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Sep

[Editorial] It Is Finally Time To Start Getting Excited About Motorola Again

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Editorials, Motorola

Today, something happened that has not happened in an age: I actually got excited while watching a Motorola event. Don't get me wrong, the devices were still middling at best (though the RAZR M does seem kind of snazzy). What happened wasn't that Motorola announces some earth-shattering devices. No, this was more important: Motorola got its groove back. Or, perhaps more accurately, Motorola started syncing its old groove up with Google's current one. (That's how grooves work, right?)

The presentation actually started in what should've been a boring way: with a history of the company. This is the first time we've seen a really huge Motorola announcement since Google finalized the purchase of the manufacturer in May.

Sep

Motorola Officially Unveils The Droid RAZR M, 4.3" Display, 1.5GHz Dual-Core Processor, And ICS For $99

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, RAZR M, Verizon Wireless

Motorola unveiled a trio of new handsets today: the Droid RAZR HD, RAZR MAXX HD, and RAZR M (too much caps lock, Motorola!). While the first two focus on large 4.7" HD displays, the latter is all about packing as much display possible into a small shell.

Specs:

4.3" 540x960 display with "almost no borders" (is this the bezel-less device that we've been hearing about? Let's hope not) and Gorilla Glass
1.5GHz dual-core processor
1GB RAM
8GB storage, microSD card slot
4G LTE connectivity
8MP rear shooter
NFC
60.9 x 122.5 x 8.3; 126g
2000mAbh battery
Android 4.0.x

While we would like to say this device is shipping with Jelly Bean, Motorola stated that it will be updated "by the end of the year," so...

Sep

Motorola Announces Most 2011 Phones Will Get Jelly Bean, The Rest Will Receive $100 Credit For Upgrades, Promises Developer Editions Of Phones

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Motorola, News

Today, Motorola just floored users with an unprecedented offer: if you bought a phone from Motorola that launched in 2011, most of you will receive an upgrade to Jelly Bean. If, however, you're using a phone that Motorola decides will have a degraded experience, you will receive $100 in credit towards an upgrade. This may mark the first time that a manufacturer has broadly promised compensation for a lack of updates for all of its devices.

Your eyes aren't deceiving you, though. Yes, there's a third promise on that screen. Motorola is promising "developer editions" of their phones to allow users to "enable modifications of the Android code." This doesn't exactly sound promising for average consumers who want to avoid locked bootloaders, but we'll see how Motorola implements the program.

Sep

Eric Schmidt Reveals New Activation Numbers – 1.3 Million Android Devices Activated Each Day

Posted by Liam Spradlin in Android OS, News

Eric Schmidt has just left the stage at Motorola's "On Display" event in New York. Before leaving, though, he divulged some interesting new Android-related numbers.

First among them was the latest figure for "activations per day," which tracks the total number of new Android devices activated each and every day. You may remember Andy Rubin revealing that number to be around 900,000 while quashing rumors back in June, but according to Schmidt, the total number of daily activations has now topped 1.3 million. That's 1,300,000 – an undoubtedly impressive number.

Out of that 1.3 million devices per day, Schmidt noted that 70,000 were tablets.

Sep

Leaked Images Of Droid RAZR M And RAZR HD Appear Via Evleaks, Look Just Like The Old RAZRs

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Leaks, News

Everyone's favorite Twitter tipster has just dropped some interesting (and disappointing) images on us. For those of you hoping for bezel-free display on a Motorola phone, you may be in for a bit of a wait if this is all Motorola is planning on releasing today. The image shows us two Verizon-bound Motorola devices and, well... they look about the same as most other Motorola devices. The two devices appear to be images of the very-very-soon-to-be-announced RAZR M and RAZR HD.

The only thing we can know for sure is that they're headed to Verizon. If the giant red Droid eyes weren't a dead giveaway, the Verizon logo is.

Sep

[Weekend Poll] Would You Give Up A Front-Facing Camera To Have A Bezel-Less Phone?

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Motorola, Polls

This is the latest in our Weekend Poll series. For last week's, see What Effect Do You Think The Samsung v Apple Case Will Have On The Industry?

Rumor has it that Motorola will release a phone without a bezel by the end of the year, and we kinda-sorta buy it. The trend has certainly been moving that direction and bezels are becoming increasingly narrow, but we've never had a phone that truly had an edge-to-edge screen with no bezel at all. It simply hasn't been technologically feasible to eliminate it altogether for mass-produced devices.

The advantages would be obvious: first, you could pack a significantly larger screen into the same size package, and second, it would look super sleek.

Aug

Bloomberg: Motorola Will Release A Phone With No Bezel By The End Of The Year

Posted by Ron Amadeo in Motorola, Rumors, Verizon Wireless

Ok... Hot report out of Bloomberg, just now, that Motorola will be releasing a phone with no bezel. None. I'm having just as hard of a time believing this as you are.

It's Bloomberg though - they're reliable. They can't be wrong, right? They say the phone "uses the entire front of the device as a display," and "maximizes the screen viewing space by eliminating the black frames or bezels around the display." Several times they use the phrase "edge-to-edge" screen.

The author's twitter page promotes the story with the phrase "sans bezel." He also reported it on video and described the phone as "all screen" and said it will "do away with the little bits of screen that aren't screen." They really are claiming this thing has no bezel.

Aug

Motorola RAZR M 4G LTE Pics And Specs Leaked Ahead Of Announcement

Posted by Ryan Whitwam in Motorola, RAZR M, Verizon Wireless

Aside from some FCC filings, the Motorola XT907 has been a unknown quantity as we get closer to Moto's September 5th Verizon event. Now the details are in the open, and it's looking like the device will be called the RAZR M 4G LTE (yeah, that's a mouthful). This phone will be a small but welcome bump up from the current generation RAZR devices, but it's no RAZR HD.

On the hardware side, the new RAZR phone will be running on a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 MSM8960. That is a chip we see in a lot of devices these days, but it works very well with Qualcomm LTE radios.

Aug

Motorola Confirms Via Twitter That Older Devices Will Not Receive Bootloader Unlock Tools

Posted by Eric Ravenscraft in Motorola, News

Bad news, owners of older Motorola devices. According to a tweet from Motorola's official Twitter account, if you own an aging Moto phone—including the Droid 3, Bionic, and Droid X2—you will not be receiving a bootloader unlock tool. While newer products like the Photon Q, as well as developer-centric devices like the RAZR Developer Edition and the not-quite-Nexus Xoom are supported, Moto has no plans to add any of its older lineup to the supported list.

@clumsyninja21 That is not currently in the plan.

— Motorola Mobility (@Motorola) August 22, 2012

It is worth pointing out, of course, that this is coming from a Twitter account and it's not unheard of for the rep running the social media sites for a major corporation to go off-script.

Aug

Motorola Photon Q Available Today From Sprint For $200 With A Two-Year Agreement

Posted by Cameron Summerson in News, Photon Q, Sprint

We've been talking about Sprint's upcoming LTE QWERTY, the Motorola Photon Q, for a few weeks now, and it's officially here. As of today, you can walk into a Sprint store and buy this "green machine with the power of Android" for the low, low price of $200 with a two-year agreement.