Weeks are flying by and it’s time for another week in review. Monday we learned that a new hack was available from the iPhone Dev Team that adds MMS to first generation iPhones and tethering to 3.1.2 OS for the later iPhone models. We also found out that Microsoft is set to issue a new update for the Xbox 360 that will break unauthorized storage devices. That means that some gamers will be unable to access the saved game data after applying the new update.
Motorola is ramping up production of Android phones as fast as it can apparently after all the buzz it created with the Droid and its other Android offerings. Today another Android smartphone from Motorola was spied running wild called the Motorola Zeppelin. Interesting name since the word Zeppelin always conjures up images of things going down in flames for me.
Either someone at Motorola suffers from premature posting, or they’re running a particularly arch teaser campaign; the product page for the Motorola Droid for Verizon has appeared and then been rapidly pulled, but not quickly enough to prevent its specs from going public. We now know for certain that the Verizon Droid has a 3.7-inch 16:9 aspect 480 x 854 touchscreen, 5-megapixel autofocus camera with 4x digital zoom and dual-LED flash, and a 1,400mAh battery which, Motorola claim, is good for up to a respectable 385 minutes of talktime and 270 hours standby.
Since it’s introduction, the AT&T logo has reminded many users of the Death Star. Sure, that’s not what it’s supposed to look like but no matter how many times they tweak it, I just see the Death Star. So it was amusing to me when over the weekend the first leaks (or release depending on your point of view) came about Verizon’s latest campaign about a phone called the Droid that’s poised to take on the iPhone.
Details on Verizon’s second Android smartphone, the Motorola Calgary, have emerged, courtesy of those sneaky buggers over at BGR. The entry-level counterpart to the Verizon Droid, the Calgary has a similar, blocky form-factor, a spring-assisted slide, full QWERTY keyboard and MOTOBLUR. There’s also a 3-megapixel camera, GPS and WiFi.
With Verizon’s ad campaign for the Motorola Droid kicking off in earnest over the weekend, and a launch date of October 30th tipped, it comes as little surprise to see a pre-production handset arrive over at the BGR. They’re mightily impressed, too, calling the Droid “the fastest Android device we’ve ever used” courtesy of its TI OMAP3430 chipset, branding its capacitive display “awesome” and “huge”, and concluding that it’s “the Android device to beat”.
Verizon have launched an offensive against the iPhone, with a new campaign called DroidDoes.com for their upcoming Motorola Droid Android smartphone. The handset, previously known by its codenames of Tao and Sholes, is being promoted as offering everything the iPhone eschews: an open development platform, the ability to run background processes, a flexible, open App Store and replaceable batteries, among other things. Verizon have also set up a countdown timer which suggests that the Motorola Droid will arrive on October 30th 2009.
Google has previously promised that 20 new Android handsets are coming to market this year. The year is drawing to a close so the new introductions are coming at an intense pace. The latest Android handset to tip up is the HELLOMOTODROID. Yes, that is apparently the name. I am sure it will go by Droid though. The very brief video is poorly lit and offers no details.
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.
If there’s one thing we like, it’s leaky phone companies and their prematurely-exposed wares. The Boy Genius Report seem to have had their fair share of Motorola Sholes images lately, and there’s another three new images – including the crisp shot you see here – to tempt us. According to the phone’s “About” screen, the handset will have official name Motorola Droid.
SlashGear Japan
