread), instead of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Motorola is promising an upgrade to ICS in the second quarter of 2012, but we’re moving past the point where at least high-end phones should come preloaded with Android 4.0.

As a Motorola Android phone, the Droid 4 is another device that works with Motorola’s increasingly large array of convertible accessories, including the 10.1-inch Lapdock 100, the 14-inch Lapdock 500 Pro, the Vehicle Navigation Dock, and the HD Docking Station, plus Motorola’s Webtop mode, which runs a desktop version of Mozilla Firefox and sports task automation features. The keyboarded Droid 4 also keeps up Motorola’s business end of the equation, with support for government-grade FIPS 140-2 encryption for data security and a Citrix Receiver for Android client preloaded. It also sports a 4G LTE mobile hotspot mode that works with up to eight devices simultaneously with the appropriate Verizon Wireless plan.

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All told, the sharp-looking Droid 4 gives the Droid3 the LTE radio it should have had, but is now stuck on an OS that the world is already moving away from, at least for a few months—presumably thanks to Motorola’s relatively heavy UI layer and all that Webtop mode stuff, it has to move over to ICS.                        More

Prizefight: Apple iPhone 4S vs Motorola Droid Bionic

CNET - The Motorola Droid Bionic proved to the world that a dual-core processor and Verizon’s 4G LTE chipset could exist in the same phone. The result is one speedy handset, with plenty of power as well. Aside from the usual multimedia and enterprise features, the Droid Bionic also has Webtop functionality that transforms the humble smartphone into a bona-fide Netbook thanks to a variety of accessories.

However, it faces a serious challenger in Apple’s latest device wonder, the iPhone 4S. Even though it’s widely touted as merely an incremental upgrade, it has a lot of power under the hood. There’s plenty of brains behind this beauty, with a dual-core processor along with a seriously upgraded camera. And, of course, it features Siri, the voice assistant that is the current darling in the tech press. Will the Droid Bionic’s Android brawn win against the iPhone 4S’ elegant strength? We find out in this Prizefight.

Editors’ note: The Prizefight scoring system is as follows: Each judge rates on a 0-to-5-point scale. At the end of each round, we will take an average of the three judges’ scores. The final score for each phone will be an average of all five rounds.

Next Round

Review: Motorola Droid Razr

CNET - The Razr is back, and it’s better than ever. Motorola has done the smartest thing it’s done in years with the Droid Razr, which combines sheer Droid brawn with the legacy of Razr design.

We had the opportunity to get a hands-on look at the phone, and we can’t deny that the Droid Razr’s ultralight design is an immediate wow factor. We picked it up and were stunned at how skinny it was–it’s 7.1mm (0.28 inch) thin, to be exact, which makes it the thinnest smartphone so far, according to Motorola. It’s also correspondingly lightweight, at only 127 grams (4.5 ounces).

But that doesn’t mean the phone is a fragile thing to be coddled. The Droid Razr feels surprisingly solid, and Motorola says that’s because of the sculpted glass, the Kevlar backing, and the stainless steel chassis that holds it all together. There’s even a nanotechnology coating that makes the phone splash resistant. It stops short of being waterproof, though, so we wouldn’t go swimming with it. The Kevlar backing is soft to the touch, which is a departure from the usual rough texture associated with Kevlar. The thin display is made out of sculpted Corning Gorilla Glass, which claims to be scratch resistant as well.

Motorola Droid Razr hands-on (photos)

 

And what a display it is. The 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Advanced display is really gorgeous in person. With its qHD resolution, images and graphics are both colorful and crisp. The Droid Razr also claims to be the first smartphone to be able to stream HD content from Netflix.

Powering all of this is a dual-core 1.2GHz TI processor and 1GB of RAM. The result is a seamless navigation experience. We flipped through screens with speed, with no transition lag at all. We didn’t notice any sluggishness when launching and multitasking between several apps as well. The Droid Razr ships with Android 2.3.5 with a MotoBlur skin. It’s not the prettiest skin we’ve ever seen, but it’s not nearly as intrusive as it used to be.          More

Review: Motorola Droid Bionic (Verizon Wireless)

The good: The Motorola Droid Bionic has a nice slim and sleek design, with a 4.3-inch qHD display and the double whammy of a dual-core processor and Verizon 4G LTE support. Multimedia features are plentiful and business users will be pleased with its enterprise abilities like the Webtop application and solid security.

The bad: The Motorola Droid Bionic is saddled with Motorola’s custom UI, which might not be for everyone. It’s also quite expensive, and the Webtop accessories aren’t cheap.

The bottom line: The Motorola Droid Bionic is everything you want from a high-end smartphone–it’s sleek, fast, and powerful, with features that will please both consumers and business users–if you’re willing to pay the high price.

Read the Full Review

Hands-on with Motorola Droid 3 for Verizon

Motorola Droid 3 Debuts

Motorola Droid 3

(Credit: Verizon Wireless)

 

CNET - The Motorola Droid 3 made its debut today with very little fanfare--despite previous hubbub of rumors and leaks--and is available now online from Verizon Wireless for $199.99 with a two-year contract ($459.99 off contract) and in stores by July 14.

Much like the original Droid and Droid 2, the Droid 3 features a slide-out, five-row QWERTY keyboard but boasts a larger and better 4-inch qHD (960x540) touch screen. The Android 2.3 Gingerbread-based smartphone also packs a dual-core processor,16GB of internal memory,
and an 8-megapixel camera with 1080p HD video capture.  There is also a front-facing camera (though resolution was not specified at the time of this writing) for video calls, and the handset comes preloaded with Skype mobile.      More