SlashGear » motoblur

Motorola PHOTON 4G Release Info : Coming for EVO’s Head

Chris Burns — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:14:48 +0000

There’s another dual-core device coming, and it’s coming from Motorola. One of only a couple of WiMAX 4G compatible dual-cores and certainly the only one with a kick-stand, this device is the newest generation of dual-core Motorola Androids that started with the ATRIX 4G, currently still residing on AT&T exclusively. But I’m sure you knew that, right, they look just the same, right? I say thee nay! Here comes the diamonds, instead!

This device will be available starting on July 31st for $200 on a two-year contract and will be available to premier customers early on July 28th. What are you going to do with your extra days, try to be the first one to root? Too bad! It’s got a locked bootloader. That’s alright though, you’ll have plenty of fun taking a look at all this Motoblur-laden device has to offer or- wait- they changed the name, right? Also would you look at that, the press photo has a totally new situation going on! Are we to believe the Motorola has some new tricks up their sleeve?

Last time we saw this device we were in New York City where we got to hold it in our hands and flip it around and almost drop it but save it just in time and etcetera. There we were able to see that it did indeed have a slightly odd looking Motoblur going on inside it, and there were certainly more than a few new oddities going on in the full Motorola user interface over Android. This device also, as noted, has a kickstand that’ll launch you into a desktop sort of mode, or you can plug it into it’s special dock where you’ll also be able to access Motorola’s Webtop interface.

Now which one are you gonna choose? This dual-core? The 3D competitor on the same network? Perhaps a completely different carrier with a sweet phone by the name of myTouch 4G Slide? It’s got a dual-core too!

Motorola PHOTON 4G Release Info : Coming for EVO’s Head is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

DROID X2 Review

Vincent Nguyen — Mon, 30 May 2011 05:39:28 +0000

For a while, Motorola’s original DROID X on Verizon led the pack. Offering a big screen, a big camera and a slender chassis, it helped drive the race toward oversized Android handsets that has led us to the Galaxy S II, Infuse 4G and Sensation. Now comes the Motorola DROID X2, boosting screen resolution and throwing in a second processor core, but wrapped up in the same sober suit. Has the company done enough to keep the DROID X2 topical, or is this sequel a flop? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.

Hardware

Powered-off and side-by-side with the original DROID X, and beyond the color – dark gray initially, now black – you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between it and the DROID X2 at a casual glance. Measuring the same 5.02 x 2.58 x 0.39 inches and weighing the same 5.47 ounces, the soft-touch black chassis follows Motorola’s “blunt and aggressive” school of design and looks good for it. We could do without the bloated camera section on the back, though, which protrudes a little more than is comfortable.

Turned on, and the DROID X2′s first advance is clear. As on the HTC Sensation, Motorola has used a qHD 4.3-inch panel running at 960 x 540 resolution, versus the 854 x 480 of the DROID X. It’s a regular LCD panel rather than anything fancy like Super AMOLED, but it’s bright and clear nonetheless, only coming unstuck in direct sunlight outside.

Underneath there are four physical buttons – menu, home, back and search – while above are proximity and ambient light sensors. No front-facing camera, though, leaving you with just the 8-megapixel autofocus camera (with dual-LED flash) on the back. Oddly, Motorola has deleted the dedicated camera shortcut button. Despite the extra grunt from the dual-core processor, as on the original DROID X, the X2 can only shoot 720p, rather than 1080p Full HD.

As in the ATRIX 4G, Motorola has turned to NVIDIA and the 1GHz Tegra 2 to keep the DROID X2 ticking, pairing the chip with 512MB of RAM. That’s the same as in the original version, but half of what the ATRIX gets. Connectivity falls short too: there’s EVDO Rev.A but no LTE to take advantage of Verizon’s speedy 4G network. Similarly absent is Global Roaming support, which means the DROID X2 is limited to CDMA networks and can’t use the GSM/HSPA networks common in Europe and Asia. Still, you get WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth, both microUSB and microHDMI ports – the latter offering screen mirroring on your HDTV – and a microSD card slot to augment the 8GB of internal storage.

Software and Performance

Motorola updated the original DROID X to Android 2.2 back in September 2010, and it seems the company isn’t willing to give up Froyo quite yet. The DROID X2 launches running the outdated version of Android – rival phones are shipping with Gingerbread – along with the custom MOTOBLUR-inspired UI.

That’s been tweaked a little since we saw it last, with the addition of categories in the applications menu – All Apps, Downloaded and Recent – as well as the ability to create your own to group together themed apps. There’s also a helicopter view of all seven homescreens just like in HTC Sense. The resizable widgets are carried over, and there’s a persistent four-icon launcher along the bottom of the homescreen (which can obviously be customized).

Social networking is catered for with a pair of homescreen widgets and a standalone app, pulling in Facebook and Twitter updates and allowing you to set your own status on both simultaneously. Verizon preloads its V CAST Music and VZ Navigator apps, along with the Blockbuster movie rental apps, while Motorola adds the Kindle app, Skype, Slacker and Quickoffice. Need for Speed Shift and Let’s Golf 2 make an appearance in trial form, as on other Tegra 2 devices we’ve seen.

It all works, but we’d gladly sacrifice MOTOBLUR for stock Android 2.3.3. Motorola has said a Gingerbread update is in the pipeline, but not committed to a release timetable as yet. As the Android Market continues to grow, and the core OS itself gains more abilities, manufacturers need to offer more than token modifications to make a good argument for customizing software. We’ve a strong suspicion that most DROID X2 owners will end up bypassing Motorola’s Twitter and Facebook support in favor of more functional third-party alternatives, for instance.

As for performance, we’re used to seeing decent benchmarking figures from the Tegra 2 and the DROID X2 follows suit. In Quadrant Advanced, it scored 2743 overall (with 7241 in CPU and 2846 in I/O), more than double the DROID X’s 1353. SmartBench 2011 brought in scores of 2775 for the X2 and 844 for the X; impressive, but still lagging behind the overclocked 1.2GHz goodness of the Galaxy S II, which managed 3830. Finally, in the SunSpider JavaScript test, the DROID X2 came in at 4182.2ms versus the DROID X’s 7596.5ms (lower is better).

Camera

Motorola promises faster camera performance with shots being grabbed faster on the X2 than on the original DROID X, even without the dedicated shortcut key. In practice we noticed things were a little more responsive, but only as long as you had decent lighting. Once things got a little darker, the lag between tapping the screen and the frame being captured increased, resulting in some underwhelming photos that lacked the crisp focus we were hoping for. Colors were bland and stills often grainy; the dual-LED flash is one of the more powerful we’ve seen, though.

As for video, just like the ATRIX 4G, Motorola has limited the DROID X2 to 720p rather than Full HD recording, despite the Tegra 2 being capable of the higher resolution. Footage is good, as long as you move the phone smoothly to avoid tearing on faster pans. Exposure adjustments are swift and there’s plenty of detail, though occasionally we noticed some hiccups in the eventual clip as if the DROID X2 was having issues writing to memory. You can play back clips directly via the HDMI connection, or upload them from the phone to YouTube for online sharing.

Phone and Battery

With many smartphones seemingly forgetting that users do still make voice calls rather than just game, browse and message, we were pleasantly surprised by the DROID X2′s in-call audio performance. Background noise was minimal and neither we nor the people we spoke to had any problems with glitchiness or audio artifacts, thanks to Motorola’s triple microphone array and DSP. The speakerphone was also solid, with plenty of volume without breaking up into boominess or noise.

The obvious omission is 4G, disappointing given how impressed we’ve been with Verizon’s LTE network so far. Data speeds were solid for a 3G-only device, but nothing outstanding, a shame given the browser is responsive and the high-resolution display so well suited to streaming video and showing full webpages.

Motorola claims up to 480 minutes of talktime or 220 hours of standby from a full charge of the DROID X2′s 1,540 mAh battery. In practice, we made it through a full day with some judicious tweaking of the four battery profile modes (Maximum, Nighttime, Performance and Custom) to adjust data use.

Wrap-Up

The original DROID X shifted the Android game forward; we even suggested that, with Android 2.2 in place, it could be the Google phone to beat. Unfortunately it seems Motorola has let that kudos go to its head in designing the DROID X2. The higher-resolution display is nice, and the dual-core processor welcome, but other elements of the smartphone fall short: the camera is still patchy unless you’re blessed with the brightest of lighting, the 720p HD limitation is frustrating, and Motorola’s decision to stick with Froyo unfathomable.

The DROID X2 has improved, but the Android marketplace – and the smartphone segment in general – has advanced more. The DROID Charge may run at WVGA but its Super AMOLED Plus display is brilliant and its LTE connectivity a real advantage; if it’s dual-core performance you’re after, the T-Mobile G2x delivers on Tegra 2′s 1080p HD video promise, while the upcoming T-Mobile Sensation 4G and Samsung Galaxy S II are even faster.

Motorola hasn’t made a bad phone, but it hasn’t made an outstanding one either, and right now that’s what it takes to stand out in the Android marketplace. With heavy hitters offering greater performance, better cameras and fresher software, it’s tough for the DROID X2 to raise its head above the crowd. Devotees of the original DROID X will find plenty to like in this incremental update, but this isn’t the class-leading smartphone it once was.

Droid X2 Unboxing and hardware walkthrough

DROID X2 Review is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Daily Slash: December 27 2010

Chris Burns — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 04:35:26 +0000

What’s all going on in the tech and gadget world today? Let’s have a look, shall we? First, take a look with yours truly at a hands-on and unboxing of the Lenovo IdeaPad U260, again with yours truly in a final installment in a “Week With” series on the L1 v2 Laser Pico Projector (iDevices and Wrap-Up), and one more by Vincent Nguyen: a review of the OCZ Vertex 2 SSD. Got yourself a new Android phone for the holidays? Take a look at our brand new What to Get for my Android Phone or Tablet: 2010 Holiday Gifts Edition on Android Community. Take a trip down a Anti-Tech Resolutions for the New Year column with Philip Berne, a column In Praise of Anticipation (or, A Geek’s Christmas) by Chris Davies, see Evan Selleck ask the question: When Should a Developer Step In?, and Philip again with the cutest column EVER: Baby’s First iPad. See! The Samsung Vibrant and Fascinate get Android 2.2 in Canada before the rest! See! What might very well be the first whispers of a very big deal, Android TV, with a Vidtonic Android TV Build-Your-Own Kit and an Android TV Black Box Unit Spotted in Australia! See! All this and more on The Daily Slash!

R3 Media Network

Editor’s Choice
MOTOBLUR 3.0 for DROID 2 gets unofficial release [SAWEET]
Nexus S Limited Edition masses an Android army [KINDA COOL ACTUALLY]
DJ creates CMYK vinyl records [PRETTY]
Apple Macintosh Portable prototype sneaks onto ebay [WANT]
CyanogenMod 7 on the Horizon, Nexus S Alpha Version Already Out! [ROCKIN CYAN]

SlashPhone
Intex Android Phone With Affordable Price Heading To India
Sony Ericsson Hallon Pictures Get Leaked
Galaxy Tab Firmware Will Come With Protected Bootloader Leak
Samsung Vibrant and Fascinate In Canada Getting Froyo
Android Getting VLC Player In Just a Few Weeks

Android Community
SoundHound app now gives unlimited music IDs
VLC player for Android coming soon
Pics of new smartphone thought to be the Sony Ericsson Hallon leak
Dell Streak 7 (aka M02M/Looking Glass) hits FCC with T-Mo/AT&T 3G
MOTOBLUR 3.0 for DROID 2 gets unofficial release
Dell Streak worst product of 2010 claims Walt Mossberg
Samsung Froyo-based Galaxy Player PMP due at CES 2011
Nexus S Limited Edition masses an Android army
What to Get for my Android Phone or Tablet: 2010 Holiday Gifts Edition [FEATURED]
LG Ally Receiving Android 2.2 in February
Verizon Expecting to get Froyo on the Samsung Fascinate by Year’s End?
HTC EVO Shift 4G Appears in Best Buy’s System for $150
BenQ Announces Android-based R100 Tablet
EA Android Games on Sale, most for $.99
GameLoft Launches 10 New HD Games for Android
Dell Streak 7 Pre-Production Commercial Stills Leaked
TechCrunch Goes Hands-On with a 42-inch Nexus S
Red and Black Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 Coming To Virgin Mobile in January
Samsung UK offers Android 2.2 for update for Galaxy S!
BenQ R100 Android tablet due Q1 2011
Notion Ink Adam’s Canvas Image Editing Program Demo [VIDEO]
Notion Ink Adam Unboxing ala Van Gunst
Nexus S in Space at 100,000 FT – with Android Toy!
Dungeon Defenders, the First Unreal Engine Based Game, Available Now
Email Sign Up for HTC Thunderbolt Information now Available
New Samsung Galaxy Tab Firmware Might Block Hacks
GO Launcher for Android Updated
Logitech States Nothing’s Wrong with the Revue, Will attend CES 2011
Lazik suspended from the Android Market for Trademark Infringement
Nexus S Phones to be Handed Out to Google Staff (Including Australia!)
Dell Venue running Android OS
Android TV Coming from Vidtonic at CES as Build-Your-Own Kit
Android 2.3 Gingerbread ROMs on T-Mobile G2 aka Desire Z, HTC myTouch 3G and HTC Dream
Malata A1101 Tablet’s Tegra 2 is Benchmarked
G2 Loose Hinge Officially Corrected
Onkyo Introduces an Android 2.2 Tegra 250 Tablet Called TA117
Android TV? Spotted in Australia
Notion Ink Adam GPS Mapping App Demoed in Official Video
Dell Streak 7: Spotted and headed toward T-Mobile
Notion Ink Adam HDMI and Browser Tech Demoed Over Holiday Weekend in Videos
CyanogenMod 7 on the Horizon, Nexus S Alpha Version Already Out!
Samsung Vibrant and Fascinate acquire Android 2.2 in Canada before the rest

SlashGear
Notion Ink GPS mapping app demo released [Video]
BAE borrow Batman Tumbler style for concept battle bots
Kindle 3 best-selling Amazon product of all time
Skype lawsuit alleges Supernode tech impinges patent
DIY Doctor Who nesting dolls set perhaps best Christmas gift so far
Nissan Leaf CARWINGS turns driving into an eco-competition
Apple ups iPhone shipment target for Q1 2011
KA-SAT satellite for wireless broadband launched
Hackulous unveils “reverse BitTorrent” for sharing apps with jailbreak community
Supposed pics of Sony Ericsson Hallon Leak
German WinPo 7 smartphone fans can get HTC 7 Pro next month on O2
AMD Radeon HD 6950 can be turned into HD 6970 with BIOS mod
Dell Streak 7 clears FCC with AT&T and T-Mobile 3G
LG to show off 72-inch Full LED backlit 3D TV at CES
DJ creates CMYK vinyl records
Nikon patent surfaces for lens with manual and motorized zoom
Geek creates rig that lets him view himself in 3rd person
Verizon iPhone Skype Mobile app tipped for WiFi/3G video calling; iPad Skype imminent?
Ballistic JetCart carryon has built-in seat
Samsung Galaxy Player YP-GB1 Android PMP headed to CES 2011
ASUS O!Play MINI offers Full HD at under a ton
B&N NOOK server failures prompt holiday headaches (again)
Apple Macintosh Portable prototype sneaks onto ebay
Chip and PIN security hack prompts censorship rebuke from researchers
Notion Ink demo Adam HDMI and browser tech [Video]
Nokia N900 Android 2.3.1 Gingerbread port gets video demo
In Praise of Anticipation (or, A Geek’s Christmas) [COLUMN]
When Should a Developer Step In? [COLUMN]
Bang & Olufsen Beo6 Home Theater System Remote Unveiled
Samsung Fascinate for Verizon Might See Android 2.2 Upgrade by End of 2010
Baby’s First iPad [COLUMN]
Harmonix Confirms They’ll Keep IP Rights to Rock Band and Dance Central
ET3 Tube System Wants to Take You From New York to Beijing in 2 Hours
Thin-Film Transistors to Cover Paper Money, Make Counterfeiting Harder
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD Review [REVIEW]
Flutter in Pinhole pop-up camera concept has instant appeal [Video]
EA Android game sale sees $0.99 FIFA 10 & more
Canon wants your NFC smartphone as a DSLR screen in new patent application
Strand Design 166 superyacht has sportscar garage, optional bullet-proof Samurai leather
Comcast/NBC deal could see Hulu exclusivity bypassed
Apple Remote gets AirPlay video streaming support
Samsung drops Froyo on Galaxy S users in the UK
Rollei unveils slick 3D camera and 3D digital frame
Kinect becomes gesture remote for Boxee and XBMC media portal
Nokia N8 shoots pics for PiX Magazine cover
Mac App Store details and pics surface
ZAGGmate adds a keyboard to your iPad
Dev-Team looks for redsn0w testers for 4.2.1 untethered jailbreak “backup plan”
BenQ R100 slate bringing 12hrs of Android in Q1 2011
Ubitus shows off LTE cloud gaming chops
Arctic Cooling rolls out new presenter peripheral
Nokia N8 vibe motor shows its strength in bizarre refrigerator stunt [Video]
Nokia N900 gets Parrot AR.Drone remote control [Video]
Sony confirms Toshiba Cell chip plant buy-back
LG HX996TS and HB906SB 3D home theater systems & BD960 Blu-ray/media server outed
Kinect Sign-Language hack is work-in-progress [Video]
HTC expects more Sense on Windows Phone 7 “over time”
Skype back to 90% core functionality; offers free calltime [Video]
Logitech Revue production freeze while new Google TV version cooked?
Notion Ink Adam Unboxed, Poses for Photo
Relatively Massive Cydia Library Listed
Lenovo IdeaPad U260 Hands-On and Unboxing [FEATURED]
Crayola Crayon Maker Recycles Your Crayons, Jumbles Colors Together
Logitech Says Nothing’s Wrong with Revue, Will be at CES 2011
Galactus and Taskmaster Rumored to be in Marvel vs Capcom 3
Auto Stop-Start Technology by Ford Heading to the US in 2012
Sony Doubling Image Sensor Output in 2011, Invests $1.2 Billion to Make it Happen
Intel Sandy Bridge-Equipped HP Pavilion dv6 Shows Up Overseas
Gostai Jazz Telepresence Robots Watch Your Home or Office, Let You be in Two Places at Once
Anti-Tech Resolutions for the New Year [COLUMN]
Comcast May Offer Low-Cost Broadband Internet Access if NBC Merger Goes Through
A Week With the L1 v2 Laser Pico Projector : iDevices and Wrap-Up [REVIEW]
Engineering Students Create Cheap Way to Tell When Water is Safe to Drink
iPhone 4 for Softbank in Japan to be Equipped with NFC Mobile Payment Stickers Next Year
Jelloware edible cups go from concept to Kickstarter
Nintendo 3DS pre-orders taken at GameStop
Kinect UI gets usability breakdown: plenty of weaknesses

To see more Daily Slash posts, click here: [The Daily Slash] or here: [SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up]

The Daily Slash: December 27 2010 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up: December 27 2010

Chris Burns — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:18:15 +0000

Welcome back! Did you get any sweet gifts over these past few holiday days? Or did you treat yourself to something sweet? Either way, if you’re a brand new (or old, but could use a refresher) user of Android devices, take a look at our 2010 holiday guide on Android Community! Then for all you well-versed Apple product users, check out the new reverse BitTorrent method of downloading hacked apps. Take a look at Chris Davies column by the name of In Praise of Anticipation (or, A Geek’s Christmas), Evan Selleck’s column deciding an important conundrum: When Should a Developer Step In?, and probably the cutest tech-related column I’ve ever seen by Philip Berne: Baby’s First iPad. Check out a review of the OCZ Vertex 2 SSD, get a whole batch of games for less than a buck in EA Android Games $.99 sale for Android, and MORE on SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up!

R3 Media Network

SlashPhone
Intex Android Phone With Affordable Price Heading To India
Sony Ericsson Hallon Pictures Get Leaked

To see more wrap-up posts, follow the following tags: [The Daily Slash] or [SlashGear Morning Wrap-up]

SlashGear Morning Wrap-Up: December 27 2010 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Motorola MOTOBLUR to get wireless sync & media streaming with ZumoCast acquisition

Chris Davies — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 15:29:23 +0000

Motorola has acquired Zecter, and plans to use its ZumoCast and ZumoDrive cloud-based media streaming and content sync technology to boost MOTOBLUR‘s digital entertainment credentials. Although the exact details of the new integration are yet to be announced, Motorola expects to add wireless syncing, desktop integration, video transcoding and thin-file retrieval technologies to both individual devices and its MOTOBLUR Android UI layer. Currently ZumoCast has only been available on iOS devices like the iPad, not on Android.

Existing ZumoCast users can continue to use the service and will get future updates as expected; however new sign-ups have been frozen. The acquisition won’t affect ZumoDrive, which is still available to new users. Motorola’s shift in MOTOBLUR development follows HTC’s evolution of its Sense system to support an online tracking and remote-access section; in a market where Android is on multiple devices, it’s a way to better differentiate your particular flavor of product.

[via BGR]

Press Release:

Motorola Mobility Acquires Zecter

Acquisition to Enhance Motorola Mobility with Personal Cloud Server and Synch Technologies

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., Dec. 22, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Motorola Mobility, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), today announced that it has acquired Zecter, Inc., a leading start-up with synchronization and streaming technologies for on-demand digital media consumption. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Zecter’s solutions connect users to their content seamlessly and instantaneously, giving them simple, on-the-go access to music, video, photos and documents from their smartphones, tablets, PCs and web-portals. Zecter currently has two products commercially available: ZumoDrive, for cloud-based content sync, access and sharing; and ZumoCast, for personal media streaming to any device. Both products use innovative virtual file system technologies to make any personal content instantly available even if it is not stored locally.

Zecter will further enhance Motorola Mobility’s mobile content experience and MOTOBLUR service offering by enabling consumers to enjoy their digital content across their mobile devices, wherever they are. Motorola Mobility will integrate Zecter’s wireless syncing, desktop integration, video transcoding and thin-file retrieval technologies across its device and MOTOBLUR offerings to provide consumers with real-time access to their content.

“Consumers want seamless access to their content and media from wherever they are, while content providers want to ensure that content remains protected and secure,” said Christy Wyatt, corporate vice president of software and services, Motorola Mobility. “We believe that Zecter enables that seamless experience with the necessary security measures, and we are delighted to be able to work with this team.”

Wyatt added, “Zecter’s robust team brings multi-platform expertise along with compelling solutions for continuous digital media access across multiple platforms. Zecter is an exciting addition to our MOTOBLUR service platform and we welcome their highly skilled personnel to the Motorola Mobility team.”

As part of the transition, the distribution of Zecter’s ZumoCast software will be suspended while enhancements are made. Existing ZumoCast users may continue to enjoy the service without interruption. Motorola Mobility will provide regular updates for ZumoCast users as well as exciting future plans for this service. The ZumoDrive solution will be unaffected.

Motorola MOTOBLUR to get wireless sync & media streaming with ZumoCast acquisition is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Motorola Droid Pro for Verizon Announced, Due in the Coming Weeks

Evan Selleck — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 01:31:12 +0000

At tonight’s CTIA event, Motorola took some time out of their busy schedule to announce the Motorola Droid Pro. While it may not look like the other Droid-based products that have launched on Verizon, from either Motorola or HTC, it’s definitely got the feature set to warrant the title. Featuring a candy-bar style, “BlackBerry-esque” look, along with a capacitive touchscreen atop the full QWERTY keyboard, the Droid Pro will stand out amongst the crowd.

The Droid Pro, just as we have heard in the past, is a global device, and will feature connectivity options for than 220 countries, and provide data coverage in more than 200. As for the other features, you will find Android 2.2 on the handset, with Motorola’s customized, proprietary Blur User Interface. You’ll also get full access to Flash Player 10.1, and have the 3G Mobile Hotspot feature that’s been prominent on previous handsets. There’s a 5MP camera on the back, with autofocus, and you also get a dual LED flash as well.

As with the Droid X and Droid 2, you also get WiFi-enabled DLNA support, so you can share your pictures and videos wirelessly to other DLNA supported devices. Unfortunately, while Verizon came clean on the device, there’s no word on an exact launch date. All they say is that it will be available “in the coming weeks.” They also confirm that the price will be revealed closer to the launch date. Check out the full press release below for all the details.

Press Release

DROID DOES BUSINESS: DROID PRO BY MOTOROLA DESIGNED FOR WORK AND PLAY ON THE NATION’S LARGEST AND MOST RELIABLE 3G NETWORK

Global Android Smartphone from Verizon Wireless Combines Rich Business and Personal Mobile Experiences

SAN FRANCISCO – From CTIA Enterprise & Applications™ 2010, Verizon Wireless, the company with the nation’s largest and most reliable wireless 3G network, and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today unveiled DROID PRO, a new, powerful, stronger and faster solution designed to meet both business and personal needs. The first Android™-based smartphone optimized for business use, DROID PRO is also a global-ready Android smartphone from Verizon Wireless, allowing customers to enjoy wireless voice service in more than 220 countries and data coverage in more than 200 countries.

DROID PRO meets employers’ and employees’ needs by addressing the productivity tools businesses require, including corporate connectivity and security; full push corporate e-mail with corporate level security; unified calendar with additional work features; pre-loaded Quickoffice Mobile Suite, a powerful 1 GHz processor; 4 GB of memory (2 GB internal; and 2 GB removable) and a QWERTY keyboard designed for speed and convenience.

“DROID PRO combines the feature-packed, high-level user experience that customers look for in an Android smartphone plus the security that enterprises require, all with the reliability of Verizon Wireless’ 3G network,” said Mike Lanman, president – Enterprise and Government Markets for Verizon Wireless. “DROID PRO builds on our commitment to deliver the best Android experience to the marketplace as well as to our enterprise customers.”

“The DROID PRO is an advanced business-ready solution that provides users with the full smartphone experience, redefined by delivering the power of a DROID,” said Sanjay Jha, chief executive officer of Motorola Mobility. “The DROID PRO consolidates users’ work and personal needs. This is just another reason the DROID PRO is setting a new standard for enterprise, allowing users to enjoy all the benefits of a smartphone with full push delivery of corporate e-mail and corporate level security.”

Key features and specifications:
· Support for both Exchange e-mail and Gmail™ for business

· Corporate directory look-up, unified calendar for Enterprise and sync with Google Calendar™

· PC-like browsing with Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 on a full, multi-touch, 3.1-inch brilliant display built on Android 2.2

· View, edit and share documents, including Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets, PowerPoint® presentations and Word® documents

· Built-in security features, including AuthenTec IPSec multi-headed VPN integration, remote wipe of device and SD card, and complex password support. Device and SD card encryption will be available in early 2011

· 3G Mobile HotSpot capabilities – Allows customers to connect up to five other Wi-Fi®-enabled devices and laptops

· Live widgets that stream e-mail messages to the home screen; customers can filter the widgets to separate work and home e-mail

· 5-megapixel camera with auto focus and dual LED flash as well as DVD-quality video

· 3G diversity antennae provides customers with enhanced data speeds and range

· Wi-Fi®-enabled DNLA® connectivity

· Android Market™ – Provides customers with access to more than 80,000 applications

· My Verizon and Backup AssistantSM support – Allows customers to manage their wireless accounts or their contacts from their phones

Pricing and availability:
· DROID PRO will be available at www.verizonwireless.com and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores in the coming weeks. Pricing will be announced closer to launch.

· For more information about Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Media can access high-resolution images of DROID PRO in the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.)

About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and 3G data network, serving more than 92 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 79,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE, NASDAQ: VZ) and Vodafone (LSE, NASDAQ: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.

About Motorola
Motorola is known around the world for innovation in communications and is focused on advancing the way the world connects. From broadband communications infrastructure, enterprise mobility and public safety solutions to high-definition video and mobile devices, Motorola is leading the next wave of innovations that enable people, enterprises and governments to be more connected and more mobile. Motorola (NYSE: MOT) had sales of US $22 billion in 2009. For more information, please visit www.motorola.com.

MOTOROLA, the Stylized M Logo and MOTOBLUR are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC. Used under license. The Bluetooth trademarks are owned by their proprietor and used under license. All other product and service names are the property of their respective owners. © 2010 Motorola Mobility, Inc. All rights reserved.

Android, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Android Market are trademarks of Google Inc.

Motorola Droid Pro for Verizon Announced, Due in the Coming Weeks is written by Evan Selleck & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AT&T Motorola BRAVO, FLIPOUT and FLIPSIDE unveiled

Chris Davies — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:54:59 +0000

AT&T has outed three Android phones fresh to its network, the Motorola BRAVO, Motorola FLIPOUT and the Motorola FLIPSIDE. The BRAVO is a full-touchscreen candybar while the FLIPOUT (which we’ve obviously seen before) and the FLIPSIDE each have hardware QWERTY keyboards and rotate or slide respectively.

All three run Android 2.1 and get Motorola’s MOTOBLUR social networking integration. The BRAVO has a 3.7-inch WVGA touchscreen, WiFi, 3G and DLNA support, together with an 800MHz processor and a 3-megapixel autofocus camera. The FLIPSIDE, meanwhile, has a 3.1-inch HVGA touchscreen and a trackpad for easier navigation.

The AT&T Motorola FLIPOUT is priced at $79.99 from October 17, the AT&T Motorola BRAVO will be $129.99 when it arrives by the holidays, and the AT&T Motorola FLIPSIDE will be $99.99 when it too lands by Christmas. No rebates for any of them, but you will need a new two-year agreement including a data plan.

[via Android Community]

Press Release:

AT&T Expands Android Portfolio with Three New Motorola Smartphones

Motorola BRAVO(TM), FLIPOUT(TM) and FLIPSIDE(TM) Smartphones Powered by Android Coming Soon to the Nation’s Fastest Mobile Broadband Network

Key Facts

AT&T* today announced it is significantly expanding its portfolio of Android devices by introducing three new smartphones powered by Android™, the Motorola BRAVO, FLIPOUT and FLIPSIDE, from Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT).
All three smartphones pack the power of the Android 2.1 platform and the latest version of MOTOBLUR, Motorola’s exclusive smartphone experience.
MOTOROLA FLIPOUT™ will be available for $79.99 with a two service agreement and 2 year smartphone data plan beginning October 17 in AT&T stores, online and in business channels. (No rebate required)
MOTOROLA BRAVO™ will be available for $129.99 with a two service agreement and 2 year smartphone data plan in AT&T stores, online and in business channels by this holiday period. (No rebate required)
MOTOROLA FLIPSIDE™ will be available for $99.99 with a two service agreement and 2 year smartphone data plan in AT&T stores, online and in business channels by this holiday period. (No rebate required)
In a move that further strengthens its industry-leading smartphone line-up, AT&T today introduced three new Android-based smartphones from Motorola. The powerful new devices give AT&T customers even more choice when selecting a mobile computing device to use on the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network. AT&T will have eight Android devices available to customers once these smartphones arrive in stores.

All three new smartphones feature Wi-Fi® connectivity, and qualifying AT&T customers receive access to the entire AT&T national Wi-Fi network included as part of their data plan. AT&T’s has the nation’s largest Wi-Fi network with more than 23,000 U.S. hotspots.

MOTOROLA BRAVO™

BRAVO offers the power of Android, an 800 MHz processor and a large screen all in a compact design. The device features a 3.7-inch full WVGA touch screen experience, enhanced Web-browsing and entertainment while on the go. With a 3-megapixel camera with digital zoom and auto focus, customers can catch memorable moments to share with one-touch social media uploads to Facebook®, MySpace, Picasa™ and PhotoBucket®. Motorola BRAVO is a Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA®) enabled device, so customers can stream, store and share entertainment with multiple devices around the home—including PCs, TVs and other mobile devices using an existing home Wi-Fi network. Get all the MOTOROLA BRAVO™ details at http://att.com/bravo.

MOTOROLA FLIPOUT™

MOTOROLA FLIPOUT delivers an enhanced user experience, with a stylishly square, affordable and innovative pivot design. FLIPOUT whips open to reveal a full keyboard below its touch screen with a dedicated fifth row for numbers. Users can customize the color to match their mood with Dark Sapphire and Saffron battery covers included in the box for personalization. Additional colors will be available for purchase in AT&T stores and online. Get all the MOTOROLA FLIPOUT™ details at http://att.com/flipout.

MOTOROLA FLIPSIDE™

MOTOROLA FLIPSIDE enables users to seamlessly manage their work and personal life. With a full slide-out QWERTY keypad, FLIPSIDE’s 3.1”-inch high-res HVGA display supports pinch to zoom gesturing, while the laptop-like track pad provides an alternative way to navigate with one hand while keeping your fingers off the screen. Users can stay connected to work with full push corporate e-mail, support for Microsoft® Exchange, unified inbox and enhanced features for IT compliance like remote wipe and password enforcement. Get all the MOTOROLA FLIPSIDE™ details at http://att.com/flipside.

Enhanced MOTOBLUR

MOTOBLUR is Motorola’s exclusive experience that syncs contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more — from your favorite social media sites, work and personal e-mail, and last.fm — and automatically delivers them to the home screen. MOTOBLUR can locate or remotely wipe lost or stolen devices, MOTOBLUR can also automatically restore a user’s contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations and e-mail with one username and password.

The new and enhanced MOTOBLUR functionality and features include:

Filter social networking and Messages widgets – filter by social networking account, by contact(s) or by contact group to only see the information you want.
Screen customization – move and resize preloaded widgets on up to seven home screens
Battery Manager – manage battery consumption by operating in one of three performance modes
Personal and Corporate e-mail – pushed directly to the device
Improved social networking functionality – Retweet, like Facebook comments and more
Quotes

“We want nothing less than the best smartphone line-up on the nation’s fastest mobile broadband network,” said Michael Woodward, vice president, Mobile Phone Portfolio, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “These diverse new Android devices from Motorola add diversity to our Android platform and provide more options for our customers.”

“Motorola is committed to offering consumers phones that work best for their lifestyle. These three new devices each have a new unique take on the typical smartphone,” said Alain Mutricy, senior vice president, portfolio and device product management, Motorola Mobility, Inc. “Plus, the latest enhancements to MOTOBLUR not only allow users to easily stay connected with their networks but better filter so they can focus on the people and information that means the most to them.”

1 Prices listed above require a 2-year service agreement and smartphone data plan.
2 Mobile Broadband/3G coverage not available in all areas.
3 Limited-time offer. Other conditions & restrictions apply. See contract & rate plan brochure for details. Subscriber must live & have a mailing addr. within AT&T’s owned wireless network coverage area. Up to $36 activ. fee applies. Equipment price & avail may vary by mrk & may not be available from independent retailers. Early Termination Fee: None if cancelled in the first 30 days, but up to $35 restocking fee may apply to equipment returns; thereafter up to $325. Some agents impose add’l fees. Smartphone Data Plan Requirement: Smartphones require a DataPlus (200MB) or DataPro (2GB) plan. If you exceed your initial data allowance, you will automatically be charged an additional $10 for each additional 1GB provided on DataPro or an additional $15 for each additional 200MB provided on DataPlus. All data allowances, including overages, must be used in the billing period in which the allowance is provided or they will be forfeited. For more details on Data Plans, go to att.com/dataplans Sales tax calculated based on price of unactivated equipment.
4 Largest Wi-Fi based on company branded and operated hotspots. Access includes AT&T Wi-Fi Basic. Wi-Fi enabled device and qualifying data plan required. Other restrictions apply. See attwifi.com for details and locations.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

AT&T Motorola BRAVO, FLIPOUT and FLIPSIDE unveiled is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Droid 2 unboxing, hands-on and compared to Droid

Vincent Nguyen — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 21:08:48 +0000

We love surprises here at SlashGear, and so finding a new Verizon DROID 2 on our doorstep this morning made for a pleasant way to kick off the day. Motorola’s latest QWERTY Android phone looks pretty similar to its first-gen predecessor, but there are some key changes, which could signal it out for relative greatness. Check out our first impressions and unboxing after the cut.

Droid vs. Droid 2

Aesthetically there’s not a huge amount different between the DROID and the DROID 2, at least assuming you don’t opt for the limited edition R2-D2 version that will go on sale next month. The sharp edges and distinctive black and gold color scheme has been softened a little, with a metallic blue finish, but the solid slide-action is still present. Best, though, is the revamped QWERTY keyboard the slide reveals: gone is the oversized D-pad, which left the keys uncomfortably, offset to the left. Instead the direction arrows are neatly integrated into the overall layout, and the buttons themselves are slightly raised and far more tactile. For a handset with a physical ‘board, the original DROID could actually be a frustrating typing experience; happily this second-gen version rectifies that.

On the inside, the main change is the upgraded CPU: now a 1GHz chip, driving Android 2.2. Of course with the new version of Android there’s the offering of Adobe Flash player 10.1 The software experience is still pretty standard for Android, with few of the dramatic UI changes rivals have been implementing, but the whole experience has been tightened up and there are noticeable – albeit minor – tweaks from the original DROID. ActiveSync – for Exchange push-email – has been updated to v12.0, but we’re still having some issues pulling in messages reliably, a problem shared with the previous model. Other than that, though, Android performs well, multitasking swiftly and flicking between apps with minimal lag. New to Droid 2 also include 3G Mobile Hotspot capabilities with the option to share with up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices.

Existing owners will be pleased to discover the DROID 2 is compatible with accessories for the original DROID, such as the desk dock and in-car kit, and since it uses the same battery any spares you’ve bought can be carried over too. However hard shell form-fitting cases might be a different matter, since there are minor differences in the fascia design to be accommodated.

We’ll be putting the Verizon DROID 2 through its paces properly for the full SlashGear review, so until then enjoy the hands-on video (uploading, will be available soon) and unboxing gallery!

Droid 2 Unboxing / Hands-on and Compared to Droid

Droid 2 unboxing, hands-on and compared to Droid is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

AT&T Motorola Sage spotted in wild

Chris Davies — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:56:20 +0000

Someone needs to call Motorola and let them know that umpteen versions of pretty much the same hardware isn’t good enough to win our hearts. The company’s latest Android smartphone, the Motorola Sage, has leaked out in picture form to Engadget, and it’s yet another entry- to mid-tier device with a 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen and MOTOBLUR.

That’s MOTOBLUR in its second-generation form, as seen on the DROID X, paired with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and AT&T-friendly 3G. Under the display is what looks to be a sizeable touchpad; whether that’s better or worse than an optical trackpad remains to be seen. No word on when exactly the Android 2.1 smartphone will hit the market, but the tipster reckons they’ve had this test unit for a month already so we wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up in the not-too-distant future.

[via Android Community]

AT&T Motorola Sage spotted in wild is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Droid X Review

Vincent Nguyen — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:58:58 +0000

Motorola’s first-generation DROID shook HTC’s dominance of the Android segment and arguably reinvented the company after years of tired RAZR variants. Now, after a spate of low- to mid-tier Android devices, the company has unveiled their next high-end smartphone. The Motorola DROID X, again on Verizon Wireless in the US, scales up the screen, the camera and the processor, while simultaneously slimming down in the hand; it also faces strong competition from HTC, Samsung and others. Has Motorola done enough second-time around? Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.

Like the DROID before it, the DROID X is a CDMA EVDO Rev.A device with no GSM to fall back on for international use. Running Android 2.1 with a new, slicker interpretation of MOTOBLUR social networking integration, it’s dominated by a 4.3-inch 854 x 480 capacitive touchscreen LCD display that pushes the dimensions to a hand-dominating 65.5 x 127.5 x 9.9 mm. At 155g there’s a pleasing balance of heft, and the protruding hump at the top rear edge – to accommodate the 8-megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash – isn’t too annoying after a few day’s use. We actually grew to appreciate it as a way to tug the DROID X out of a front pants pocket.

Connectivity includes the usual WiFi – b/g/n supported here – and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, along with a microUSB 2.0 port and a micro HDMI port for hooking up the DROID X to an HDTV and playing high definition movies. There’s a 3.5mm headphone jack along with GPS/A-GPS, an accelerometer, digital compass, proximity/ambient light sensors and a microSD card slot (supporting up to 32GB) to augment the 8GB of internal memory. Motorola will be including a 16GB microSD in the box, so already the DROID X exceeds the entry-level iPhone 4 when it comes to capacity.

Under the hood it’s left to a 1GHz Texas Instruments OMAP3630 processor to keep things running smoothly, and the relatively new chipset does an excellent job. Interestingly, Motorola has added a performance toggle which allows users to select between three different levels of CPU throttling: Battery Saver, Performance and Smart, the latter automatically selecting between them. We benchmarked the DROID X using Quadrant, which measures processor, memory, I/O and 2D/3D graphics and combines them into a single numerical score. In Battery Saver mode, the DROID X scored 819, in Performance mode it scored 1,204, and in Smart mode it scored 963. In contrast, the Samsung Galaxy S running Android 2.1 – using Samsung’s own 1GHz Hummingbird CPU – scored 874, while a Google Nexus One running Android 2.2 – using Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon – scored 1,434. Considering Android 2.2 significantly boosts performance in comparison to 2.1, we’ve high hopes for the DROID X when Motorola deliver the promised 2.2 upgrade later in 2010.

The physical design leaves no doubt as to the DROID X’s heritage. A little less blunt-edged than its predecessor, it’s finished in matte black soft-touch plastic and feels sturdy and solid. Beyond the curve of the camera hump there’s little deviation from straight lines, and while it may not be to everyone’s taste we’re big fans of this particular branch of Motorola’s design language. Controls include a row of physical buttons under the display – Menu, Home, Back and Search, bizarrely changed in order from the DROID – together with volume controls, a dedicated camera shortcut and the power-lock button spread around the sides.

For a regular LCD panel, the original DROID’s display proved mighty impressive; happily the DROID X continues that legacy. Obviously larger – though running at the same resolution – there’s no Super AMOLED or Retina Display magic here, just a high quality LCD TFT screen with great color saturation, decent contrast and sufficient brightness for outdoor use. It can’t quite keep up with Samsung’s Super AMOLED on the Galaxy S in terms of its colors (when indoors, anyway) nor the iPhone 4′s Retina Display for sheer pixel density, but it’s certainly one of the stronger smartphone screens we’ve seen of late.

Motorola obviously achieved their 9.9mm thickness on the DROID X by dumping the DROID’s hardware keyboard and instead settling on on-screen ‘boards. Happily they’ve not limited themselves to the regulation Android 2.1 layouts but thrown in not only their own keyboards but the speedy Swype ‘board, which allows you to type by dragging a finger between letters rather than pecking at them. Having used super-sized devices like the HTC EVO 4G (4.3-inches) and the HTC HD2 (4.1-inches) before, we’re well aware of how straightforward on-screen typing can be when you’ve got a considerable amount of finger-room to play with, and the DROID X doesn’t disappoint here either. Typing is accurate and you can comfortably use both thumbs with the DROID X in portrait orientation; Motorola has also added multitouch support into their keyboards, which allows for even faster typing if your fingers can keep up.

Motorola’s other significant change to the stock Android experience is their latest interpretation of MOTOBLUR. Introduced to great fanfare on some of the company’s mainstream models – not, for instance, the DROID – MOTOBLUR promised to suck all your social networks into a single place, filling the desktop with various widgets. While it found some favor, it also proved a turn-off to many more serious users; the MOTOBLUR desktop looked cluttered, overwhelming, and – ironically – lacked some of the more obvious tools like pulling out @-replies in Twitter.

On the DROID X, meanwhile, Motorola aren’t calling the social networking integration MOTOBLUR. Instead, it’s a somewhat nebulous UI enhancement, bypassing Motorola’s server-based login system – which requires a user account be created and whichever social networks you’re using be registered to it – and instead pings the networks itself. A couple of simple update widgets bring new messages to the homescreen; you can register accounts from Facebook, MySpace, Photobucket, Picasa, Skype and Twitter. Once done, the DROID X pulls in your contacts on each service and attempts to amalgamate them with your existing contacts, something we had mixed success with.

Of course, you can also ignore the built-in networking functionality and use your own choice of apps – the official Twitter client, for instance, or one of the many third-party offerings. Most of the time we found separate apps gave us a better user experience anyway. There are also various RSS and contact widgets that can be not only placed freely on the Android homescreen – rather than locked to the normal 4 x 4 grid – but resized depending on how much information you want showing. The flip-side is, of course, that by customizing Android, Motorola has likely left consumers waiting longer for updates to newer builds of the OS; considering the DROID X ships with Android 2.1 to begin with, not the newer Froyo, that’s a potential sticking point for would-be buyers. The compromise made on an HTC Sense device, for instance, is often easier to stomach because Sense is such a slick environment and adds to the user experience: when you’re basically ignoring the “enhancements” Motorola have introduced, you find yourself wishing they’d just left well alone and delivered Android 2.2 untouched.

As it is, you get Android 2.1 and the usual array of Google apps like Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps Navigation. The DROID X’s strong CPU performance shows its hand in the browser, with snappy rendering and lag-free panning, pinch-zooming and scrolling. No Flash support, of course, until Android 2.2 brings its Flash 10.1 to the phone. There’s also access to the Android Market, with its growing selection of apps, and true multitasking of the sort that iPhone 4 owners can only dream about.

Motorola are proud of the DROID X’s optical abilities, and they’ve got reason to be. It’s increasingly common knowledge that plentiful megapixels don’t necessarily add up to better image quality, but the DROID X’s 8-megapixel camera produces decent shots and video as long as you give it sufficient light. Stills show accurate color balance and decent contrast, only descending into graininess when dealing with low-light conditions or working at the higher levels of the digital zoom. The camera UI has touch-focus and is generally straightforward to use, but the app is slow to load when triggered by the camera shortcut key, which is particularly tricky to press. It was a little to easy to accidentally move the camera mid-photo as a result.

Video, meanwhile, looks crisper and better balanced than what we’ve seen the similarly 8-megapixel EVO 4G produce, though both handsets demand a steady hand if footage isn’t to wobble and shake. The DROID X’s three microphones can be switched between, depending on your subject and shooting style; you can, for instance, turn off the rear-favoring microphones and simply leave the front panel pick-up active so as to narrate a clip clearly. Motorola also say the three mics are used for noise cancellation, though that was less obvious in its impact.

Once you’ve recorded a clip or shot a few images, you can plug the DROID X into an HDTV or other display via its HDMI output. You’ll need the correct micro HDMI adapter cable, of course, or the special DROID X HDMI Dock – more on which later – but once you’re suitable equipped it’s a simple matter to browse content on the bigger display. There’s no 1080p HD support, only 720p, but clips – either side-loaded or recorded yourself – look pretty good, certainly sufficient to bore friends and family after coming back from holiday.

With all that display to gape at, you could be forgiven for forgetting that the DROID X is also a phone. Verizon’s network has a reputation for decent voice performance, and the new Motorola doesn’t disappoint. Thanks to the multiple microphones and strong speaker, both ends of the call proved clear and relatively hiss-free. Motorola preload a MiFi-style 3G Mobile Hotspot app which, like we’ve seen on other devices, allows you to share the DROID X’s EVDO Rev.A connection among multiple WiFi connected devices. The carrier is charging $20 per month for 2GB of tethered data (distinct from the unlimited on-device data, it’s worth noting), and unsurprisingly it all works as you’d expect.

Unfortunately, one of the things we expect from hotspot functionality is that it guzzles through battery life, and sure enough a little WiFi-tethered browsing takes a big chunk out of the DROID X’s 1,540 mAh Li-Ion battery. Motorola quote up to 480 minutes continuous talktime from the DROID X, or alternatively up to 220hrs standby; in reality “normal” use on a smartphone is a mixture of push email, browsing, media playback, photography, messaging and calls, and as ever that’s more difficult to boil down to simple numbers. With “normal” use we’ve been charging the DROID X nightly, par for the course on a modern smartphone, and aside from when using it as a hotspot, haven’t had to reach for a mid-day top up as yet. Of course, if you really need to eke out a little longer, the throttled Battery Saver CPU mode can help things.

Motorola’s in-box accessories aren’t too impressive, barring the 16GB microSD; you get a microUSB cable and the charger, meaning you’ll need to pick up a micro HDMI cable if you want to enjoy your content on a bigger screen. Motorola would prefer you to pick up their DROID X HDMI Multimedia Station, of course, which as with the original DROID automatically turns the smartphone into a nightstand/desk-friendly digital photo frame, weather display and clock. It has both HDMI and USB connections for easy charging. Motorola’s second dock for the DROID X is the Car Mount, a suction-cup attached windshield cradle with a USB input for recharging the smartphone and a 3.5mm output so that you can route the DROID X’s audio through your car stereo (if it has a suitable aux-in port). Slotting the DROID X into place automatically loads up the finger-friendly dashboard, complete with access to media playback, hands-free calling and of course Google Maps Navigation for turn-by-turn directions. Both docks work well and feel solid, though Verizon are yet to confirm exactly how much they’ll cost.

DROID X Car & Home Dock demo

It feels like every week we’re talking about whether one device or another is the best Android smartphone on the market, and declaring a new – if transient – winner of the title. Motorola is certainly back on form with the DROID X, making a capable play for the top spot and giving Verizon-devotees an excellent option among big touchscreen handsets. It lacks the superlative display of the Galaxy S, though comfortably out-performs it in day to day use, and the WiMAX connectivity of the EVO 4G, but bests it in camera output. Our biggest criticism is Motorola’s decision to ship with Android 2.1; with Froyo we’ve a feeling this could be the handset to beat, and it’s frustrating to think that, in choosing to customize the OS, Motorola has inevitably introduced some degree of delay to future upgrades. Right now the DROID X is comfortably among the best Android devices you can buy; in a few months time, with Android 2.2 in place, it may be the Google phone to beat.

DROID X Unboxing and demo of new UI

Update 1: HDMI out works with side-loaded content.

Droid X Review is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

T-Mobile Motorola CHARM outed: QWERTY MOTOBLUR candybar

Chris Davies — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:13:06 +0000

Having been spotted in various leaks before now, it comes as little surprise to see Motorola officially announce their latest Android smartphone, the Motorola CHARM. Due to arrive on T-Mobile USA this summer, the CHARM has a 2.8-inch touchscreen with a full QWERTY keyboard underneath; it runs Android 2.1 with the latest iteration of Motorola’s MOTOBLUR social networking aggregation.

Other hardware includes a fixed-focus 3-megapixel camera paired with Kodak image processing technology and – like we saw on the Motorola BACKFLIP – a trackpad on the back of the phone which can be used to navigate on-screen without blocking the display with your chubby fingers.

As on the DROID X, the CHARM’s processor can be underclocked into battery-extending mode to lengthen runtimes. There’s also a new feature whereby you can access the CHARM’s content via a USB or WiFi connection from a desktop browser. Of course you also get WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a 3.5mm headphone socket and multitouch; Motorola have even used Gorilla Glass to make the CHARM’s touchscreen more resilient in your pocket. No word on pricing at this stage, but the CHARM will hit the US this summer exclusively on T-Mobile.

[via Android Community]

Press Release:

Motorola Announces its Newest Device with MOTOBLUR™: Motorola CHARM™
Exclusively for T-Mobile USA, Motorola CHARM packs smartphone features and social graces into a pocketable design with Android™ 2.1 and MOTOBLURTM enhancements

July 07, 2010

Libertyville, Ill. — July 7, 2010 —Motorola (NYSE: MOT) today announced the upcoming availability of Motorola CHARM™, a touch screen smartphone that packs a social networking punch with Android™ 2.1, MOTOBLURTM enhancements, a compact design and a BACKTRACK™ feature that makes screen navigation even more intuitive.

Motorola CHARM is expected to be available this summer exclusively in the U.S. for customers of T-Mobile USA, Inc.

“Motorola strives to provide an increased customizable user experience, which is enabled by our latest enhancements to MOTOBLUR and featured on the new Motorola CHARM,” said Jean Pierre Le Cannellier, vice president, Americas Marketing, Motorola Mobile Devices. “Combine that with a compact design, easy handling and all the features you would expect from a smartphone, and we believe that CHARM with MOTOBLUR adds the social ability and workability consumers are looking for.”

Motorola CHARM provides consumers all the features of a smartphone with the intuitive navigation of a 2.8 inch touch screen – all in a compact, pocketable design that makes messaging a snap using the combination of a full QWERTY keyboard and touch screen. The BACKTRACK navigation pad, located on the back of the smartphone directly behind the home screen, is similar to a laptop touch panel and enables an unobstructed view of the Web, texts, e-mails and news feeds. Plus, with Android 2.1 and enhanced MOTOBLUR features, CHARM offers new customization and filtering options.

“Being social with friends and family comes naturally for T-Mobile customers, and we think mobilizing their social experiences should be effortless,” said Saj Sahay, director of product management, T-Mobile USA. “With the new Motorola CHARM and enhancements to the Android and MOTOBLUR experience, we’re bringing more social skills to our broad portfolio of Android-powered smartphones.”

Motorola CHARM will be the first device in the U.S. to feature an enhanced version of MOTOBLUR built on Android 2.1, which syncs contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more in easy to manage streams — from sources such as Facebook®, MySpace, Twitter™, Gmail™, work and personal e-mail. MOTOBLUR now allows for even greater customization, providing users more options to follow who and what really matters.

MOTOBLUR filters can be selected from a single social networking account, contacts, group or messaging account so that users can select only the information they want to stream live to the Happenings and Messages widgets. Users can move and resize pre-loaded home screen widgets to personalize up to seven home screen panels for an even more custom experience. Lastly, consumers can manage their phone’s battery consumption by selecting different power modes to conserve battery.

Contacts in MOTOBLUR are automatically synced to the phone from personal and work e-mail and social network accounts. MOTOBLUR will continue to provide convenience and peace of mind, as lost devices can be located from a secure personal information portal and even remotely erased if necessary. In addition, one user name and password brings back contacts, messages and connectivity to previously configured networks and e-mail providers.

Last, but not least, Moto Phone Portal enables you to access and manage your phone’s data from any browser through a USB or Wi-Fi connection. Edit content and view important phone information while at home or on-the-go. Leave pictures on a friend’s PC, share a video at the local Internet café or share a presentation during an important business meeting.

Additional features on Motorola CHARM include:

Adobe® Flash® enabled Web browsing experience to view most of today’s content-rich sites
Full suite of Google™ services including: Google Search™, Google Maps™, Gmail™ and access to thousands of apps on Android Market™
Pinch to zoom functionality and two-finger swipe to easily surf the Web and sort through photos
Capture sharp photos with a 3MP camera and KODAK PERFECT TOUCH technology for better, brighter pictures
One-touch social media uploads to Facebook®, MySpace, PicasaTM and PhotoBucket®
CrystalTalkTM PLUS for enhanced audio and call quality with a second microphone for increased voice quality while filtering out background noise
Corporate email pushed immediately to the device for instant inbox updates
Availability

Motorola CHARM with MOTOBLUR is expected to be available exclusively to T-Mobile USA customers this summer. For more information on Motorola CHARM with MOTOBLUR, please visit here. To view images please visit here.

T-Mobile Motorola CHARM outed: QWERTY MOTOBLUR candybar is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Daily Slash: July 5th 2010

Evan Selleck — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 04:07:52 +0000

It’s now been a day since the festivities of your Fourth of July adventures should have ended, but considering today was a “bank holiday,” we wouldn’t be too surprised to hear that you’re still pretty preoccupied with other activities. But, if you’re reading this, then you must know what’s really important. Right? Right. So, with that out of the way, welcome to tonight’s edition of The Daily Slash. In the Best of R3 Media, we’ve got a Charm from Motorola, a Gravity Phone, and some good news for one lucky customer who Intercepted a device. And then in the Dredge ‘Net, we’ve got quick chargers for electric cars on the horizon, fingerprint sensors going into photocopiers, and Sony’s cut down on their eReader prices.

The Best of R3 Media

Back to School Sale Gets you a Motorola Charm: When you’re on your back to school, there’s plenty of folks looking for the next great deal. That’s why those back to school sales exist. This time around, from T-Mobile, you’ll be able to get your hands on a brand new device from Motorola. Featuring Android 2.1, MOTOBLUR, and a physical form factor dangerously reminiscent of a BlackBerry, the Charm is one device that will definitely turn heads, one way or another. It’s also cheap, even without contract, so the free price tag isn’t that surprising. [via Android Community]

Gravity Phones Makes Things Heavy: In the ever-changing world of the smartphone market, seeing concepts of upcoming devices (whether that’s just in a designer’s head or not) is one of the highlights of our week. And when things like the Gravity Phone come out of nowhere, well, you can see why. From the front, you see a giant glossy HD-resolution display. And then on the back, a strange designed that looks like an iPhone and a Zune HD combined, making some weird X-thing. It’s definitely interesting looking. Especially with the HDMI port, and a display that features 1080p, we can’t pass it up. [via SlashGear]

Lucky Customer Gets a Samsung Intercept a Week Early: A Sprint customer went into a Sprint store, asked for a Samsung Intercept, and the employee was happy enough to provide him with his wish. That’s probably not what happened, exactly, but we can dream. In any event, a Sprint customer really did get a Samsung Intercept a week early. It features a landscape slider with a physical QWERTY keyboard and Google’s Android mobile Operating System. It’s an “entry level” device, so don’t think it’s your next superphone or anything. It doesn’t look half-bad, though. [via PhoneMag]

The Dredge ‘Net

Quick Chargers for Electric Cars Exist — and They’re Fast: As of right now, quick-chargers apparently only charge an electric battery to roughly 80% of its capacity in about a half hour. That’s not quick enough for some people, and that’s why the company JFE Engineering is coming in to save the day. According to them, they’ve created a quick charger that can charge a battery to 50% of its capacity in just three minutes. If that’s not enough, just leave it on there for about two more minutes, and you’ll get 70% of your battery’s charge. So, super fast, basically. JFE plans on having these chargers installed at convenience stores all over Japan by March 2011. [via CrunchGear]

Canon Japan Puts Fingerprint Scanners on Photocopiers: Apparently, Japan has a real problem with people using photocopiers to a ridiculous amount. Like, too much. And while some companies have badges that get used at work, those can be passed around way too easily, and therefore that defeats the whole purpose. So, fingerprint scanners are the next best step. You won’t be able to make as many copies as you want — unless you’ve got someone there with the access. We think this is probably one of the greatest inventions in the world, and we would love for this to get passed around to more international markets. Just because it’s fantastic. [via OhGizmo!]

Sony Finally Cuts the Price for Their eReaders: So, Amazon did it for their Kindle, right after Barnes and Noble did it for their nook. And even some other eReaders out there in the world followed suit. And finally, Sony’s done it, too. The Pocket Edition (the bare bones version) is now only $149. As for the Touch Edition, you’ll get that for $169.99. And finally, at the top of the Sony eReader hill, you get the Daily Edition for a whopping $299.99. Many would still consider that a bit too pricey, but obviously Sony’s got a plan. Right? [via Gear Diary]

The Daily Slash: July 5th 2010 is written by Evan Selleck & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Real Android Opportunity: Core Apps

Ben Bajarin — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 15:44:33 +0000

Google’s Android operating system has proven itself a growing force to be reckoned with as adoption rates among manufactures and consumers continue growing at considerable rates. I feel that Android 2.1 has finally reached a point where it is ready for the mass market. I’ve also had the opportunity to use a Nexus One with the next release 2.2, AKA Froyo, for the past month or so, and have found it even more ready for the mass market and perhaps even the enterprise.

Android continues to advance in virtually all areas and compared to Apple’s iPhone OS, it represents the only really viable alternative, for now. As I pointed out in my last article The Fate of Windows 7, Microsoft is way behind this curve, and even if they were caught up at a pure OS level, they are still at least two years behind on the the app ecosystem. Conversely, Android is well behind Apple with the core apps.

What do I mean by core apps? Core apps to me are the native applications which cover the basic tasks a consumer performs on a device. Core apps are things like e-mail, contacts, calendar, and on a mobile device I’d add the SMS/MMS application. Within the growing body of consumer research, it is now an overwhelming fact that these core apps are the most used applications on a mobile device. So it would stand to reason then that core apps are a major part of the mobile device experience.

Apple takes many of the core app experiences into their own hands and develops them internally to be included out of the box with every iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. It seems as though Google’s approach at least for now is quite different. They would rather it be more about the developers who provide those apps in the marketplace, leaving it up to the consumer to go and find the core apps that suit them best. There is nothing wrong with this approach and, when using Android, I went out and found some great apps to replace the ones bundled with the smartphone. This approach really is great for developers because it encourages all kinds of app innovation. It is even great for those customers who want to completely customize their mobile device and enjoy the thrill of the hunt to find those prized applications.

It is, however, not so great for those consumers who don’t want to go through the work to search out the best e-mail client, SMS/MMS client, contact manager, and calendar. It is also not so great for the consumer who does not want to incur additional costs for those apps which are included in the cost of the device on the iPhone or the Palm OS. For example, one of the apps which, as an Exchange user, I found quite capable for e-mail and calendaring was $19.99 for a single user license in the Android marketplace. Furthermore, my opinion is that that particular piece of software was nowhere near as good as Apple’s Mail app on the iPhone . . . which is included in the cost of the phone.

Another great example is with the latest release of the iPhone and one of the newest features called “Face Time.” Face Time will allow for real time video conferencing over wifi, and it is built right into the core phone experience and works out of the box with no additional set up required. HTC’s latest EVO 4G also has a front facing camera for video conferencing yet it requires an app not included on the device called Qik which you have to download and set up in order to make your first video conference call.

As much as I advocate choice, I understand that there is a very large segment of the market which simply wants the best experience out of the box. For now, that is Apple’s approach and I maintain that that approach will continue appealing to the largest segment of the consumer market.

HTC has also seized this opportunity to develop key core applications on top of Android to help their devices differentiate. HTC ships a number of proprietary applications like mail, calendar, contacts etc and some others like FriendStream and Facebook for HTC that integrate your social networks tightly with your core apps. This approach is where I feel manufacturers have an opportunity to differentiate with.

To the fragmentation issue with this approach Google simply needs to work with their partners early in the process of Android upgrades so those who seize the opportunity to differentiate Android can align with each OS upgrade.

With the importance of core apps to the overall device experience, it will be interesting if Google will leave Android’s fate up to the developer community in this regard. It has been long observed that over time, many features and functions of the best applications get built into the operating system. Time will tell if this also proves true for Android.

The Real Android Opportunity: Core Apps is written by Ben Bajarin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Motorola DROID X hands-on

Vincent Nguyen — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:22:23 +0000

Motorola, Google and Verizon have just officially announced the DROID X at their launch event in NYC this afternoon, and it may just be enough to tempt you away from that Apple Store queue. Built around a 4.3-inch 854 x 480 capacitive touchscreen and a 1GHz processor, the DROID X lacks the QWERTY keyboard of the original DROID but updates the camera to an 8-megapixel unit supporting 720p HD video recording and unique feature of a mechanical shutter .

While you might expect text entry to be slowed what with no hardware ‘board, thanks to Swype being preloaded and support for multitouch text entry we were soon even faster on the DROID X than we were on its predecessor. Android 2.1 is also swifter, with a new MOTOBLUR UI – codenamed “Ninjablur” that feels a little more refined and grown-up than the first iteration of the social networking system.

DROID X Unboxing and demo of new UI

It’s obviously not a small handset, but taking on the HTC EVO 4G demands a big screen and some powerful optics. We’ll have to wait until getting our hands on a review unit to see how the 720p video performance holds up, but the HDMI connection means that getting content off the phone should be straightforward. There’s also DLNA wireless streaming support, if your HDTV is set up to take advantage of it. The DROID X will go on sale on July 15th, priced at $199.99 with a new, two-year agreement.

DROID Car & Home Dock demo

We’ll be answering all outstanding questions in our full review; for now, enjoy the hands-on gallery and the video demo of the new Verizon Wireless Motorola DROID X!

Motorola DROID X hands-on is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Motorola DROID X gets official

Chris Davies — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 17:46:03 +0000

Verizon, Motorola and Google have officially announced the DROID X, the latest Android smartphone and something of a multimedia powerhouse. Powered by a 1GHz processor, the DROID X has 8GB of ROM, a 4.3-inch 854 x 480 capacitive touchscreen and will come with a 16GB microSD card preloaded for a total of 24GB storage; that’s useful, as the phone also has an 8-megapixel camera with 720p HD video recording.

For playing back that content there’s an HDMI output together with DLNA media streaming support. The battery is a 1,570mAh pack, and there’s EVDO Rev.A, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and USB 2.0. The DROID X runs Android 2.1 though Motorola say an update to 2.2 – complete with Flash 10.1 – will come later in the summer; there’s also a custom UI, Swype and various social networking widgets.

There are also three microphones for noise cancellation and a 3G MiFi-style hotspot feature. The Motorola DROID X will land on Verizon on July 15th, priced at $199.99 with a new, two-year agreement (and after the usual rebate). If you want to use the MiFi functionality then it’ll be an extra $20 (on top of the Verizon $29.99 unlimited data package) for which Verizon will also give you 2GB more data per month.

Meanwhile a second battery, apparently adding a millimeter of thickness but boosting capacity to 1,930 mAh will arrive in the Summer. The DROID X will be available from Verizon, Best Buy and other retailers, as well as online.

Press Release:

July 2010: DROID X By Motorola Lands On The Nation’s Largest & Most Reliable 3G Network

DROID X Delivers More Browsing, More Connectivity, Personal HD Video and Enterprise Features – All on a 4.3” Widescreen

June 23, 2010

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and LIBERTYVILLE, Ill. – Verizon Wireless, the company with the nation’s largest and most reliable wireless 3G network, and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT), a pioneer in the mobile industry, today unveiled DROID X by Motorola. DROID X does more with ultra high-speed Web browsing; a fast 1GHz processor; 3G Mobile HotSpot capabilities; loads of memory; intuitive social messaging; Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 ready; and access to Android Market™, which has more than 65,000 applications, along with a host of unique Verizon Wireless applications such as NFL Mobile, Skype mobile™, V CAST Video, EA Need for Speed Shift™ and more.

“Nine months ago, we made a commitment to our customers to bring the openness of Android to the Verizon Wireless network,” said John Stratton, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. “Since then, we have introduced the top-selling Android phone in the marketplace today – the DROID by Motorola. DROID X takes that commitment to another level with exclusive content, faster processing speeds, and, of course, the reliability of our network.”

Sanjay Jha, co-chief executive officer of Motorola and chief executive officer of Motorola Mobile Devices and Home business added, “Motorola designed DROID X to push the extreme limits of Android innovation, and enable you to do even more with your mobile device. We are breaking down barriers so that you can experience the Web the way it was meant to be and create, share and view content like never before, either in your hand or in your home. Enterprise users will also find DROID X appealing with features including push e-mail and live widgets for e-mail and calendar updates.”

DROID X gives customers a 4.3-inch high-resolution screen for viewing the latest movies and video from BLOCKBUSTER On Demand® presented by V CAST Video, the newest addition to the Verizon Wireless V CAST application, which also includes access to favorite TV shows. The DROID X video capabilities let customers capture spontaneous fun, combining a dual-flash, 8-megapixel camera, HD camcorder, as well as DLNA and HDMI connectivity to download, stream and share personal HD content.

DROID X customers will also receive Android 2.2 and Adobe Flash Player 10.1 with an over-the-air update in the latter half of the summer. With the update, the Flash Player will allow mobile users to experience hundreds of sites with rich applications and content inside the browser, including games, animations, rich Internet applications (RIAs), data presentations and visualizations, ecommerce, music, video, audio and more.

“It has been an exciting time for Android momentum and global consumer adoption since the announcement of DROID by Motorola nine months ago,” said Andy Rubin, vice president of engineering for Google. “There are 160,000 new Android-powered devices activated daily and Android Market has grown to over 65,000 applications. Plus later this summer, Verizon Wireless and Motorola will update all the DROID by Motorola phones to the latest 2.2 software. For customers, this means great new features and improved browser performance. For developers, this will provide new tools such as cloud-to-device messaging and enhanced enterprise functionality.”

“We are excited about full Flash support coming to the DROID X and other devices from Motorola,” said Shantanu Narayen, president and chief executive officer of Adobe. “Flash Player 10.1, which is one of Adobe’s most anticipated releases ever, has been redesigned from the ground up to deliver the kind of highly engaging experiences that consumers now expect from their mobile devices.”

Once updated to Android 2.2, business customers will find DROID X offers the features that turn the device into a workhorse with support for both Exchange and Gmail™ for business. Corporate users can enjoy push delivery of e-mail; live widgets that stream messages to the home screen; filter widgets to differentiate work and home e-mail; corporate directory and Global look-up along with a unified calendar for Enterprise and sync with Google Calendar™. Security protocols allow remote password control and wipe via Exchange server.

Pricing and Availability

DROID X by Motorola will be available at www.verizonwireless.com and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores beginning July 15 for $199.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. Customers will receive the mail-in rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted. In addition to subscribing to a Nationwide Talk plan or a Nationwide Talk & Text plan, customers will also need to subscribe to an Email and Web for Smartphone plan. Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access. Email and Web for Smartphone plans start at $29.99 for unlimited monthly access.

Customers can add the optional 3G Mobile Hotspot service to their DROID X for $20 per month. The 3G Mobile Hotspot allows customers to turn the phone into a wireless modem for up to five compatible Wi-Fi devices. In addition, current Verizon Wireless customers who have contracts ending by December 31, 2010, can upgrade to any smartphone, including DROID X, without penalty.

For more information on DROID X by Motorola, go to http://phones.verizonwireless.com/droid/x/. For information about Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.

Droid X Fact Sheet:

DROID X by Motorola Fact Sheet
Pocket-Sized Home Theater

Capture, share and enjoy your world with DROID X, a pocket-sized home theater with a massive 4.3 inch high-resolution display that lets you capture HD movies for playback on your HDTV. It also features a powerful processor and scary fast speeds, all on Verizon Wireless’ 3G network, the nation’s largest and most reliable wireless voice and data network. DROID X utilizes high-performance diversity antennas along with innovative software to improve signal strength and reduce dropped calls. DROID X users will receive Android™ 2.2 and Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1 via an over-the-air update in late summer.

Capture Sights and Sounds
Capture your memories in high definition with 720p HD video capture. Customize your videos with a slow-motion effect and make them flawless with an advanced three microphone solution for directional audio capture and noise cancelation. In between takes, make sure no still shot is missed with a fully loaded 8 megapixel camera capable of 1/1000 second shutter speed and features such as auto-focus, touch to focus, panoramic capture and a powerful dual LED flash to produce high-quality photos.

Share with Ease
Share personal videos with friends using either an optional HDMI cable or Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) certified technology, enabling you to stream, store and share content with multiple DLNA compatible devices such as a HDTVs, game consoles or PCs. Share the wealth of your own 3G Mobile HotSpot with up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices, all while accessing your content at superfast speed, powered by a 1 GHz processor.

Enjoy Life’s Brilliant Moments
DROID X brings your content to life with a vibrant 4.3-inch display with a crisp WVGA 854 x 480 resolution. Download full-length movies and enjoy them in cinematic widescreen format1. DROID X will feature Adobe Flash Player following a software update late summer, which will deliver streaming video from tens of millions of websites or game play with a full PC Web experience. Whether texting, checking push corporate e-mails or updating your status, the large display reveals a spacious virtual keyboard to do it all. Type and text with ease at more than 50 words per minute with Swype® using one continuous finger motion across the screen keyboard. Get up close and personal with your favorite sites using pinch-to-zoom.

Enjoy additional preloaded apps and games such as EA Need for Speed Shift™, NFL Mobile, Skype mobile™ and a full suite of Google™ Mobile Services, including Android Market™, Google Maps™ with Street View, Google Latitude, a YouTube™ widget, Calendar, Google Search™ by Voice, and, of course, Gmail™ and Google Search™. You can also easily download BLOCKBUSTER On Demand® presented by V CAST Video via a link icon on your home screen or use V CAST to watch your favorite shows.

More Social, More Connected, More Memory
Preloaded social networking widgets allow you to sync and stream your feeds and updates from Facebook®, Twitter and MySpace all to one screen in real time. With 8 GB of onboard memory and a pre-installed 16 GB memory card, DROID X can be expanded to up to 40 GB with the addition of a 32 GB memory card to house favorite videos, images, games and apps.

Motorola DROID X gets official is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

QWERTY-spinning Motorola FLIPOUT official; due this month [Video]

Chris Davies — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:49:51 +0000

Motorola have finally taken the official wraps off of their latest Android smartphone, the distinctively-square Motorola FLIPOUT with MOTOBLUR. Based on Android 2.1 and bringing a new, mildly tweaked version of the company’s social networking aggregation system, the FLIPOUT has dualband 3G UMTS, a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen and a rotating QWERTY keyboard.

There’s also a 3-megapixel fixed-focus camera, GPS and WiFi, together with 512MB of internal storage and a microSD slot content with up to 32GB cards. Motorola have also squeezed in Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, a digital compass and an FM radio, plus there’s a 3.5mm headphone socket. MOTOBLUR has had a few updates too, with new battery and data managers and the introduction of new filters for the social networking widgets.

Video demo after the cut

The whole phone measures 67 x 67 x 17 mm and weighs 120g with its 1170mAh battery. Motorola say the FLIPOUT will be available in Q2 2010, which basically means they expect it to arrive before June is out; no word on carrier – only that it’ll be launched “in certain regions around the world” – but the dualband 900/2100 HSDPA suggests this is a device for Europe and Asia rather than North America.

Motorola FLIPOUT with MOTOBLUR demo:

[via Android Community]

Press Release:

Motorola FLIPOUT with MOTOBLUR Fact Sheet
Pivot in Style

Accessorize your life with a smartphone that’s destined to turn heads. Introducing Motorola FLIPOUTTM with MOTOBLUR™– an innovative phone that’s as unique as you are. The touch screen’s pivot design exposes a five-row QWERTY keypad with a separate number row, transforming the phone from compact and pocketable to a charming social package. Stay in control with enhanced features on MOTOBLUR, including customizable filters for your Happenings and Messages widgets.

Stylish, Compact, Vibrantly Colored
The incredibly compact, square build makes FLIPOUT a fun smartphone that travels comfortably in purse, pocket or palm. With multiple colored battery door options included, customize your color to match your mood – or your outfit. And with the latest version of MOTOBLUR, Motorola FLIPOUT works harder to keep you connected to the people that matter most.

Enhance Your Social Status
MOTOBLUR, the only service that syncs all your friends, emails, messages, Facebook®, MySpace, TwitterTM feeds and happenings with continuous updates and back-ups, just got better. The enhanced version of MOTOBLUR allows you to take control of your Happenings and Messages widgets with the option to filter out updates and messages you don’t want, making it easier to follow who and what really matters. With seven home screens and the option to move and resize pre-loaded widgets, you can customize FLIPOUT however you’d like.

The new, enhanced MOTOBLUR also brings you device management done right. Take charge of your charge with Battery Manager, a new feature that helps you manage your phone’s power consumption. Spend less time worrying about running out of juice and more time using it. FLIPOUT’s new Data Manager helps you manage your data usage. As always, MOTOBLUR comes fully integrated with GPS tracking and remote data wipe. So, while you may lose your phone, you won’t lose the contacts and data that keep you connected.

Best of the Rest
Motorola FLIPOUT allows you to experience the best of Google and the Web with multi-touch support including pinch to zoom, as well as full suite of Google services including: Google Search, Google MapsTM for Mobile and access to thousands of apps on Android Market™, GmailTM and more. With the latest version of MOTOBLUR, get your personal and corporate email pushed to you and have easy access to your work directory.

Socialize With Ease
Packed full of features, Motorola FLIPOUT lets you hear and be heard. Don’t miss another call or conversation on Motorola FLIPOUT with CrystalTalkTM PLUS. Using a proprietary Motorola process of microphone and speaker configuration, CrystalTalkTM PLUS adds a second microphone improving voice quality even further while filtering out background noise. Additional features include a 3 MP camera, KODAK PERFECT TOUCH technology for better, brighter pictures, gallery mode for tagging and labeling photos and instant upload access to Facebook, MySpace, Picasa & Photobucket.

Motorola FLIPOUT with MOTOBLUR will be available in certain regions around the world beginning in Q2 2010. For more information regarding pricing and product availability in your region, please contact your local Motorola representative.

QWERTY-spinning Motorola FLIPOUT official; due this month [Video] is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Daily Slash: May 19th 2010

Evan Selleck — Thu, 20 May 2010 04:13:21 +0000

Today was the middle of the week, but it didn’t really feel like it until about half-way through. At least it wasn’t the beginning of the week again, right? Not yet, anyway. Welcome to tonight’s edition of the Daily Slash. Tonight, after the wake of the first keynote from Google’s I/O, in the Best of R3, we’ve got a screenshot of the Motorola Cliq with a certain numbered update, and the Motorola i1 has finally launched. And then in the Dredge ‘Net, LaCie has introduced a new net-connected RAID, MSI’s revealed two new notebooks, and Foxconn’s got a tablet that may actually rival another already on the market.

The Best of R3 Media

Motorola Cliq Gets a Screenshot of Android 2.1: While other Sprint devices keep getting the update to Android 2.1, there’s a few other handsets out there that still haven’t been brought into the current age of Android. Namely, handsets running with MOTOBLUR. Just when we might have started thinking it wasn’t going to happen, we get a screenshot of a Motorola Cliq, somewhere out there in the United States, running the latest build of Android 2.1. It’s only a screen grab of the Settings menu, so we don’t have a lot to go on here, but at least it’s something. Or, it’s fake. [via Android Community]

The Motorola i1 Lands on SouthernLINC: Sure, we might have assumed that Motorola had bigger plans for the Motorola i1, but apparently its initial launch is destined for a regional carrier. And, sure enough, it’s expensive on that regional carrier, too. SouthernLINC have landed the launch of the Motorola i1, with its military-spec ruggedization, and Android-running goodness. It’ll cost you $200 on a new, two-year contract, so definitely weigh your options a bit, yeah? [via SlashPhone]

The Dredge Net

LaCie Shows Off New Net-Connected RAID: LaCie knows how to make expensive solutions to your storage needs. With this latest edition, there’s no exception made. These new drives are intended for maximum data storage, protection, and connectivity. There is a pair of hard drives inside the foreboding black box, which are set up in a typical RAID 1 fashion: you write to one, it gets reflected on the other. It features built-in server and torrent download functions, which should make a few people happy out there. The USB 2.0 interface should also do the trick, meaning you can use the RAID set-up like a standard hard drive as well. You can set it up in a 2GB or 4GB capacity, with the 2GB mark starting with a cost of $480. [via CrunchGear]

MSI Introduces X620 and CX420: MSI knows how to launch a notebook. They do it all the time, it seems, and they probably don’t plan on stopping any time soon. This time around, we’ve got the X620MX, which is a 15.6-inch, which features Intel’s new Core 2010 line-up of processors, and ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD 545v (512MB) GPU. Actually both notebooks rock the same features, including the DDR3 RAM, up to two slots, and the same 1366×768 resolution of the screens. Hard drives come in sizes from 250GB/320GB/500GB; HDMI/VGA outputs, 3 USB 2.0 ports, microphone and headphone audio jacks, and integrated WiFi 802.11b/g/n. No prices or release date yet. [via Hot Hardware]

Foxconn’s Tablet Features Tegra 2: NVIDIA showed off a new tablet, and we’ve got to admit: it’s impressive. Sure, it’s probably not coming out until way later this year, but at least we’ve got something to look forward to (among other things, of course). This prototype tablet features the dual-core Tegra 250 chipset, which is designed by Foxconn, is labeled as being “a generation ahead” of the iPad from Apple, because it may run the same 1GHz clock speed, but the ARM Cortex-A9 architecture means that it can actually pull 25 percent more power than Apple’s A4 processor. It also features 1GB of RAM, which is four times as much as Apple’s tablet. It’s only 8.9 inches, though, so it is a bit smaller than the revolutionary product from Cupertino. It does have a front-facing camera and 2 USB ports, though. [via Electronista]

The Daily Slash: May 19th 2010 is written by Evan Selleck & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Motorola Flipout spotted; Android 2.1 MOTOBLUR update imminent?

Chris Davies — Tue, 11 May 2010 09:36:43 +0000

We can’t say we’ve been driven into a square-phone frenzy by Nokia’s 7705 Twist, but obviously someone at Motorola thinks this form-factor is the way forward. According to Gizmodo Brazil you’re looking at the Motorola Flipout, a squared-off twisting Android smartphone running 2.1 Eclair with MOTOBLUR.

Apparently the Flipout has a 2.8-inch touchscreen, 512MB of memory and 256MB of RAM, paired with a 700MHz processor and GPS. There’s also a 3.1-megapixel camera and at least three colors – black, green and pink – together with that QWERTY keyboard of course.

While the Flipout may not particularly excite you, the prospect of an upgrade to Android 2.1 for phones currently on sale with MOTOBLUR might do. So far Motorola have only said they’re working on the update, but if the Flipout does arrive in June 2010 we can hope that the new firmware will follow shortly after.

[via Android Community]

Motorola Flipout spotted; Android 2.1 MOTOBLUR update imminent? is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Droid Incredible Review (vs. Nexus One vs. Moto Droid)

Vincent Nguyen — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 02:59:58 +0000

Incredible, they call it, and for once the marketing hyperbole may be right. The Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC takes a somewhat familiar spec sheet and squeezes out something different enough to stand out from the crowd. For our full review of the Droid Incredible, check out our dedicated Android Community coverage; if you’re more interested in how this shiny new smartphone fits into the current Android line-up – and, more importantly, whether you should choose it or a rival device – then read on.

The Snapdragon chipset has seen plenty of use in recent HTC devices – the Nexus One and the Desire, if you’re limiting things to Android – as has the 3.7-inch OLED WVGA display. Previous phones have had EVDO Rev.A, too, and WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS are par for the course too. Where things improve are in the optics and the internal storage: the Incredible will be the first HTC device to ship with an 8-megapixel autofocus camera, and it’s paired with a healthy 8GB of onboard storage.

What’s interesting is that we’re expecting Google’s CDMA Nexus One to arrive imminently, and the most obvious difference between the two will be HTC’s use of their home-grown Sense UI. Initially limited to T-Mobile USA, now also on AT&T, the Nexus One runs the bare Android 2.1 OS, and while it’s a more attractive, usable proposition than earlier iterations of the platform, it’s still nowhere near as intuitive out of the box as Sense makes things. As well as adding an extra two panes to the homescreen, Sense packs a preloaded Twitter client in the shape of HTC Peep, Flickr and Facebook integration, and a Friend Stream app which pulls all your contacts social network updates into a single timeline (complete with a desktop widget and the ability to update one or more of your own profiles with just a few taps).

More surprising is a noticeable improvement in touchscreen quality when you have both devices side by side. We’re not sure exactly what HTC have done with the Droid Incredible’s capacitive layer, but it’s both more accurate and less likely to miss taps than that of the Nexus One. Many Google phone users have complained of patchy touch response, something we’ve not encountered on this newer handset. The Incredible also has a broader brightness range than the Nexus One, particularly at its lower settings.

The Droid Incredible’s main competitor on Verizon is likely to be the Motorola DROID (review on SlashGear). It’s a testament to Motorola’s ambitious design that, while the DROID has been on sale for several months now, it’s still a viable option among newer devices. Like the Incredible it has a 3.7-inch display (running at the slightly higher 854 x 480 resolution) but the Motorola uses a more traditional LCD panel than HTC’s currently favored OLED screens. Although the latter is arguably more power efficient, the DROID’s display is in our experience just as bright and color rich as that on the Droid Incredible; it also has the benefit of being more usable (at lower brightness settings) outdoors.

As with the Nexus One, the Motorola runs Android 2.1 with no embellishments (not even the company’s own MOTOBLUR social networking integration). While you could argue that the DROID’s slide-out hardware QWERTY keyboard makes it a more proficient messaging device, HTC’s updated Mail client actually pushes the Incredible ahead in our opinion. Although 2.1 has native Exchange support, it’s only for email and contacts; the HTC app adds in calendar sync too, and the mail app itself allows you to view messages organized by whether they’re flagged, unread or from certain “VIP” contacts, or if they’re meeting invitations, and there’s a threaded “conversation” view too. Although the Motorola’s QWERTY is fair, HTC’s standard on-screen keyboard is a pleasant boost over and above the regular Android QWERTY – thanks to improved auto-correction – though we’re also fans of Swype on which we’re actually faster than with a hardware ‘board.

The flip side to out-of-the-box usability with Sense, though, is the ease of future OS updates. It’s telling that, in the months the DROID has been on the market, Motorola have already upgraded it from Android 2.0 to 2.1; HTC users have been waiting considerably longer for an update of early Android devices (such as the HTC Hero) to a newer version of the platform. That’s down to the headaches of getting Sense to play nicely with a changed OS, and while we don’t doubt HTC’s intent to keep the Droid Incredible as current as possible, we also feel pretty confident saying that the Motorola handset, unmodified as it is, will likely get official builds sooner.

Where the Droid Incredible particularly kicks away from the Motorola – and, for that matter, the Nexus One – is with its camera. It’s not just a win on the spec sheet, either; the Incredible’s 8-megapixel autofocus camera has a brighter, dual-LED flash than the Nexus One, and the still photos it takes are significantly better than those of either the Google phone or the DROID. It’s also more flexible, with granular control over exposure, contrast, saturation and sharpness, ISO ranges from 100 to 800 and optional geotagging and face detection. Sadly there’s no 720p HD video recording on any of the three devices, but the Droid Incredible’s 800 x 480 WVGA footage is reasonable if uninspiring.

Tour of Grand Canyon at 30,000 feet through Droid Incredible’s camera

Sample videos taken with Droid Incredible

Image taken by Droid Incredible of Grand Canyon

Unfortunately, the flip side is battery life. The Nexus One requires some goading of settings to get it through a heavy day’s use, and – since some of the more recent firmware updates – the Motorola DROID actually stretches out its battery surprisingly well. Here, though, the Droid Incredible falls resolutely into bottom place; we’re not sure quite what’s happened, but it ousts even the hungry Nexus One. With the settings as standard, and push email turned on, we didn’t make it through a full day of use before the phone expired. Toning down the amount of social network updates that Sense makes, together with notching down the screen brightness a little, each helped prolong things, but the Incredible is definitely an over-eater.

Compounding the issue is the absence of a charging dock. Both the DROID and the Nexus One can be paired with an optional cradle, and we’ve found that we’re more likely to drop each phone into its respective dock than we are to plug them in with a regular microUSB adapter. That way, the handset gets a mild top-up and you get to stay wireless for more of your day. The Incredible’s lack of charging contacts (unlike the Nexus One) and side-mounted power connector mean a portrait-orientation dock is unlikely, and the fact that Sense doesn’t have a landscape-orientation mode leaves us doubting that HTC plan a cradle similar to Motorola’s.

It’s frustrating, because there are lots of power-hungry reasons we’d rather have the Droid Incredible in our pockets. There’s Flash Lite 4.0 support in the browser, for one, though performance at streaming video is very much dependent on the bitrate it has been recorded at; too high, and the Snapdragon CPU chokes and playback gets stuttery.

Audio performance during voice calls is a little better than with the DROID, though lags behind the Nexus One. That’s primarily down to the Incredible lacking its sibling’s noise-cancelling microphone array. Meanwhile 3G data performance over the Verizon EVDO Rev.A network was strong, though without a CDMA Nexus One we can’t make any direct comparisons. As with the DROID, the Incredible is CDMA-only and – shortsighted in our opinion – lacks global 3G support; saying that, as far as we’re aware the upcoming Verizon Nexus One won’t get that either. If you regularly travel outside the US and still want to use your smartphone, neither the Incredible nor the DROID are the devices to choose.

Strong contender as the Motorola DROID is, the Droid Incredible by HTC edges ahead by virtue of its better performing camera and Sense UI. Similarly, we’d pick the Incredible over the Nexus One; don’t underestimate the value of having Verizon’s after-sales support network to hand, something that – even when the CDMA Nexus One goes on sale – the Google-branded phone will lack. Our only real Incredible concerns begin with battery life and end with firmware updates; we hope HTC can tweak their power management to address the former, though the latter could be the sting in the smartphone’s tail. As we said with the HTC Desire, though, opting against a Sense device out of what may or may not transpire a number of months into the lifecycle does mean you’re missing out on an excellent handset experience today.

When the HTC EVO 4G arrives on Sprint later this year, the Android balance will change again. Connected services are arguably the future of smartphones and mobile devices, and the boost in data speed WiMAX will bring may just change our minds again. Until then (and of course that assumes you live in an area served with Sprint 4G coverage) we’re leaning toward the Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC. International travelers and those unwilling to experiment with their data and power settings should look elsewhere, but everyone else will be enjoying excellent camera performance served up in a user-friendly package.

Unboxing Droid Incredible by HTC for Verizon

Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC key specifications:

Qualcomm 1GHz Snapdragon chipset
512MB ROM, 512MB RAM
3.7-inch WVGA 480 x 800 OLED capacitive touchscreen
8-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash
8GB internal memory & microSD card slot (32GB)
EVDO Rev.A, WiFi b/g & Bluetooth
GPS, accelerometer
Android 2.1 with HTC Sense
3.5mm headphones socket & microUSB 2.0 port
1,300mAh Li Ion battery (rated 5.2hrs talktime or six days standby)
4.63 x 2.3 x 0.47 inches / 4.59 oz

Droid Incredible Review (vs. Nexus One vs. Moto Droid) is written by Vincent Nguyen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 - 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Motorola CLIQ XT for T-Mobile gets reviewed

Chris Davies — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:58:50 +0000

Room in your heart for another Motorola Android smartphone running MOTOBLUR but stuck on Android 1.5? The T-Mobile CLIQ XT by Motorola is set to hit the market imminently, and we’ve got our full review over at Android Community.

Based on the original Motorola CLIQ, but dropping that handset’s slide-out hardware keyboard in favor of a slimmer chassis and Swype text-entry system, the CLIQ XT certainly has a reasonably packed spec-list. A 5-megapixel camera, multitouch and Flash Lite support are all this season’s must-haves, and despite the CLIQ XT being positioned as a mid-range device they’re all onboard.

Still, it’s been a long time since Android 1.5 was current, and as we’ve learnt the hard way in the past, it’s not about the specs but how the device delivers. Does the Motorola CLIQ XT do enough to push past its OS limitations in what’s now a far more competitive Android segment? You’ll have to read the full review to find out.

Motorola open to Windows Phone 7 and MOTOBLUR on other devices

Shane McGlaun — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:25:23 +0000

Motorola has been struggling more than some phone makers with the poor economy. The fact that before Android Motorola hadn’t had a popular device since the RAZR didn’t help things. When Android became popular Motorola pretty much abandoned WinMo and clung to Android the way a drowning man clings to a bit of driftwood.

IntoMobile reports that Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha has said that Motorola is considering offering Windows Phone 7 devices. There are no hard details, but you can bet Motorola is keen to try any mobile OS that will help it increase market share.

Jha also said that Motorola is looking to bring MOTOBLUR to devices other than smartphones. Specifically Motorola is looking to put MOTOBLUR onto set top boxes. That would mean the boxes will run Android. This could be a big deal since many cable companies around the country use Motorola boxes. How cool would it be to get an Android-powered cable box from your local cable company.

Best Buy confirms $99 Motorola Devour for Feb 25th, reprices Moto Droid/HTC Eris

Paul Fang — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:10:00 +0000

After first being confirmed for $99, then afterwards being confirmed for $149, Best Buy has finally reconfirmed pricing back at $99 for the Motorola Devour via its official Facebook page, and will be available starting this Thursday, February 25th.

Pricing for the Devour is now definitively set at $99.99 after new agreement without any additional Best Buy related rebates required, with Verizon sticking the Devour with its own $249.99 pricetag before an additional $100 mail-in rebate, a total of $149.99.

Meanwhile, the Motorola Droid will also be lowered to $99 and the Droid Eris will be free after a new contract, both pricing will start on February 25th, along the Devour launch.

{Facebook via Android Community]

Motorola QUENCH/CLIQ XT hands-on [Video]

Chris Davies — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:43:05 +0000

Motorola weren’t first out of the gate with Android, but they haven’t let that stop them. The company are now up to their eight handset running the open-source OS, with availability spread across North America, Europe and Asia, and next in line is the Motorola QUENCH with MOTOBLUR. Set to hit T-Mobile USA as the Motorola CLIQ XT, we grabbed some hands-on time at MWC 2010 this week.

Video demo after the cut

In the hand the smartphone feels a lot like a slimmer CLIQ, and the 3.1-inch capacitive touchscreen looks pretty much the same as that handset too. MOTOBLUR – which pulls in social networking feeds – is onboard, and Motorola told us they’re continuing to roll out updates to the services with which you can integrate; so far they’re doing that on region by region basis. Of course, it also means you’re stuck with Android OS 1.5, which seems more than a little old-fashioned these days. An update is in the works, apparently, but there’s no public timescale for its release.

Rather than a mechanical D-pad, the QUENCH has a touchpad square, which can be clicked to select; it works well, though of course most of the time you’ll probably be reaching up to tap and drag the touchscreen. It’s a lightweight device, though we wish there was a little more interest to the textured back panel.

Motorola have also done a deal with alternative keyboard provider Swype, and the QUENCH/CLIQ XT will come preloaded with the nifty ‘board. T-Mobile USA customers will be able to pick up the CLIQ XT next month, while broader global availability will begin this quarter; no word on pricing as yet.

Motorola QUENCH/CLIQ XT demo:

Motorola DEVOUR coming to Verizon

Shane McGlaun — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 14:45:35 +0000

Motorola has announced that the cool DEVOUR slider phone will be landing on the Verizon Wireless network. The handset is the first Motorola device for Verizon to feature MOTOBLUR, the company’s Android social networking aggregator service. Packing a slider form-factor similar to the DROID, the DEVOUR has a smaller 3.1-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen along with a hardware QWERTY keyboard, 3-megapixel autofocus camera and EVDO Rev.A.

The handset also has a touch sensitive navigation pad and is preloaded with Google applications like Gmail, Google Talk, and more. The phone will ship with an 8GB microSD card installed and supports Bluetooth a2DP, HID, HSP, HFP, AVRCP, and GAP profiles.

The DEVOUR will also ship with Google Maps Navigation installed and ready to use, rather than Google Maps Navigation. That’s because Motorola’s software engineers obviously haven’t got their act together quite yet, as the DEVOUR runs Android 1.6 rather than 2.1; we’re guessing it’s the fault of MOTOBLUR. Still, you do get AGPS, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth, a 3.5mm headphone socket, DLNA support and a dual-microphone speakerphone with noise cancelation.

There’s also Exchange account support, a microUSB port and an aluminum casing. The Motorola DEVOUR will arrive on Verizon Wireless come March 2010; no word on handset pricing as yet, but Verizon voice and text plans for the smartphone will start at $39.99 and the data package is $29.99 a month for unlimited access.

[via Android Community]

Press Release:

Motorola DEVOUR Brings MOTOBLUR To Verizon Wireless’ 3G Data Network
MOTOBLUR Service Gives Customers Home Screen Access to Content and Contacts

February 03, 2010

BASKING RIDGE, NJ, and LIBERTYVILLE, IL — Verizon Wireless and Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) today announced the availability of Motorola DEVOUR™ in March. Motorola DEVOUR will be the first Verizon Wireless phone to feature MOTOBLUR™, Motorola’s unique Android™-powered content delivery service created to make wireless phones more personal and customizable.

MOTOBLUR is the first solution to sync contacts from work and personal e-mail services, including Gmail™, with posts, messages, photos and more from popular sites such as Facebook®, MySpace and Twitter. With MOTOBLUR, content is automatically delivered to the home screen and fed into easy-to-manage streams.

Key features:

Touch-sensitive navigation pad
3.1” capacitive touch screen
Pre-loaded applications such as Gmail, Google Talk™, YouTube™, Google Search™ and Google Maps™ with Google Maps Navigation.
Android Market™ gives users access to more than 20,000 applications.
Happenings Widget – MOTOBLUR automatically pushes status updates, wall posts and photo updates from popular social networking sites to the Happenings Widget on the home screen. Customers can flick through the latest updates and fire back responses using the slide-out full QWERTY keyboard.
Universal Inbox – MOTOBLUR gathers texts, social network messages and e-mails into one home screen widget for quick response.
Back-Up and Security – Contacts, log-in information, home screen customizations, e-mail and social network messages are backed up automatically on the secure MOTOBLUR portal. The portal also allows customers to use the phone’s fully integrated aGPS to help locate the phone if misplaced. Remote wipe easily clears information from a lost device.
8 GB microSD™ card pre-installed
Bluetooth® profiles supported: A2DP, HID, HSP, HFP, AVRCP and GAP
Service plans:

To get the most from Motorola DEVOUR, customers will need to subscribe to a Nationwide Talk or Nationwide Talk & Text plan and a Data Package for smartphones. Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access, and Nationwide Talk & Text plans begin at $59.99 monthly access. A Data Package for smartphones is $29.99 for unlimited monthly access.

Motorola Backflip official; CLIQ getting Android 2.1; DROID getting Flash 10.1

Chris Davies — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:06:58 +0000

SlashGear is at Motorola‘s press conference at CES 2010 today, and the company has just announced the Motorola Backflip. While they’re not mentioning carrier partnerships today, it’s worth noting that the Backflip image shown now is the same as AT&T showed earlier today. Meanwhile Moto also confirmed that the CLIQ (aka the Motorola DEXT) will be upgraded from Android 1.5 to 2.1, and that Adobe Flash 10.1 will be pushed out to the DROID in future releases.

Meanwhile MOTOBLUR – which is already available on the CLIQ and will be preloaded on the new AT&T Backflip – will apparently be updated to “much greater capacity” in 2010. We’re presuming that means more interaction with different social networks, and perhaps sorting out some of the usability issues we’ve complained about.

As for the Motorola Backflip, it has a 3.1-inch HVGA display, AGPS, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 and a 5-megapixel camera; the name comes from the unusual way the QWERTY keyboard folds back against the screen section, leaving the keys exposed. That also allows you to use it as an alarm clock or a standalone PMP. On the back of the screen section there’s a touch-sensitive navigation pad Motorola are calling BACKTRACK; that lets you navigate webpages and lists without obscuring or smudging the touchscreen with your fingers.

Initially, like the CLIQ, the Backflip will run Android 1.5, so we’ll have to wait for the 2.1 update for this new device as well as the older model. The Backflip will apparently see a global launch kicking off in Q1 2010; AT&T have said to expect a release early this year. No word on pricing.

Press Release:

Motorola Globally Introduces BACKFLIP™ with MOTOBLUR™ – Taking Smart in a Whole New Direction

BACKFLIP bends the smart phone rules with a unique reverse flip design and BACKTRACK™ feature for speeding through MOTOBLUR social streams

January 06, 2010

LAS VEGAS – CES – Jan. 6, 2010 – Today Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) announced the latest addition to its Android™ portfolio: BACKFLIP™ with MOTOBLUR™. The Motorola BACKFLIP, which combines the social saviness and personalization of MOTOBLUR with the multitasking performance of a smart phone, will be available in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia beginning in Q1 2010. The unique reverse flip design makes it easy to enjoy videos, music and photos, and the QWERTY keyboard allows you to blast through e-mails, texts, news feeds, social network messages and more.

“Since introducing our first MOTOBLUR-based device, we’ve remained focused on differentiating the Android experience and bringing it to new carrier partners around the globe,” said Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices. “BACKFLIP maximizes the multi-tasking and multi-functional potential of MOTOBLUR with its unique design elements, making it as smart as it is social.”

MOTOBLUR is Motorola’s Android-powered content delivery service created to make phones more personal and socially smart. It is the first and only solution to sync contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more—from sources such as Facebook®, MySpace, Twitter, Gmail™, work and personal e-mail, and LastFM—and automatically deliver them to the home screen. Content is fed into easy-to-manage streams allowing you to spend less time managing your life and more time living it.

BACKFLIP is designed around the MOTOBLUR experience and provides multiple features to keep phone conversations moving. Multi-tasking has never been easier with BACKFLIP’s reverse-flip QWERTY keyboard and high-res 3.1” HVGA screen—letting you see more and respond faster. Navigate quickly and easily through menus and features with the new and unique BACKTRACK™ feature. BACKTRACK is a touch panel located on the other side of the device, offering you a new way to scroll through—the Web, texts, e-mails and news feeds without obscuring the home screen.

The truly original design allows BACKFLIP to create new ways to enjoy photos, music and more. In the reverse-flip, tabletop mode, listen to music or view videos hands free. The digital picture frame mode lets you show off your latest adventures. You can even turn BACKFLIP into a bedside alarm clock for your morning wake up call.

BACKFLIP comes fully equipped with the MOTOBLUR features you know and love. The full HTML browser on BACKFLIP’s 3.1” high-res, touch display will be sure to impress, and, with 3G speed and Wi Fi access, you will never be out of the loop. Android Market™ gives you access to more than 18,000 apps and widgets, so you are free to customize BACKFLIP to your liking. Capture the moment with BACKFLIP’s 5 MP camera with flash and easily upload to your favorite photo sharing or social site. Additional extras such as aGPS and stereo Bluetooth1 make BACKFLIP the complete package.

Finally, MOTOBLUR provides end-users with convenience and peace of mind, as lost devices can be located from a secure personal information portal and even remotely erased if necessary. Then, one user name and password brings back your contacts, messages and connectivity to your previously configured networks and email providers.

BACKFLIP with MOTOBLUR will be available in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia beginning in Q1 2010. For specific regional availability and pricing, contact your local Motorola representative. To experience BACKFLIP, please visit www.motorola.com/backflip.

For more information, product specifications and images of BACKFLIP, please visit Media Center Fact Sheets. For multimedia assets from CES, visit CES 2010 Press Kit. Also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Certain features, services and applications are network dependent and may not be available in all areas; additional terms, conditions and/or charges may apply. Contact your service provider for details.

1 This device supports Bluetooth A2DP, HSP, and HFP profiles. For Bluetooth devices to communicate with one another, they must utilize the same Bluetooth profile. To determine the profiles supported by other Motorola devices, visit www.motorola.com/bluetooth. For other devices, contact their respective manufacturer. Certain Bluetooth features including those listed may not be supported by all compatible Bluetooth-enabled devices, and/or the functionality of such features may be limited in certain devices, or by certain wireless carriers. Contact your wireless carrier about feature availability and functionality.

AT&T confirm five Android phones in 1H2010 from Dell, HTC and Motorola UPDATE: Two webOS phones too!

Chris Davies — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 18:21:54 +0000

So far AT&T have been pretty cagey when it comes to Android on their network, but it looks like 2010 is the year when it all kicks off. The carrier has just announced that it will be pushing out five Android-based handsets in the first half of this year, complete with models from HTC, Motorola and Dell. SlashGear is at AT&T’s CES 2010 press conference this morning, and will be bringing you all the details as they arrive.

Update: AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega just confirmed that the carrier will offer two Palm webOS device in the first half of 2010 too.

The specific Android handsets AT&T has in mind aren’t mentioned in their press release; however there are a few clues and some assumptions we can make. The Motorola model is described as “powered by MOTOBLUR, with a unique form factor”, which sounds a lot like the recently glimpsed Motorola Backflip with its distinctive backward-facing QWERTY keyboard. Meanwhile the Dell device is described as the company’s “first smartphone, based on the Android platform” which we’re guessing means it’s a US version of the Dell Mini 3i. Update: Confirmed! It’s the AT&T Dell Mini 3.

As for the HTC handset – or handsets – there’s little detail we can glean; it could be that AT&T have worked with HTC to produce some aesthetically different versions of existing devices, or it could be any number of models from HTC’s leaked 2010 roadmap. All three are apparently exclusive to AT&T, and the carrier has also confirmed that it will offer the Android Market and the Ovi Store with carrier billing.

Press Release:

AT&T Launches Major Initiative to Bring ‘Apps to All’

Company Also Plans to Launch Five Android-Based Devices in First Half of 2010

Las Vegas, Nevada, January 6, 2010

AT&T today announced plans to launch five new devices from Dell, HTC and Motorola based on the Android platform. The company also announced a major initiative to expand the universe of mobile applications beyond smartphones to more mobile phones – and spur future app development for emerging consumer electronics devices, its U-verse TV platform, and enterprise and small business workplaces.

At the 4th annual AT&T Developer Summit in Las Vegas, executives outlined details including:

New devices that will give customers the most robust choices of major operating systems (OS), including Android™, in the U.S.
A goal to offer all major smartphone OS app stores
An agreement with Qualcomm to standardize apps development for mid-range Quick Messaging Devices using BREW Mobile Platform. These devices are used by millions of customers who historically have not had the same convenient access as smartphone customers to the market’s hottest apps
A new AT&T SDK (software developer kit) to help developers immediately begin to develop apps for these devices
A significantly enhanced developer program and new relationships with global carriers that are intended to make it easier for developers to distribute apps in markets outside the U.S.
Future initiatives to enable developers to create more apps for AT&T’s U-verse TV, emerging consumer electronics devices, and businesses
A new AT&T Virtual Innovation Lab and two new Innovation Centers, which will help developers and spur apps development
“Applications help consumers realize the full value and benefits of mobile broadband networks, services and devices,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Today some AT&T customers can take advantage of more than 100,000 apps – but only if they have the right handset. Our goal is to bring more apps to millions more of our customers who want convenient access to the market’s hottest apps. At the same time, in the future, we plan to go well beyond mobile devices to spur apps development.”

In addition to ultimately giving more customers more choices of applications, the long-term strategic initiatives announced today will make it easier for developers to cost effectively create applications and reach broader audiences, and help AT&T drive data revenues.

Extend Smartphone Leadership
AT&T will further its leadership in smartphones with the planned launch of five new devices from Dell, HTC and Motorola based on the Android platform. Those devices, which are scheduled to be available during the first half of 2010, include:

A Motorola smartphone, powered by MOTOBLUR, with a unique form factor and an AT&T exclusive
Dell’s first smartphone, based on the Android platform and an AT&T exclusive
A HTC smartphone, based on the Android platform, and an AT&T exclusive
AT&T customers with these devices will benefit not only from the nation’s fastest 3G network but also the ability to simultaneously talk on the phone while surfing the Web or reading email. Customers can sign up for email notifications as more details are available at www.att.com/android.

In addition, AT&T announced its goal to lead the industry in application choices for smartphone customers by offering all major app stores. It will preload the corresponding store for each device — giving customers convenient access to thousands of apps optimized for their smartphone. Today, AT&T added to existing agreements with Nokia for Ovi store and Microsoft for Windows Marketplace by announcing an agreement for Android Market. It expects to announce more app store agreements in the near future and will offer carrier billing as an easy and convenient payment option for as many stores as possible.

‘Apps for All’ by Standardizing Apps Development with Brew Mobile Platform
De la Vega also announced a significant new agreement with Qualcomm to standardize apps development by adopting BREW Mobile Platform. With this agreement, AT&T intends to make BREW Mobile Platform its primary operating system platform for Quick Messaging Devices, one of the company’s fastest growing categories of devices.

AT&T customers with these devices historically haven’t had the same convenient access as AT&T smartphone customers to thousands of compelling, new applications. Since AT&T launched its pioneering line-up of Quick Messaging Devices in fall 2008, about 30 percent of the company’s postpaid customers who are new or upgrading have purchased this type of device. AT&T is committed to spurring innovation and apps development for the millions of customers in this category.

Quick Messaging Devices are integrated devices that are value priced and texting centric; they have full QWERTY keyboards, either physical or virtual, and, since this past fall, full Web browsing capabilities. Customers with these devices are more likely to demand apps, subscribe to messaging and data plans, and are a large potential market for application developers, according to AT&T research.

AT&T Chief Marketing Officer David Christopher announced plans to begin rolling out Quick Messaging Devices with BREW Mobile Platform in the second half of the year, so that by year end 2011, about 90 percent of AT&T’s devices in this segment are planned to be based on BREW Mobile Platform. AT&T announced that Samsung will be its first device maker to launch a Quick Messaging Device featuring BREW Mobile Platform. HTC, LG and Pantech also are building devices featuring BREW Mobile Platform for planned availability in late 2010 or early 2011.

“Today, developers must essentially rebuild apps for different handsets and operating systems, increasing their costs, slowing the pace of innovation and stalling the delivery of mobile apps to customers,” Christopher said. “We want to tear down the barriers and make it much easier for developers to reach our customers – and for our customers to access apps. Moving to one platform for this fast growing segment of devices will help developers reach millions more customers who want easy access to the hottest mobile apps.”

To help developers jumpstart apps development for AT&T’s BREW Mobile Platform devices, Christopher announced a new AT&T SDK which features support for BREW Mobile Platform, continued support for Java and widgets, and includes tools to help developers tap into AT&T network capabilities as they design and code their applications. The new AT&T SDK is available starting today at sdk.developer.att.com.

Taking the AT&T Developer Program to the Next Level
AT&T has a longstanding commitment to the developer community. It was among the first major carriers to offer a developer program and has been rated the top carrier development program for the past three years by Evans Data. Today, AT&T executives also announced plans, including some launch schedules, for a series of new or enhanced developer resources including:

Technical support for developers via live chat — something no other carrier, operating system provider or handset maker offers today – and a tripling of overall tech support by mid-2010.

Revenue share featuring a standardized 70/30 split for third-party developers in the AT&T App Center.
AT&T Sandbox, a virtual network environment for developers to test and evaluate applications, which is planned to be available in 2Q 2010.
AT&T Developer Dashboard, a tool that will let developers track the status of their app once submitted to AT&T, support digital signing of business agreements with AT&T, allow developers to set prices for their apps, and provide performance metrics and customer satisfaction feedback. The dashboard is available now for enterprise application developers and the certification of emerging devices. And for AT&T’s consumer development community, the dashboard will also provide needed automation which is planned for the first quarter of 2010.
New marketing and referral relationships announced today between AT&T and other global carriers using GSM, the de facto world standard for wireless technology. The companies intend to create streamlined processes that help developers make their applications available to their combined base of hundreds of millions of customers.
AT&T Developer Council, an advisory group hosted by AT&T and made up of leading development and technology companies and other influencers, such as EA Games, Telenav and Bonfire Media.
AT&T also announced a trial program with WaveMarket to make network location information accessible through Veriplace, WaveMarket’s cloud location aggregation platform currently in use by more than 1,000 developers. Veriplace allows SMS, Web, WAP and IVR developers to develop location-aware apps and services across device categories and participating carriers. The trial program will launch in the coming weeks.

AT&T Chief Technology Officer John Donovan also said that a new AT&T Virtual Innovation Lab will open in Atlanta in the second quarter to provide developer support for speech, location and messaging APIs (application programming interfaces). In addition, two new Innovation Centers, one in the East and one in the West, are planned for late 2010 to provide 3G and 4G RF (radio frequency) development support, testing and demos.

AT&T confirm five Android phones in 1H2010 from Dell, HTC and Motorola UPDATE: Two webOS phones too! is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Motorola MB300 Backflip/Enzo leaks: MOTOBLUR, odd form-factor and AT&T

Chris Davies — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 09:29:25 +0000

More detail – and some far better photography – has emerged regarding one of Motorola’s next Android devices, the Motorola MB300 variously known as the Motorola Backflip, the Motorola Enzo and the Motorola Motus. As was speculated, the smartphone has an unusual form-factor in that the QWERTY keyboard folds back against the screen section, leaving both exposed; the 5-megapixel camera with LED flash is embedded into the left-hand side of the keyboard, and there’s a trackpad on the back of the display.

That trackpad can be used for navigation through webpages and other screens, and according to Phandroid’s tipster – the source of these images – the system works very well. In fact the whole device is said to be good, with a responsive 3.1-inch 320 x 480 touchscreen, light weight and “perfect” autofocus on the camera. Other specs include a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7201A processor with 512MB ROM and 256MB RAM, the usual trio of WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth 2.0, and quadband GSM along with somewhat surprising five-band WCDMA support (850/900/1700/1900/2100). We’re guessing that means Motorola will be offering US and European variants of the Backflip/Enzo, with the suitable bands active.

What you won’t get, though, is the latest version of Android or most of the Google Apps. Apparently the MB300 runs Android 1.5 complete with MOTOBLUR, but aside from Google Maps and the Android Market there won’t be anything else from Google themselves; in fact Motorola and AT&T have preloaded Yahoo! search onto the smartphone, along with AT&T’s Navigation, Music and Mobile App store (for ringtones).

Social networking and the mobile context

Chris Davies — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:23:51 +0000

There’s a growing call to deliver desktop experiences on mobile devices, and in general that’s a good thing. I don’t want to be limited to cut-down, plain-text “mobile” versions of websites when I have a large smartphone display and speedy 3G connection that could readily handle the full version, and the push for full-HTML browsers (and things like Flash support) has already trickled down from a must-have on smartphones to a common feature-phone element. What’s lagging behind, it seems, is an understanding of how mobile device use differs from desktop use, and nowhere is that more evident than in social networking integration. Several devices promise to bring your online social life to the screen that’s always with you, but the experience is patchy at best.

I’ve been playing with the Motorola DEXT for the past couple of weeks, the European version of the CLIQ (you can read our review here) and the first device to feature MOTOBLUR, the company’s attempt to corral social networks into one easily-consumed stream. Unlike HTC Sense, MOTOBLUR keeps network updates – which it calls “happenings” – front and centre, with a main feed of news together with individual widgets and inboxes for consuming them separately.

MOTOBLUR’s strength is its integration and breadth, or at least the promise of it. Like Sense, contacts using various different networks are combined into single address book entries – either automatically or manually – but there are far more platforms supported and Motorola are promising to add further networks (such as LinkedIn) as the system matures. Conversations started via one medium can, in theory, be continued from any other, and the record of “recent contact” for each person is carrier agnostic.

Unfortunately, there’s a feeling that the people who designed MOTOBLUR aren’t heavy users of the various services. Take the two networks probably most commonly used, Facebook and Twitter: any updates – including profile photo changes, status changes and new galleries – are thrown into the happenings stream with no thought about their relative value. Only the most obsessive of users will keep up with all the new news, and there’s no way to prioritise certain people or themes. MOTOBLUR pulls out direct messages (DMs) from Twitter to include in its “universal inbox” – which also features regular email, Exchange account messages and Facebook messages – but treats @-replies, more frequently used than DMs, just the same as regular tweets. Given how most people use Twitter, that means it’s all too easy to miss replies from the people you follow, and since there’s no searching across the rest of the Twitterverse for mentions of your username (as even the basic web UI offers) you’ll definitely miss comments from people you’re not following.

There’s also no thought to the relative load of each network. Sticking with Twitter and Facebook as our examples, there’s no way to tell MOTOBLUR that you’re more interested, say, in Facebook updates than you are tweets. I follow a few hundred people on Twitter but have kept my Facebook friends more sparse; it’s pretty easy for a status change from the latter to be lost among the flood from the former, when arguably it’s the close contacts on Facebook that I’d be more interested in hearing about. Other people might have the ratios reversed, or use other networks, but the overarching problem is the same: MOTOBLUR only uses time to organise content.

To be fair, it’s a problem shared by pretty much all of the “integrated” social networking aggregators on smartphones right now. Palm’s webOS and HTC Sense each deliver some degree of the same functionality (only Motorola attempt to throw everything together in one stream) but haven’t addressed the relative value issue. I raised it – separately – with Motorola at the launch of the DEXT and with HTC CEO Peter Chou at the launch of the HD2 (the first Windows Mobile device to feature HTC Sense), and their responses were pretty similar. Motorola pointed out that MOTOBLUR is a first-generation attempt at the mobile social networking issue, the undertone being that, like further platforms, they’d look to add in better handling of news later. Chou, meanwhile, admitted that the issue was something HTC engineers were aware of, and that iterations of Sense down the line would look to more intelligently manage social networks.

Neither could tell me exactly how it might be achieved, however, and in fact the most promising attempt I’ve seen so far has been from Nokia. Tucked into a corner of the Nokia Research showcase at the company’s The Way We Live Next 3.0 conference a few weeks ago was their Linked Internet UI Concept, a prototype software platform which attempts not only to funnel in social networking content but to recommend the information most relevant to the individual user. Running on a modified N900, the system both forms contextual links between content – so photos taken by, or featuring, the same person will be linked to the appropriate individuals, as well as geographically with other images taken in nearby locations – as well as learning the user’s habits and, over time, percolating the information it believes will be of the most interest to the top of the homepage.

Guido Grassel, leader of Nokia Research’s Web User Interface and User Experience team, explained that there are two main types of usage paradigm: either users take the time to flag up or “favourite” their key contacts, or they simply leave the system to handle them themselves. The Linked Internet UI Concept can cope with both: starred contacts are automatically given higher priority, or you can leave the device to learn what sort of information is of most use. Status updates from my Facebook friends, therefore, would gradually be given more priority than tweets; however the phone might also learn that certain people I follow on Twitter, or certain hashtags or geographical locations mentioned, are also of greater importance to me, and so make those more visible too.

Unfortunately there’s no real timescale to get the Linked Internet UI Concept off the prototype and into a shipping device. In the meantime, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that manufacturers and software developers realise that just because users demand the desktop experience on their mobile devices, it doesn’t mean a straight port across is sufficient. At the very least we should be able to flag up keywords – whether that be our own username, the name of our employer or the blog we write for, or the school or college we attend – as something we want highlighted. I want to be able to weight certain people or companies – either manually or, preferably, automatically – the news from and about which I’m most interested, and I don’t want to have to consciously shift between applications to consume, save or share that information.

MOTOBLUR – and HTC Sense, and webOS, and the rest – will get better, and platform developers themselves are learning that social networking integration is of growing importance to device users; Android 2.0, for instance, links address book entries with Facebook profiles, functionality that Google seems to have learnt from HTC and the rest but which now is baked into the core OS. What’s important is that while we use the same networks while mobile as we do while on our desktops and laptops, we do so in a different way. A straight port across isn’t good enough, and if we want use of these tools to spread beyond the power-users and the social-obsessed, they need to better cater to the bite-size demographic who aren’t willing to invest hours of eye-time into their phones.

Motorola CLIQ and MOTOBLUR review

Vincent Nguyen — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:59:58 +0000

As Motorola have found over the past couple of years, it’s taking an increasing amount to get geeks and gadget lovers to stand up and pay attention to a new cellphone. Right now, one sure-fire way of doing that is by launching an Android device, and so that’s what the ailing mobile giant has done in the shape of the Motorola CLIQ (aka the DEXT outside of the US). Not only does the CLIQ promise to make a splash among Android handsets, it also marks the debut of Motorola’s attempt to corral social networking into a mobile device. In our review we’ll not only be looking at the CLIQ hardware, as Motorola’s first-generation Android smartphone, but at MOTOBLUR and its potential beyond the CLIQ. Check out the full SlashGear review after the cut.

CLIQ Hardware

It would take a particularly generous reviewer to describe the CLIQ as handsome, but it’s a reasonably solid, sensible chunk of hardware. Measuring at 2.28 x 4.49 x 0.62 inches and tipping the scales at 5.6oz it’s shorter but broader than the T-Mobile G1, never a device we described as especially svelte, while the plastic back cover lack the solid feel we’ve grown used to from HTC’s recent Android range. We can’t help but wish some of the metal and industrial design of the original RAZR had found its way in the CLIQ’s DNA.

Still, all that chassis space has allowed Motorola to fit in a 3.1-inch HVGA capacitive touchscreen and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, together with a D-pad and a few minimal front-panel buttons: home, menu and back. There’s also a volume rocker on the top left-hand side, flanked by a microUSB port and a mute-switch, a 3.5mm headphones jack on the top, and a power/lock/unlock button and camera button on the right-hand side.

Like the case plastics, the QWERTY keyboard is solid but it’s unlikely to convert BlackBerry addicts. The text legends (and backlighting) are easier to read than on the G1 and the key-feel, while firm, is fine for frequent use. As for the display, it’s bright and colors are vivid. The touchscreen is responsive, but it’s slightly on the compact side and we were glad of the hardware keyboard since the on-screen version is slightly cramped.

As for connectivity, there’s no shortage there either. The CLIQ offers triband WCDMA 900/1700/2100 and quadband GSM, together with WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, GPS and AGPS. In addition to Google’s Gmail app there’s Exchange support and QuickOffice for document viewing, plus the usual Android apps such as Google Maps (with Street View and a digital compass), the Android Market, Search/Voice Search, GTalk and the YouTube viewer. It’s important to note that MOTOBLUR pulls email to the device and does not use push. The quickest automatic pulling is 15 minutes, and according to Motorola it also the most efficient. Additionally, when you access the inbox (in-between sync intervals), the device will automatically sync with your email and pull in any updates to keep it fresh. To manually sync, press the icon at the top left of the inbox. Motorola also add in the Amazon Music Store app, imeem, Shazam and LastFM, together with the Accuweather widget. Unfortunately there’s no multitouch support anywhere in the handset, despite the capacitive screen, which means no pinch-zooming in the CLIQ’s browser.

The CLIQ runs Android 1.5 (Motorola are yet to announce any plans regarding the recently launched OS v1.6) and unlike, say, with HTC Sense, they’ve not performed a full reskin of the platform. That means the usual drag-down status/notification bar is at the top of the screen and the pull-up main menu at the bottom, with a tweak to the desktop to allow for five rather than the traditional three homescreen panes. What you do get is MOTOBLUR, which we’ll circle back to later in the review, which attempts to pull all of your social networking interactions into a single desktop widget.

As a phone, the CLIQ puts in a decent showing. There’s no hardware send/end buttons, either on the front fascia or the slide-out ‘board, but you do get an on-screen phone shortcut and a contacts shortcut flanking the menu tab. The CLIQ supports voice-dialling, which we had mixed accuracy results with, but there’s a broad range of ways to view recent incoming/outgoing calls including sorting by frequency, time and whether or not they were answered. In addition to caller ID, incoming calls are linked to their contacts social network status – if available – so you see name, number, photo and their most recent update. Best of all there’s no noticeable lag in pulling up that data, so you’re not waiting for the CLIQ to update the display while it’s simultaneously ringing.

In fact performance overall was generally good, and though we did encounter a few performance hiccups – especially when navigating through and between particularly data-heavy MOTOBLUR pages – our CLIQ review unit showed a marked improvement in speed compared to the demo devices we played with at the smartphone’s launch. What we would say, though, is that as mobile devices are approaching desktop levels of social network accessibility, so the need for processors such as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon will increase.

Battery life is often the downside to any media- or social-centric device, and having read previews criticizing the CLIQ’s runtime we were nervous about whether MOTOBLUR might prove too much for the standard 1,420mAh li-poly pack. In fact, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by the CLIQ’s longevity. With the display set to remain on unless actively shut off, and with the full gamut of RSS, Twitter, Exchange email/calendar/contacts streaming, the CLIQ lasted 9-10 hours. That’s with incredibly heavy use, certainly above average, and leaves us in no doubt that you can certainly manage a full day. A recharge from flat to 100-percent, meanwhile, takes 90-100 minutes.

A 5-megapixel autofocus camera with geotagging puts the CLIQ on a par with what HTC’s latest Android devices offer, though like those phones the quality lags behind of what you might find on some of Nokia and Samsung’s recent photography-centric handsets. Still, the autofocus is reasonably speedy and there’s decent integration with MOTOBLUR for actually sharing out your photos and video rather than simply having them sitting on the phone. Incidentally, we missed multitouch again in the photo viewer; the HTC Hero’s pinch-zooming is far more usable.

MOTOBLUR

If the CLIQ is Motorola’s toe-dipping into Android, then MOTOBLUR is their pledge to stick with the platform for some time to come. There’s definitely a sense – both on the device and from talking with Motorola at the respective CLIQ and DEXT launches – that what we’re seeing with the aggregation system is but the first step in the company’s plans. As it stands, MOTOBLUR pulls in Facebook, MySpace and Twitter messages, status updates and content into a unified inbox, which Motorola call “Happenings”. A desktop widget brings that stream directly to the Android homepage, while there are also individual app-specific widgets to pare down the flow. We wish there was a way to define our own filters, however; for instance, you can have a “direct message” Twitter widget, but not one that only shows any username mentions; nor can you prioritize specific contacts and pull out any updates they make into a separate window.

MOTOBLUR isn’t just a way to consume information, as you can use it to push status updates to one or all of your social networks. Type in a new update or tweet and you can choose to send it solely through Facebook, Twitter or MySpace, or to all of them simultaneously. Unfortunately there’s no way to select, say, just Facebook and Twitter, at least not in this first incarnation of the system.

It’s another way to address the growing reliance on multiple networks for communication, maintaining address books and calendars, and like HTC Sense and Synergy on the Palm Pre it’s good but not perfect. Once you log in, MOTOBLUR pulls together contacts from all the networks and combines them in your address book, complete with photos and that person’s recent status updates, and there’s also a cloud-based backup system, which takes information on the CLIQ and saves it remotely. The theory is that, if you lose, break or accidentally wipe your phone you can restore it from that backup; you can also remotely wipe a lost or stolen device.

How successful MOTOBLUR is for you depends on how many contacts you have in Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, and how much time you spend glued to your smartphone. The CLIQ does a reasonably good job of bringing every scrap of new status, tweet and message to its screen, but there’s no real differentiation between them. If you follow 500 fellow Twitterers and have 100 friends on Facebook then it’s a fair bet that your Facebook friends will get lost among the stream of tweets. Motorola have told us that adding further social networks is simply a case of slotting a new profile into their servers – which could bring LinkedIn support, say – and we appreciate the future flexibility, but we hope they also introduce some sort of filtering or prioritization abilities to MOTOBLUR at the same time. If you’re constantly checking your phone then you may be able to keep up with the stream as a whole, but after a day languishing in your bag you might be wishing for a “mark all as read” button to start from scratch.

MOTOBLUR is certainly a good start, and in certain ways we prefer it to HTC’s system of integrating social networking with individual contacts but keeping them differentiated from each other. Having messages and communication from every paradigm – email, SMS, Facebook messages, tweets and more – can make communicating more straightforward, but it does require some setup. While the CLIQ attempts to automatically match contacts across the services, anything it can’t combine will need to be done manually.

T-Mobile

T-Mobile’s enhancements and tweaks to the CLIQ take something of a back seat in comparison to MOTOBLUR. The carrier loads its MyAccount app, for easy access to your monthly plan, together with Visual Voice Mail, which works just as you’d expect. MyFaves is also present, as is T-Mobile’s usual Telenav-powered GPS navigation app; we’ve been pleased with the CLIQ’s GPS performance, with the smartphone delivering both speedy locks and reasonably precision. Finally there’s “Audio Postcard”, which is basically dressed-up MMS messaging.

As for pricing, the Motorola CLIQ will come in at $199.99 with a new, two-year contract on T-Mobile. The carrier will begin taking preorders from October 19th, as long as you’re an existing customer; deliveries – together with general sales availability – won’t be until November 2nd. That makes it $50 more than the myTouch 3G, which of course lacks a physical QWERTY keyboard, and $70 more than the T-Mobile G1. Given the G1′s age, and the added benefits of MOTOBLUR, we’d certainly pick the CLIQ over the older handset.

Conclusion

You can’t help but judge the Motorola CLIQ on several different levels. For a start, it’s the first Motorola handset in no short amount of time that we actually feel has any great appeal, which has to bode well for a company struggling to refined its footing after some pretty dire product decisions. It’s also a first attempt, not only with Android but, bolder still, with a custom interface that attempts to wrestle social networking into a manageable mobile proposition. That’s not something any other company can lay claim to having fully succeeded at, and while we have our complaints with MOTOBLUR we reckon Facebook, Twitter and MySpace addicts will see it as a huge draw. It’s certainly the most in-your-face way to date of delivering frequent updates on a smartphone.

The CLIQ itself is less dramatic as a device. Build quality is on par if not slightly better than rival devices and functionally it’s reasonable, but there could be a little more excitement or allure in the physical hardware. Perhaps aiming for that might have been too ambitious at this stage for Motorola, but after years of complaining at the reheated RAZRs they’ve been pumping out, we find ourselves staring wistfully at the old design language and wishing some of it had translated into the CLIQ. Nonetheless, there’s a lot to like about the Motorola CLIQ – and about the company’s enthusiastic plans for MOTOBLUR – and to the shallow pool of Android options it’s a strong entrant and an appealing one.