I’m not really sure where to start here because the new RAZR MAXX is exactly the same as the original DROID RAZR we reviewed back in November (links below), except for the bigger battery as I mention a few times in our hands-on video below. It features the same impressively thin design — although no longer RAZR thin. It boasts a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor, 8MP camera, 32GB of storage and that crisp 4.3″ qHD 960 x 540 AMOLED display. So what gives? a 3,300 mAh battery that is almost twice the size as the original, and about 2mm of extra fat included.

Now I don’t want to rant here but following up one of their biggest handsets (with the powerful name to go along with it) with an equally impressive, near identical phone yet almost double the battery life all for the same price — that is a crazy move. I understand giving users a great 4G LTE experience but what about the hundreds of thousands that bought the original just 2 months ago, or even last week? Our own Chris Burns wrote a nice column about this same subject and thinks this is a slap in consumers faces — and I’d have to agree.

Not everything is bad here though. The Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX is also extremely good for the community and smartphone atmosphere as a whole. This has pushed the boundaries far higher than any other phone has thus far. Showing consumers that yes, we can fit these huge batteries inside our phones and make them last more than half a day. Others like Samsung and HTC will now have to combat this with something similar. I’m hoping we start to see 2,000 mAh+ batteries as a standard moving forward.

Moving on. This should be an excellent phone, building on everything the original has going for it except the MAXX will last twice as long. Sounds like a deal to me. Verizon has been stating this new phone will last longer than any 4G LTE smartphone on the planet, and I’m pretty sure that will be an accurate assessment. They’ve claimed well over 20 hours of usage with ease on all America’s fastest and biggest 4G LTE network.

With a sleek design, amazing battery life, blazing fast speeds, and Kevlar coating on the back for extreme durability this is about as good as it gets. Sadly it comes out of the box with Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread but Motorola’s made it clear that 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich should be here soon.

For now check out the hands-on video below of the new RAZR MAXX by Motorola and expect a mini review coming soon with full battery rundown tests and more.

Motorola DROID RAZR MAXX hands-on

Inside the device there are two liquid damage indicators – these in place incase you’ve got to bring the device in for repair and they want to know if you’ve been dunking the device in root beer. That said, the RAZR is said to have a “splash guard” so you’ll still be ok if you accidentally drop it outside in the rain (and immediately pick it back up and put it back in your pocket, of course.) Next note the battery, one that we’ve, again, been assured is not removable by you the user: iFixit is able to get it out, but note that this battery is held in by several pieces of electrical tape as well as contact points held down by a red piece of plastic.

UPDATE: there’s also been a video release by Motorola showing “how we did it” as far as how thin the device is, this showing off most of the bits inside as well, complete with fancy visuals galore – have a peek here:

As for the rest of the iFixit teardown, they discover that the full metal construction we heard so much about in the release notes for the RAZR are certainly true: what they call an “Amazon Basin’s worth of EMI shields (seen in the gallery below) stopper up their progress towards the final ultra-teardown. They also note that certainly there is an aluminum chassis that does legitimately appear to have been diamond cut for precision – tight! Inside you’ll also find a Atmel ATMXT224E-MAH maXTouch touchscreen controller, the rear facing camera marked with V927ABB, and Toshiba THGBM4G7D2GBAIE 16GB EMMC Flash Memory. The RAM comes from Samsung, the Bluetooth Wi-fi and GPS coming from Texas Instruments, and Dual-Mode Baseband/RF Transceiver coming from Qualcomm. See, everyone can work together, fun!

Note that we’ve also got a full review of this device up here on SlashGear, have a peek at it now, and oh yes, today being 11.11.11, you can go out and buy the device for yourself from your local Verizon store right this second! Launch paradise!

[via iFixit]

In celebration of the 11-11-11 launch date of the Razr you can order the smartphone with a new contract for $111.11. That price is only good on phones on new accounts. If you add the phone to an existing account, the price is $249.99. If you want the phone sans contract, it will cost you $749.99.

In case you somehow have missed all the coverage on this smartphone, it’s the thinnest Android device around at 7.1mm thick until you get to the bump for the camera. The front camera is 1.3MP; the rear is 8MP and can record 1080p video. It has an OMAP 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 16GB of storage. It also has a microSD card slot for expansion. If you want to know more about his smartphone, se posted up our review here. Amazon dropped us a line to let us know that the special $111.11 price isn’t for today only, but for a “limited time” with no clarification the length of the special deal.

Hardware

Big and flat. The DROID RAZR – which will drop the “DROID” prefix outside of the US – follows other recent Android smartphones in the race to be the world’s thinnest device while still offering a huge display. It comes in at 131 x 69 x 7.1 mm, although there’s a bump for the camera which bulges out to around 11.1mm, and is fronted by a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 qHD Super AMOLED Advanced touchscreen. Overall it’s slightly thinner but both longer and wider than the 4.5-inch Galaxy S II; at first, it feels good to hold, but gets tiring over a period of using it. The width makes it tough to get a good grip, and the narrow edge buttons – for volume and lock – are tricky to locate with a finger.

The camera bulge isn’t the only compromise Motorola has made to achieve its thinness marketing. The 1,780 mAh battery is non-user-accessible, and the bezel on either side of the display seems unnecessarily thick having used Samsung Super AMOLEDs. Still, the panel itself goes a long way in making up for that: it’s an amazing screen, white is white and black is black, and it shows off photos, webpages and video brilliantly. Covering it is a sheet of Gorilla Glass, probably vital given people will be slotting the RAZR into tight pockets.

Motorola DROID RAZR Unboxing and Hands-on:

Inside there’s a TI OMAP4430 1.2GHz dual-core processor, paired with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage. A microSD card slot is present, as is a Verizon SIM for the LTE; you also get EV-DO Rev.A for areas without 4G coverage, but no World Phone support. GSM versions of the RAZR will lack LTE but have quadband GSM and triband UMTS/WCDMA instead. There’s the usual WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and various sensors, along with a rear 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and an LED flash, capable of 1080p HD video recording, and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera good for 720p video.

Motorola will also offer a range of accessories for the DROID RAZR, including the Lapdock 100 we reviewed recently. There’s a full RAZR accessory review over at Android Community.

Software

The RAZR runs Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread, though Motorola has confirmed that an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update is in the pipeline. On top of that, Motorola has made some UI customizations as well as adding a Smart Actions app that promises to not only make using the RAZR more straightforward, but prolong battery life too.

Motorola has thankfully stepped away from its all-consuming MOTOBLUR experience, and as with other recent smartphones from the company its more of a custom icon set and color scheme than a true reskin. Those looking to install their own custom ROMs should know that, in the US at least, the DROID RAZR will come with a locked bootloader, though rooting the smartphone is still possible. The GSM RAZR will apparently come with its bootloader unlocked.

Motorola DROID RAZR Review:

Smart Actions has a lot of promise, basically allowing you to set up custom routines that are automatically triggered depending on external or internal circumstances. So, you can have the RAZR shut off cellular data and GPS when it’s on your home or office WiFi, based on the assumption that you’ll need neither in that situation, or have the ringer automatically muted between certain hours of the day or night. Certain contacts can have a text message automatically sent if you miss their call. Custom actions are straightforward to set up, after some initial exploration, and can be easily deactivated if you need to overrule them temporarily.

Motorola is pushing Smart Actions as a way to bypass some of the battery complaints we’ve leveled at other LTE handsets. It’s possible to set the phone to a true sleep mode, only turning on data and synchronizing your various accounts when you unlock it or pick it up. Unfortunately, we were unable to set the RAZR to automatically turn on WiFi when we got back home, which meant we had to do that manually in order for the data/GPS Smart Action to occur. As a free app it’s useful in places, but it still needs some refining.

Camera

8-megapixels and Full HD video has become the baseline for Android flagships, but we’ve seen on several occasions that spec sheet compliance doesn’t necessarily equal top-tier performance. The DROID RAZR falls into the middle ground for camera quality, it’s not the best we’ve seen, but neither is it the worst.

As in iOS 5 and Ice Cream Sandwich, there’s quick camera access from the lockscreen, but if you’ve PIN-protected your RAZR then you’ll still have to punch in the code before you can take a photo. The handset is slightly slower to lock focus and be ready to shoot than the iPhone 4S and, based on our previous experience with the newest Googlephone, the Galaxy Nexus, too.

Stills are better than we’ve seen on other recent Motorola phones, though as usual they demand good light if you want decent results. Even outdoors they can look dark and lose detail in shadows. Indoors, the single LED flash struggles and pictures look grainy. Colors are accurately balanced but muted: there’s none of the pop that we’ve seen on images from recent Samsung devices or the iPhone 4S.

Video, meanwhile, has a surprising amount of noise, and the color balance is unimpressive. We saw some focus-hunting with closer subjects, too. The digital image stabilization is reasonably successful, but overall it falls short of what rival devices can do with 1080p.

Motorola DROID RAZR 1080p HD video sample:

Phone and Battery

Call quality on Verizon’s CDMA network was solid, hiss-free and safe from drops. The earpiece and speaker occupy the RAZR’s “hump” and so are given a little extra space to do their thing, and the result is decent in-call volume and clarity. Data performance, meanwhile, delivered the Verizon LTE speeds we’ve grown accustomed to, with download and upload rates besting what many people expect from their home broadband connections.

The launch of the DROID RAZR also sees a new data promotion on Verizon arrive, with double the monthly allowance offered for the same price. So, opt fro the 2GB plan, at $30 per month, and you’ll get 4GB instead. The $50 5GB plan and $80 10GB plan are also doubled, though overage remains at $10 per gigabyte. The promotion applies to any Verizon 4G smartphone, not just the RAZR, and will be offered for a limited period; existing customers can also get in contact with Verizon and have double data allowances activated on their account too.

The data is fast, then, but the speed at which the RAZR gulps down battery life is also rapid. Motorola was off to a good start, fitting a 1,780 mAh Li-Ion pack into the DROID RAZR’s chassis, but we’ve still been unimpressed with how fast it’s run down. On WiFi, with cellular data turned off, the full battery dropped to 90-percent in under 30 minutes. Over the space of a couple of hours, with minimal usage, it burned through 40-percent. That’s with LTE turned off, mind: we raced through 40-percent of the battery in less than an hour of 4G data use.

Motorola claims to have had significantly better performance from the RAZR’s battery than we experienced. The company also sent us an portable external charger, which works but is certainly less convenient than a replaceable battery. We’ll continue testing and update after more time with the RAZR, in case some extra conditioning lengthens runtimes.

Wrap-Up

There’s plenty to like about the DROID RAZR. The display is superb, performance is swift and Motorola’s commitment to Ice Cream Sandwich is, in these times of Android fragmentation, welcome. Although thanks to the “hump” Motorola’s thinness claims aren’t entirely true, the DROID RAZR is certainly slim and easy to pocket.

Unfortunately, like the original RAZR, there are also compromises made to achieve a slimline package. Motorola’s battery is, in our experience, insufficient, particularly if you want to make prolonged use of LTE – and, based on the speeds we’ve consistently seen from Verizon’s 4G, you really do want to use it – and the form-factor can be uncomfortable to hold over extended periods. The camera is an excellent example of how spec-sheet features aren’t the sum total of the story.

The first RAZR had fiddly buttons, a rubbish display, confusing software and a poor camera. It also marked a true shift in cellphone design, shaped the market and cemented itself as a style icon (despite Motorola’s best efforts to sour that as the years went on). The DROID RAZR won’t redefine the industry but it will undoubtedly be a fashion favorite, particularly for those who aren’t swayed by the incoming Galaxy Nexus’ slightly chunkier, curved design. Still, the experience of Ice Cream Sandwich on the narrower Nexus may give the DROID RAZR only a small window in which to make its mark.

The day I spoke with Jha was the day the RAZR was announced, that night Ice Cream Sandwich was formally released by Google on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus – there’s no way in HECK that Ice Cream Sandwich and bootloaders aren’t on the front of Motorola’s minds this week as well. Motorola has been releasing and announcing some blockbuster devices and accessories of late, and the whole Android community is waiting for the word that these units will be free to be unlocked for hacking and/or upgrades to the newest Android mobile OS.

One example of an awesome device released this month by Motorola: the ATRIX 2:

Here’s a few accessories coming from Motorola as of late and given the hands-on treatment by your humble narrator earlier today:

We’ve heard a couple things about Motorola and their Ice Cream Sandwich update schedule this week – one that said that the company would be updating everyone with a schedule for Ice Cream Sandwich updates on their devices 6 weeks after the OS was released by Google, and another that pointed out the first devices that’d get the update. This note as well as the one that stated the Motorola RAZR, DROID BIONIC, and XOOM tablet would be the first to be on the docket for the update to Android 4.0 come from Motorola’s Twitter account. Now we’ve got word from Motorola that we aught to point you directly to their device update schedule for checks on any and all Motorola devices.

Have a peek at the Motorola device known here in the USA as the DROID RAZR here:

For Bootloaders, Motorola today notes that in addition to the one device they’ve got out so far that has an unlockable/relockable bootloader, the Motorola XOOM, they’ve got a plan for the rest of their devices in the near future. In “future software releases starting later this year,” says Motorola, “where operator and channel partners will allow it,” it is Motorola’s plan to offer an unlockable/relockable bootloader. Sound like a winning combination to you?

Perhaps you’d like to peek at Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as well?

And the Galaxy Nexus, we also got a look at that in Hong Kong:

Get booted up!

Moto says that the RAZR will get the Android 4.0 update in early 2012. The update will be offered OTA like all the other updates in the past. The RAZR went official this Tuesday in the US and the smartphone is Motorola’s hope to make it big in the mobile world again as the original RAZR flip phone did years ago.

The smartphone comes out of the box with Android 2.3 Gingerbread on board. It also gets a Super AMOLED display. The biggest letdown is that the RAZR bootloader is locked. The phone is thin and has Gorilla Glass and metal body. The RAZR will launch in November in the UK and US. Check out our hands on with the RAZR to see what the phone is all about.

[via Pocket-Lint]

The MotoCast app creates a private cloud that lets you stream music, photos, and videos from your computer to your smartphone so that you can easily access those files without them having to hog a bunch of memory on your device. It streams over WiFi as well as 3G or 4G cellular networks, and in this case with the DROID RAZR, you’ll get to take advantage of the blazing fast Verizon 4G LTE network.

Your Motorola DROID RAZR with MotoCast will work with either your Mac or Windows computer. The app can sync both iTunes and Windows Media Player playlists and lets you backup your device photos and videos to iPhoto and iTunes. The below video shows MotoCast being demoed on the DROID RAZR by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha himself during today’s press event in NYC.

The DROID RAZR is compatible with Motorola’s Lapdock 500 Pro or Lapdock 100. Both feature a slim laptop form factor that only comes to life when your DROID RAZR is docked. It allows you to use the computing power of your smartphone on the larger laptop-sized screen to watch movies, play games, edit documents, and browse the web via the full desktop version of the Firefox browser.

The device will also work with Motorola’s HD Dock or HD Station to connect to your HDTV, speakers, and other productivity peripherals or large screen entertainment devices. And when it’s connected, you can use Motorola’s Smart Controller accessory as a remote control to easily navigate your smartphone interface on your HDTV with zoom, pinch, and rotate multi-touch capability. It even lets you take and make calls with your phone remaining in the dock.

Additionally, there is a GPS navigation dock, an extended battery pack, and a Bluetooth keyboard. There’s also the Motorola ELITE SLIVER Bluetooth headset that can pair with the device for discrete hands-free talking.

The Motorola DROID RAZR is now confirmed to sport a 4.3-inch advanced qHD display, which boasts a high contrast ratio and richer color saturation than the iPhone 4S. The display is fully covered with Gorilla Glass and the chassis is indeed made with Kevlar and splash-proof. It features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera capable of 1080p HD video capture.

But besides the faster and more powerful specs, the DROID RAZR also boasts smarter power management with Motorola’s “SmartActions” technology that automatically performs certain actions like turning off your Bluetooth settings once you reach home to help conserve battery life. It can be customized to fit your needs and can extend battery life by 30%. It boasts 12.5 hours of talk time and 8.9 hours of video viewing.

The device will be a 4G LTE device heading to Verizon as suspected. It also features Motorola’s WebTop technology that integrates it with desktop interfaces as well as MotoCast and other enterprise features. It will also have a whole bunch of accessories available for it.

The Motorola DROID RAZR will be priced at $299 with a new two-year service agreement. Pre-orders will start on October 27 with the device to be available in stores starting November.

From what’s been tipped so far, the DROID RAZR is expected to feature a 4.3-inch display with a qHD resolution, an 8-megapixel camera capable of 1080p HD video capture, and possibly a 1.2GHz or even 1.5GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM. That could make it much faster than the recently launched iPhone 4S with its 512MB of RAM.

The front of the device is said to be fully Gorilla Glass while the chassis is made of Kevlar covered in a splash-proof coating. Motorola has been teasing it with the slogan “Faster. Thinner. Smarter. Stronger.” We’ll find out just how much so in a matter of minutes, so keep it here.

As you may be aware, there’s also an Atrix 2 out there right now, complete with a lovely smooth overhaul and the newest version of Motorola’s vision for Android for a user interface. The Motorola DROID BIONIC was supposed to be the king of all machines – and if you’ve got all the Motorola machines it connects with, it certainly is. Now there’s a new device popping out, popping out tomorrow no less, that MUST be the next step in this evolution for Motorola. It’ll have Verizon 4G LTE, we can be pretty sure of that, but how will it out-do the BIONIC?

Tomorrow at NOON Eastern Time here in New York City, we’ll be with Motorola as they reveal this new “Faster Thinner Smarter Stronger” device. First have a look at the promo photo above. It was found earlier today in the teaser site for the smartphone — right now that same site has transformed into one that advertises for every recent Motorola device including the Atrix 2, the BIONIC, the XPRT, the Droid 3, and more.

This new device which we’ll continue calling the Motorola DROID RAZR is tipped to have a 4.3-inch display with qHD resolution similar to what we’ve seen on the BIONIC and the Droid X2. This device is said to have LTE on Verizon and will be the thinnest LTE device on the market when it’s released. The processor inside is yet unknown, but we’ll go ahead and guess that it’s the same dual-core 1.0GHz OMAP4 processor found in the BIONIC upgraded to 1.2GHz — perhaps though it’ll be the 1.5GHz Qualcomm dual-core chip we’ve seen in the HTC Jetstream?

Another rumor has the device using 1GB of RAM and a 960×540 pixel resolution Super AMOLED display. The camera on the back appears very likely to be the same 8-megapixel camera that the DROID BIONIC has, also capable of 1080p resolution video.

Then here’s where it gets real exciting: the front of the device is said to be fully Gorilla Glass, while the rest of the chassis is said to be Kevlar with a splashproof coating. No more poolside mishaps for you! Docks will be offered right out of the box, similar to what we’ve seen with the BIONIC and the PHOTON, and the device has been called three things: DROID RAZR, Motorola Spyder, and DROID HD. We’re guessing for the first option.

So JOIN us tomorrow, again at NOON EST, right here on SlashGear. Then stick around (or go somewhere and have a snack) and find us LIVE in HONG KONG at 10PM EST when Samsung and Google will be revealing a device running Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Don’t miss anything!

You can check out the newest teaser site over at http://reveal.motorola.com/ if you wish, and have another look at that super fabulous teaser video below – the one difference between it and the version we saw previously is the fact that it’s got a lovely new placeholder (on the site) that you can see here in this post as the main post image. What is that, hardcore metal? There’s a rumor going around that this newest generation device from Motorola will be made with Kevlar, that fantastically tough metal you’ve heard about in talks about ballistics. Plan on shooting your phone with a pistol any time soon?

UPDATE — here’s the whole dern thing! Looks nice, don’t it? Thanks for the tip, Kazimir!

We can be sure it’ll survive the drop test, without a doubt.

Is this the SINGLE device that we’ll be seeing at tomorrow’s event in NYC? Or will there be more? Is it a Motorola XOOM upgrade, is it the DROID RAZR, is it simply a showing of the ATRIX 2? We shall see! Join us at 12 NOON EST here on SlashGear for the full story!

Also don’t forget that tomorrow night is the big ICE CREAM SANDWICH reveal in Hong Kong – another event we’ll be at with bells on! That’s 10PM EST here on SlashGear as well – don’t miss it!

Despite not having a QWERTY keyboard – devices with one saw the greatest rise in sales year-on-year in Q3, going from 11-percent in 2007 to 30-percent in 2008 – the iPhone 3G still managed to beat the BlackBerry Curve, LG Rumor and LG enV2, which took third, fourth and fifth places respectively.  The RAZR has held the top-spot for the past twelve quarters; researchers The NPD Group are calling it “a watershed shift in handset design from fashion to fashionable functionality”.

Meanwhile analysts SquareTrade looked at failure rates for in excess of 15,000 new phones, and found that in the average first year of ownership the iPhone 3G suffered a mere 5.6-percent failures; that’s half that of the BlackBerry and a third of the Palm Treo. The most common failure in iPhones is the display, but users are to blame too: 33-percent more failures in the first year are due to accidental damage.

Press Release:

The NPD Group: iPhone 3G Leads U.S. Consumer Mobile Phone Purchases in the Third Quarter of 2008

Overall consumer mobile phone purchases declined 15 percent year-over-year

PORT WASHINGTON, NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 10, 2008 – According to The NPD Group, the leader in market research for the wireless industry, Apple’s iPhone 3G surpassed the Motorola RAZR as the leading handset purchased by adult consumers* in the U.S. in the third quarter (Q3) of 2008. RAZR had been ranked by NPD as the top-selling consumer handset for the past 12 quarters.

Even with stronger consumer sales of iPhone, and the mobile phone market’s normal seasonal uplift after Q2, domestic handset purchases by adult consumers declined 15 percent year over year in Q3 to 32 million units. Consumer handset sales revenue fell 10 percent to $2.9 billion, even as the average selling price (ASP) rose 6 percent to $88.

Top-selling handsets and mobile phone brands

“The displacement of the RAZR by the iPhone 3G represents a watershed shift in handset design from fashion to fashionable functionality,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for NPD. “Four of the five best-selling handsets in the third quarter were optimized for messaging and other advanced Internet features.”

The top handset models in rank order, based on unit sales in Q3, were as follows:

1. Apple iPhone 3G

2. Motorola RAZR V3 (all models)

3. RIM Blackberry Curve (all models)

4. LG Rumor

5. LG enV2

Popular features

When it comes to the specific features that motivated U.S. consumers to purchase their handsets, 43 percent of handset buyers cited the need for a camera and 36 percent noted the ability to send and receive text messages. Mobile phones with a QWERTY keyboard experienced the greatest year-over-year rise in sales; 30 percent of handsets were sold with this feature in Q3 2008, versus just 11 percent the year prior. Also this quarter 83 percent of phones purchased were Bluetooth enabled (versus 72 percent last year), and 68 percent of phones purchased in Q3 were music enabled (versus 49 percent last year).

“A growing data divide continues in cellular handsets,” Rubin said. “Those who see the value in wireless Internet access are justifying the investment, whereas voice-centric users have little incentive to upgrade, which is obviously detrimental to operators who seek to sell data plans and media-access services to their subscribers.”

Methodology: NPD compiles and analyzes mobile device sales data based on more than 150,000 completed online consumer research surveys each month. Surveys are based on a nationally balanced and demographically representative sample of U.S. adults. Results are projected to represent the entire population of U.S. consumers age 18 and older.

About The NPD Group, Inc.
The NPD Group is the leading provider of reliable and comprehensive consumer and retail information for a wide range of industries. Today, more than 1,600 manufacturers, retailers, and service companies rely on NPD to help them drive critical business decisions at the global, national, and local market levels. NPD helps our clients to identify new business opportunities and guide product development, marketing, sales, merchandising, and other functions. Information is available for the following industry sectors: automotive, beauty, commercial technology, consumer technology, entertainment, fashion, food and beverage, foodservice, home, office supplies, software, sports, toys, and wireless. For more information, visit http://www.npd.com/.

Press Release:

SquareTrade Research: iPhone More Reliable than BlackBerry, One Year In

An Analysis of Reported Malfunctions in iPhone, BlackBerry and Treo Handsets.

Synopsis: SquareTrade analyzed cell phone failure rates for more than 15,000 new phones
covered by SquareTrade Care Plans and found iPhone handsets had substantially fewer failures
than BlackBerry and Treo handsets within the first year of ownership.

Highlights of the study include:
- In the first year of ownership, the iPhone had a 5.6% malfunction rate, half the rate of the
Blackberry and one-third the rate of the Treo.

- The iPhone is projected to have a 9-11% malfunction rate in the first 2 years of
ownership, compared to 14.3% for BlackBerry and 21% for Treo handsets.

- Touch-screen issues were the most frequently reported iPhone problem, accounting for
nearly one-third of all reported malfunctions.

- The iPhone is prone to failure due to accidental damage, with 33% more failures reported
in the first year. Nearly one quarter of iPhone handsets are projected to fail due to an
accident in the first two years of ownership.

Citations and quotations of this paper’s contents require proper attribution to the source at
http://www.squaretrade.com/pages/iphone-reliability-study-11-2008. Commercial use of this
paper’s contents are prohibited without prior written consent from SquareTrade, Inc. For media
inquiries, write or call Jill Reedy at press@squaretrade.com or 415-541-1000 x1054.

The gentleman selling the phone says that it won’t be out for a couple of months, and then says other than a few scratches around the screen and the fact the backlight for the keys don’t work, it’s flawless. The guy also says that it’s really just a Razr2 but in a slider form factor.

Now, the guy is clearly looking for a $500+ sell price as the buy it now price is $600 and he says he will include the data cable if the bidding reaches $500 or more. The gent also says that, at least until it’s released to the public, you’ll be the only one on your block with one of these.

If it weren’t for the pictures, I’d call bullshit, but the pictures are very convincing. It has Bluetooth, a 2MP cam, GSM chipset, SMS, Calendar, e-mail, MP3 Player, speakerphone, video, and it’s unlocked, right now its sitting at $255.10, and only has 7 hours and 24 minutes left to go, so the bidding ends today, I suppose only a few of you know how tempting it is to remove part of my life savings from the bank to buy this, but I thing I’ll hold off.

[via intomobile]

This is another one of those devices getting the “World Edition” badging due to its dual-band CDMA/EV-DO and Dual-Band GSM (900/1800MHZ) which means you can use it in most of Eurasia as well. Imagine the Motorola SLVR, but in slider form with the RAZR style keypad underneath, and that’s pretty much the RIZR in a nutshell.

It also has a QVGA display and a 2MP cam as well as Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP), and a microSD card slot. Honestly it’s the first phone in a long time I’ve been excited about the release of from Motorola, which is kind of sad as they used to own the mobile handset market, now its in the hands of the up and comers, Apple, HTC, LG, and Samsung, and I must say, those companies at least, are doing a damn fine job.

Motorola Z6c approved by FCC [via phonearena]

Interested in the Samsung a737? Sony Ericsson w580i? BlackBerry Curve 8310? Pantech Duo? What about the Moto RAZR2? Well they are all half off, priced at $24.99, $24.99, $99.99, $99.99, and $149.99 respectively.

What I am wondering is how many people will see the BlackBerry Curve for $99, and then look at the Moto Razr 2 for $50 more and think, “hmm, I think I’d rather have the Razr”, that’s a different discussion though. Sure, ATT isn’t offering a plane ticket for your signature on the contract, but if you are already where you want to be, or if you are more interested in a good phone for an even better price, ATT might be your stop of choice on Friday.

AT&T to challenge other carriers on Black Friday; Prepares amazing offers [via intomobile] via BGR

Starting off with the body and form. The solid metal body makes the phone nice and heavy. All the external keys are pretty small and it’s hard to tell if you’re pushing them or not. Motorola solved this by adding Haptic feedback – a small vibration whenever it registers a key indentation. But lack of dedicated camera button, made accessing a bit of a chore.

I got a chance to take it out on the town and test the call quality. The Incoming-outgoing voice quality was great in almost all areas, and overall reception was strong.

The audio quality for the MP3 player was a little below par in my opinion, but when the speaker is being used in a call it sounds pretty solid.

I really like the big, bright internal, and external screen. They make navigation a snap and they perform relatively well in direct sunlight. The external screen also has a strip along the bottom edge that is touch sensitive that allows you to control your music playback.

The element that really sets the T-mobile Razr2 apart is its lack of an expandable memory card slot. The phone actually has two gigs of storage built right in for all your storage needs. You may or may not like this, it’s pretty easy to fill two gigs these days. But it’s nice to be able to load the phone with music without dropping an extra chunk of change on a micro SD card.

Overall, I was impressed with the speed of the phone. It has the killer aesthetic that everyone loved in the original Razr. If you’re in need of a super compact phone, with basic functionality, you might want to pick up a new Motorola Razr2. I give it a 3.5 out of 5.

Rating:

3.5 out of 5 gears

What’s the difference between this one and its predecessors? Other than the fact it’s a slider, this one might actually be worth the attached price tag of 400 Euro.

The Z10 will have a 3.2MP cam with auto focus, and video recording at speeds up to 30fps. There will also be a fairly large 2.2 inch screen. It’s a world phone too, in the sense that it has a quad-band GSM radio and dual-band 3G. The only downside is, it might be European only, well, I guess that’s only a downside if you don’t live in Europe, but you get the point.

Motorola RIZR Z10 Caught in the Wild! [via mobilewhack]

After the release of the iPhone, in fact after just about any phone released since a few months ago, releasing the RAZR2 with it’s only impressive feature being a high res external screen with a touch-sensitive portion at the bottom, that’s just unacceptable. Especially at a price point of $249 after a 2 year contract, that’s just crazy.

Sure, it has a GSM/EDGE quad band radio, a high resolution screen on the inside too, and the whole MOTOMAGX thing, but that’s just not enough to make up for gap between feature set and price. T-Mobile, possibly in a move to help close that gap, is giving away a few free songs with the phone as well as a free 30-Day Napster trial, and the phone of course supports the whole myFaves thing too.

T-Mobile’s MOTORAZR2 V8 gets officialized [via boygeniusreport]

Specs wise there is a WMP11 codec, a USB 2.0 interface, a touchscreen customized for music, 512MB of integrated storage and up to 2GB of (microSD?) user storage. You can also read text messages on the external display. There is quad band GSM/GPRS, a 2MP cam with MPEG4 video support and 8x zoom. The external display is the same 2” QVGA screen, the internal one is 2.2” same resolution as the external one.

There is over the air syncing via MotoSync, a full HTML browser, voice dialing without user training, EDGE, Bluetooth imaging, printing, and P2P gaming profiles. There is also the obvious MMS, WV, and SMS3 messaging. Unlocked versions are going for $500 no contract and carrier versions are going for around $300 with a two year contract.

Mot’s Linux phone arrives at U.S. stores [via LinuxDevices]

Summary of Key Features

* Thin and strong sculpted body with vacuum metalized finish
* Large 2.0″ QVGA 65k color external display with touch sensitive music keys
* Large 2.2″ QVGA 65k color internal display
* CDMA 800, 1900 Mhz, 1X and EVDO support
* Read/ignore text messages or get quick access to inbox, recent calls or music with the flip closed
* Integrated 2.0 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom
* Messaging via MMS, SMS, Email
* Streaming audio and video2; video capture and playback
* Stereo Bluetooth wireless technology supporting A2DP profile
* Integrated music player that supports a variety of audio formats: AAC, AAC+, enhanced AAC+, MP3,WMA
* Video formats supported: H.263, H.264, MPEG4
* Connectivity featuring Micro USB, USB Mass Storage, and version1.2, class 2 Bluetooth wireless technology
* Up to 2 GB of additional storage space with an microSD memory card
* Integrated version 1.2 Bluetooth wireless technology for imaging and printing capabilities
* Sprint TV
* Sprint Music Store
* Sprint Picture Mail
* Sprint Video Mail
* Sprint Mobile Email
* Phone as modem
* Java
* NFL Mobile Application

[via slashphone]

Expect the same specs we’ve already seen such as a 2-megapixel camera, microSD with support up to 2GB, the ability to use the phone as modem and 240 x 320 display with 262k colors. Sprint services will include Sprint Power Vision Network, Sprint TV, Music Store, mobile, picture and video mail, NFL Mobile Application, On Demand, stereo Bluetooth-enabled, SMS text and voice messaging and wireless backup.

According to the attached PDF file, the MOTORAZR2 V9m is targeted at Advanced Connected customers “who want the latest and greatest in mobile technology.” The price and exact date of the V9m’s launch is yet to be determined.

Visit MOTORAZR.COM/forum for everything Motorola Phones.

Red Motorola RAZR coming your way [Via: Ubergizmo]